Addie woke up to some rustling near her head but quickly realized it was just Squishy adding more wood onto the crackling fire. A soft giggle escaped her lips as she watched the small black creature nudge the branches forward with his snout. He had offered to wake up periodically to keep watch during the night, and apparently, that meant he would also make sure Addie stayed warm.
Though she appreciated him doing that for her, Addie eagerly waited for him to curl back up and settle next to her. Turning onto her back, she looked up at the twinkling sky above. Night had long since fallen, and Addie looked up in awe as she imagined herself drifting amongst the dark spaces between stars. She had never seen this level of beauty from the night sky in her village. When Addie fell back asleep, she dreamed of spiraling galaxies and colorful nebulas.
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Then, like a sudden lightning bolt of anxiety and urgency, Addie snapped awake. Something was close, something was sniffing her. She immediately knew it was not Squishy, since he was curled up near her feet, still asleep. She did not expect to wake up again in the same night.
She gathered the courage to open her eyes and eventually mustered the willpower to take a peak. Towering over her appeared to be a common deer, though its majesty and form were incomparable to the common game she often ate from hunters in the village.
She looked upon the deer with equal parts fear and awe, examining its beauty as she trembled underneath its massive size. Easily towering over the bushes near her, Addie suspected even her father would be tiny in comparison. From her perspective on the ground, its chest towered at least five meters above her, but its head angled into Addie, uncomfortably close, with a single ginormous eye staring straight into her. The rest of its body matched its massive proportions, with hooves next to her neck larger than her chest, and a long body that easily went back ten or more meters.
Even in the fire's orange flickering light, Addie could easily tell that the deer’s coat was the finest white. The deer’s entire head dwarfed Addie’s body, with antlers towering so thick and long above its head that Addie wondered how its neck could support the massive weight. The giant pitch-black orb of an eye easily reflected Addie’s entire body back at her.
The deer exhaled, its nostrils flaring, practically causing a miniature wind to envelope Addie. In stark contrast to typical prey animals, this one didn't shy away from locking eyes with her. Even amid her primal trembling fear, Addie recognized an unexpected gentleness in the creature's demeanor, as it took deliberate care to ensure its imposing antlers didn’t gore into her. The deer’s curious eyes felt supremely eerie to Addie, the slitted eyeball looking so inhuman. The deer ran its eyes across Addie, examining her.
After a moment, Addie realized the deer was just observing her peacefully. Addie’s fear slowly but surely dissipated, replaced with an overwhelming appreciation of its beauty. All other thoughts left her mind, as she became totally captivated by its eyes.
Finally, the deer began to gently walk away. Despite its massive size, it walked with careful precision, never a step out of place. In some impossible way, each step seemed to defy the laws of sound, leaving no trace of its passage. Not a rustle of leaves, not a snap of twigs – it was as if the forest itself held its breath. As the deer faded from sight, Addie recognized that it had even remained invisible to her new spatial sense. If there were still creatures out there that could evade even Squishy’s acute senses, Addie knew the two of them still had a long path of mastery ahead of them. Had Addie not woken up, she never would have even known it appeared, as it left absolutely no trace behind, elegantly stepping as if lighter than air and gentler than snow.
It was still dark out, and Addie was still exhausted. The terror that had jolted her awake was now a distant memory. Perhaps that Impossible Deer had granted her one final gift, a tranquil goodnight that lulled her into peaceful, dreamless sleep.
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With morning, came the binary rise. However, that had long passed, and now it was nearing noon based on its position in the sky. While walking through the trees, Addie could easily make it out overhead.
The Binary painted the sky in an awe-inspiring swirl, a blue star gradually succumbing to the clutches of a diminutive black point. The pinpoint itself was only visible due to the large aurora surrounding it—a luminous accretion disk that actually lit up the sky more than its partner blue star. Addie’s eyes followed the Star’s dance with its black hole partner. It reminded Addie of a flowing spring, blue starlight eddied and bobbed in a long trail slowly but inevitably flowing into a giant swirling whirlpool sucking the starlight into a tiny black speck. Following the whirlpool was strange as the motion and colors changed the closer things got to the black hole. The green edges of the pool spun quickly even to Addie’s naked eye. The next arm of the spiral bled yellow and it swirled much slower though still obvious. The inner-most ring of the accretion disk sat a sinister red, completely motionless as if frozen in time. The ‘drain’ of the whirlpool culminated into a distorted tiny black point. According to her father, the black hole was named Servus and the star Aggan, but to Addie, they both remained simply the Binary.
