Priya Echo's Adventure - Part 10

CHAPTER 36 - MELINA’S OCEAN

“What does that one do?” thought Echo passively as she pressed the bright red square. Releasing a flash, it lowered itself to the level of the other console keys in one unerring motion. Yet this time the ship only fired one of those tiny thrusters, burning with the glitz and glamor of flame. The empress was not one sufficiently adept at minding her own business. Her mother was off exploring some planet below for forever it seemed. It had been hours and hours, recognizable only by the steady arrival of shooting stars, one after the other. And they were the boring kind. The thin ones that are super far away. “It’s too long!” Echo bellowed. In a tantrum of dexterous finger work she pushed a bunch of buttons. A minute ensued of childlike glee, expectant of a missile or a laser or something to fire off the front of the ship into the vastness of the amoral, insensible space … but nothing. Echo swiveled in the chair and laid her head sideways, trying to find some purpose in the bright colors of the keys. It was going to be a long day. Melina Dreamer alighted on the damp soil below. She looked around, surveying the cardinal directions. Ahead was a trembling ocean, bounding with anima. Behind was the grasslands, made clear by patches of sunlight brought through the divisions of cloud like sand pouring through fingers. A warm loop-de-loop of wind brought scents from flora that donned new aromas. Melina stretched her muscles for a moment. Phenomenological energy heated her golden armor. With intrepid force she lunged into the ocean and sank down into it, searching for what was promised that day. A pearl necklace to be exact. Traders had reported clams on this planet. After that, it would be claimed in a bloodless coup for the glory of the SOTA. Having an energy of such degree, Melina only flew through the water. Lesser luminaries would take to swimming in such a circumstance. Not a drop touched her skin. It was hydrophobic. Soon enough tidal forces revealed the bounty of the deep. Strange butterflies with gills followed a path to their feeding ground. A turquoise rhino bobbed by, verdant like a one-man olive orchard. Underwater, jet streams followed and metallic dolphins clinked off of each other at intervals. After a good five minutes Melina found herself in the domain of the fish. They were big and ugly. They seemed to be like people. One was wearing a trench-coat. Another smoked a cigar. A mechanic with a greasy uniform hobbled off into the distance. It was starting to get shady. Melina could hear another big-mouth fish talking to his buddy about a pool game in the ocean. Before a trace of suspiciousness could instill itself in her mind, her mouth blurted out, “Do you know the way to the clams?”, and she knew she had screwed up. “Ah, look what we got here, little lady,” the cigar smoking fish said. The whole gang soon came out of the watery woodwork, forming a circle around her. There was Big Joe Fish from Fat Turtle Street. The one with the bust lip and the broken promises. There was Can’t Get No Fins Fish who was just there to start something if the situation presented itself. The one with the trench coat still had the tag on it and it was half price but with the rest of the information scratched off in pencil. “Easy boys, I’m just trying to get myself a pearl,” Melina offered. “Say, for a dame with golden clothes, you’re pretty damn ugly” the cigar smoking one blurted out. Shots fired. “I’ve been told otherwise by many people” the woman returned, amending their words. “Oh really,” another one tended, “I bet you're so ugly, you can’t walk down the street without someone throwing trash at you like you-se some kind of trash can” the trench coat one said in a very fishy accent. Melina’s cheeks felt hot. The nerve in her temple began to do a little vaudeville number that was unseen by the others because it was under the skin. “I don’t know, Greg, she’s got a pretty good tush for a gal who’s not a fish,” the one behind her said. “On my world, I am a queen!” she shouted. Earth flashed through her mind. High up in the Aether, and its mountain of unblemished golden thrones that know not a day without substance. Realms blossomed at her feet. Dreams within clouds within dreams. Sublime Landscapes. Sky castles. The metropolis. The omnipotence of stars. Melina was not in sync to the profanity of the commons. And the only gambling she did was with armies. The cigar smoking one spat out his cigar, “Oh I get it. Here we got her boys. The queen of ugly planet!”