"Who are we...?"

The Aarkiel stands, his faceless face in his slender, bony hands. He then sinks down to the floor, wondering. He sits there for a while, lost in thought.

Suddenly, he looks up. Staring down the infinite plane.

"L'Oos will know." He leaps upwards, ascending several feet into the air before falling back down onto bony legs. He begins to create a temporary Bind Point for himself, but then, he stops.

He notices something.

"Nova?" The Aarkiel pauses as you attempt to commune with him again.

***

You awaken to that white space, with its alien temperature an all-pervasive source of unknown light, standing face to face with your patron. Tyrr'olni'nel'mul is not grinning. Instead, his wide, toothy mouth is neutral and his brow is furrowed. He looks serious, worried even. You start, pulling back from his face which was nearly inches from yours.

"Come with me." He says, sternly, almost.

"Uh, ok?" you respond, not really sure how to reject.

He moves away. His way of walking looks unnatural. He walks like he is gliding, jumping, and jittering along in a way to mimic human movement. His angular horns make his free-flowing feel seem even more unnatural, how they seem to barely weigh his hairless, pale head down at all.

"...Where are we going?" you ask tentatively, "Just wondering, I--"

"We are going to see an old friend..." Your patron reaches his right hand across his body. He stands there, neck slumped, arm across his chest. He appears to grab one of the inky black blobs on his body, below his left arm. And with a deliberate pulling motion, he pulls a similarly pitch-black arm out of it.

The arm emerges hand first like an uncoiling snake. It seems to grow out of the inky pustule, pulled out by your patron's deliberate and resolute hand like a root that needed to be dislodged. The new arm breaks the Aarkiel's previous symmetry, sticking out of his left side in an alien way that causes you to shudder. Tyrr'olni'nel'mul looks down at it and flexes it, clenching and unclenching his new, ebony hand.

Your patron reaches up with his new hand, touching the air in front of him. There, at the point where the jet hand meets the open, milky air, a point of vibrance appears.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

A tiny, incandescent point of sky-blue light invades this pure place. A speck of radiance.

The black hand suddenly appears to lose its shape, melting. It falls off of the side of the Aarkiel, splashing onto the ground in a large, inky puddle ta Tyrr'olni'nel'mul's feet with a loud boosh.

"This is a Bind Point. We will use this to leave this place and enter back into the physical world," the Aarkiel says in his grating, yet somehow fluid voice, "come here, Nova." You walk forward and stand next to the Aarkiel, looking up at the strange, glowing dot of light. "Touch it."

You do. You reach your hand up to touch the fleck of color, hesitating before it. You quickly glance at your patron standing next to you. He nods his horned, eyeless head slightly, his expression never changing.

You press your finger into the light.

***

You stand atop a Titan Tree gazing out across the untamed sky of Xulaa. Common birds flock in the distance, creating flying V's and clouds of multicolored wings. You spot a pair of gargantuan Aso'une'aawn wheeling in the open air, chasing each other in playful abandon. You gaze upon distant Trees, each standing in their calm, distant solitude.

"Nova," you hear the voice of your patron behind you, "This way."

You turn around towards the trunk of the Titan Tree. You see a giant, stark grey and white bird walking away from you.

An Aso'une'aawn.

"I don't have a physical form, most of the time, so, I take on this avian body when I am visiting the physical world." Tyrr'olni'nel'mul continues, his voice coming from the beak of the enormous bird.

You follow after it, walking with him. His long, stick-like legs carry him quickly across the titanic branch, you have to jog to keep up with him. Soon you come to what looks like a tunnel, one that burrows its way through the enormous branch and trunk of the Titan tree. It is carved into the wood of the branch a few hundred feet in diameter, and from its roof hangs moss-like greenery and lichen. It smells musty and vaguely moldy in here, and it is dark. As soon as you step inside, the darkness deepens even more.

"Come along, I need to discuss something with my friend."

You follow your patron through the snaking passage until you appear back into the late afternoon light. You emerge onto a different branch, this one much smaller, the sun low in the sky.

Farther up the branch stands a burning figure, one that strikes you with reverence. You fall to your knees and bow your head before your goddess.

"L'Oos, I have pondered by myself long enough! I demand answers!" Tyrr'olni'nel'mul shouts, his massive grey wings beating the air as he walks closer.

L'Oos looks slightly surprised, startled even. Her expression is surprisingly easy to make out among the flames."Tyrr'olni'nel'mul? Nova? Why are you here?"

"I come seeking the answers that I could not find myself, mistress."

L'Oos walks closer, her benevolent demeanor wavering slightly. "What is it that you have been searching for?"

"I wish to understand a question that I have been pondering for many years."

"Go on..."

"Why do so many of us have the same soul?!" He roars.

You look up.

The flaming goddess pauses for a few moments, her mouth turned ever-so-slightly down in a serious frown.

"There is something that only I know, and I am not sure how to tell you this, however--"

Suddenly, both your patron's and L'Oos's heads snap to the horizon.

They both speak in unison.

"Sero."