“Nova, what if– woah!” he spins past a brightly dressed couple dancing in each other arms, lithely catching his stumbling feet before he could careen into another group, “What if I taught you something? Are you busy right now?”

“I, uh,” You spin, dodging a careless dancer whose eyes were shut in festive motion, “I need to fly back to my home Tree, and assess the damage, I’ve put it off for too long. What are you teaching me?”

“Ah! Don’t worry, it will only take 14 uru, I’ll even walk you home, if you want of course.” Sero responds, wading over to you and pulling you along through the dancing crowd. You furrow your brow at his strange choice of number, unfamiliar time marking, and the offer to walk home, of all things, but you let him pull you along anyway.

He leads you out of the festive people swaying and spinning their cares away and out on an untrodden limb.

He turns to you, hands grasping your upper arms lightly, but firmly before saying, quietly, “Alright, the feeling is strange at first, but goes away quickly. Don’t worry, you’re going to be fine. Are you ready?”

“Huh? What are you–”

“I’m doing it in three…”

“Hold on, what are you doing?”

“I’m taking us to a safer place. Two…” The glowing rings of the Rhodos on the man’s bandaged chest begin to spin, accelerating quickly.

“Hold on! What do you mean–”

“One!” Sero flashes with sky blue light, which splashes over you like hyperactive water, a child that ate too much sugar.

The water-like light flows up and over you quickly, enveloping you before you can say anything. The light runs up your arms, connecting with itself at your torso.

The instant the light reconnects with itself, everything goes dark.

Blackness.

You suddenly float alone amongst an empty void, but only for a moment. Pinpricks of pure white explode around you, rushing away from your eyes in infinite streams of snowy light. A deluge of terrified memories.

It lasts only for an instant. An instant recollection of the past.

Whiteness.

You stand, upright and shocked, unable to fully comprehend what happened. A white void stretches in all directions. Almost matte, for you can, strangely enough, tell the 'sky' from the 'ground'. The floor beneath your bare feet feels cold and alien: hard, unyielding, and grain-less.

You breathe out, chilled to the bone. You whip your head around, searching for the twisting throne of Tyrr’onli’nel’mul.

Only, you find Sero, his unnatural, crimson clothing standing out from the ocean of white like a single yellow leaf among a sea of green.

“Welcome, m’lady, to Travelspace,” He announces, sweeping his bandaged arms outward dramatically, “The Highway of the Grand Chapter.”

You open your mouth to say something, but only confused gibberish appears as your eyes search the distant, white horizon for some meaning, some revelation of strange, alien existence. What was this place? How have you gotten here?

“...Are you ok, Nova?” he asks, arms still spread. “I know Travelspace is sometimes hard on those experiencing it for the first time, but that,” his arms fall as he motions to you, “is not normal.”

“How did we get into my Patron’s domain?” You ask suddenly, the words surfacing from the gibberish.

Sero seems confused and slightly surprised at the remark, “Patron? Oh! Are you talking about a Godspirit? More massive Faen do sometimes make their domains on Travelspace.”

“...Godspirit? Faen?” The terms unfamiliar and strange in your mouth, “My patron, the Aarkiel, Tyrr’olni’nel’mul, who gave me my abilities, has called me to his domain several times. I have been called to this place before.”

A small recess of your mind feels for the chain of beads, saying, Ure’nairn’itah’likk… Patron of L’Neeri of the Een’mokk clan.

“Possibly an undiscovered Faen species? Could it be a special evolution or just a deiticly localized type?” the man whispers to himself as you glance around at the white plane.

The air feels unnaturally still, with no draft or wind to speak of. It somehow feels both warm and cool at the same time, comfortable, yet uncanny. What’s even more uncanny is how quiet it is. The sound of both Sero’s and your breathing is relatively audible, with yours being the greater of the two. His breathing is so quiet and slow you can barely hear it.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

“Namanari will want to know about this, not to mention Thine and the rest of the Archavaka…This could be the breakthrough we’ve been looking for in terms of Allegorical Constructs… Nova,” He says, breaking your trance, “You will need to tell me more about this Patron of yours, I have a feeling this could be a big discovery.”

“I–uh, yes? I will.”

“Thank you, Thine will send her regards, I’m sure of it.” He nods at you quickly, before continuing wryly, “She’ll probably give you a Cobalt mine as well, knowing her and how she loves that stupid rock.”

“What is this place?” you ask, turning around to look at the distant white horizon.

“This,” he begins, walking up behind you, “is Travelspace. We don’t know what it is completely, but we use it. A lot.”

“...How? Why?” You stoop to touch the ground, your fingers brushing the smooth, snowy surface. It feels strangely like your Token, with its smooth ridges of stone.