. The tremor sent arrows straight to her heart. Not once had such humiliation ever befallen a graceful conqueror. A primal urge for obliteration flared in the iris of her eyes. Melina lifted a fist at him. “This dame is tough!” the trench coat wearing fish stated. He had been to school. He knew his stuff. Long Division. Geometry and all that. But this was serious. He went in close, right up the woman’s face for good measure. “Sock em!” came a bunch of fish voices from the crowd. “Nah, I wouldn’t want to hit you in the face. It would just make you more ugly” he tended, his maw wide with a grin. Melina couldn’t stand it anymore. Too many cheap shots. She clamored away into the downward streams to lick her wounds. All of them circled around like that, taunting. The shame. “Those arrogant bastards!” Melina fumed while clusters of bubbles formed, transcended in smoothness by their counterpart. The pot of her soul boiled. The heat made its way from her chest to her temples and was sacrificed. “Not even Echo is that unruly!” she admitted reluctantly. The empress would one day don the golden armor, when her mirror blade had downed enough counterfeit tyrants. But not today. Melina’s dark hair unfurled and found some small joy in the divergence of the waters. The weight of the insult faded. For a ruler so unscarred it was a nuisance. For a philosopher so restive, save for the amorousness of society … she lost the train of thought. But no matter. “I will teach them a lesson, but how?” she pondered. A turtle in a shell of peanut brittle drifted past, its heart intent on vast numbers of pecan-fish, “What do fish love the most?”. Melina craned her neck upwards and peered beyond the ceiling of the ocean up into the still sunlit sky. It was late afternoon but the innocuous blimp of the moon was right there, floating in the way magical things do. “Aha! They love the ocean!” the woman realized. A most devious smile alighted on that dame’s face. Good thing she had muscles. Like a quick sprite the woman lunged to the ocean floor, and stood a moment, observing the water and the earth. The way they touched. The partition only known to those who can witness the scale of things. “Here we go,” Melina beamed. The blue sheath of the world. The well betwixt continents. A trillion gallons and so forth. It didn’t matter. Melina pulled up her sleeves and kneeled down, lifting the entire ocean up and flying up into the air. It was made solid by the gargantuan magic of the dreamer. The power of the wielder was beyond immaculate. The planet had no idea. As it rose above them, its mountains were helpless to bring back the body. Hundreds of birds were caught unaware. A lucky one was far away, and saw the platform rise. It cawed but the song was unheard. Clouds drowned. Melina raised both arms to the fullest extent. The revolutionary bounds of power surged through her. It was of great dimension but IT COULD NOT RESIST. Melina flew higher and lifted the platform. She threw the ocean to the planet’s moon, gifting it. Below, the fish were much aggrieved. They all sat on the mud and the bottom and grumbled at the injustice. Such inexcusable behavior. That dame was hot and they knew it. But this was about attitude, and big things like car rims and credibility. Each of them grew short stubby legs with curly que hairs. They talked amongst themselves to find the biggest meanest one. When they found Linder he swam up into the air and found his enemy applauding herself along the shore. He grew his toe nails into long sharp toe nail spikes and charged. The golden muse reacted, summoning a sword and fending off the attack. In a few short gestures she slashed through the toe-nail spikes scattering them and sent the avenger back to his mud hole from whence he came. Melina put a hand over her eyes to survey the limits of the valley. Beyond the sand the stretches had a cluster of rocks with just the right thing to set one’s eyes on. Under her breath she gasped faintly, “Now for that pearl necklace”. It was set in between two jagged boulders. It took a season to get there, and once there she approached on foot for sheer pleasure. It had that wavey kinda mouth that looked like it was confused or something. Its row of beady little eyes in navy blue would have been intriguing to an oceanologist. It sat there and did nothing because it was just a stupid clam. Easily the lid unlatched to expose the bounty of pearls within. They were firm to the touch. A quality not uncommon on a Paris thoroughfare at half past noon. She commended the angelic colors. A few had a nice tint of ivory wreathed in smokey gray. Melina picked up an especially white one when the delicate exterior gave way to her fingers, cracking them naturally like an egg-shell. Of course, the realm inside had some pearl people ambling about an orange leafed tree. The woman knew in moments that the others could be nothing less than nascent realms. Appropriate action was simple enough. Melina took them to the other ocean on the moon that she had not named yet and returned forthwith to ascertain the character of the grasslands. Despite what she had done the land still burgeoned. The ruler tossed a single pearl up and down in her hand like a baseball while she dawdled. At length the grasses fanned out, finding the boundary of their province at the hills. “This could be a good homeland for a colony, '' Melina mused. The clouds that had survived had elementals who were archers that shot down arrows at the ground which made it fertile with new flowers. Four snow capped mountains hugged the horizon. To her left the trees threw their fruit from