Essays on creations, life lessons, and many original stories; also visit integr8dfix.blogspot for even more!
Showing posts with label Vado. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vado. Show all posts
Monday, June 6, 2022
New, extended story sequences: Sunstrike and Company!
Here's where you find our Integr8d Soul game for free:
We tie in the storylines that touch, I think, every storyline in our fictional universe. It's great heroic fiction, with that dash of philosophy and wonder that completes the package.
We've just released the newest version. Be a friend and share, OK? It's a blend of humor, wild imagination, and far-out drama. You start as either plant person Tappandalli, the Kolparian idealist Merriwyn Archiere, or roguish adventurer Shamilal Asano-9, complete with his hi-tech gear. https://t.co/hjxgyNYn72
The Pyramids of Infinitude contain portals to many story settings. There's also three playable characters hidden inside, including Sunstrike, himself. This is his origin story, after all.
One distinguishing feature of our new material: we reveal more clues about the nature of the linked pyramids. We also plant clues about the deeper identities and links of these characters, to be explored in future game-stories.
https://gamescreate.com/games/show/5023
While the character dynamics are not modeled after any other team, I think each main is interesting. If you've wanted a glimpse into our years of creations, here you will find everything crossing over. Hopefully, we'll be returning to that well for many new adventures.
Monday, April 18, 2022
Vado and Tap, the Living Land, and a daughter's tale (from Sunstrike and the Pyramids of Infinitude)
Vado Bujinka and her morphing plant friend, Tappandalli, cross a threshold, departing the Pyramids of Infinitude. As her eyes adjust from cavernous dank to brilliant light, a familiar feeling vibrates through her.
Free link to the story game: https://gamescreate.com/games/show/5023“What joy!” exclaims Vado. “The Living Land! How did such pretty homeland rocks appear here, so strangely distant?” “Hey, this is really rich soil!” cries Tappandalli. “I’m rooting for us to stay a while!” Tinkling stones catch Vado’s ear. She saunters along, then sprints, as though guided by the sound of a water fall. What Tappandalli sees is a being form from the soil, much as he is a floral entity, himself. There in the meadow, amid golden grasses, the Living Land sits up as one like themselves. “Dear Bujinka!” exclaims the Living Land. “Pardon my dry mouth! Can you hear me speak now, beneath the wind?”
“Yes! Yes, dear friend,” she says. “Home is carried ever in the heart, and now so literally do I find a natural place, where I can be myself.”
“Yes, please relax a while,” says the Land. “Come! Be among my flowers, so they know they are beautiful!”
“I must have imagined I longed to see you so,” says Vado.
Tappandally giggles as bees search his crown for pollen.
“The longing to see someone so,” says the Living Land, thoughtfully. “Yes, that was my story, too. Those who last dwelt within my embrace sought wholeness.”
Tap feels an explanation arise, to state whence they came of late, together.
“There is said to be, in the world where the Pyramids are found, greatest abundance. Let’s travel to the stars! Said those people. Let us remember we have friends and fear not the cosmos. Some living thing, though, exists among that host, changed to devour the energy of motivation, as though bottomless with a need for love. So the paradise found has become obscure.”
“So is MY story, of those who did sit among my cool mosses and insectoid songs,” replied the Land.
“Am I again, through you, in the homeland? My travels took me from there, to a land I thought felt like the Future, for if it were the past, then it was an age undreamt of by my Silver Claw people of the Dome. I accepted there was only the present; perhaps all I knew and loved were now in my heart, but a world, passed. But the ultimate journey of a scout is ever to cross boundaries unknown in the daily life of one’s tribe.”
“I am of your land, and am here, too,” says the Living Land. “For now, you are simply Home.”
“Who were the last to set foot in you?” asks the plant person.
“In me sat a daughter, who answered her mother, her Queen of Dreams. Her sadness had been buried by a brook, which gurgled with stones smooth since childhood. The daughter came to me to escape those who want command, want authority her free spirit will not permit.”
“She sounds like me,” says Vado, nodding. “There was a time she felt her mother did not love her so much as she had, when she was learning to first speak.”|
“Plant parents never really lose touch,” says Tappandally. “We know we’re connected!”
“Such is the world of minds,” says Vado Bujinka. “Take it from one who loved to master the languages of people near and far. There are words together that mean ‘loneliness.’”