Her father always tried to impress the beauty and awe of the Binary onto Addie, but to someone who grew up seeing it every day, it seemed like nothing special. Sure, it lit up the sky, but how could something so mundane be beautiful? To Addie, it was as ordinary as a tree or a rock—a part of the everyday tapestry of nature.
Addie looked back to the forest floor, where Squishy lead the way.
“Are we there yet?” Addie asked, again.
“I am unsure why you persist inquiring this of me. The answer is no different than a few moments ago when you last asked,” Squishy responded neutrally as they continued through the underbrush.
“I’m bo~red.” Addie dragged out the word as she grumbled.
Squishy chose not to dignify her with a response.
There was only so much magical practice Addie could do before the task became too much. Exploring her newfound magic was interesting, but one can only perform a task so many times in a row until it becomes dull. Addie compared it to reading: even avid readers don’t spend all day each day reading.
Addie knew she would go back to practicing, and soon too; but for now, she wanted something else to distract herself. Walking step by step through this forest had easily become just as boring as staring at a wall, as far as Addie was concerned. Thus, she bothered her companion, hoping he had some ideas for entertainment. Unfortunately, the small creature was impossible to tease, since he always replied to Addie’s questions with sincerity, regardless of how silly of a question she directed at him.
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To try and help pass the time, Addie looked at the bountiful scenery around her. The lush trees had grabbed her attention while she was practicing with her new spatial sense, and now she studied them again, but this time without her magic. Most of the trees were incredibly thin and spindly but impossibly tall all the same. Much taller than Addie, at least, and if she tried to look up at the top branches, she knew that she would never be able to accurately gauge just how far up it went. And those were just the small ones.
Every now and again, Squishy and Addie would come upon a truly ginormous tree. So wide around that she couldn’t tell the tree was round until she started walking around it. Perhaps one every kilometer or so, a king of behemoths stood, twice as tall and many times wider than its neighbors. Addie thought the giants may even brush up to the Binary, as crazy as it sounded.
Even if it was the same size as the surrounding trees, it would still stand out due to its unique color amid the surrounding brown bark of most trees. Such trees almost seemed to glow with a spectacular silver amid unblemished bark. No cracks or grooves showed on the surface of their trunks, and when Addie placed her hand on one directly, it felt smooth to the touch. Addie wondered whether any creatures could inhabit such a tree, given the absence of handholds for climbing up its lower trunk.
“Hey, Squishy?” Addie called out.
“Hm?” Squishy turned his head to face her.
“Do you think you could climb up this tree?”
Squishy paused for a moment to consider the idea, “I do not believe so. Despite how soft it seems, the outer bark of those trees is impossible for my claws to penetrate.”
Addie’s mind began to churn with possible solutions, “Do you think you could get up there if you traveled through Realmspace first?”
Addie could feel Squishy’s best impression of a raised eyebrow pushing toward her from their bond. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but there would be nothing for me to climb in Realmspace, either. The ground there is relatively the same height as out here, so jumping here or jumping from Realmspace would make little difference, I am afraid.”
“What if I threw you up the tree?” Addie suggested with a half-smile.
“Are you asking because it would be helpful or amusing?”
“Why not both!” Addie excitedly exclaimed, “Maybe from the vantage of up in the tree we can get a better idea of where the village is, too!”
Squishy seemed to deflate in acceptance, “Though your logic is sound I can’t help but be skeptical due to your attitude.” Then he puffed up again while psyching himself up. “Very well. Toss me to your heart’s desire, and I shall report what I see.”
Addie bounced over to Squishy with a malicious grin and reached out under his forelegs to hold him up, making him seem like a very long cat. Then, she unceremoniously turned around and with a great heave tossed him up and as high toward the top of the tree as she could.
