Chapter Tree: Expand...-

[(c) 2006 Kyrinn S. Eis, All rights Reserved]

'YOUR Fear is going to destroy you. You will be alone at the end, and --' Lthrus said almost pleadingly.

"Is this one of your prophecies?" Kynkrea had asked at the time Lthrus had simply shook her head, then, 'No. I just --'.

"Shh.. You know I love you..."

'That's not enough; just knowing...'

"Look down the corridor, now. Look into the Timeshadows. What do you really see, El?" Kynkrea dared Lthrus.

Lthrus pulled away from her, looked down. 'Death. Yours and millions of others in an instant.'

Kynkrea had long ago accepted that as an unavoidable part of her mission. The truth that she half toyed-with was that she welcomed the thought.
Now, after having died once, she was almost fearless. Fearless of her death, but still frightened at the prospect of her failing to accomplish her singular goal.

'Why must you do it?' Lthrus pleaded this time.

"No one else has the vision or guts to do it; to even think it possible." As she replied, Kynkrea was already half-there, in that future timeframe she imagined as clearly as a memory.

Lthrus said something else that she hadn't heard then, while Kynkrea thought of her last, and purest act.

'Kyn!' Lthrus had demanded her attention.
Kynkrea grew cold and distant, actually pulling her shoulder away as she softly pushed Lthrus back. "I've got to go...now." Now, because if not then, she would never have left.

*

Here and now, Kynkrea passed over double four-lanes of ground vehicle traffic, then flew on in the darkness toward the main terminal of the air field. She passively observed the lumbering, ill-designed behemoths that crept along the runway or miraculously landed with screeching tyres as they hurtled down the same surface hoping to slow enough to come in safely for disembarkation of cargo and, or passengers. They had still used craft similar to these in the Yaesh lands of the far East, but even those were less idiotically designed than these.

"You've got some weird kids here, Lord." she said aloud.

~...~

Finally, Kynkrea passed over an area bustling with folk moving to and fro She touched down in the few shadows afforded by the odd angles of the lights on the sides of the structures.

She used Sre, the healing manifestation of her power to cleanse and repair her clothing.
Kynkrea then stepped out and into the flow of pedestrian traffic. She received a few looks, but seemed to blend in well enough that her entry into one of the terminals was unopposed.
Security seemed non-existant until she spotted a few light-duty troopers with a wolfish looking dog on a leash. They patrolled with no attention, discussing something banal amongst themselves.

The que for check-in was essentially the same as what she was used to, but there were no group transports from the desk to the flight as in her native Bereme Oykh or most other civilised lands on Urutsk.

What am I doing here again? She asked her Sovereign.

~'To your left, across the plaza, and toward the gate.'~ He replied.

Kynkrea had an odd sense of calm urgency, more like soulish momentum. Whenever she felt that it preceded some small footnote in her destiny, usually a terribly dangerous situation in which her bleeding normally resulted. She just sighed, her eyes narrowing to identify the threat.

As she approached one of the search lines, there was a commotion ahead and maroon-jacketed personnel quickly moved to investigate.
Screams and the line ahead of her fell away, scattering like shrapnel from an exploding bomb casing.

She saw three men marginally kept at bay as light-duty troopers began to close in from the very furthest section of the corridor beyond.
The men looked Turilli in her own world's description; dark complected, haired, and eyed, but with softer facial architecture than her Vrun cousins. More akin to her own continental Yirinn ethnicity.

'We have explosive!' One of them shouted, then showed a belt laden with what looked like low-grade Poly-Methal-Hydronol explosives, certainly enough to decimate the personnel and severely damage this part of the structure.

Time slowed to a crawl as Kykrea's hypervigillant critical senses tore the circumstances aprt bit by bit.
Something wasn't all it seemed to be. The men were under a sort of duress that didn't fit their suicidal mission. Perhaps they were uncertain if their bomb(s) would detonate, but she thought it odd that the men would bring the fact to the authorities' attention rather than simply blowing themselves up.

Her head turned by divine agency and she looked at a man some distance behind her communicating to what must be a hidden microphone in his shirt collar. The man was studying and relaying the situation to others, and seemed unconcerned with the turn of events. Her head then turned again toward the bombers, and two of them looked at the man.

Then the explosives went off...

Seeing the onrushing shockwave, Kynkrea just managed to activate her field as she was knocked back by the blast. Plastics aflame all around her as her fiery aura melted and ignited the synthetic clothing she had landed atop as the windows shattered into the store.

By instinct Kynkrea began to rush out in an attempt to help survivors, but better judgement prevailed, and she dropped her field and stumbled out slowly.
Almost immediately she was pulled out of the area by first responders. Waving-off oxygen, Kynkrea allowed them to look her over and check her vitals -- readings which worried the tecnicians.

