--- Forward ---
The following work is intended as a prequel to an older project that had stalled. The story in its original format had grown stale and repetitive. While i was pleased in the original state of the characters, it was lacking plot. The particular format it was written in was over complicated involving extra coding and arrangement. Eventually it just become too much for a single person to work on without the plot suffering. The point of this project being to fill in the gaps of the history of the world they live in.
A special thank you to all of those that inspired and helped me with this project:
Cock Angel, d3vi0n, philo, seraph0x, Trusfrated, 1885, Aika, AngelAnna837, cactusman, Fenroxo, fibonacci, Incubo, Nezhul, Stair_Car
Often I wonder if these dreams of fancy are from my imagination? Or am I being compelled to channel these words from another author of some distant realm. It is no longer a question of how we, the readers, envision these strange and mysterious realms. Rather how strange and mysterious our world is perceived in their eyes.
--- Chapter I ---
Some things in life seem to be universal. Cemen Marehte, while being quite beautiful, is from a common sleepy village, of an ordinary outer kingdom of no significant consequence. Having come of age to where she can leave the proverbial parental nest, employed but not established in life, the day to day struggles of youth trying to make a place in the world to exist. Is this not a universal concept to all sentient beings in their early adulthood?
Of course a youthful beautiful female with long golden locks framing peaches and cream skin, pierced with crystal blue eyes of sapphire, she might have an easier time in life that most. It was not long before talent scouts discovered such a beauty coming of age, offering employment contracts with long lengthy confusing terms of service. With the help of her parents to read though the tangled web of legal jargon, all of which included clauses with words such as "Exotic", "Unadorned" or more simply "Undressed". Such would be expected to be offered to a young women that possesses such a lithe and youthful form. Her body was already that of a dancer, neither buxom nor lacking in hillock. Well toned muscles yet the silhouette of soft feminine form. The way the long points of her ears tantalize as they peek out from behind soft locks of golden strands as if begging for gentle caress. Some things never change now do they?
Oh! Yes of course! The long pointy ears? Did I fail to mention that she is not human? That she has never visited Earth, much less she has never traveled to the universe in which the Earth resides in? And yet, some things remain universal. However her kindred does not share the same puritan predisposition of shaming public nudity. If anything, in their own manner of ethics through the moral codes of their society, they embrace public nudity as being a natural and beautiful form of expression. They do however frown upon nudity to be sullied as a form of entertainment. Even worse was to consider nudity as a form of employment. Cemen, while being of age by law had the right to make such decisions on her own volition, she was not that desperate either.
Looking back to Cemen's coming of age, as with all others of her race while suffered the fever of wanderlust. The concept in our world of the typical adolescent seeking independence from their parents can not hold a candle to the fever of wanderlust in which the Elvin Fae suffer at the end of their adolescence. While we seek independence, they have a driving need for exploration. About the closest comparison in our world would be that of the Aboriginal Walk About. All of the Elvin Fae are driven by animal instinct to travel to far off lands to explore the realms and become knowledgeable of the various denizens and their foreign customs.
Looking back it was a different time in an older era, things were different then. Time in the realm of Nod is not tangential compared to what we experience on Earth. The vortexes and voids found throughout the hyper dimensional regions separating the universes we reside in, there is not a direct linear translation of time for comparison. While there is not always agreement on the perspective order of events, individual events can in general be compared to a rough estimate.
For what we would consider the early Technological Revolution, Cemen eventually found employment in a traveling troupe of performers as an assistant. From dancing on tightropes, to being sawed in half in the performance of illusion, she looked magnificent in what remained to be rather skimpy costumes. It covered just enough for dignities sake, but this job was her ticket to travel the realms. Her plate was never lacking, her bed was warm at night, and her clothes were never dingy nor dirty. For her kind, these are truly the important things in life. Even more so for those suffering wanderlust as most material possessions are nothing more than shackles that chain them down.
As I had mentioned before, Cemen has never traveled to Earth, but our kind are not unfamiliar in their world as we travel there every night. To us, they are imaginary flights of fancy, nothing more than superstition and folk lore to explain dreams to a more primitive culture. To them, we are a very real aspect of their world, though mere shadows of incorporeal form. The spirit of every sentient being manifests in the Dreaming while they sleep. When dreams take on more sustenance, such as reoccurring characters or locations, this would denote that a dreamer has crossed over into the realm of Nod. To all but those denizens that enjoy the role of thespian, they view dreamers the same as we would consider the local flora and fauna of our own world.
