Priya Echo's Adventure - Part 14

CHAPTER 46 - TADPOLES

Location: Earth
Date: Present Time
Unbeknownst to all, deep below the sea there was a dolphin pillow fight. Smacking each other in the dolphin face with pillows. Making it red. That was the life.
Veles was having an eminently unpleasant morning. She marched downstairs and opened the door to let loose some silly tadpoles onto the ground. An odd magic caper of some sort. She went downstairs to the bed and breakfast area with the love seats and had a waffle baked in a strawberry with syrup and dainty cups of milk. The fork was sterling silver edged with copper. Belts of the more salient daylight lay upon the table. An unprovoked and wanton intrusion. From her perspective in the woozy hours of morning, the strawberry looked bigger. Diplomatically she poked at it. A second later it dawned. At once her arms waved into the air in protest, “What the flip is going on?”
But further out onto the lawn the band of tadpoles had already begun their adventure. They swam through the individual blades of grass. They vocalized like cute squeaky squish toys with the sound, “Wa wa wa '' into the world. Together they clamored over the ticklish grass to find a place to grow. A sea. A blue oasis where plants germinate beneath safe waters. Far from wretched dangers. The tint of the grass heightened and they dived down into the green sea. Little tadpole tails fluttered, bringing them deeper. Waves the color of unripe apple. “WA !!!” one of them cried. It was too much. So, they surfaced onto the grass to pursue a different route.
Tiny helicopters turned upside down so that their blades cut the grass like a lawnmower. Each chased a tadpole of the band away. An intrepid one jumped onto a helicopter passenger seat just as it righted itself and tried to communicate with the human pilot, yelping “Wa wa wa” but to no avail. It was booted out.
After that matter was good and done with, the band regrouped onto a big flat stone. It was decided that to become frogs, they had to fan out and find a normal sea of water. The youngest tadpole went his own way, and hopped through a window into a birthday party where he was given a party hat and offered cake until a man burst through the window and undid his parachute. He of course wanted the cake as well, but then another man with a jetpack walked into the room and made off with it into the sky, leaving the poor tadpole without a slice. So that endeavor came to naught.
The eldest tadpole had more luck. He knew the game. He came upon the first little dude he could to give him advice. And that little dude was an ant on an ant hill. Those big buggy eyes. Razor sharp jaws clicking back and forth. A few too many legs so the tadpole lost count. “Wa wa” he demanded. The ant raised its head, “Ah, good to meet you. A sea you say? I haven’t seen anything like that. To be honest it’s been quite a long day. I was working on this tunnel. I moved a pebble from one side to the other. It was hard to get it in the wall. You have to move your head back and forth. But it wouldn’t fit! So, I took that pebble to this other tunnel and put it there. Nice and strong. Then this guy comes and tries to take my pebble. Not going to happen. Whew, what a chore. After that I went into this other chamber and took three pebbles and moved them over to the other side. Then I went to this other tunnel and dragged a big pebble. Hard work. Tell me about it”. “WA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!” the tadpole whined, making it so loud as to bring the ant out of his memories. “The sea again. Very well. You can probably get there by talking to the dolphin. He is past the parking lot but that’s not the best way. Jump up there and take one of the flying houses. That will get you there my friend”, the ant offered, bidding his adieu. He loved the queen.
Up above in the nascent clouds of the afternoon, a few hamsters roamed. They leapt from one mound to another. If anyone looked up, they could see them bridge the gap. The clouds that they landed on bent and spun, becoming hamster wheels. From them hailed zephyrs that swept across the land.
The tadpole with the big head went in search of fire to pacify the helicopters. He easily sneaked into the bed and breakfast. Priya and the others were long gone, and the lobby was calmly uninhabited. A figure appeared, towering above him. The tadpole was startled. With light meekness he raised his handsome tadpole face. A goofy smile stood there, panting evenly. Along with it, a big tongue slapped him up and down. By that time the Siberian Husky that was born of the hearth was renamed Siberian Dusty. Being a good boy, it kneeled down and let the tadpole ride atop its back. Together they ventured past the brick gateway, to a corridor that seemed to know no end. The fireball was jumping on a trampoline, hoping with all its heart to jump high enough to become smoke through the chimney. “Wa!!!” the tadpole insisted to no avail. It didn’t want to join their party. It just wanted to jump. But the clever tadpole drove the doggie to a stick which it grabbed in its mouth and captured the fireball. And although the following bout with tiny helicopters was to no avail, he had made quite a good friend in the process.
