Kin of Jörmungandr

There’s no bends crossing the void, so the simple path isn’t there. The next idea to come to mind is to gather speed and throw myself across… but that is a long distance to cross, and the crevasse falls deep into the earth. Far out of sight below. I don’t want to know what would happen should we fall.

Even building up my greatest speed and flinging myself from the highest point, I do not think I could make it. It would be close, but not so close I’d risk it.

Still, it would be helpful to reach the only stable slab of ranked stone I’ve seen. Where the rest tumble and roll into the churning earth, this one is still; teetering on the cliff of flowing rock, but never tipping. If it truly is stable, we can rest there.

I turn to pass through a hole that leads to another air-pocket within this mass of shifting ground and search along the ledge for a way around. Unfortunately, this cavern is no different. The chasm lacking any spatial bends extends even as far as this rift has taken me.

We are too far to see the stable island anywhere except through distortions. The direct opposite of this part of the chasm is nothing but a tall cliff-face of churning gravel with the occasional patch of wet mud or large ranked stone segment peeking out. If not for those protruding blocks of ranked stone, I’d believe I am looking at some form of invisible wall. But no, when I whip some rocks, they tumble over the side as if there weren’t something holding back the rest of all this earth.

Unfortunately, it looks like there won’t be any easy crossing. Though, it isn’t all bad. If one island is wedged into the ledge, there could be another. One on our side of the chasm.

For the next good while, I slither through the holes that connect many of the open caverns formed within this ocean of semi-liquid stone. Too often to count, I have to dodge waves of stone that decide to form from nowhere. The frequent falls of grinding stone are no less of a problem, but it’s the massive shards of that greater-than-ranked-stone substance that slow me down the most.

When they appear, they block off immense areas for a while. And that’s without considering the often occurrence that they’ll send me back the way I came when they lazily spin my way. Some shards are so large entire caverns disappear for extended times. Sometimes porous and sometimes smooth. Jagged in parts, then curved in others, the shards are unlike anything I’ve seen.

I don’t know what to call the shards. They are harder than rock, but clearly not the same. The Beyond isn’t here to answer, so I’ll have to name it myself. At least until I get a proper label when the Beyond returns.

It has a similar gleam as the amber barrier, though not nearly as intense. Like stone, it is opaque, but somehow gives off the same lustre as a crystal.

Hmm… what about hard crystal?

I hiss audibly, as if the sound will make sense as a question.

Scia squeaks in denial.

I stare at her; she’s risen from the comfortable thrum to stand defiant. Scia holds her head and glares at me with those too-large eyes.

Is hard crystal really that bad of a word choice? It’s of the same vein as ranked stone.

Wait… did she understand what I was thinking from my hiss, or is this something else?

I hold still for a moment, glancing around for what she might have heard that I can’t. But nothing comes. Scia huffs and slumps to my back again. She slaps my scales with her healed wing, a cute demand to start the low rumble in my chest again.

I watch her, slightly confused, but very near bursting out in hissing laughter. It’s unlikely she understood me. I must have simply slowed my rumbles too much for her liking.

For a few moments, I consider simply not doing as she wishes. Not because I don’t want to, but because teasing her is growing to be one of my favourite things to do. When she pouts and slaps her wing against me again, the rumbling hiss is completely unintentional.

Well, if she can make me chuckle like that, she deserves the comfort it brings. I watch as she relaxes into my back again, ignorant to the still dangerous environment around us.

Really, I’m acting no different than her. This is the Other Side. The worst place I could ever imagine finding myself… and somehow it doesn’t seem all so horrible. At least compared to the amber barrier in its current state or the abyss.

Despite not being the intent, she did react when I asked. So hard crystal is a no, huh? It’s not all that important in the first place, so I can simply continue calling the giant landmasses shards.

❖❖❖

After a while, I find myself back at the original chasm. Right across from that island that sways and teeters at the edge of the rock-fall without ever falling.

No other slab of ranked stone lingers in place like this one does. The conditions I assume are required must be so rare in the churning stone landscape of the Other Side, that the occurrence of this one is strange. The walls continually slide around, consuming the air that was safe only moments ago. Nowhere here remains unconsumed by the grinding rock sea forever.

Except this island.

Something about this chasm has frozen what touches it into an unusual consistency, at least for this place. The cavern still moves — taking the island with it — but it does so as a whole. The near circular cross-section where the chasm cuts through the cavern is the same as it was when I first found it.