“So were the words of this daughter,” says the Living Land. “But the words, as they came, were a victory, a way for little streams of the eyes to reach the greatness of the Sea. The feeling had arisen in her, beneath her many fanciful stories of angels and their plans to love and follow her. This Flame had sat on a smoldering ember, popped away from the hearth that kindled her.”
“She came to blame those who had tended the fire. One of the greatest logs for whom the Hearth burned had deserted her body. Now, with ashes by her side, the Hearth burned more dimly.” When one of her five children had fallen in love one day with the water, the five went to play by the Lake. But that Joy left her body, to become one of the angels. Though she would never leave her mother, never leave her siblings, her breath did leave her. What remained was a body, swept in the current, left by its awareness to sleep and grow no more. This mother, this Queen of Dreams, felt this was against the natural course of her love. Were they not laid upon her breast, to live as six who would burn brightly? Were not her children made to burnish long after the Hearth’s spark left in peace? How had she failed to illuminate and heat them, nurture them all to full adult Flames?
Now, Vado Bujinka and Tap envision these stories, differently. Tappandally, of the woods themselves, saw a tale of lumber and sparking bark.
Vado sees something in a long-past time. In that age, many were the people of the planet. They had learned to build machines to make distances more quickly, on ground sea and air. In that scene, this Queen of Dreams is but a maiden, herself, mother to children, only as she herself reached adulthood. She imagined herself a humble country girl- too humble to trust solely in her own will. For this melancholy reason, she had consented to relinquish her dream of six children. After all, they could not faithfully see the means by which to take care of them each. How that fear led her to the surgical severance of the tunnels within her, burning away the receptors of her fertility. It was for the best, they told her. She was not so certain. It was the first time she’d relinquished a life long dream. Just as she came to accept the birth of her fifth child, another girl, in the fullness of time, she did not again give birth, but gave one of her sweet ones, unwillingly.
Her tender tears could not call back her little girl from the waters, for she was gone, instead, to the air, to the stars. And now, in the name of some religious scheme, she was told:
“Let your little ones go elsewhere to play. You must sit and pray, listen for your God to heal you.”
But this was not always her will. After all, were not her four remaining children her divine sparks?
“And this daughter was one of these sparks,” says Tappandally.
“Do fires make you fear?” asks Vado of her buddy.
“Why, not at all,” says Tap. “Fires help us plants uncomplicate our lives. We know when we burn, we fertilize the ground for what will come again. There is again space for something fresh and new!”
“So this daughter did not understand why her mother would not see her.”
“The children were told: go away! Your mother needs to spend time with God.”
“Sounds like an awful punishment!” said Tap.
“For mother and children,” says Vado. “If they never understood in their hearts, how their mother never stopped loving them, then surely, they went on to pain and loss with their own children.”
“So deep was the unthinking damage done,” says the Living Land, with a tremulous sigh. “The pain of the siblings who did have children was never healed. They grew to imagine a life where they were separated from their own children.”
“And all in the name of some misguided human advice,” spits Vado, “claiming to know better than She, where her Creator and Creations lay.”
“’I’m NOT happy with that part of my family,’ said this daughter to me. She sat upon my cool, staunch stones, like a throne of less comfort- bur resting. We lived with them for just a while, she told me- my dad was on furlough from the Air Force. They took control of her grieving. They made her feel like she failed as a Mom! But my Mama was never a failure!’
“Then she turned her head, to place it in the bosom of my limbs,” continues the Land. “She cried because she could not comfort her mother, who needed her children. That is where she found the Divine; in their needs, in her purpose, is where she found her name, victory. She cried because her mother loved her, but was asked not to focus on being their mother. And so, she lost that ability somewhat. Her instincts withered, as learning to punish herself further for the past would exonerate her soul of what ever lay beyond her control! But what could one so young do, in a time when mothers lost sovereignty in the face of lip service to God?
What God was theirs, more than I, a giving place of Life? What Men dared to usurp the Creator, from one who had created and lost but had creations a’thriving to attend? What Women dared judge her silently, what hard heart would say: be not a mother, be a better servant of our Master?
Love as she might, separation and loneliness and anxiety and guilt grew, where once her duties lay.”