one to another until it was ripe. There were hornets living in red raspberries, covered in red pollen, singing rhapsodies to her as she passed. Handsome rabbits with green noses from too much grass. Yawns were given and she kneeled down amongst fresh shoots of perennials for a time. Once content, Melina continued. The shadow of a tree vanquished a swath of once young greenery, but soon it too was dispelled by sunlight. A cactus retracted its spines for a hornet who just wanted to rest its head against the soft pillow. Cucumbers grew in abundance in zigzags below her feet, already covered layered in olive oil which hardened into a candy coating. Lemon shrubs moseyed about, spritzing everything to make it more delectable. The entire place really didn’t seem that bad. Melina jumped back in surprise. All at once marble acropolis-like pillars burst from the ground in the distance, ascending to the heights of space. “What is going on!” she thought aloud, awakening from a mild temperament. At the base a vine began to grow and coil around one pillar. It circled, climbing the edifice. Peering closer the woman could see the vine contained within it a plant-human hybrid whose name was Unique Vine. The vine reached the top in space and changed back into human form. Quickly it became a patron and changed its name to Salloris Zegamon. He had a green human body with a vine around himself. Happy to see the transformation, Melina called up to him from the ground. The pillar descended and they met. In his honor she named the planet Plentiful Vine of Healthy Fruit and told him that her people will colonize the world. Salloris related that the planet would cease to be good now that it had no ocean. Suddenly the pearl started to grow huge and it birthed a powerful pearl giant. It towered above the woman, a bodybuilder with gleaming pearl muscles. Amped for a new fight, Melina did hand to hand combat with the giant. He was a virtuoso in his strength. Melina sensed that in a years’ time, he could topple mountains. She blocked his fists with hers until an opening appeared and she cracked the shell with a single blow. The giant fell over dead. His pearl blood streamed back into the ditch, creating a new ocean. Salloris thanked Melina and agreed to the location of the new colony. Melina was happy with the minor scuffle. As she returned the clouds parted and a personal spaceship landed on the ground. The ramp descended and Echo rushed out, demanding something with angry swaying arms, “Mom! Can we go back home now! I’ve been bored all day!”.

CHAPTER 37 - ELEVEN TWELFTHS MONTH

From the new condition of Sol came environmental changes within the SOTA. Before the phenomenon the Earth had orbited outside of the sun. After the phenomenon the Earth orbited within the hollow sun. As a consequence, a process of Environmental Inversion was initiated. Before, there had been twelve months in a year. Now, within the corona the Earth experienced only a fraction, the “One-Twelfth Month”. It is sometimes referred to as 1/12th month or OTM for short. Colloquially it is known as Oat-um or Oats-month, a mispronunciation of OTM. So, there is one month in twelve years, which is termed the total-year. The different expressions of seasonality occur simultaneously in different regions side by side. Strain on local fauna and flora resulted in new adaptations, while others found shelters from the difficulty to remain unchanged. Moreover, the energy field produced by the fiefdom of the SOTA, channeled through the corona threatened to produce disturbances on the other planets within the system, halting diplomatic efforts.
During a tour of one of the autumnal regions of his portion, Leffel came upon a park whose trees were shedding their leaves. He was alone, and so decided to disrobe his cloud vestments, which he placed on a park bench. The patron was now only water in human shape. Sensing a coming breath of wind that would throw the stubborn leaves from their branches, he extended out his arms and rotated around to obtain a total view of the park. Like a disco they danced to the rush of the wind. As they fell upon him the leaves stuck to the surface of his water body, as leaves do when they fall upon a pond. As if a game, Leffel raced back and forth through the park towards the areas of the greatest density of leaves until his body was covered. He evolved and became ETM, Eleven-Twelfths-Month to become the vessel of the remaining segment, the fraction 11/12ths month of the total-year. “My water” he thought, looking down at his body as it shifted to orange, and then continued to pass through the the range of autumn, from orange to red to brown to yellow, as well as the other intermediates. Shaking off several leaves, the remaining ones continued to drift along the surface of his body as if on a pond. Some of them underwent an elemental transformation while others remained pure and simple. The fraction 11/12ths appears in his vicinity. In the ensuing period, he would use his newfound ability, sent as an ambassador to placate the disturbances, and to the newfound colonies.