Finally, she was cleared medically, and was then escorted into a room with a nice wooden desk whose cut brought out deep ripples in the grain over which the chemical sealant then rested in blinding sheen.
After some time she was given a pad of yellow writing paper and a fuming stylus that was a joy to use. The man was also dark complected but in a more Durnish way, though mixed in over a few scattered generations of Vrun ancestry.

"Do you speak English? Hablar Espanol? Qu-"

"I can understand you just fine. I'm just...a litt-" Kynkrea was then interrupted by this man.

"Shaken up. Of course. Of course. Just take your time use the marker and write little notes until the agent arrives, okay miss?" He asked in a half-practised way, himself disturbed or distracted by something about her. "Please give us as detailed a description of what you saw as you can. An agent will be in to interview you in a few minutes. Just use this time to write down the first things that come to your mind -- just as they come to you, okay?" He looked at her for a long moment, then apologised for staring.

Kynkrea nodded and looked away shyly and picked up the 'marker' and began drawing the scene in perspective. The officer looked at it and tangibly grew more concerned before walking out.

*

"Do you have smaller tipped markers?" Kynkrea asked, looking over her shoulder at several individuals. A sour-looking, beautiful, raven-haired and very pale woman with clip-board clasped rigidly at her waist. Next to her stood a tall blonde man whom others would surely see as handsome, but did not linger in Kynkrea's mind as interesting. Next, the officer she had interacted with first. Lastly a more handsome dark-haired man with rough looks.

Kynkrea smiled. "Like a ball-tip?" She made the sign for something 'small'.
Everyone just stood there for a moment, before the original officer and the darkly handsome one both produced a pen, each.

Kynkrea saw one was black, the other blue, and took both. She went back to work and started describing the scene.
The group were visibly stunned by her architectural rendering of the scenes -- multiple pages, on which she now used the smaller tipped 'markers' to detail with shading, hatching, and lighting effects.

The woman listened to every word, and was glad it was all being recorded back in the next room over in the security office. A schizophrenic genius on our hands...Great... Agent Saunders thought to herself.

After over two hours of stream of consciousness-inspired narration and illustration, Kynkrea replayed the entire experience in such detail and analysis that all of the group had simply found seats around the desk and listened. Some closed their eyes to aid them in seeing what she was describing from her vantage point.
Saunders noticed that in all of it, no motives were assigned by Kynkrea to the persons in her account, and that for all of her intensity and charm, she revealed nothing of her own personality; a rigid wall -- expertly masked -- that kept her true intentions and assessment a mystery.

Saunders took out a pack of cigarettes.
"Kel- c'mon. Not in here..." The blonde man asked of her. She waved him off and lit the long, black cigarette. It had a clove smell to it, among other chemicals Kynkrea could tell were no good to inhale.

At that, Kynkrea ended her dissertation, placed the styli on the pad, and scooted it toward the darkly handsome, 'Baez'.
He accepted it with a wry smile and projected great admiration for Kynkrea's mind and ability.

"Where are you from?" Saunders asked in a softly brusque or overly familiar tone. Kynkrea smirked at her with cat on cat mentality. Her way of swishing her tail to show her understanding of the approach.

"Just found myself here, recently. Came into town a couple-- few hours ago. How about you?" Kynkrea's smile softened and she looked down submissively at the lustrous able top.

"What's your name? Where do you live? Where are you from?" Baez asked.

"Kynkrea Sholn Ays. I'm originally from Bereme Oyk, but have been living mainly in Kryssan City, Ain Sector, RCC." She looked at him with the slightest of friendly smiles.

The silence was deafening.

"Are cee cee?" He asked with the wrong inflection.

"The Resth Clan Confederacy of the Marnharnnan continent." She grabbed the pad again. Kynkrea then drew a Western Hemisphere coastline which clearly looked a lot like what they were expecting, but with different 'states' and only 31 of them. Kryssan city was apparently what she was calling New Orleans, while Bereme Oyk was Canada, with her 'arcology' located just above the arctic circle, in what she described as mountains that didn't exist in their reality.

The group had been silently nodding and mouthing messages to each other, some of which Kynkrea intercepted, and consisted of, "She is totally off her rocker." and, "Schizo, for sure..."

Not many questions were asked about what she had written.
"Am I free to leave?" Kynkrea asked them.

"We'd like to take you in for some more medical tests to make certain you are alright. We've done the same for the others we've interviewed." Saunders lied.

"Oh. I feel fine..." Kynkrea offered, now toying with the woman -- beyond her ability to realise the leading. Kynkrea was simply ushered out of the room, and escorted to a ground vehicle waiting outside in the covered driveway.
The air was cooler, but still muggy and foul smelling with exhaust fumes.