A gentle rain descends. In the misty, hazel garden, Tap makes of itself a fragile Lilly. “The daughter knows, now, though, does she not,” says Vado. “She knows her mother never loved her less.”
“Yes,” replies the living terrain. “For as you have so imagined it, so have the waters come, from the sky. Soon they will dry, upon the things that flowers have done.”
“And so are the mistakes forgiven, of those who lacked the awareness to see the consequences of their actions?” says Vado.
“That, you may have more difficulty, imagining,” says the Living Land. “But it is so.”
“There was a saying among Humanity, in the times where our friend Shamilal Asano lived among them,” offers Tap. “’Forgiveness is the fragrance of the rose, upon the foot that trampled it.’” And it’s true. We plants forgive the missteps of humanity. The essence that makes Life in us, we share without cost.” “What is within us, comes out when squeezed,” says Vado.
“And that is why Love,” says the Living Land, hugging her, “ is within you- and without.” Play
Free link: https://gamescreate.com/games/show/5023
“The longing to see someone so,” says the Living Land, thoughtfully. “Yes, that was my story, too. Those who last dwelt within my embrace sought wholeness.”
Tap feels an explanation arise, to state whence they came of late, together.
“There is said to be, in the world where the Pyramids are found, greatest abundance. Let’s travel to the stars! Said those people. Let us remember we have friends and fear not the cosmos. Some living thing, though, exists among that host, changed to devour the energy of motivation, as though bottomless with a need for love. So the paradise found has become obscure.”
“So is MY story, of those who did sit among my cool mosses and insectoid songs,” replied the Land.
“Am I again, through you, in the homeland? My travels took me from there, to a land I thought felt like the Future, for if it were the past, then it was an age undreamt of by my Silver Claw people of the Dome. I accepted there was only the present; perhaps all I knew and loved were now in my heart, but a world, passed. But the ultimate journey of a scout is ever to cross boundaries unknown in the daily life of one’s tribe.”
“I am of your land, and am here, too,” says the Living Land. “For now, you are simply Home.”
“Who were the last to set foot in you?” asks the plant person.
“In me sat a daughter, who answered her mother, her Queen of Dreams. Her sadness had been buried by a brook, which gurgled with stones smooth since childhood. The daughter came to me to escape those who want command, want authority her free spirit will not permit.”
“She sounds like me,” says Vado, nodding. “There was a time she felt her mother did not love her so much as she had, when she was learning to first speak.”|
“Plant parents never really lose touch,” says Tappandally. “We know we’re connected!”
“Such is the world of minds,” says Vado Bujinka. “Take it from one who loved to master the languages of people near and far. There are words together that mean ‘loneliness.’”
“So were the words of this daughter,” says the Living Land. “But the words, as they came, were a victory, a way for little streams of the eyes to reach the greatness of the Sea. The feeling had arisen in her, beneath her many fanciful stories of angels and their plans to love and follow her. This Flame had sat on a smoldering ember, popped away from the hearth that kindled her.”
“She came to blame those who had tended the fire. One of the greatest logs for whom the Hearth burned had deserted her body. Now, with ashes by her side, the Hearth burned more dimly.” When one of her five children had fallen in love one day with the water, the five went to play by the Lake. But that Joy left her body, to become one of the angels. Though she would never leave her mother, never leave her siblings, her breath did leave her. What remained was a body, swept in the current, left by its awareness to sleep and grow no more. This mother, this Queen of Dreams, felt this was against the natural course of her love. Were they not laid upon her breast, to live as six who would burn brightly? Were not her children made to burnish long after the Hearth’s spark left in peace? How had she failed to illuminate and heat them, nurture them all to full adult Flames?
Now, Vado Bujinka and Tap envision these stories, differently. Tappandally, of the woods themselves, saw a tale of lumber and sparking bark.
Vado sees something in a long-past time. In that age, many were the people of the planet. They had learned to build machines to make distances more quickly, on ground sea and air. In that scene, this Queen of Dreams is but a maiden, herself, mother to children, only as she herself reached adulthood. She imagined herself a humble country girl- too humble to trust solely in her own will. For this melancholy reason, she had consented to relinquish her dream of six children. After all, they could not faithfully see the means by which to take care of them each. How that fear led her to the surgical severance of the tunnels within her, burning away the receptors of her fertility. It was for the best, they told her. She was not so certain. It was the first time she’d relinquished a life long dream. Just as she came to accept the birth of her fifth child, another girl, in the fullness of time, she did not again give birth, but gave one of her sweet ones, unwillingly.
