Chapter 2: Void Origins

The girl sat in the center of the cavity the dark Beast had created for her, cross legged and ignoring the tongue that constantly licked her body and dress. It was wet and slippery, sure, but it was also clean and not sticky at all. The girl knew this and so did not mind. In her experience the tongue of a void swimmer was meant to clean its rider and provide them with a fluid that, while not the most delectable of meals, could keep them from dying of thirst during journeys across the great reaches of space.

The girl recalled the first time she had ridden on one of the great void Wyrms, the ancestral being of all the void beasts that came after. So very, very long ago…

“Hurry up, Flame! We don't want to be late!” A girl's voice sounds in her memory. The speaker is a little girl, maybe six or seven years old, with hair of brilliant yellow and a dress of an even more striking shade of the same. She shines like a miniature sun, blindingly bright in both personality and appearance. Her features are remarkably symmetric, almost crafted in their perfection.

“What happened to your patience? Besides, it's just a short trip.” Another girl responds in an equally high pitched voice, trying to conceal her excitement but not quite succeeding. She is almost the mirror image of the other girl, but her color is a scarlet red like a blazing flame and her features seem a bit rougher than the other girls.

“Dawn, take it easy.” The last girl, a cyan child like a younger version of the girl herself, said while pulling the red girl’s hand. “We have plenty of time.”

“’Kay!” The yellow girl, Dawn, says happily. Flame, the red girl, sighs and follows after.

“Why do we have to humor her?” She mutters unhappily.

“You're just as excited too, and stop pretending otherwise!” The cyan girl scolds her sharply, tugging on her hand.

Flame glares right back at her. “I am not! And besides, you're acting all mature and stuff! Shouldn't you stop pretending!” She yells, blushing.

“Maturity comes from wisdom, not time.” The cyan girl recites. “So I can be mature if I want.” She says arrogantly.

“You brat!” Flame yells, jumping on her and pulling her hair.

“Ow ow ow! Stop it that hurts!” The cyan girl yells back, rolling around and fighting back just as childishly.

“Fight-o! Fight-o!” Dawn chants, running back to dance in a circle around the tussling girls. Eventually, they separate and get back to their feet, panting.

“Girls, please board the shuttle.” An old man says, coming up to the trio with a limping gait. Behind him a number of other men carry luggage and supplies, while others take over from the black robed bodyguards surrounding the girls at a distance.

“““Yes, Archmage!!!””” The three girls say in unison, bowing abruptly and racing off towards the silvery vehicle under the despairing gaze of their bodyguards. Their feet clap against a black road as they race between countless carts and vehicles rushing towards and away from the shuttle.

The old man, an Archmage, sighs and follows slowly after the energetic trip while a group of bodyguards race after them to fulfill their duty.

“It's so pretty!” Dawn exclaims, climbing up atop one of the shuttle’s fins and hanging off its edge. Beside her, Flame jump up and stands above her, looking down superciliously.

“‘Course it is. It's going to take me into space.” She says in a similarly arrogant tone.

“By the fires of Inferno could you two please stop this nonsense?” The cyan girl pleads while pulling Dawn down and glaring at Flame.

“But, but, but, it's just so exciting! We're going off world, you know?” Dawn protests, jumping up and down.

“Yeah, you're a child, we know. Isn't this routine?” Flame says, jumping down under the glare of the cyan girl.

“We've never been off world though!” Dawn protests again, wide eyes staring at every part of the silvery metallic shuttle. “And we're even going out of system.”

“Yeah, where we'll be weaker.” The cyan girl mutters.

“Eh? I thought we had boosters for that?” Flame asks, suddenly worried and checking a scarlet ornament in her hair.

“Didn't you pay any attention?” The cyan girl asks scornfully. “The boosters…”

“We lose some power leaving Finale.” Dawn says, cutting off the cyan girl’s snide explanation. “It's because the system isn't fully synchronized yet. The power conversion ratio for type 2 through 7 energies needs an independent way post to maintain similar output levels, and those way posts need to be harmonically identical in the phase space tensors to those above Finale to oscillate similar properties of the Arcanist matrix, but they can only get them identical within the uncertainty limit which isn't good enough. They're sure it will be fixed soon, but distributing this across all space is slow work.”

