realityshifted | Falling into stars

[A woman steps onto the Plane, barefoot and dressed oddly--a gown that was fine once, until loose threads and jewels were absently picked out of the stitching and cobwebs and dust coated the fabric. The sleeves are spotted with ink and soot and stranger stains. The woman wearing the dress is pale, and her hair is black and unruly, escaping a gold clasp she's pinned it up with. She stands, still and motionless, looking at the stars around and below and above, colorless eyes wide in a pale face. She turns, slowly, and looks up at the stars.]

Constellations and riddles falling into my lap, and now stars in my parlor. [A deep breath and she nibbles on her thumb, eyes narrowing.] I didn't enter a little black house. And I see no tinkers. So which story have I wandered out of time into?

[Her eyes narrow, intent, thoughtful, and she hikes her skirts up, strides towards the kiosk and takes up the brochure, movements abrupt and brusque. She picks at a thread as she reads, then creases the paper into shapes when she finishes, looking again at the stars around her. Not alarmed or confused, but interested, murmuring to herself.]

How strange...

Walking out of a story of stars into a field of stars. One story after another, and in layers together. Connect them to make shapes and eventually make sense of the whole.

How strange.

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[She takes that information and files it away. He is quite tall, and she is not so tall. It doesn't bother her. But what he is does.]

Nyx. [Now that they have that out of the way, she asks again.] What are you? You seem haunted. Or dead. Frozen. Stopped.

...You aren't dead, are you? Ensorcelled, perhaps?

[Damn, he was hoping she'd just leave him alone.]

Human. Whatever you can see, forget it. It isn't your concern.

[He has to shut her down. He doesn't tell her that she's right about all of it, and that bothers him, because it's hard to lie blatantly with proof. But he has the perfect face to lie with. He's made a goddamn career of it.]

[She goes motionless again, watching him. Trying to sense what ghosts or magic bind him. But it's alien to her. Without his consent, there's little she can do but observe--or little she is willing to try, at least. There is much she could attempt, but he seems uninterested in her curiosity, and she has no reason to force it. Except curiosity. And he seems to be alive, in a way. If he were truly dead, maybe she wouldn't respect the boundary he wants. As it is... She shrugs, moving again, folding the paper between her fingers.]

Very well. Tell me about this place.

[She might not know fear, but at least she knows to keep her distance. He is more than uninterested in her curiosity, he is uninterested in everything. He is alert, but hardly restless, as if he is only observing and reacting to the world around him rather than actively taking part in it.

And he doesn't fidget.]

This is the Astral Plane, a kind of experiment. It might appear to be magic, but the source is mechanical. It's commonly referred to as the Machine. You can travel between the Plane and your home world with a thought.

Yes. [A quirk of her lips.] I read.

[She creases the brochure further, forms a wing in the folded paper, eyes still staring at Kratos, or through him. Is he of this place? She can't tell. She has to ask.]

Is this place yours? [He doesn't refer to it possessively, like one who really lives here.] Or do you belong to the Machine?

[She's good at origami, but that's beside the point.]

No. I am a prisoner, like you.

[Welcome to Hell, kid.]

[That word stills her hands, perturbs her in a visible way, if only for a moment. Trapped. She hates the idea. It grates against her skin like sandpaper, sets all her nerves clanging. She ran as far from house and family and memory and self as she could, to chase her freedom. She doesn't want to be caged like one of her own little orange swamp birds, waiting for someone to come cut out her tongue and feed her liver to albino toads that talk.]

[She twists her fingers, abruptly, and the paper tears beneath.]

How long have you been kept?

[It's your life now, little bird-killer. He watches her massacre the paper in a small, violent motion. She's probably imagining tearing him apart in a million other tiny ways, but he isn't bothered. Very little ruffles this man's feathers.]

It's hard to say. Only a few days have passed in my own world since I found this place, but I've spent several weeks on the Plane in total.

[Her fingers worry at the paper, shredding it into confetti as she frowns at nothing.]

So the time is wrong here as well as the air and the stars and the smell.

[His eyes move from the makeshift confetti to her face.]

Everything about this place is wrong. It shouldn't even exist, and to most people, it doesn't.

Yes. [She pauses, frowns.] Yes. Why does it exist for us?

[These things aren't random. They may appear to be, but they never are. Such a selection was done purposefully. She wants to know why.]

It isn't a matter of giving them what they want. Knowing exactly why we were chosen wouldn't change anything.

But it would be knowing.

Knowledge is madness.

Only to the weak-minded.

[His voice gains a colder, sharper tone.]

Then by all means, gorge yourself on the knowledge that you are powerless to stop it.

[Oh, fatalists.]

Falling into stars

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