CHAPTER 38 - CACTUS LEMUR GARDEN ASTEROID

By this time Swordcarrier Alexa had experienced the transformation of her patron, being a cultess of he that was now Eleven-Twelfths Month. Alexa lived in the portion atop the anechoic plateau, and was an avid collector of historical items, her home being a cabinet of curiosities. Every two weeks she would return to meet up and socialize. As Alexa searched through the sublime landscape, she came upon ETM as he was walking along a beach of glass sand, moving about for an amenable place to regard the artificial fabric of that space. The delightful vitality of the waters tended to the sweltering ego of the collective dream, giving them pause. Indeed, an entire landscape had been overtaken by the beach overnight without the initiation of any agency within the cult. After a brief inspection of the variance, the woman took out of her satchel her newest acquisition, “Take a look at this will you, these chalices have been dated but the measurements put it even past the eighth age, and it’s still in working condition”. Handing him both the chalices, the patron felt the weight of their age. “Alexa, these must be from the seventh age, how did you get these?” he asked. “Well, I bought them at a yard sale off Pausica street in Grass-Loaf quarter a few years back, and I’ve taken them to one specialist after another, but with no luck” she said, placing the chalices back into her satchel. Telepathically Dreamer reached out to ETM and relayed to him that the chalices were those same vessels that Veles drank from and which the divine couple shared, sending the water through to Echo who cried, forming the sacred pond of Castle Rieuvi from which Leffel was manifested as the personification of a circular ripple. At his prompting Alexa retrieved the chalices again and the patron melted and formed them into a robe for himself. “You are full of surprises, Alexa. These were the very chalices from which my mother Veles brought me into this world. Today is certainly a day to talk of old times. Tell me, what else do you have hidden away? I'm beginning to think that we don’t spend enough time …” the patron began when a wave from the beach ambushed the historian and dragged her in. Instructing the waters to release her became futile, as all trace of the woman had disappeared. ETM ran into the water waist deep, searching for oceanic currents of the sublime landscape that could have possibly transported the historian, but to no avail. In a distant region of the Zino sector Alexa found herself drifting through space. For some uncertain reason the water that had drenched her face had granted protection from the airlessness and cold. An immense asteroid lumbered past, and Alexa landed on its rocky surface. Searching for shelter the woman found a tunnel and came upon a cavern below with a forest of towering cacti as one would find in a lifegiving desert. Slowly, deliberately Alexa walked through the forest evading the spines that were feet in length. Craning her head to the heights of the garden she could see families of lemurs dancing with precision from one cactus to another. Farther into the heart of the garden there was greater diversity, from succulents to cultivars of various colors and shapes. She passed from a patch with rotten and half rotten cactus fruit lining the ground to another where broken succulents bled aloe down onto her from the heights. “The spaces between the cactus are getting much larger” the woman noted, as a giant lemur landed directly in front of her, hindering the path for a moment before rebounding up into the canopy again. The cacti in the heart of the garden were of much greater circumference, and their spines could actually be climbed quite easily. Families of giant lemurs stared down at Alexa with their yellow eyes, their tails hanging down like pendulums. “That is clearly the center” Alexa thought as she stared at the large green dome that was to her conception a building. A doorway ringed with desert flowers beckoned her within. “In this chamber there are thorns that point inward as well” she noticed, and walked towards the center of the dome. Resting in the body of the woman was the mirror sword used to strike down Githin during the battle of Rot. It arose from her body and reformed, then stretched and became a circular mirror that levitated in front. Curious, she joined hands with her reflection on the smooth surface. Then it was as if her point of view was channeled across a distance, a swift journey between walls of mirror. Insubstantial, her vision moved like a breeze through the maze. The walls were tall and cast no reflection of her presence. When it returned, Alexa noticed that she was looking simultaneously through four eyes, that of her own person and that of her reflection, each out at the other through the barrier. Blindness came, and then the assault of happiness as it rushed back into the chambers of her body, a seltzer heaving with the return of youthful emotion. Then there was darkness as the inner realm within her was reborn. Alexa opened her eyes from her original perspective and the barrier turned into a mirror sword yet again that vanished into her inner realm. Around the dome of the cactus chamber the thorns that lined the interior became mirror thorns that detached, transforming into new mirror swords which pointed towards her. The multitude of mirror swords shot towards her all at once, and at the moment that they were to pierce her they entered her inner realm. The thorns continued to grow, and they continued to transform into swords and fly towards her, entering