Despite that, there is no barrier I can find. I made a sweeping path alongside it — careful to stay where I wouldn’t find myself in an endless fall — and poked my tail out into the crevasse. Nothing stopped me. Nothing so much as felt off. The space is as normal as any other orderly area.

I’m close to giving that leap a try. If I can use the strength of my larger form to flick off myself and shrink quick enough, I might be able to carry enough momentum to cross the distance. But no, I’m still not certain that would take me across, and I won’t risk so much on a chance.

It’s about time I give up on the island and expand further away. A rest would be nice right now, but it isn’t necessary. I can keep going for a while. A while that won’t last forever, so I can’t waste all my time on an unachievable objective. Even if the idea of it being unachievable itches at my mind.

I’m turning to give up when Scia chirps. She blinks to the tip of my snout and flaps her wings a couple times. She angles her head toward the other side of the crevasse, eyes wide in joy as if excited to show off.

At my blank, uncomprehending stare, she droops slightly. But she is quick to pull herself straight, and leap from me and dive out into the crevasse.

I jerk, momentarily forgetting that she can fly, and nearly send myself into the distortion void.

Scia, completely ignorant to my foolishness, allows herself to fall into a bend she creates which inverts her momentum and launches her upward. She catches herself with a beat of her wings and flies with a distinct victorious pose, as if I should praise her.

When that praise doesn’t come — for I have no idea what she’s trying to show me — her attitude flips and she sulks. Scia slumps onto my snout again, half glaring, half pouting up at me. She can look at me like that all she wants; it won’t help me understand her any better.

I’d like to understand, but there’s no use treading air without any way to cross the chasm. As we turn away, Scia’s pout deepens. It would be nice to know why, but I cannot decipher what she wants.

Suddenly, Scia’s eyes widen again, sulking forgotten. She spins forward and creates a bend right before us. I’m not going so fast that I can’t avoid it, but she must have a reason to form the distortion, so I slide through without resistance.

The bend takes us less than a body width away, but angles us upward. I immediately allow myself to grow while twisting my head for whatever danger reached Scia’s ears.

I cannot grow too large, as I still need to swim through the distortions to keep out of the fluid earth, but some added mass won’t go unwanted when dealing with some unknown beast. Especially one that considers the Other Side its home.

But there is nothing.

No beast. No falling river of stone. Not even a shard. I cannot see anything that might have made Scia throw us out of the way like that.

The little bat gives a huff of exertion, but quickly recovers and turns back to me with those same expectant eyes of a few moments ago.

This… was not an attack? That is a relief; I almost thought my senses might have been defective. The thought rakes at my pride, but I ignore the invasive emotion’s demands to take it back.

It takes little more than an instant to realise that she created this bend to show me something linked to her earlier demonstration, but exactly what that is still eludes me. She jerks her head back to the crevasse, and I finally understand.

She wants me to leap. Scia believes she can help me across with her bends. I’d thought it was too much for her, but she might have exhausted herself when pulling me out of the centipede’s clutches because I’d not been in my smallest form. Clearly she can handle it, though; she proved that just then.

But the question is whether we should risk it.

Scia — despite her obvious good intent — do I trust that she won’t fail? If she misses, or angles the bend the wrong way, we would tumble far. Farther than I have any trust in surviving unless we lucked out with some convenient distortions to slow our fall. I’ve already searched below; no matter how far down we go, the crevasse continues.

I very much do not want to fall.

But those eyes are hard to ignore.

I hiss. Both a sigh of agreement and in resignation of what I’ve become.

Scia twirls, letting out a happy chirp flurry as she beats her wings. Obviously, she likes the idea of being understood. She seems to understand the meaning behind my hiss rather accurately, and she quickly calms herself back onto my head, knowing I don’t share her excitement for this plan.

My body shrinks again while I contemplate the intelligence of doing as Scia wants. It is a Scia plan, through and through; risky and suicidal. So why am I going through with it? A single thing going wrong could be both our ends. I’m supposed to be the one looking out for us. The one who doesn’t foolishly ask a predator for a ride.

But the confidence in her eyes sways me.

Despite knowing better, I cannot oppose her determination to prove herself useful. As soon as Scia is ready — clinging tight to my snout — I snap forward without giving myself any time to truly think this through and allow doubts to creep in.

I trust Scia.

Before I know it, I’m out over the crevasse, in undistorted space. I slither through the air, bending my body in a series of curves that helps to angle my descent. And before long, we are falling.

My downward momentum increases, dragging us down further and further. We dip lower than the ledge of the cliff, and yet Scia hasn’t made her bend yet. I don’t let the doubts creep in. The little bat can do this.

I trust Scia.