Nettal screamed in Addie’s ear as the wind buffeted against their faces. Addie also screamed, but she did it because of the thrill. The cold wind whipped against her face, forcing her eyes to water. Keeping her mouth open seemed to make her spit fly everywhere, but she couldn’t help herself. It was just too much fun! Falling from the sky made her feel strangely weightless, and she found the feeling wonderous. At first, her stomach felt like it was squishing up into her chest, but now she just felt like she was flying.
“Let’s do this again!” Addie screamed into the open air as they fell, but she wasn’t sure if Nettal could hear her.
Looking over at her cousin, Nettal’s eyes were impossibly, almost comically, wide open as she stared at the coming ground. She held Lotty so tight to her chest that Addie wondered if Nettal might be hurting him slightly.
Addie was slightly tempted to force everyone into a spin, just for laughs. She managed to restrain herself, though. It would be bad if she couldn’t see how close she was to the ground in time, after all.
All too soon, it came to an end. Addie and Squishy worked together to send everyone into Realmspace a few meters from the ground, before she again sent everyone back out into reality with a nudge up toward the sky.
They landed face down in the snow, sinking slightly into the powder. Addie quickly pulled her face up out of the snow, but when she tried to use her hands for leverage, they just sunk deep into the snow. She struggled for a moment, frustrated by how difficult it was to stand up in such deep snow. Eventually, with a few clever applications of flame, Addie melted the snow around her enough to properly stand up.
She helped Nettal and Lotty get out of the snow as well— the two of them so far buried that Nettal complained about it being hard to breathe.
This would be the last of the snow, though. Addie could see a bit of a hike to go the rest of the way down the mountain, but after that it would be green, snowless fields for as far as the eye could see.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Addie almost expected to get attacked on the way to the castle or something. Together, she, Nettal, and their bonded had gone through so much in just the last few days. But, nope. The walk to the castle was quiet, peaceful even.
The grass tickled all the way up to her neck— she hadn’t realized the grass would be so tall when looking down at it from the mountain. She had a tough time seeing in front of her, and in that respect, the surroundings were much the same as the mountain had been. Only, this time, the grass blocked her vision instead of the snow.
At least it was warmer here. Still cold enough that Addie kept wearing her poncho, though. The light from the Binary warmed her up despite the chilly breeze, and the exertion of constant walking made Addie thirsty pretty often. Another downside of being off the mountain is that there wasn’t easy snow around they could melt to drink.
Instead, Ember had flown off to find a stream, which Addie and Nettal had been following for two days now on their trip to the castle in the distance. They could see its towering walls in the distance, so even if the book hadn’t been showing them the map, Addie knew they would find it anyway. Once again, Addie had to wonder if the ‘castle’ in the distance wasn’t actually a city. The walls sprawled out so far to either side of her that it was practically taking up all of her vision above the grass.
Addie looked at her book hovering just overhead. The symbol on the map certainly looked like a castle. She looked past the book, back at the giant walls in the distance, seemingly telling her otherwise.
“That can’t be a castle, right?” Addie asked aloud.
“I dunno. I’ve never seen one before,” Nettal answered.
“Well, I haven’t either. Maybe that’s how big they’re supposed to be?”
“Maybe?” Nettal agreed with a shrug. “Either way, I guess it doesn’t really matter.” Then, her face took on a more hopeful light, “Do you think someone there will be able to help us get home?” Nettal eagerly asked, leaning in as she spoke.
“I hope so!” Addie said. “I bet Christena is worried. Auntie, too. I just want to go home.”
“Yeah... Me too.”
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
The girls didn’t reach the walls that day or even the next. Somehow, the walls in the distance just kept getting bigger and bigger without seeming to get any closer.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Addie found it strange how each day they walked and walked yet never arrived. Instead, expansive fields of grass taller than her head stretched out in all directions, blocking her from seeing anything but the sky or walls— depending on where she looked. Addie almost preferred the snow; it was somehow less monotonous than walking through the fields. At least with all the snow, she could see the mountains in the distance and somewhat tell how far away they were. The walls just loomed in the distance— impossible for Addie to wrap her head around just how big they were. Each time she thought they couldn’t get any bigger, they did.
At the end of the third day, the walls stretched so high up into the sky that they blocked off the Binary just past noon. Being in the shadow of the walls brought with it a bit of a chill, as well. Nothing that her poncho couldn’t handle suited as it was to the snowy mountains behind them, but her exposed lower legs sometimes got goosebumps from the slightly breezy chill.