Her tender tears could not call back her little girl from the waters, for she was gone, instead, to the air, to the stars. And now, in the name of some religious scheme, she was told:
“Let your little ones go elsewhere to play. You must sit and pray, listen for your God to heal you.”
But this was not always her will. After all, were not her four remaining children her divine sparks?
“And this daughter was one of these sparks,” says Tappandally.
“Do fires make you fear?” asks Vado of her buddy.
“Why, not at all,” says Tap. “Fires help us plants uncomplicate our lives. We know when we burn, we fertilize the ground for what will come again. There is again space for something fresh and new!”
“So this daughter did not understand why her mother would not see her.”
“The children were told: go away! Your mother needs to spend time with God.”
“Sounds like an awful punishment!” said Tap.
“For mother and children,” says Vado. “If they never understood in their hearts, how their mother never stopped loving them, then surely, they went on to pain and loss with their own children.”
“So deep was the unthinking damage done,” says the Living Land, with a tremulous sigh. “The pain of the siblings who did have children was never healed. They grew to imagine a life where they were separated from their own children.”
“And all in the name of some misguided human advice,” spits Vado, “claiming to know better than She, where her Creator and Creations lay.”
“’I’m NOT happy with that part of my family,’ said this daughter to me. She sat upon my cool, staunch stones, like a throne of less comfort- bur resting. We lived with them for just a while, she told me- my dad was on furlough from the Air Force. They took control of her grieving. They made her feel like she failed as a Mom! But my Mama was never a failure!’
“Then she turned her head, to place it in the bosom of my limbs,” continues the Land. “She cried because she could not comfort her mother, who needed her children. That is where she found the Divine; in their needs, in her purpose, is where she found her name, victory. She cried because her mother loved her, but was asked not to focus on being their mother. And so, she lost that ability somewhat. Her instincts withered, as learning to punish herself further for the past would exonerate her soul of what ever lay beyond her control! But what could one so young do, in a time when mothers lost sovereignty in the face of lip service to God?
What God was theirs, more than I, a giving place of Life? What Men dared to usurp the Creator, from one who had created and lost but had creations a’thriving to attend? What Women dared judge her silently, what hard heart would say: be not a mother, be a better servant of our Master?
Love as she might, separation and loneliness and anxiety and guilt grew, where once her duties lay.”
A gentle rain descends. In the misty, hazel garden, Tap makes of itself a fragile Lilly. “The daughter knows, now, though, does she not,” says Vado. “She knows her mother never loved her less.”
“Yes,” replies the living terrain. “For as you have so imagined it, so have the waters come, from the sky. Soon they will dry, upon the things that flowers have done.”
“And so are the mistakes forgiven, of those who lacked the awareness to see the consequences of their actions?” says Vado.
“That, you may have more difficulty, imagining,” says the Living Land. “But it is so.”
“There was a saying among Humanity, in the times where our friend Shamilal Asano lived among them,” offers Tap. “’Forgiveness is the fragrance of the rose, upon the foot that trampled it.’” And it’s true. We plants forgive the missteps of humanity. The essence that makes Life in us, we share without cost.” “What is within us, comes out when squeezed,” says Vado.
“And that is why Love,” says the Living Land, hugging her, “ is within you- and without.” Play
Sunstrike and Company: the Infinite Pyramid
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Vado Bujinka
Our dear friend was travelling out of the country for a few weeks to study. I started a fantasy story to entertain her a spell against homesickness.
All this time later, the character, who I was mulling over for a guest spot in another untold tale, pops into my noggin when I ran across a drawing challenge: draw your favorite Sword & Sorcery character!
A Half Moon genesis.
Here, I'm inking one level at a time: the thickest fills come from one end of my Copic Pen 100. Then I break out the Microns, and lay in the bottom lines that remain with my .7, then some fine details with the .03, then the .5 to fill the rest.
After that, I white out mistakes and redraw them. I need a less cruddy white out, so when the free stuff runs out I'm going to experiment with finding recommended brands.