While our world resides in a single universe of the physical realm, her world resides in the trifecta interlaced universes of the Dreaming, Nod and the Astral. The natural laws of what we call physics are not shared between these realms. Actually there is also the fourth realm of the Ethereal but other than the rare random traveler passing through, that realm is desolate and uninhabited. From the perspective of the local denizens of these realms, it is as easy to transition between realms as we would consider walking to the corner store. However on the rare event of the troupe preforming in the Dreaming, they either considered it cheep advertising, or charity work. The problem being that the Dreaming has no physical laws that supports payment. Where money and other riches exist per say, with the constant flux of change a handful of coin one moment becomes a handful of posies the next.
Her performance troupe traveled between these realms but no further. Travel to the Physical had been completely cut off in recent centuries, and travel to the outer realms were considered too hazardous. However Cemen started to notice that whenever they were preforming in any of the central trigram kingdoms of Nod that she would notice foreign faces in the crowd of races unfamiliar to her. Soon she learned of the World Gate hosted by the Seraphim in the central core. It became understood that tourism was common in the central kingdoms because most realms recognized it as neutral territory. The troupe never traveled through the world gate, the great unknown fanning the flames of wanderlust. This can not go unexplored.
It began as a weekend pastime. About every decade or so the troupe would be in the central kingdoms, Cemen would take time off to explore the World Gate. What is but a decade to the lifetime of an Elf? The first time while uneventful, was slightly embarrassing. Approaching the marble structure of the World Gate, standing abreast of it in a constant vigil were a pair of tall armored Seraphim. The gleaming sword strapped to their shoulder was taller than she was! "Erm, excuse me? I am allowed to pass through the world gate?" The first Seraphim remained at attention ignoring her question. The second with a heavy sigh and effort on his part to prevent rolling his eyes at the ignorance replied,
"Yes of course, you may travel the realms freely."
The first barely moving, slanting his eyes at his partner. The second jerked at this glance, quickly returning to silence, staring forward, standing at attention.
Passing through the gate the first time, on the other side was white. Other than a mirrored copy of the gate itself, the universe was white. Experimenting Cemen quickly discovered that simply thinking of travel would move her in the direction that she thought of. Still though, only white and the shrinking image of the World Gate behind her. Careful at first not to wander too far, in the beginning she kept near the World Gate. Devoid of any other landmark beyond the World Gate, what the ancients of our world would have called Yggdrasil, the White Void was just that. A white void.
This became her playground. When ever the troupe was traveling through the central kingdoms she almost always managed to schedule a day off to visit the World Gate. It was obvious that this was somehow used for transportation. On rare occasion she even ran across travelers as they were bound to Nod. She would ask them of their travels, but most would not have a language in common with her. On the off chance that they did have a common language, the typical reply was that of,
"Go home before you get yourself into trouble! This is no place for a young lady such as yourself!"
Of course this was ever more fuel to feed the fever of wanderlust. Eventually while the troupe was traveling through the Astral, Cemen discovered a second World Gate was hosted by the Seraphim was there as well. She tried questioning them but they stood silently at attention ignoring her words. Again to explore the White Void, and once again to discover nothing more than a white void.
Her trips through the World Gate became ever braver, to travel just until the World Gate vanished from view, and to turn around and find it again. No landmarks to go by other than what she could envision in her memory. Further and deeper each time into the void as she grew more confident. This continued during her occasional visits to the World Gate until success! She bridged the gap between the World Gates of Nod and the Astral! While it is easy enough to transition between realms, you are still in the same relative geographic location. As the two World Gates were in different geographic regions, this presented a possible shortcut!
Excitedly she shared her findings with the troupe, only to be told once again that it would be too dangerous a journey. As well, the Seraphim would bar a large group of people traveling the void together as that went against the treaties of neutrality. At best, they might allow groups of five to travel as a band provided they were not armed with any heavy weaponry. Even then, the Seraphim would never allow the caravan of carriages and cargo vehicles to pass. Disappointed at this news, Cemen at least got to continue to explore the White Void when ever she had a day off near them. Having seen such foreign visitors pass through the gates, there were obviously more than just the two of them. She wanted to find another.
While exploring the White Void in one of her deeper dives into the unknown, she spotted a black dot off in the distance and headed towards it. Eventually coming into view, a pair of eyes on two stalks emerging from a mass of writhing tentacle appendages catches sight of her. If you can imagine if you will the sound of how a cricket rubs its wings to chirp, only this being the sound of tentacles rubbing against its own slick viscous covered tangled mass.
