It was all blue... -- Dah'Li

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Date Posted: 23:26:18 06/29/01 Fri
Author: Rana
Subject: It was all blue...

...and it was all wrong. Rana's eyes fluttered open, looking around at the bridge of the Nova*Beacon. He got to his feet shakily as the engineer turned and spoke to the captain. Perplexity gripped Rana as the soundless inquiry was before him. Had he recieved an electrical shock? Gone deaf perhaps? He truend to see what officers were rushing towards behind him and gasped.

On the blue floor of the blue bridge, lay a blue robed body staring off into nothingness. HIS body! Rana staggered backwards, not ready to experience death again. But the body, though prone and unattentive, did heave up and down slowly, breath still filling it, blood still coursing through its veins. Rana's hand passed through a glass on the console, and he turned in slow motion as it tumbled downwards to the floor in slow motion. A mocking face seemed to mold itself out of the side of the glass, that of the Nebulan Raph Sar who's own face had been immortalized on the Nova*Beacon. The glass hit the floor and remained intact; it was the world around Rana that shattered.

Shards and shards of reality scattered about the dazed manarian Wizard, each fragment depicting a different scene from his former surroundings, still in motion. As he tumbled, blue was joined by white, and the cloudy sky in which he drifted was nothing short of surreal. NO sky was ever so blue, no cloud so sculpted and puffed. Somewhere, a voice sighed a terse warning; but Rana's hearing was not attuend to his new reality and he heard little more than "--ppen here!"

He began to walked forward instinctively, as swirls of umbers and siennas jointed the starneg tableaux. Clocks melted off the branches of nearby dead trees, all of them stopping at a certain point and lingering before moving forward again. Some moved sooner than others, while others simply remained in limbo, flickering in and out of existence. On some level Rana knew what the symbolism truely yielded; but the answer was not within his grasp. Not just yet.

A shadow fell across his path, and as soon as he turned, the world turned with him. Day had become night; desert had become forest. But there was something familiar about this forest...something almost...Enchanted. A mountain loomed before him, disproportionate given its proximity, and a dark rider was silhouetted against the moon Xion.

"HELLO! WHO ARE YOU?"

The rider gave no answer, moonlight glinting off a crimson sigil on his otherwise ebon armor.

"What-what? I asked you a QUESTION; I seem to be type-lost here!"

The rider gave no answer.

"Trying to malign me? To intimidate me? It won't work!! I've faced the best and worst in others and in myself! Now who are you? Are you responsible for bringing me here? My friends may need me back on that vessel."

The rider gave no answer.

"I know your kind...I faced bullys my whole life! The neighboring village where I grew up, it was in a place that looked very much like this! Our people warred, in the end destroying ourselves. A better ruler presides over Manar now; the Fairy Queen and others of her kind are much more deserving of the paradise that we humans squandered with our petty war. I've faced my demons."

The rider tilted his head questioningly.

"I HAVE!!!! DAMN YOU!! Why do you mock me? I know the form you wear well...I've seen it often enough in my nightmares! Is that all this is? Some bad dream? Have I been traumztized for real?"

The rider gave no answer.

"I am RANA!! I was one of the mighty wizards who brought the Great Peace, I was the focusing point for the negative energies of the dread WR@! I have survived both extremes of good and evil, and I am quite done with the struggling!"

"ARE YOU, RANA OF MELONT? ARE YOU ALL THESE GRANDIOSE CLAIMS? IS THAT WHAT MAKES YOU UP NOW? OR ARE YOU STILL THE SAME PAWN, NAIVE AND BITTER ALL AT ONCE, SUFFERING FROM DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR AND INFERIORITY. LIFE REJECTED YOU ONCE, AND TRAVELLING TIME AND SPACE TO FIND A DARK HOLE TO DISAPPEAR INTO IN EARTH'S PAST WASN'T ENOUGH TO ESCAPE. DEATH REJECTED YOU; IN THE END WHEN THE LAST OF 'YOUR' WR@ WERE DEFEATED, YOU DID NOT JOIN THEM IN OBLIVION. WHY DO YOU PERSIST? YOU BELONG IN BOTH LOOPS AND NEITHER, FOR YOU ARE HARDLY A WARRIOR. AND A WARRIOR CANNOT BE A KING. SEE THE CROWN I NOW WEAR?

Rana was on his knees at this point, hands clutching his ears in vain, for the Dark Rider's words were within his mind. He squinted up at the fiery peak, the armored figure wielding a glowing sword as a similar glow danced about his brow. It was light and it was dark. It was pure and yet tainted somehow. It was a portent of things to come and things that would never be, at least not exactly. Somewhere in the recesses of his consciousness Rana knew the meaning of this vision, that it was a fragment of a shattered vision, much as he had seen reality fragment around him earlier. It was a part of a greater puzzle, no less overwhelming than when he first gained his new gift, but more manageable than having all the information at once. Putting the peices together and convincing others the picture was there; that would prove to be the real test of his sanity.

Rana peered upward, vertigo clutching him as he realized up was down and the maw of an ancient well widened above(below?) him. He tumbled once more, not stopping until he hit the sand. Not unbearably hot sand, rich with Melange, but a cool nighttime grain. He stood, dusted himself off, and looked about. His gaze lingering on what appeared to be islands floating in the sky. It would take time to navigate dreams, if dreams these be, and assistance. As if in answer to an unspoken concern, a small robed figure stepped out of the hazy air and approached the Manarian wizard...

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Replies:

"Ah, you finally arrived..." -- Biggs, Dream Guide, 00:48:21 07/01/01 Sun
- "What the hell is he talking about?" he thought... -- Rana, 16:44:07 07/07/01 Sat
  - Re: "What the hell is he talking about?" he thought... -- Biggs, Dream Guide, 20:19:50 07/12/01 Thu