So, with her science fiction trappings mixed with tribal magic and myth (and a healthy dose of R.E. Howard adapted by Roy Thomas in Conan the Barbarian), Vado (VAH-doh) insisted I employ my modest skills to her definition.
So here we are: over an hour penciling, then that again, maybe more, inking and photographing and head scratching. Truthfully, this is still but a beginning.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
So Truth May Survive
“So the Truth May Survive”
“Azuthar!” he calls from emptiness. He awaits a demon of the eighth dimension.
Sylvane’s eyes peer into the darkness, as he opens to the auditory place of Azuthar, a place where they co-exist and know each other---the dimension inspiring music to the human realm.
Across this seventh dimension bringing us sound, the archetypes idealize emotional portals that convey a sense of ourselves in the cosmos, but not so close to unity as to be subject to perfection (those of the ninth dimension are known as few). “zx..”
Colors seen in the fifth dimension, not meant to be paired with words without surrender to their intoxicating magic, open to create a spherical dial. He watches its surface rolling, effortless, inevitable, and then a glimpse into the pastiche of all realities seen if one’s consciousness dwells in the sixth dimension (so Oslar Bran had taught him when Sylvane visited the Citadel of the Children on the planet of earthly borne tomorrows, Kolpar. That time spent in the college invisible to mortal eyes had required the greatest price yet, until the one now at hand.
The harmonic, metallic voice, like an electric guitar, casts the sound of the spell, as the candles burn around the hotel room, barely lit here further in the sky than any window above the sea, lapping dark and eternal with our secret origins evolved divergently as it flows without difference to the air and all lands.
Peacefully, Sylvane waits for Azuthar to communicate---to open. The mercy he has upon his own soul balances him as he attracts a most tempermental and brooding personage, whose aggressive form required knowledge lest Azuthar sunder all one may hold dear.
So: as Sylvane begins to detach from words, he seeks his friends amidst the cosmos: the unheralded champion of Luxitica, Sun Strike, known before as Clay Alexander Reaves, in days when Sylvane made him laugh as they pretended their invulnerability, before the one who could help Clay most brought him the other two---his sons--- who would help him change the world with something better despite its insistence to test with pain and pain again.
Still Sun Strike maintains his power, there reaching out three hundred years from the place of his birth; he takes solar radiation, and, self-luminous plus expanding the sun ray focus, shines down upon the colony on a true moon, where his immortal sons pierce the secret to never-dying by the fountains unspoiled by many visiting without knowledge, searching the world standing in their father’s power.
The Valkyrie Maid appears astride her horse, thunderous to the mortal mind which beholds her. Winged for the stars, a super-hero of sixth-dimensional portions, Valkyrie Maid approaches Sylvane cold and icey as the vacuum itself. She sees Sylvane’s mind open to place he wishes to reach, his destination that would return him to his origin as well.
He knows the ability to see demons, for she has fended off many in her journeys between the courage on the battlefield and the lies made in place of the brave fallen ones, ever taking the battle-slain to their glory in what she calls Valhalla. With her Odin-created sword, she points to the direction in the void that clarifies Sylvane’s intention to meet with Azuthar, seen dancing like flame in his mind. She points, for were she to go in that direction herself, she would battle Azuthar furiously.
For this reason, Valkyrie Maid’s glare pierces Sylvane’s heart, and looks to what he holds dearly to his breast. Within Sylvane’s robe lies a block, which floats free across the void, making it obvious they would physically be face to face. He waits for recognition to light her face. Finally, the block rests between her fingers, sword sheathed as an after thought, and then is touched on four sides by her hand.
From each point arises a bright sphere of thirty points of light spreading out equally. The other three points unite and spin as one, orbiting the fourth. With their part in the spell, their extra-dimensional counterparts spin free of the spheres, in sixth dimensional bodies of legend themselves. Those forms wait, their presence giant in the distance here on the dark side of the moon. They prepare to safe guard Sylvane’s soul there on the outer rim of comprehensible existence.
The fourth sphere of thirty points becomes 26 symbols of chromosomes, and chooses to manifest now as a slightly glowing version of the human Frida Dylan-Reaves.
“You can use the block now to free the human selves of your family, while their spirits create my vanguard here at the edge of sanity. At least, I think we’re still on the fringe of the knowable.”
“Not that I’m not glad ta see ya, fuzzy wizard,” she says, “but why are you out here?”