The cyan girl rolls her eyes while Flame nods and touches the ornament one more time for good luck. The esoteric and highly technical description of the problem, unsuitable coming from the mouth of a child, makes perfect sense according to their faces although even their bodyguards are stunned by that.

“Isn't that advanced power development theory…” One mutters to his comrade.

“Blast if I know. I dropped out of college in my third year.” He responds in a similar low tone.

“I wish they could just come here.” The cyan girl says unhappily.

“But then we wouldn't get to go to space!” Dawn replies excitedly.

“I don't like feeling weaker.” The cyan girl days back.

“Aw, get over yourself. You'll still be stronger than either of us, right?” Flame says, shaking her head.

“Yeah, you always complain about the most pointless things. Just have fun!” Dawn says, skipping around in circles before a worker tries to walk through her. “Oops, sorry!” She apologizes while backing away into Flame, who stumbles.

“Oi, watch yourself shiny!” Flame reprimands Dawn.

“It's just skinship between sisters, right?” Dawn says, smiling radiantly again.

“Why aren't you including me then?” The cyan girl asks, sulking.

“Hm... maybe because you're being so cold and mature, and it's making us feel unfun…” Dawn says, looking conspiratorially at Flame.

“Unfun? That's not even a word you silly-mghf!” The cyan girl is cut off by a leaping Dawn tackling her to the ground and Flame catching her head and covering her mouth. Dawn rubs her head against her leg repeatedly, chanting “skin-ship! Skin-ship! Skin-ship!” Each time she goes up and down.

“Let go of me!” The cyan girl screams, throwing Flame off by pulling her over her own head and collapsing the three of them into a single giant pile. Flame notices she is on top and relaxes, while Dawn and the cyan girl struggle to escape beneath her.

“owie… Have you gotten heavier?” Dawn mutters on the bottom.

“Of course not!” The cyan girl screams. “I've even lost a couple kilos!” She proudly holds out her arm and flexes, the gesture made somewhat less impressive by her position trapped between two similarly sized girls.

“I don't know, you might be putting on muscle.” Flame teases from her position on top.

“I'll tickle you if you don't move.” The cyan girl warns, her fingers twitching.

“You wouldn't…” Flame starts, then looks out of the corner of her eye at the angry face of the girls below her. With sudden alacrity she gets to her feet and helps the other two up.

“Jeez, I was just playing.” Flame complains.

Dawn nods and skips away but the cyan girl rolls her eyes before clapping her on the shoulder. “We’re all just playing, Flame. Not like they’ll let us do anything else.” Her eyes roll around to glare at the Archmage and bodyguards surrounding them at a respectful distance. Then she smiles and pulls Flame close.

“Look what I found.” She whispers, showing the scarlet girl a tiny piece of paper. Flame leans in to read it and then gasps.

“How’d you get it?” She demands.

“It's a secret.” The cyan girl replies.

“But… But… Can I?” Flame begs, her eyes pleading.

“Hm, I don’t know, you were just sitting on me…” the cyan girl considers, tapping her chin with her hand.

“I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again. C’mon, please?” Flame whines with her hands reaching for the paper.

“Kay.” The cyan girl says as she drops the paper, which Flame snatches without a second’s hesitation. “Don’t tell Dawn.” She warns as Flame starts eagerly reading the paper, whose words change constantly as if to different pages.

“Hmph.” Flame snorts. “What do you think I am?”

“You did just beg for an adult novel, so…” The cyan girl snickers, before Flame claps a hand over her mouth and looks around warily.

“Ssshhh.” Flame hisses, quickly hiding the paper, an entire book contained within a single page, inside her dress. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Get off me.” The cyan girl says, pushing Flame’s hand away. “I’m not an idiot.”