That afternoon, Addie saw a giant bug jump on the back of Nettal’s neck, which was the best entertainment she’d had in days. Watching Nettal jump all around and scramble to dislodge a simple bug made it impossible not to laugh, really. It was just a bug, after all.
Other than that, the girls both practiced their magic. Addie refrained from practicing her flames like she had been doing on the mountains. She wanted to practice, but Nettal told her, ‘Absolutely not! You’ll burn us after setting all the grass on fire!’ So, she didn’t. Instead, Addie focused on her spatial sense.
She had nothing better to do anyway, and she knew from experience she’d be bored out of her mind if she didn’t at least do something. Working with her spatial sense was simple but certainly not boring. She’d never think her magic was boring. She even managed to expand her ‘awareness bubble’ by a bit! Or, at least, she thought she had. Those kinds of incremental changes were somewhat hard to measure, Addie decided, after hearing Squishy explain using those exact words. He always knew the best big words to describe stuff. She also thought she could ‘see’ smaller stuff than before, too. Down that small, things didn’t really make any sense to her at all— just blobby things within other slightly larger blobby things. One time, Addie saw a big ball-looking thing with a ton of other smaller ball things flying all around the larger ball thing.
She tried to explain it to Nettal, but she didn’t really get it. Honestly, Addie didn’t really get it either. It took a ton of concentration to see things that small, and it was kind of pointless, so Addie stopped trying. She couldn’t see anything smaller than that— not yet, at least, and probably never since it was useless anyway.
Nettal just kept healing them, over and over again, which made it so Addie never got tired. They literally walked all day long, never getting tired. The only times they stopped was when Squishy or Ember brought some food. At those times, Addie and Nettal would take a small break to make a fire and cook the food. At least the ever-present grass surrounding them protected their necks from the Binary.
By the end of the fourth day, the grass began thinning out, leading up to a cracked and plant-overrun road. The road had once been made of carefully laden stones and mortar, but it now looked like the facsimile of a garden bed. Addie practically died from the relief at the change in scenery.
It was good to finally be making actual progress! The walls had remained tauntingly close yet infinitely far away no matter how long they had walked, but seeing the break in the grass had refilled Addie’s hope meter, allowing her to finally shake away any feelings that the walls were impossible to reach.
Despite Addie’s eagerness, they camped on the side of the road that night; Addie chatted excitedly with Nettal who tried to calm Addie down, but instead, mostly just smiled as Addie wrapped her cousin up in her excitement.
The walls reached so far up into the sky now that the girls only got to see the Binary in the mornings before it fell behind the left side of the walls, and in the evenings when it reappeared on the right side. It almost got cold enough in the shade that Addie was tempted to use some flames to keep warm, but the poncho was enough while they were walking, at least. She did start a fire at night, though, both for cooking and warmth.
The morning of the sixth day they finally reached the walls. The gray bricks of the walls looked way bigger up close. Each brick was taller than Addie! And that didn’t even start on how wide they were, easily wider than three Addies laid down head to foot.
The dilapidated road led directly into a severely rusted front gate. Addie worried they wouldn’t be able to get inside, the metal stretched so far up into the air that it must have been insanely heavy. But then Addie realized she was being silly— she could just teleport everyone directly inside, of course.
Once they were inside the walls, Addie realized her initial assumption had been entirely wrong. This most certainly was not a castle. Though, her second assumption while they had been walking over had been correct. This was a massive city, broken down stone walls indicating once sturdy homes lined up along a smattering of roads. None of the houses had roofs, and Addie had to wonder why.
Most importantly, the city was entirely empty. From this side of the walls, she could see stairs and the tops of the walls themselves completely empty from any guards. The homes were the same. Addie and Nettal tip-toed to one of the eerily empty roofless homes to check it out. There was no door, but there was a doorway. The inside of the home had a bunch of really old stuff— old half-rotted wood which strangely reminded Addie of mildewy forest-smell.
All of the houses were like that. Another ring of shorter walls stood tall in the center of the city, so Addie and Nettal decided to head that way and see if the inner city possibly had people, but at this point Addie sincerely doubted it. She did see something at the top of those walls, but it could have been a bird or something. In either case, those walls would be their goal for now.