“In your valkyrie form, you pointed out the way to the demon I must meet soon.”
“Yikes, man!” she says, shrugging. “But if I’m here, my man and my boys have got to be close by.”
“Couldn’t be closer,” Sylvane says, smiling. “Do you remember the adventure that led to you and Clay assuming cosmic forms?”
“Aw, it all started when we followed the Triplets back to that crazy world where my kids were baby-sat whenever fate transformed Momma into Valkyrie Maid.”
“It will come back to you more and more once we get you guys back to normal,” Sylvane says, “You’ve merged with powerful, superhuman forms starting with your vision of them in both cosmic energy and perfectly healthy human bodies. You all ended up three hundred years in the future, but I can provide you the thread back to your lives on Earth in the 21st century while your exalted forms guard my foray into madness, or perhaps wait to destroy me if I am corrupted by Azuthar.”
“Heavy!” Frieda says, whistling (how?). I know I’m going to regret asking, but why Azuthar? Sounds like a demon or supernatural power.”
“I have only asked one thing of Azuthar in my desperate summonings,” Sylvane replies, gazing off at the distant quasars beyond the M-class star floating with the moon base and its planetary body in its swirling tow. “I see your concern: I agree he is not to be commanded by any human under illusions as to his good, yet he plays a part in development of humankind, and his understanding will help complete the role of my cycle.”
“When appearing in the physical realm, he’s much less powerful---tho he seems brutal to most observers with the distinct displeasure of his company. Yet he plays in the lower frequencies, and so he has played a part in one final connection with my sister.”
“Are you …?” Frieda begins her question, then deletes its intention. “I hope Vado is doing well. Wasn’t she leaving the Dome Tribe for a journey, like her namesake?”
“She has,” he replies. “And this time, she must face her adventure alone, save for the kindness of one who will find her shortly. Her travel is a labor of great physical skill, and her survival depends on her keeping the path to Kohlit Gamma close at hand. She is willful and curious, and somewhat addicted to times of sadness, which cause her to explode with bitter frustration.”
“That is something that comes with being human,” Frieda says.
“Well, it’s learned more often than not in that state,” Sylvane replies. “But she has out grown her radio station and vegetable garden, and like a pot in need of transplanting, the need for her roots crushes her confinements or threatens they wither. She faces a journey now where I cannot help---I only seem able to harm with words, so I choose to be faithful to the vision of her success and fulfillment, empower that possibility. Before we discuss this any further, I think your memories return enough to strip the mask of concentration from your brow…”
“Yes,” she nods, “it’s coming back to me: I’m a valkyrie soul who chose to tread the world of Midgard to learn of the world of the slain heroes and their ways. And in that time, I was a normal girl, with a family…and even after the king of vampire kind revealed to me my nature and bond with death and life beyond, I still looked for the same thing…and took a hus---Clay! And my boys! Do you know…?”
“Let your soul sphere self free once again,” says Sylvane, “so that it may cleave to the others and present once again the man you help to make and the children to whom you gave birth.”
From Frieda’s closed eyes flow winds of cosmic generation, and before they again open, particulate globs create white silhouettes of bodies, while two sparks fly like meteors from their presence to rest in the slowly-forming water planet further out in the solar system. The single remaining energy divides in two, but not completely; at their stem of unity, a man begins to grow from a microscopic source, as the energy balls rush together with him at its center.
Together they join as one, producing a human version of Clay Reaves. The singular energy floats on, sending x-rays and gamma rays as they twist and combine and flow against the heavy, dark matter background, black crackles of energy radiant about their nimbus.
Their immortal sons stand in the waters of worlds without man.
With this honor guard to watch over his soul, Sylvane then turns his attention back to the floating human beings before him. He decides to provide a spell in connection with the witch from the borders of cedar town, the mysterious but generous D. C. Sharlet. Queen of hearths and homes, with a friendly smile she arrives on a cycle spinning star dust in her wake. “Who says these things are only stationary?” she chuckles. “Hullo, Fuzzy Sorcerer!”
“Hullo, D. C., “he replies. “is all gentle in the many eyes of the peacock?”
“She sends her cuddles,” D.C. says, slipping in a hug that envelopes Sylvane in a presence of great safety and nurture. “I thought I’d find you if I could pick the right moon of Saturn---it’s your ruling planet in your star chart, you know!”