The drive was fast, and wound up ramps that took the tinted-windowed vehicle to a main highway, and South.
"I'm hungry." Kynkrea said with a happy grin on her face, looking to each of the others.

Chapter Tew: Embrace...-

[ (c) 2006 Kyrinn S. Eis, All Rights Reserved ]

THE Rain poured, then let up slightly, then half-faded to mist, then rolled back to downpour before finally ceasing.

Kynkrea was still too faint to fly, having expended much power in her regenerative outpouring of the force that lived like captive lightning within her.

The sun, obscured for over an hour by the clouds, now was soon setting, and the tempo of life in the woods was changing with the times. Creatures active during the daylit hours began to find refuge for the coming of night, while their nocturnal counterparts stirred to begin their shift under the canopy of darkness.

The buzzing of -- insects and amphibians, she guessed, were on the increase. A steady thrum punctuated by dozens of sub choirs each at their own frequency and amplitude. The song of night. Through the wet foliage and undergrowth; barefoot atop the saturated and cool sandy soil covered by mulched humis; Kynkrea walked silently.

She let her outstretched fingers caress the dewy leaves of low palm bushes; her arms down and slighty away from her body.

Birds, too added to the chorus, chattering of their day; communal greetings and assessments of the flock's integrity against possible predation during the day. They haunted the trees all 'round her with their imperceptible logic.

Kynkrea found all this very much like the lands of the Resth Clan Confederacy in which she had lived for years with her comrades at the Institute, back in Kryssan City, but the density of the air, the pull of gravity, even the monolithic vibration of the aether's pitch told her that she was on another world entirely.
This was not alltogether unusual for her, and certainly not after her strange journeys with her sister-souls, Kerie, and the hauntingly beautiful Lthrus.
She regretted the way they had -- the way she had parted from them. She was terribly sad at her loss of Lthrus -- likely the one woman in all the worlds she could truly be herself with. She let the soft tears flow as she ambled on in the woods.

Still, though the heaviness of melancholy cling to her like her soaked garments, Kynkrea found a way to smile. She knew, or at least, stongly suspected that they would accomplish their separate goals, leaving her to her own.
With the thought of her unfathomably distant point of travel in mind, Kynkrea tried anew to muster the power of flight.

The glassy flames ensheathed her and gravity's grasp was eluded. Reality, itself, peeled away from the frontier of her aura, and she was left without orientation; her own axes in multiple dimensions. With the glorious liberty of detachment from the surface, her path became an infinite quantum calculation of infinitesimal points; harmonisations of aether and nether, here and nowhere.
With this alien glory in her mind of two distinct brains, one masculine, the other feminine, Kynkrea rose above the tops of the trees, and was greeted by a stunning lanscape of deep greens and a river of oranges that swirled through crimson into violet. The sunset on this world was the most spectacular she had ever witnessed.

A white, snowy bird with long neck eyed her cautiously and veered away from her to join others of its feather by the trees that dotted the watercourse she had regained consciousness near. Like the continent of Marnharnna, this land was a spillway for waters that slowly filtered through unimaginable - 'acres' - of reeds and grasses. All around her the majesty of the the Creator's transcendant genius and creativity held her fast; enrapt.

"Paradisal." She gave praise to Him who made and sustained her.
New tears traced down her cheeks, and she felt renewed both without and within.
~'My chief residence; the world of My joy.'~ He whispered into her mind and heart.

"I can see that..." She mumbled as she took it all in.

She flew toward the setting sun, and climbed ever higher to continue her view of its magnificence, until it finally faded beyond the curvature of the planet. She could have pursued it; speed was not an issue; but to shred this air so cruelly just to oblige her lonely passion for the glories of that star... Unseemly, at best.

Now, in darkness, high-high above the wetlands, Kynkrea noted the lights of habitations by the hundreds and thousands, many 'miles' away.

"And now, my God?" She asked.
Her eyes were then trained upon a blinking light in the sky that descended with great rapidity toward a grand cluster of lights. A city, and the air field the craft moved toward.

~'There'~ He imparted wisdom and volition to her, and her desire then came to be its discovery.

"Again, I ask You. Where do You end, and I begin?" Kynkrea asked.
A warm smile within her preceded His reply.

~'Ever I AM; you I fill, still.'~

A fugue-state akin to her transposition of minds with the raven fell upon her for an instant, and she for that smallest period of time realised the merest shadow of the truth of it.

There was a sort of terror to it, but one that granted unassailable assurance of her security.

"Aye." Kynkrea replied as she shivered.

Below her the night sounds played out in rushing reeds as the lights of the city neared.