Addie’s initial throw put Squishy at a disadvantage. She was certain his sideways positioning would lead to an ungraceful splat into the trunk. In reality, Squishy made up for Addie’s lack of dexterity with his own. He expertly twisted midair aligning his four paws perfectly against the tree’s surface. He hit the trunk running, using the leftover upward moment from Addie’s throw to continue up the tree. As he said earlier, his claws made little difference, as Addie didn’t see a single blemish on the tree as he ran up its trunk.
Four steps became six, and six steps became eight. Just as he started to lose the fight against gravity, he blinked out of existence. Focusing on their bond, Addie could tell he was doing something, but she wasn’t quite sure what. In the next moment, he reappeared higher up in the air than he had vanished from. With his forelegs just hooking over the top, his hind legs still dangling in the air, he managed to grab onto the lowest hanging branch.
“Interesting.” Addie wondered what Squishy had discovered.
He dangled for a moment, then pulled himself up by his forelegs—his hind legs scrambling to help. Once he was perched on the branch with proper footing, he bundled up his muscles with his tail straight up in the air. He put all his weight on his hind legs, winding up for a jump, with what to Addie, was a very familiar jumping pose anyone with a cat would recognize. He even completed the movement by bobbing his head forward and back. Finally, he leaped as powerfully as his small form allowed toward the next branch up.
“What was that!” Addie shouted in excitement. “I thought you said going into Realmspace would be pointless?”
“Well, when I realized I wouldn’t make it to the top branch, I thought about how Realmspace seems to forcefully eject us from its domain. I thought, if I could direct that ejection force, perhaps I could direct my momentum upon re-entering reality.”
He quickly became a blur, leaping from branch to branch without pause. He easily made it so high up that eventually Addie only saw a small black dot moving up in the tree.
As she marveled at Squishy’s ascent and clever application of magic, an odd sensation coursed through Addie. Her spatial sense, which typically had limited range around her, now extended far enough to track Squishy’s progress. What baffled her further was that she couldn't sense any other objects around him. It was as if her spatial sense had selectively focused on Squishy, leaving everything else in the forest canopy undetected. In this case, he seemed more than fifty Addies away, a fun unit of measurement but still the one her brain defaulted to. Regardless, the distance at which her spatial sense detected him was far beyond anything she had noticed previously, and Addie idly wondered if there would ever be a time her spatial sense couldn’t detect her soul-bonded companion.
“I can’t reach the top,” came Squishy's voice through their telepathic connection. He seemed to be panting out the words in exhaustion.
Puzzled by this, Addie shouted up at him, “What do you mean you can’t get to the top? You were jumping perfectly!”
“That is not the issue. I just had to climb back down a few branches. When I start ascending too high, the air becomes frigid and I lose the ability to breathe.” Squishy clarified.
“You can’t breathe?” Addie felt skeptical at the claim of unbreathable air. Addie couldn’t begin to guess why something as simple as breathing would be difficult up there.
“I know not why, but it appears as though the air loses substance as I climb. I can still inhale and exhale, but nonetheless, I feel almost as though I have breathed nothing at all. I was hoping to get higher to survey more land, but regardless, it matters not. I can still get higher than much of the surrounding forest. I see a break in the trees not too far from where we are now, with what seem like square plots of land. I am still not completely certain, since the ground is so far, but I believe that is where the village lies.”
“Will you be able to guide us over?”
Squishy replied confidently, “That won’t be a problem. I will come back down now to guide us.”
Despite her hope of saving her father, a deep-seated fear gnawed at Addie’s core at the thought of confronting Christena once more. Addie hoped she could sneak in and free her father without even seeing Christena, let alone confronting her.
How had her loving maid turned into such a monster? Perhaps even worse, how had Christena turned into such a monster without anyone noticing? Addie loved Christena. They treated her well, and she even joined them at the dinner table like a family member rather than a servant. She helped Addie when her parents were busy and taught her all of her lessons. The Christena who killed an old woman in the basement was not the same Christena Addie had grown up loving.
More importantly, Christena didn’t have the kind of magical power necessary to beat an Area Lord. Not even close. Addie sighed. Thinking about it now wouldn’t do her any good.