“It connects everywhere and everything, functioning like a map. Every star and its planets are contained here, accessed by things called Bind Points.”

Sero waves his hand out in front of him, stopping with his arm outstretched. Where his finger meets air a little spot of color appears.

“My Patron did that…” You say, eyes fixed upon the little speck of blue, green, orange, every color all at once.

“Aarkiel can make Bind Points?” He seems rather taken aback by this.

“Y-yeah? I think. I’ve only ever seen Tyrr’olni’nel’mul do it. Once, at that.”

Sero blinks and shakes his head, his eyes widening like this changed so many things for him.

“Wait here,” He says, his eyes looking to the distant white horizon, “I’ll be back in a moment.” He turns as if to walk away, a hand to his temple. He takes a single step, vanishing suddenly with a flickering sound, the wings of an insect fluttering upon the still, white air. One instant he was here, the next he was nowhere to be seen.

You jump back reflexively, eyes wide and looking. You whip your head around, looking for the disappeared man.

A sense of deja vu strikes you as narrow your eyes at the place where he disappeared. This Flickering feels so, familiar. An inexplainable feeling, why does this place and this action feel so intimate, even?

A hand of yours extends to meet the air before you. Leaning forward unconsciously, you notice something; a faint, wind-like feeling. A phantom breeze or a slight draft caresses the tips of your fingers. It flows over you, as faint as faint can be, almost playfully. Travelspace is curious. It desires to Know, to understand. And most of all, it is everywhere.

In that pale cubby of your mind where a chain and a circle reside hums within you. Your Tokens respond to the child-like exploration curiously. Like friends meeting after a long time away.

A cautious step forward. An indefinite memory.

There.

You suddenly snap your hand back, fingers clenching into a chocolate claw. This white plane responds, wind rushing and howling to heed a silent, confused command.

The ground before you folds. It collapses inward, imploding downward explosively to create a mammoth chasm. The sheer might of this hole astounds you. It falls forever, an inescapable pit of white hell.

This torrential pit of nothingness before you exists only for a terrifying instant, an instant quickly replaced by flashing, flickering movement.

The other side of the pit suddenly rushes at you. It closes the gap before your heart can beat or your eyes can blink with a quiet, almost imperceptible flickering sound.

A stuttering, stunned breath forces its way into your lungs, eyes wide and body stuck.

Sero stands across the now undetectable gap where the floor had rushed toward you, his face a strange mixture of confused surprise, scared fight-or-flight, and that dark, alien man who showed his looming, resentful face back at home.

Around this unfamiliar, scared man stands a multitude of bizarre, uncanny creatures. They, of all shapes and colors, loom around his usually tall, anomalous form like awaiting soldiers, freakish monsters. One is tall and spindly, standing atop pronged, inverted legs like those of an insect plastered onto the body of a massive bug, its long human arms dragging across the floor. Some are short and stocky, some human, and others robotic in visage, their metal internals showing. One particularly eye-drawing figure eerily resembles the man surrounded. It stands motionless, its blank eyes staring past Sero and you as if dead. It is covered head to toe in viscous blood that drips off of its mangled limbs into a spreading puddle at its feet, standing stabbed and pierced by innumerable weapons of every size.

“Nova…” He whispers, eyes wide and demeanor missing the usual cheerfulness. “Nova, you weren’t supposed to see this–” He begins, shakily, almost ill-like, to lay a hand upon the standing figures.

You step backward, horrified at the aberrant scene before you.

“Sero…” You start to say. Every time the shaking man touches a statue, it suddenly disappears with a faint, blueish-green light. They flow into him and he drinks them up, somehow disgusted and happy at the same time.

“How have you… I never taught you…” He starts each sentence uncertainly, each word a struggle of the tongue. He suddenly embraces one particular statue, a woman dressed in flowing, navy, and purple robes, her eyes blindfolded by a blue mask whose surface is dotted with white stars. Sero’s face is a mixture of holding back tears and joyous relief as he hugs her, only for him to absorb her. He stumbles forward, hand resting on a tall man made of unbroken white material.

“How have you flickered?” his voice a dark yet friendly, curious tone.

“I– I don’t know! It just…”

“You have unlocked Travelspace, Nova. The chasm before you is– ah!” he shouts as if in pain, the bloodied version of himself flowing into him.

You rush to his side, supporting his limp body as it falters. You gather him into your arms, as comforting as you can, so, so confused.

He breathes heavily in your arms, pitiful and weak.

“I need to go home.” He whispers in an almost silent resolution. The rest of the statues disappear and flow into him, finally.

You lift his body, arm over your shoulder. You don’t quite understand why you do this, the right thing to do?

The two of you begin walking, you don’t know where you are, but you will get home.

You know it.