(Rose)
The road is full with unexpected encounters. Well, not literally full but they happen every now and then.
An animal new to its kind. A plant like none other before. A place which origin I cannot fathom. Those things are on the earth as stars are in the sky.
Sotis, the black man-made roads suddenly go up and dozens of tres up into the sky in the middle of nowhere, like a single lonely tree.
Sotis tree themselves move around or disappear. I had seen trees move, crawl around on their roots, back in England as well.
Nature, as we discussed with Blu before, hasn’t gone mad or wrong. It simply is... slightly more lenient toward its usual rules. As are physics, since I can fly now, thanks to her.
Her energy is a potential to make the rules of nature more lenient. The more she has, the farther beyond logic she can go.
If we found enough artefacts from dead beings-like-her, crystalizing condensed power, I might be able to fly free as a bird without a worry in the world. I could even do magic myself.
I wonder... Is that really possible?
And yet as I think back on our journey together, I end up thinking, what isn’t anymore?
What does remain truly impossible from tales or legends?
I’m not sure... Turning back ti, probably. As even flying through space to reach other stars, Blu said that humanity did it by itself, without magic. Unbelievable.
Well. Those artefacts are very rare anyway, so I won’t be able to fly as much as I could dream to just yet.
I’ve flown already two tis. It’s already two experiences of a lifeti in a re few weeks or so.
One day I may beco a better wizard thanks to her and her power, but I don’t live for that ambition. I won’t rush for it nor especially look to achieve it. If it happens, it happens.
My goal currently is rather ek. I like ek. I’m no hero. I don’t plan to save or change the world. Even if I’ll occasionally fight against what I deem too wrong. Monsters here and there, mindless monsters more than mischievous demons.
Demons that speak, or think at the very least, enough to act at least a little rationally, I can live with... I don’t mind djinns inhabiting our abandoned hos. Tricksters we can coexist with.
Insane unconscious killers we can’t. I’ve only t one so far. But I know there are more out there. A few dozens perhaps, randomly spread over the old continent.
I may probably end up encountering another kind too, sooner or later. The really twisted monsters.
Illogical beings more dangerous than true demons themselves. Worse than machines, worse than diseases even maybe... I’m not looking forward to et one.
And when you can’t tell which is which at first glance, you have to be cautious, and overco your surprise of each new thing that appear.
Thus, I was scared at first with this new unexpected encounter.
~
The open sky to the first snow of the year.
I walk aside the road as it’s too damaged. It’s turned into dozens of miles of ripples, making hundreds of walls and holes from the road. It makes a crenelated wall as far as one can see. I follow it from aside.
Blu suddenly shivers. She tells that sothing probably hostile is coming our way. I hide behind the nearest pile of rubbles and wrecked vehicles. I lift my head a little and look at the open sky.
A stain is moving. A cloth, a dark blanket is flying, flapping itself as it goes toward our general direction.
It shrieks like a monstrous beast, I have no other word to describe the sounds.
It’s a kind of animal that flaps its sort of wings, asymtrical, like a bat. The body is unclear and doesn’t make sense to . It’s more like a ripped blanket or scarf that would have co alive.
It follows the road and foes past us. It shrieks again in the distance.
Once it’s too far to see, I dare to move and talk.
R - What was that?
B - I think it’s a new being-like-. A young one. It was looking for food I think, for a prey to absorb.
R - Absorb?
B - Well, a good body is too hard to build from scratch. It’s easier to steal one and modify it to our liking afterward.
She kindly omits to ntion that she once had the opportunity to do that to , but didn’t, and chose to live with instead.
R - And once it has fed... What will it beco?
B - I can’t say. Maybe just the animal itself, or anything else from it. Every being-like- has the full range of opportunities ahead at first. And even afterward, once self-aware, it can further evolve. After all, we are...
R - Living beings, like you and .
B - Yes...
Like you and , right Blu? I liked that idea. You, and, ...
~
It’s snowing again. I’m getting rather cold. I will make camp soon.
And then Blu repeats her warning. She felt its presence.
Only there’s naught but the field we’re in. Nowhere to hide.
I stand on my guard and keep walking ahead until I eventually et it before I found a good hiding spot.
It doesn’t seem that threatening. It has fallen over so animal I think. It’s eating it now, absorbing it without minding my presence.
I get cautiously closer and observe the process.
The thing is digesting and recreating the body. It’s learning from it, about biology, about the animal tabolism and knowledge.
For now, it’s in a dormant phase, while it absorbs and learns, slowly building its own new structure, creating then its own body.
In a few hours, the new being-like-her will be born, with a bit of the old and new shapes mixed together I guess.
So it should look like a dog or a wolf, with kind of ripped clothes or scarves attached to its body.
It twitches as I look at it. It would beco hostile if I were to bother it more I can tell, it would go really hostile.
But as I don’t endanger it and stay far enough, its first contact with humanity isn’t too bad. Perhaps I’m not a threat and we can leave each other alive. It seems to understand so of that as I step back, as both Blu and I feel its animosity fading.
R - What did you eat in your ti? Oh... Never mind.
B - ... I ate what I found at my feet. Leftovers from people in the sa train as you, and so plants, and mushrooms. I drank a small swamp too. When I achieved consciousness, I was singing in German, growing roots nearby, and you were already gone too far beyond my reach. Ann could hear though.
I stay silent, thinking back about these tis. The storm is long gone, but the trauma remains vivid in more ways than one...
~
Night is icy cold. I prepare a big fire to warm ourselves before going to sleep.
Blu lights it up. The other thing might co around but it’s now unlikely to attack us. And if it does, Blu will protect us very cautiously.
And a few hours later, it does co around. It looks more like a big salmon however? I have no clue as to why and neither does Blu.
It falls next to the fire, slightly liquefying itself under its own weight. I don’t mind.
I go to sleep inside my small tent. We’ll see how it tamorphosed at dawn.
R - Good night Blu. Good night new thing.
B - Good night my love. Sleep well.
The thing had already began lting slightly, becoming an amorphous pile of flesh, next to the fire. It betrays no thoughts, if it has any.
The night goes by peacefully.
I dream of the sky turning from night to day rapidly as if I had watched the stars until sunrise. That might have been a childhood mory too.
Then the surprise waited outside.
~
The pod had grown. The grass around had withered.
The bulb had grown into sothing else, ready to be born.
It unfolded itself in front of like a present unwrapping itself.
The folds of the protective outer skin blossod and the new animal unveiled itself at my feet. I stepped back, slightly agape.
There lied a rmaid.
~
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