Flame glares at her again and then races off to the shuttle’s door, which was hissing as it opens through complex machinery. The cyan girl watches her run off and waves to Dawn, who stops climbing on the shuttle wing and races after her. After a cautious look around, the cyan girl saw only bodyguards and grabs her skirt to dash after the other two, dropping her affected elegance for a childish freedom.

Within, the shuttle hand several rows of padded seats and overhead compartments for storage on longer flights. Flame and Dawn had already taken the window and aisle seats in a group of three, Dawn sulking on the aisle while Flame pretends to sleep but stares out the window through squinted eyes. The cyan girl sighs and climbs over the immobile Dawn to take the middle seat, pulling a harness over her shoulders and strapping herself in despite the pointlessness of the procedure. Bodyguards stream on after them, as well as others like the old Archmage and unrelated people who were finally allowed to approach, though all the seats within four rows of the children had been taken by their escorts.

“Flame’s being mean again.” Dawn whines, hitting the cyan girl’s shoulder repeatedly in her unhappiness.

“I got here first, so I get first choice.” Flame retorts, crossing her arms by the window and dropping the pretense of sleep.

“Calm down, she won’t block the entire window. You can still see.” The cyan girl placates the glowing yellow one, putting her arm around the other girl’s shoulder. Dawn continues to pout but leans closer and stares avidly towards the window. Sighing in exasperation, Flame leans back to allow the view at a glare from the cyan girl who also looks out the window, though she wasn’t too happy with the view.

A great spaceport fills their vision, gleaming hulks of numerous ground-to-space shuttles making up the majority. A few atmosphere enabled starships rest at the edges of their vision, their ebon-shrouded hulls absorbing solar energy to power the mighty hyperspace and foldspace engines that hid near their stern. A space elevator stretches upwards in the distance, reaching through the dazzling ice of Niflheim far above towards the stars beyond. In the distance the edge of Heaven could be seen, brilliant white clouds hiding the floating continent itself from view but announcing its presence to all who look.

Towering skyscrapers of steel and concrete and other, stronger materials hid the horizon to their left, stretching as endless peaks into the distance. Even in the early morning, the city shone with the light of a thousand tiny stars, brilliance defying the darkness above and announcing the might of humanity. The cyan girl admires its glory, forged of science to reign over the heavens and the earths. She smiles happily, reveling in the beauty of the works of man while turning her eyes to the right, the mighty mountains covered in similar cities of steel and the great green forests so carefully cultivated with the right balance of adventure and security, chaos and order. She imagines she could see the great trees, one of which she had made into a secret base some time back.

Interrupting her reverie is the great roar of the shuttle’s engines, the ship tilting the view so the ground is to their left and the sky to their right. Even so, the trio and everyone else on the shuttle feel gravity pulling them to the shuttle’s floor, gravity control defying the force of the world below, just before the engines reverse that force and send them shooting into space, the ground vanishing rapidly beneath them. The spaceport’s massive width shrinks to a tiny silvery dot in the midst of a massive city that stretches across the plains below, climbing the surrounding mountains and engulfing the green forests. The cyan girl takes a quick look to the other side of the shuttle, where the space elevator is streaking past them as they ascend parallel to its height for a time, before falling away as the shuttle gently curves to attain the horizontal velocity necessary for orbit.

It is in this diagonal path that they pass the gleaming Ice layer of Niflheim, crystalline towers and islands orbiting the world far below. The cyan girl sees the green and silver plains of her home, Eden, centermost of the habitable zones of the world Finale. And Finale itself is coming into view, a massive golden gas giant glowing slightly with its own internal heat and much more brightly under the glare of the distant star just now appearing on the other side of the world. The green plains of Eden, over which hovers the white cloud-islands that make up Heaven, shrink to a tiny circle on that massive world, swimming above the layers of gas by the might of human engineering. Though Eden’s surface area is almost a thousand times that of a normal world, it is still far too tiny against that supergiant ball of gas it calls its home.

