A Hand-Woven Universe 26 26. Unfathomable

In another part of Tapestry, a tall lithe figure stumbled over his robes and was sent sprawling onto the ground. Around him everyone who had been going about their own business looked over.

"Are you okay Liter?"

"Yeah, yes. Sorry." He scrambled to his feet and rushed to smooth out his robes. As he was smoothing them out, he noticed a small fray at the end of one of his sleeves. He stared daggers at it for a moment before shaking his head.

"Pardon me," He smiled and waved at the people who had stopped to watch him. Once he walked off in a hurry the people who had been watching couldn't help but smile. For as long as they have known him, Liter had always been this way.

After he rounded the nearest corner he began looking around, making sure he was out of sight. In his hand appeared a length of root that seemed ordinary at first glance, he checked it carefully for bruising before sliding it back into his pocket.

Liter covered his head with the hood of his robes and suppressed his energy. He walked through the smaller side streets of Tapestry city and stayed out of peoples' way.

Eventually he came to a large square hut of a building.

He grit his teeth and his eyebrows furrowed, he hesitated with his hand in his pocket. It was only a moment though before he set his mind in order and made quick strides to the back door of the building.

A wave of spices and ingredients washed over Liter when he entered the kitchen. All around him were jars of a special medicinal soup, and in the center of the room was a pot a few times the size of a person.

Liter stood there for a while. Looking into the soup as ingredients were brought to the top by the heat and then would sink back down.

"I'm sorry…" He grit his teeth harder and took a deep breath before throwing the root into the soup. He watched as it floated on the top for a while, eventually though the root liquified and diffuse throughout the pot. Undetectable.

As if a ghost, Liter then disappeared too.

…

Whoosh!

A large feathered set of wings spread out catching the air and lurching to a slower fall. The sudden jolt caused the feathers Noone was holding onto, to detach themselves from the creature's body and Noone found himself unexpectedly dangling by the rope he had tied to the creature's feet.

Noone was only a few thousand meters above the ocean at this point. This was as close as he wanted to get while diving at the speed he had achieved when plummeting using the bird.

Any closer and he honestly wasn't sure if he would be able to slow down in time.

The idea of the bird dragging him deep into the ocean at the speed they were moving was not something Noone wanted to experience.

Noone took a deep breath and climbed back up onto the bird's corpse, instead of holding on to the plumage as he had been though, he worked his way around the side of the creature and onto it's back.

Because of the sheer size of the creature, Noone had plenty of space to stretch out. And with the bird working as a wind-break, he wouldn't need to worry about being blown off. Noone stretched his arms out, laying stomach down across the creatures back.

When he had been free-falling before hitting the clouds, Noone had realized that subtle shifts in his body weight would allow him to move around in the air.

Now with the large bird-turned-glider at his disposal, he figured that leaving his landing point up to fate would be silly.

Noone shifted his body to the left and the large creatures body started to bank slightly, aiming towards the cliffs.

"Perfect." A smile encroached on his face, he was looking forward to being able to brag to Adria and Liter about this. He could only imagine what the looks on their faces would be.

Noone continued to experiment with turning the bird, paying attention to the ocean below. When he looked out to the deep-sea, he could make out waves in the far distance that were as tall as he was now.

When he saw this, it filled him with trepidation. Even though they were an incredible distance off, it was still too close for his comfort. He felt small when he looked at them.

Noone was pretty much waiting out the minutes at this point. He was on trajectory to land in the waters close to the cliffs. If he had been free falling at this point still, Noone would most likely land several hundreds of meters into the ocean. While still relatively shallow, Noone had never swam before, and was not in the mood to test his chances.

The idle curiosity of a young man could not be underestimated though, and in a few moments, he was standing along the spine of the bird underneath him. His arms were spread out as he attempted to keep his balance.

Noone's eyes were shining with delight that any young man could understand. At this moment he felt like the king of his own world.

This was, of course, a short-lived dream. As soon as he got too comfortable and attempted to bank the bird, it flipped completely over tossing Noone over the side, dangling him underneath.

Noone felt his heart drop out of his chest the moment before the rope had caught him. He resisted the urge to check if anyone had seen that embarrassing moment and scrambled back up onto its body.

He cleared his throat and resigned himself to laying splayed out across the creatures back. He would be hitting sea soon anyways, so he convinced himself it didn't matter too much, and that he had not been thrown from his throne.

He watched the world pass by quickly underneath him.

The blue of the ocean was like nothing Noone had ever seen. It truly was unfathomably large. The bird began to fall closer and closer to the water, when it finally touched down Noone would be within a hundred meters of the shallow waters at the bottom of the cliff.

Noone held on tight and braced himself for the impact. Although his vertical dropping speed had reduced quite a bit as the creature came closer to sea level, his horizontal speed was still extremely fast.

The bird's feet touched the water first, and its speed was immediately slowed. Noone gripped tightly onto the wings. Suddenly, before Noone could react the body of the creature impacted the water and flipped the bird over entirely.

Noone was unable to hold on and the rotational force threw him into the air. He had less than second to react to the sudden throw.

His eyes were wide as he tried to get his bearings, before suddenly he was hit by a wall of pressure.

His body was dragged under the ocean as the bird tumbled and got wrapped up in the rope Noone had used to attach himself to it.

The first thing he noticed was the water wasn't as cold as he had been expecting. It didn't shock the breath out of him or stun his mind. However, the force of the water caused him to entirely lose himself.

He felt the weight of the water disappear for a moment and gasped for a breath. Before he could close his mouth though, he was dragged underneath again. Noone violently coughed out a lungful of air and sewater. His body becoming battered by the ocean current.

After a few more tumbles the momentum of the bird finally came to a stop. The corpse began floating on the sea.

Noone was quick to follow, grabbing onto one of the wings of the creature and hoisting his upper body out of the water. He threw up some sea water that he had accidentally breathed in during the tumbling.
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"Damn…" He choked, trying to cough out any water left in his lungs. His throat, nose, eyes, and lungs were stinging immensely. "That's rough." Noone stayed draped on the wing for a moment, giving his body time to readjust. He had managed to land rather close to the cliff wall, so the water in this area was not nearly as turbid as it could have been.

"Damn…" He groaned again. Finally, Noone stopped panting and began to kick his legs, pushing the bird's corpse towards the cliff.

Chapter end