Of Whispers and Daggers ✓ [TLRQ #2]

Chapter 2.1 - Leavi

Dedicated to T. C. Turtle for winning last year's
Of Caverns and Casters' physical copy giveaway
(oh, and being a great friend, but pshhh, who cares about that part? (;  )

As I step into the quickly destabilizing portal, blue suffuses my vision. A constant whispering fills my ear, like the low buzz of insects humming: måserte desevæ, desevæ ammenia, måserte desevæ... Violent waves crash around me, currents filled with the debris of Idyne's dissolving pearl. Something swipes past my cheek, just hard enough to make me wonder if her portal is going to break me apart after all.

Then everything goes black and silent. The complete and utter nothingness of it should make me reel, but I can't move. I am suspended in a gaping maw of everlasting death, as if this place sucks in everything that is and spits nothing back out in return. It would freeze my blood if I were sure I still had any.

As quickly as it seized me, the blackness releases me. I drag in one breath after another, head spinning, legs wobbling. Vaguely, I realize my eyes are still closed. Somehow that seems light in comparison to the abyss of before.

The morning sunshine blinds me when I open my eyes, as though I'm some brave bat seeing the outside world for the first time. Leaves litter the forest floor. Tufts of grass and thick, old roots weave in through the holes of their cover. No snow coats the ground; no frost ices the bramble bushes. The air is almost warm despite the winter morning. A leaf floats down from a mostly-barren branch, but the air rings with bird songs I've never heard before.

Time itself seems to have rewound. The sun here is barely rising, while in Draó, it had already secured a hold in the sky. I'm disoriented, my single step through the portal having so thoroughly immersed me in a different setting.

This is Morineaux.

A grin breaks out on my face. I made it. I braved the portal and lived to tell the tale. "Aster!" I call. He has to be close. There can't have been more than a couple minute's gap between us stepping through. I cup my hands around my mouth. "Aster!"

The calls of the forest are the only response.

A spiral shower of sparks erupts like an impossible doorway five feet in front of me, and Idyne steps into the world like I might step into my living room. The sparks fizzle away behind her, and my mind demands an explanation for how any of this could be possible. How can matter from one point in space be translated to another point without bending the rules of time itself?

I shove the thought aside. Forcing magic to fit my understanding of physiks yields nothing but headaches. "Idyne!"

She spins, blonde braids flaring out in a circle, dark eyes alight with mischief. "Ah! You are close. I was worried it might have thrown you out somewhere else."

As I step forward, the dying leaves crunch under my bare feet. My forgotten boots swing in my hand, and I kneel to pull them on. "Why would it do that?"