her in a continuous stream. After five minutes the barrage ended, and the dome of the chamber rotted away, the buzzing of flies became swirls of motion as the time lapse chewed away at the cactus. In lieu of the garden, the landscape was instead replaced by the walls of the mirror maze. Above, wreathed in indescribable potent eccentricity where Four Eyes from which issued the shifting spatial landscape of the world of the mirror maze. The two sets of Eyes stared at one another. Alexa looked up and each set of Eyes combined into one eye. With vague understanding of what the object in question was, the woman only observed as one observes a strange happening in nature. The two Eyes of Linden Dream combined and became one Eye, and the two Eyes of Melina Dreamer combined and became one Eye. Fainting, the neophyte fell to sleep and came to lay upon a warm bed of sand. “What manner of desert is this? '' thought Alexa, thinking that the asteroid of the cactus garden may have returned to whatever delirium it had been conjured from. Scrambling to her feet, the castaway made tracks across the sands. Before her a green cactus sprang from the ground, and atop it grew a cactus flower. As the cactus flower emerged a gray bearded man sitting upon it was revealed. The man spoke to her saying, “That which you gave is now part of the seed of the Jellyfish Flower”. “What does that mean?” replied the woman. The man looked down at her with his aged eyes, and shifted its position within the chair of the flower, “The Honfot-Gid that was your own, that you donated to the moon”. Alexa was left speechless. She had known like everyone else that the moon had become the seed of the Jellyfish Flower, but she had never once considered her contribution, the organ transplant that was given to Leffel, and had returned in time to thinking only of simpler matters. Alexa now was filled with questions, and began accumulating them in her head. As she did the cactus grew high and the gray-bearded man atop it vanished from her sight from the level it had reached. Yearning for answers, the woman climbed atop the thorns of the cactus, like climbing a tree, to the top of the cactus. When she arrived at the top the man was gone, leaving only the wide and conspicuous petals. But suddenly she tumbled on through the flowerhead, onto another patch of desert, where she found herself walking along, dizzy for a while. The currents of the wind would at times disclose the night sky that lay underneath the soft terrain. Strange that she could feel her own footprints, even when her feet were far apart from the depressions. Inquisitive, she circled around an odd silvery cactus to examine it. Dut … dut … dut. The woman felt a tap on her back. “My name is Chaz Waterpasture” said a normal green cactus standing in a brown flower pot. From its body extended two long vegetative extensions with flower buds like arms at the tips. “Did you tap my back just now?” Alexa asked. “Yes, I just needed to get your attention for a moment, it's good to meet you then” the succulent mentioned. “Can you tell me what this place is, and what is going on?” the woman pleaded. Chaz waved his arms defensively and said, “Seems normal to me. You’re not from around here, are you? Jump onto the edge of my pot and I’ll show you around”. Plopping her behind onto the rim, it glided across the sands that at the corners of her eyes proceeded like free-flowing liquid. Several of the other cactus lifted up and became ovals and then mirror droplets that vanished into the sky. The tearing of roots disturbed the soil. “That’s something special to you, isn’t it?” Chaz kidded as they watched one of the droplets disappear. “Can I shake your hand” Chaz asked, and Alexa took one of the bud hands into her own and shook it. The bud-hand bloomed into a cactus flower. She took the other bud-hand and shook it as well, and it flowered as well. “Let’s go this way” Chaz suggested, and she jumped onto his pot once again until they came upon a charismatic mirror cactus deep in the desert. When she jumped down onto the ground again and approached it, the plant opened and unfurled its skin, revealing the red flesh of a prickly pear within. “I think this is where we part ways,” Alexa said, and bid farewell to Chaz as she walked forward, and entered the flesh of the prickly pear fruit, and the flesh of the cactus retracted until the plant was whole again. Swordcarrier was back at the location where the Dome had been before the rotting in the heart of the garden, and evolved into War Alexa. “My flesh is cactus fruit” she thought. Upon her body formed a green metallic armor. Both hands became heavy as a mirror sword appeared in each. In truth, she could now summon at will mirror swords from her sword carrying inner realm. With both she ventured back into the thicket and came upon a red-eyed giant lemur. “Don’t be shy” Alexa said, and returned the swords back into her inner realm, and stretched out her hand to rub the brown and white fur of its forehead. After befriending it, she rode upon its back as it leapt through the canopy and it took her back to its home in a hollow chamber where a family dined, and she joined them in their feast. When her belly was full Alexa left the asteroid, and returned through the void back towards the SOTA. Without the prominent occupant, the asteroid continued on its lonely journey through space, its ice-trail like a mark of chalk across a blackboard. In the world of the mirror maze a woman in a tan janitor’s uniform whistled as she mopped a spot on the floor, where there was a puddle of cactus fruit juice.

Chapter end