Chapter None: Remember...-

[ (c) 2006 Kyrinn S. Eis, All Rights Reserved ]

THE Air was moist, pregnant with humidity; the sky swollen in anticipation of the cooling rain.
Her first reaction to the sound of the soft gurgle of water from the shallow creek was one of near-blissful relaxation. However, this did not last. In the few moments -- fractions of a second -- that it took her mind to realise she was either dreaming, or somewhere entirely different from where she had just been moments earlier; in that brief span, she grew alarmed. The sort of fear that comes when you wake suddenly and cannot remember in which bed; in which lover's place; in which life you actually reside.

Though her heart raced and the cold electric acid prickles of fear spread from her spine (base to nape), she carefully opened her eyes.

Soft white light filtered down from the pastel blue sky filled with huge off-white clouds; so large that they, themselves, were almost terrifying. That is what greeted her and filled her vision at first glance. Then the tree leaves, branches, the smell of the soil and underbrush; the sounds of still, heavy air and creatures going about their lives around her supine form. This is what came next to her senses. Then...Then came the dampness of the ground, the awkwardness of her position as she lay upon it; the traces of pain from various places throughout her body. At last, she was beginning to fully awaken.

Then, the nagging questions: Where? Who? Why?
These were not unfamilliar to her, though she couldn't quite remember how she knew even that.

Image of an aluminium sieve; her hands holding the handles; 'pasta' in it; clear tap water flowing over the pieces, draining out; the bubbles formed in the holes.

She breathed in deeply and winced at the pain in her lower left rib-section, and forward right belly, near the hip. Bad pain lurked just around the corner, if she inhaled more deeply. She exhaled and heard something glush and gurgle in her belly -- hopefully just in her stomach or intestines. She couldn't be sure.

Her hands, arms were sore, but moved without real pain. She curled them around herself; clothed as they were, though nearly soaked through in warmth -- sweat?

Her throat was tight, but her mouth was not dry. She cleared her throat. PAIN in her torso, her abdomen, again.

"Alright..." She said aloud, and thought she almost certainly had internal injuries.
I can lay here all day, or I can see about trying to get up... She thought to herself.
She swallowed hard, then tensed-up her shoulder and neck muscles, and began to dig her palms and fingers into the nearly-muddy earth as she slowly lifted herself up.

No.
Something was terribly wrong in her belly. Near her right hip.
From her slightly elevated position, she could see...

The cold wash of fear -- dread... Irreconcilable scenery violating her self-image.

A piece of metal something pierced her body. It was torn, charred, and ... utterly alien looking. Large... Notebook-sized, and roughly triangular. A piece of machinery or fuselage.
She swallowed hard and lay back softly upon the soft, dark earth dusted as it were by grey silty-sand.

"Alright..." She said again. This time, less sure.

Minutes passed.
Tears came and went.
Pep-talks began and crumbled in fear, hopelessness, desperation.

She was forgetting something very obvious; something important.
Something that made all of this really not so bad...

All this time, birds had been chirping, singing, fussing in their myriad ways, but, understandably, she hadn't paid much attention to them.
Now...Now a raven came to rest on a low branch near her. It cocked its head several times, inquistitively, and sqwaked at her.

"Yeah. You may be getting some of me soon, hon. Just... Just wait until I'm --" She began, then started crying again. She didn't want to die. Not after everything she couldn't remember having happened, happening to her...

The raven continued to look on.
Something about its eyes...

Now she saw herself through its eyes, saw the piece of shrapnel from its vantage point, as well as her more superficial wounds; but most importantly, she saw her face -- and remembered.

Her mind now back in her own body; the raven startled by the temporary possession; she remembered, and laughed.

"I've been through far fucking worse." She smiled and sat up, and ate-up the pain like it was moldy bread granted by a merciful prison guard.
The bleeding began anew, but she grasped the piece of metal, and; surprised by its lightness; pulled it out with a great, wet suckking sound from her wound.
She heard the squeak of her clenched teeth, but grunted a snotty laugh.

Then she dared to believe that it all was true; the memories without context; and half-growled, half-cackled as the glassy flames appeared first from her soiled right hand, then washed over her entire body. They shimmered like heat shadows; pure crystaline; colourless.

The agony was cathartic, and each heartbeat -- quickened as they were -- brought masochistic relief to her sundered form. Bone reknit; blood loss stopped; flesh wove itself back together. Wholeness returned to fill the hole.
The ground steamed 'neath her.

Then it began to rain as her field inadvertantly triggered a lightning stroke.

As the rain fell upon her, she laughed and caught it at a distance within her boiling telekinesis.
Her aura; her fiery diamond soul; took on infinite prismatic fractal forms; paisley spirals; chaos mirrors, all hissing as the raindrops boiled away into their constituent bits.
Ozone filled the air, and everything was alright.