The cyan girl then turns her gaze away from her homeworld and towards the crowded space in distant orbit among the rings. The giant planet has its own asteroid belt, almost, filled with minerals and crystals as well as countless habitats created by the wealthy and adventurous. Yet even more numerous are the great starships, immense behemoths that can traverse the void between stars in an instant, that gleam ebony black against the rising sunlight and conceal the stars behind. Like silvery fish among dark whales, tiny shuttles dart between them as well as vast space stations turning slowly on massive axes to reduce the energy drain of gravity control. Even the grandest of the black voidships are made into fish themselves before these mighty stations, several matching the spin of the countless rings and latching on before disappearing into the deep halls of the station.

“Whoa…” Flame mutters, impressed.

“Hel’s Throne.” Dawn says matter of factly, her voice hiding the excitement she’s obviously feeling. “The greatest space station ever built, able to contain the population of a dozen worlds with ease. So COOL!” Her calm pretense vanishes, an excited squeal taking its place as she tries to crowd the window.

“The ships are cooler.” The cyan girl says, also childishly pushing to try and watch the ebony behemoths as they fly through them. “What type is the Void Wyrm?”

“Eh?” Dawn says, surprised. “Isn’t that the newest coolest most awesome means of space travel? Where? Where? Where?” She swings her head around frantically, staring past the bodyguards toward the other side to search for their ship.

“Look! Look at that!” Flame cries, pointing at a massive skeletal frame that even now is being covered with steel plating and countless space suited workers among legions of robotic workers. “Can we go through it? Can we can we can we?” She begs, hitting the seat in front of them where the Archmage sighs repeatedly at his excited charges.

“Of course not, it’s not safe.” He says, trying to sound patient despite his rapidly diminishing reserves. “You know full well the nanomachines will devour anything not already recognized and use it to build the ship.”

“But… But… but” Flame is reduced to chanting impotently, her shining eyes fixing on the growing skeleton of another great ship.

“Where’s the Wyrm? I wanna see the Wyrm!” The cyan girl cries, also pounding the seat in front of her.

“Ah! A Hecate cruiser, Zylarian shield ships, and… and… Is that a Ytterbium Destroyer?! It’s got enough laser batteries to break a planet in half! And the Fighter! X-wings, B-Wings, Y-fighters, so much awesomeness!” Dawn chatters happily, straining to get out of her seat though she’s already being held by the bodyguard behind her.

The Archmage holds his head in his hands, remembering once again that for all their vaunted power and training the trio behind him were just children, children who had never been to space before and yet knew far too much about the subject. He was seriously regretting not taking the offer to transport them in their sleep, at least until they got on the great interstellar vessel where he could leave them in the capable hands of the crew. But he also knew that that would surely be worse because they would blame him for the misfortune of missing this flight.

The shuttle approaches the vast station as Dawn is forcibly restrained in her seat and made to content herself with the one window the other two are still fixed to, though her sulking dissipates in further excitement.

“We’re going into Hel’s Throne? Are we are we are we?” Dawn jumps up and down in her seat, bouncing against her harness.

Flame leans back to try and see forward, her eyes similarly shining. “It looks like it. It’s getting bigger and bigger…”

“Aw… I thought we were going right to the ship…” The cyan girl complains, kicking the seat in front of her. “I don’t wanna walk…”

“This will be over soon, this will be over soon, just a bit longer, this will be over soon.” The Archmage prays quietly, trying to ignore the cacophony coming from behind him.

“It’s opening!” Shrieks Flame.

“I wanna see!” The cyan girl cries as she almost falls over the scarlet girl to reach the window.

“Tell me tell me tell me!” Dawn chants, unable to get out of her seat to reach.

“It’s a tunnel!” Flame explains, still shrieking. “It’s dark and scary but there are lights and people walking around us… There’s colored lights telling us where to go!”

“Ooh… I can see the signs! We’re inside Hel’s Throne!” The cyan girl cries, staring at the windows of the passage they were flying through.