By this inspiration, the magic in his heart and her special abilities evoke the human forms of Clay Reaves and his twin sons, restored to child form, tumble forth, also lit in glow, impervious to the rigors of space.
“I called upon your power to fondly grant these weary souls a time when they can be together and grow, if only for a few years of Earth time. Someday, it may be Me who needs that magical hitch, but now, I want to work with their cosmic forms, while they enjoy the human peace and love I hope one day to be mine again.”
D.C. the Witch turns towards her charges, the family of four floating freely.
“The power to return home,” D.C. intones warmly. “I remember when that ability was my great struggle. But just as I learned how to return home---to find dreams where I have a full life and home in more than one parallel world---I can help you maintain the dream link to this place where you have the power to seek immortality. But just the same, if I’m not mistaken, your heart’s desires are for home cooked meals and beds calling softly---to face another day on earth, passing time as a family while dreaming of immortal seekers.”
“Thank you,” says Sylvane. “Please take this necklace, the one with the red pearl in the middle.”
“How did you know I had a birthday coming up?” she says coyly.
“That red pearl is also a beacon,” he begins...
“A present and a favor request,” she replies. “You are getting the hang of this wizard thing.”
“Vado journeys alone,” he continues, “and this time she must remain alone, so that she might also decide the course of her life for all years to come. Not even Cary Jewel Kinder, nor friends from childhood, Zazook, Pinneypoppa, or Yaybob---in this one thing, there are none that may stand at her side, save in her heart. She will have one beloved friend, going forth to meet her as she travels, though he may be disguised at first. Eventually she should arrive at Kohklit Gamma Island.”
“Aw, you want to me to be there to bless her with a way home?” she says. “Okay. Your sister’s so crazy, Sylvane. Maybe the monkeys will carry her up into the trees.”
“If they have wings, they will probably be working for her,” he snarls sarcastically, shaking his head. D.C. laughs uproariously. They turn again to the Reaves tribe.
“Could I bid them farewell a moment?” Sylvane inquires of D.C., “before they go?”
“Should be okay,” she replies, stepping backwards into her beaded veil, closing slowly as an orange oval, contracting over a mist-filled area now containing the sorceress. “Don’t keep them out here in abstract-land too long, and tell’em take this beacon back through Misty Hazel’s Garden. The twins ought to know the way from there and take the same exit from there the Triplets take when the kids swap places.” Then she is out of line, safely back in her grove, where the hummingbirds grow hearty and evade the swift cats that prowl the yard.
Sylvane, heavy at heart, wants to tell them so much, but with a pass of his hands, instead clears a channel for their words, before he passes beyond the realm where words may serve. His old friend Clay speaks:
“Sylvane! So…what took ya so long?”
“You were really expecting me?”
“I wasn’t really expecting anything,” he replies more seriously.
Sylvane quickly repeats D.C.’s instructions, finishing with, “the portal’s relay, the one the Triplets used to swap places with your children in dangerous circumstances.---from there the portal should take you back within a week or so of when/ where I last traveled the woods with my sister.”
That sounds great,” Clay replies. “I could stay out camping by that lake forever!”
“Well, good luck man.”
“I’ll have you with me, trust me,” Sylvane replies, waving. “I’ll be stopping by for a Kopi Luwak some day soon.”
“I’ll look that up,” Clay replies, “and we’ll probably just have Dr. Pepper.”
“And don’t forget, children who eat more candy as kids are more likely to be arrested for violent crime as adults, so…buy comic books…”
“Yeah, way to mess with trick or treat, ya b—“ the taunt finishes in a stopper-like pulling shut of the area where the four formerly floated, swirling away down the other side of the contracting orange oval that receives their human, protected selves.
“I am glad,” he says to no one remaining, “hearth and home can be for someone.”
After a pause, he thinks: “this heaviness must leave my heart; I am called to many strands across many facets of reality---and I have languished before all of them, at too low a vibration to affect any of the struggles that compel my aid, for my all-too-human feelings fluctuate my resolve. Now I go to face the demon I’ve called forth, to lay aside that heaviness...and to face death, and the end of death...”
In the distance, the strength of his friends stands guard, as Sylvane reaches out into the final darkness.
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