Book 1, Destiny

Chapter 2, The Display

As he slept something stirred inside him, something incomprehensible to him. The only way he would (or could) describe the feeling was... Destiny.

He woke to a tremendous cascade of some sort of wet gross sticky liquid with lots of little solid bits in it? It didn't take very long for him, still with his eyes closed, to realise what it was and nearly heaved himself, nearly directly after second cascade of the stuff and after a third slosh, luckily one of water this time, he opened his eyes.

What he saw was chaotic, strange, and awfully disgusting, a girl in a black robe, who looked oddly familiar*, standing over him with her hands covering her mouth in what would probably be the strangest way possible and a tall man wearing those sort of half-moon spectacles which are perfect for peering over the top of. He did so now, looking at Arain inquisitively and somehow, at the same time, he was fiddling with a large array of buttons and levers which Arain just realised were on fire.

Turning his head slowly towards what he thought was a window, Arain squinted outside, realising slightly faster than before. He was flying. 'It's an airship' he thought, which to him was odd as last thing he remembered was hitting his head on something (it hurt like the very devil so it wasn't hard to tell).

The girl removed her hands from her mouth, ran into a room, came back with what looked like a large hammer, and hit him, hard.

*not in an 'I've seen her before' kind of way you understand, but a future tense 'I will see you at some point later' you see.

Arain awoke (again). This time in a comfortable bed, with a vase of nice flowers*. He smelled still but there was no other evidence of the last time he woke, he was wearing a white gown that correspondently fitted him to an accuracy of 99.9999999999999629489901% against, this number, by a remarkable coincidence, was the exact ratio of an atom's emptiness compared to how much of the atom is an actual thing that exists**.

His old and tattered clothes were folded neatly by the side of the bed, washed and scrubbed thoroughly. His pouch and safe box laid next to each other on a bedside table next to the vase, the mysterious case, on the other hand, wasn't in the room anywhere. He felt it was of great importance to him but not for any reason he knew of.

Arain got out of the bed, and walked slowly towards the door, sunlight was streaming through a window onto the wooden plank. He noticed for the first time a very loud sound occupying the room that sounded faintly like a cross between a snore and a wheeze. "Anything that sneezes that loud couldn't be dangerous" the boy thought and slowly turned the bronze nob and opened the door.

What he saw was a nicely set table with wooden chairs and a modest meal of bread, cheese and a bowl of fruit. Jugs of milk and water stood at the end of the table and the gentle sound of frying bacon and eggs emitted from another door parallel to the table.

*these flowers were sinarigious lilies, they were considered some of the rarest and most beautiful flowers in the current multiverse. Of course, no multiversal being knew that (they all thought theirs' was the best of course) and no-one would ever know as the vase of lilies were the last of the species in existence.

**the atom, a prospect that wouldn't be recognized for 1000's of years, was currently an idea only residing in crazy old peoples' deep and somewhat prophetical minds.