“They’re upside down!” Flame cries, stating the obvious.

“No, we are!” Dawn protests, raising her hands over her head.

“They’ll be quiet eventually, just don’t listen to them, you can get through this.” the Archmage continues to chant.

“We’re turning… It looks like our color went a different direction!” Flame says, straining her eyes to see the front of the shuttle.

“We’re stopping!” The cyan girl complains, kicking her feet forward and disappointed the ride was ending.

“We’re not getting off yet.” The Archmage says, motioning for the bodyguards to keep the girls seated.

The rest of the passengers and half the escorts leave the shuttle, jumping down from the hovering ship and then floating through the minimal gravity. Luggage discharges from the hold below, caught by handling robots and delivered to the passengers who head off into the halls of the massive space station. The girls and their remaining escorts shuffle around in the seats, as the shuttle rumbles again and takes off deeper into the hallways, much faster this time. The passengers are pressed against their seats and have trouble breathing, much less talking. Except, of course, for a certain trio.

“We’re going fast now.” Flame notes, still looking out the window easily.

“I wonder where we’re going....” The cyan girl wonders.

“To the Void Wyrm~!” Dawn sings, leaning forward against the force of acceleration.

“Wait… I think we’re there… nope, just another dark hall.” Flame says, shaking her head.

“What is the Void Wyrm anyway?” The cyan girl wonders.

“It's the super secret super innovative new way to travel through space!” Dawn explains excitedly.

“You do know that doesn’t mean anything, right?” The cyan girl asks, raising an eyebrow.

“But… But its super secret…” Dawn pouts, sulking.

“We get it, you don’t know anything.” Flame says cruelly.

“Hey! That’s mean!” The cyan girl reprimands her.

“But she doesn’t!” Flame protests the accusation.

“I know things!” Dawn says. “It’s supposed to be a void ship that doesn’t need to be fueled or repaired, and powers itself.”

“Don’t all nanoships do that?” the cyan girl wonders.

“Even without nanos!” Dawn declares, then softly adds, “I think.”

“So you still have no idea?” Flame says before turning back to the window at the cyan girl’s glare.

“We’ll see when we get there, okay?” The cyan girl says.

“Okay~” Dawn says, not depressed at all.

“Speaking of, I think that’s it, but…” Flame says, her voice trailing off while looking out the window.

The three girls paste themselves to the window in a second, the harnesses falling away seemingly effortlessly under the horrified eyes of the escorts. They stare out at the massive hangar within which rests a single massive black form, swimming through the space within and then curling up on the floor to look down on the shuttle quickly approaching it.

“Is that…” The cyan girl starts.

“... Alive?” Asks Flame, the three girls turning to stare at each other. A heartbeat later they are outside the shuttle, descending to the floor in the minimal gravity and floating towards the massive ebony serpent that watched them approach warily.

“What the…” The Archmage says inside the shuttle, whirling around to stare at the now empty seats. “... Didn’t I explicitly warn them not to teleport? And doesn’t this thing have anti-teleport barriers? … Though I guess expecting any barrier to stop those three is a mistake…” he mutters, then looks out his window towards the trio racing ahead of the shuttle. “Ah, well… At least it’s finally quiet.” He finishes, leaning back against the seat and closing his eyes while the bodyguards panic and try to follow the mischievous trio.

“It’s so big, isn’t it?” Flame says as they approach.

“Sh… Maybe it can hear us.” Dawn whispers, staring at the length of the massive creature.

“Hey! Can you hear us?” The cyan girl cries out, waving at the massive serpent.

The serpent looks at them for a time, then turns its massive black eyes to the handlers racing towards the trio on the ground, specifically one man who stands right below it’s head with folded arms waving orders.

“Captain, Should I catch them?” It asks, one eye still focusing on the descending trio and the shuttle behind them.

The captain says something that the serpent could hear but the three could not, although the massive voice of the serpent filled the entire area. Nodding at whatever was said, the serpent’s head flickers forward and three massive, many-forked tongues stretch out to catch the three girls.

“Eww!” Flame complains, struggling against the wet tongue.

“Hey! Let go!” The cyan girl struggles. “I’m warning you!”

“Calm down! It’s just bringing us in!” Dawn says, also looking disgusted but keeping the presence of mind to see that they were being quickly transported to right in front of the man addressed as Captain.

They were set down on the ground in front of him, where they immediately start wiping themselves off and trying to get rid of the wet saliva that covered them as the tongues retracted into the massive mouth looming over them.

“Gross!” the cyan girl complains, the wetness bursting away from her and spattering across the floor, leaving her clean and dry.

“It’s not gross. Void Wyrm saliva is specially engineered as a cleaning fluid, you know. Helps to have an easily supply of liquid soap on long journeys through space.” The Captain corrects, walking over to stand in front of the girls.

“Oh! So that is the Void Wyrm!” Dawn says, dashing a few steps forward before a giant tongue catches her from above and returns her to the line in front of the Captain.

“Yes, this is Void Wyrm Prime, nickname Vyp, and I am her captain.” the Captain says with a trace of pride, before his face turns stern. “And now I will have you explain why you pulled that damn fool stunt in my hangar.” He thundered, his booming voice lashing the three girls hanging their heads in front of him.

“The shuttle was going so slowly…” Flame complains.

“We just wanted a closer look…” Dawn protests.

“Nobody got hurt, so it’s fine, right?” The cyan girl cheekily explains with a smile.

“No, it damn well is not!” The Captain roars. “I expect rules to be obeyed on my ship, you got that!”

“““But…””” The trio starts.

“Silence!!” The Captain yells, “No ifs, ands, or buts! You will follow the rules on my ship, or you won’t ride it. You got that?”

“““Yes…””” The trio mutters, sulking.

“Excellent. So, this is Vyp. Say hi, Vyp!” He calls out.

“Hi, Captain.” The sonorous voice of the massive wyrm calls out. “I’m Vyp, the first Void Wyrm. Nice to meet you.”

The trio nods, watching the massive head and huge fangs with wide eyes. The tongues flicker out to right in front of each girl, who look at each other before nodding and shaking the tongues with their hands.

“Glad to see you getting along. Now, Vyp here is the result of a secret project to create self sustaining, self repairing, reproducing voidships. I assume you three don’t need to be briefed on the violation of secrets acts, so I’ll give you a tour. If you don’t mind, Vyp?” He says, turning to the massive serpent.

“Not at all.” The serpent chuckles. “It should be entertaining to deal with people who aren’t scared of me in the slightest.”

The three girls blinked and then raced towards the opening in the serpent’s skin that appeared in front of them. It closed suddenly, leaving them rubbing against the skin to try and find the opening once they reached it.

“Ok, first rule, no running on my ship. We walk, Vyp isn’t quite used to the sensation of people’s feet inside her yet.” The Captain says, catching up to the girls and placing a hand against the skin, which immediately opens up into a passageway.

“Or because you just don’t want to be left in the dust.” The serpent’s voice came from a hole right next to them, leading the girls to crowd around it and examine it closely.

“So cool…” Dawn mutters, feeling the rubbery flesh around the speaker hole.

“Can she hear us?” Flame asks nervously. “It’s also dark…”

The cyan girl jumps and tries to touch the ceiling, falling far short but still making a respectable effort before the Captain catches her and gently sets her on the ground.

“A bit more restraint would be nice, young ladies. And yes, Vyp can hear and answer anywhere in her body. Her brain takes the place of a shipboard AI, though with a bit more personality in my opinion.” The Captain explains, holding onto the cyan girl’s hand and taking Dawn’s as well, with Flame trailing behind.

“The Void Wyrm makes passages in her body, part of the shapeshifter blood we give her, and has a second stomach to contain cargo or raw materials. She could be a transport, a mining vessel, or a speed runner depending on how much she’s carrying and how much energy she gets. Her primary stomach converts thermal energy and matter to her own energy supplies, allowing her to feed on subatomic space dust, and either gas giants or asteroids. She can harvest an entire asteroid field in a matter of days instead of the months it normally takes. But her primary benefit is that she can reproduce. Vyp will likely be artificially inseminated for her first litter, before others are prototyped and grown in labs until they reach spaceflight size. Vyp can also generate bioluminescence… If you please,” strip of flesh along the ceiling light up to illuminate the corridors, running in every direction, “and should be capable of running with a minimal crew in a few years.”

“What about weapons?” Dawn asks excitedly, trying to see everything at once.

“Hahaha!” The captain laughs. “Vyp doesn’t need weapons. Her hide is tough and she’s extremely agile. Plus, most starships aren’t any tougher than asteroids, so we just give her permission to eat any pirates that attack us. Vyp isn’t a warship, after all.”

“What’s her speed?” Flame asks.

“Vyp doesn’t yet have gravity control down, so sublight she’s pretty slow. She’s flexible enough to make any direction changes meaningless but linear acceleration is a struggle. However, Vyp is hyperspace capable and can even fold space with ease, making her just as fast as anything else translight.” The captain explains with pride, standing tall in the halls of his prided living ship.

“What about the bathroom?” The cyan girl asks, rubbing her legs together.

The captain chuckles. “You might not like it, missy, but Vyp is capable of absorbing any mess made in her body. Still, there’s one right up here, just turn left and it will be right in front of you. Can you guide her, Vyp?” He asks, letting her rush forward urgently as green arrows appear on the walls. She vanishes quickly with the sound of a door closing up ahead.

“Doors?” Flame asks.

“And furniture too.” The Captain adds. “We decorated the place a little bit for passengers. Vyp can open and close her walls at will but passengers like to have control of that sort of thing. Makes them feel better and such.”

“So cool…” Dawn says again, staring every which way.

“Yeah.” The Captain says calmly. “This will be her maiden loaded voyage. Make sure to give us a good review when we get there. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a bit of preparation to deal with for our journey.” He finishes, walking off down the hallways and disappearing almost instantly.

“This is awesome…” Flame says, running after the cyan girl towards the bathroom. They run into each other and bounce back before collapsing onto the floor under the amused laughter of Dawn.

“Hahaha…” Dawn laughs at the pair of mirror twins shaking their heads and slowly climbing to their feet.

“The bathroom was amazing! There’s just a hole in the floor and you crouch over it and…” The cyan girl says energetically.

“I can’t wait till we’re moving. But there aren’t any windows…” Flame complains, looking around.

“This is going to be so, much…” Dawn starts before the other two jump in to finish together, “““FUN!!!”””

“Why do you grieve so much, mortal?” A thunderous voice resounded, bringing the girl out of her reverie on a long distant past.

She wiped tears streaming from her still shut eyes and pulled herself upwards, sitting instead of laying down. “I grieve for what is lost, swimmer.” She replied, her tone betraying nothing of her inner turmoil. “There is much of it to grieve for.”

“I see.” The great beast said, his tongue still tasting the overpowering loss that had surged for a second just before. “I suppose there is much less now than there was before.” He concluded, remembering the age of Gods and the countless mortal empires that were no more. They had fallen, as they were meant to, but it was still a pity that he could no longer taste their flavors. He decided that was what the girl must have meant by her worries over what is lost.

There was one more thing that surprised him, though. The mighty spatial storms which tore at him as he traveled in the space between spaces were not insulated by his great hide. The space around the girl should be calamitous as well, devastating ruptures in space ripping her apart and crushing her limbs (though he had been sure that he could steer clear of the worst of it and keep her alive), but his tongue tasted a perfect calmness in the vicinity around her. It was like this fractured space was welcoming and embracing her.

Curiouser and curiouser, this pet of his became. But for now he did not inquire further into the unnatural calm that eased his journey through the fractured space.

He never could understand why mortals protested that which made things easier on them, after all.