Meanwhile, another group of tadpoles led by the one with the freckle did indeed find a pond. Botanicals unfolded across the length of it, making turquoise what once was blue and green. Hummingbirds stuck their long faces into nectar-soaked pits. Petals rubbing their underbellies. Stems weaved amongst themselves into twists with dangling buds and little spaces between. Little beetles scaled those towers. A soul of a lagoon flew past but no one noticed. More slowpoke tadpoles made it to the shore. They went “Wa Wa Wa”, right and left to their bedfellows until a wall of heat descended, revealing a track of lily pads. Big flat ones. Plantlike. Animated. Shimmying their buoyant fringes. The tadpoles bounded in glee across the river until coming upon their destination. But it was already too late. A picnic of lazy citizens had already taken their place. Upon being interrupted they opened their picnic baskets and threw slices of cake at the intruders until they fled. The picnickers were left to their own devices. And a vegetarian crocodile nibbled on parsley in the depths.
The emergence of ripples on a panorama pond was a long-awaited release of natural stamina, unfettered finally from the plane of bright water to the plurality of circles. An ensemble of delicate hues, approaching abstraction. The fondness of the ripples was for the shore, and as it did the pond revealed its wrinkles. In moments it surpassed a babbling brook in its liveliness. Reminiscent of endearment. The colors trespassed into further shores. A disclosure of unbound fervor, animated by light. Minutia of wobbles continued unsupervised for a time. Then circles met each other, forging divine Venn-diagrams. Those that evaporated would know humility once more, passing into the invisibility of air. In reply the leaves of a tree on the shore were sent to another tree. The panoramas felt their emotions sent from one to another, and a young man resting on a bed of grass upon the shore awoke. On the inferno of the sun, the flame formed ripples. Its corona was made pleasant by the circles. Giant fireball heads bobbed out of the depths to see what it was. Espresso cup submarines were sent off course. And the young man got to his knees to see such champion colors that would have made his eyes metamorphosize had they not disappeared a second later. And the geometry stopped, and in time the turbulence would be finished. In the hills and forests would begin the slow, seasonal change to susceptibility.
Undeterred by a few mishaps, the tadpoles ventured on, climbing the hovering wooden planks to the flying house. The place seemed perfectly normal except for the pillow monster in the corner. It just sort of sat there until they were forced to return the way they came, bounding from the doorway back to solid ground.
Farther into the hills, the stone embankment of a river was neat in its construction. It waved into parts farther than one could see. Yet there was a little road leading up to it where mineral specimens of halcyon beauty lined the walkway. A bird flew over and its feathers came off and tickled it until it had to land. Another bird flew over some boaters on another pond and its feathers also came off and tickled them. Later they drove into town and went into a big glass-covered office building where they talked to a tickle insurance salesman but the prices were too high.
Back to the neighbor of the bed and breakfast, a one-story building in unremarkable brick. A shortage of windows and eggshell white drapes. A tadpole escaped forthwith, pursued by the olive oil praying mantis. It unlatched those fearsome jaws and screeched like a monster. The tadpole was caught quite easily. The mantis twiddled its antennae. Preparing for a bite, it raised the tadpole to its buggy head. But as luck would have it magic was in the air, and the two fused to become the praying mantis tadpole. A tadpole with mantis claws and a hunger for blood. It swerved back into the building to look for a snack … but the pool boy had already gone. He was a smart one. Before long he had found a tadpole to ride outta there.
A couple was not ashamed of their hot air balloon, although it was fat with air. They ascended cool zephyrs until reaching the heights of that staircase. The man edged over the cabin to witness the usual latticework of cities and lush pastures. She heaved deep draughts into a chest shrouded with linen. Glow from the pyre fell over their faces. It was a good day to fly, they presumed, as the clouds parted. Enamored for a moment, they lost navigation and ventured into a vast gateway. Earlier in Panorama, the jewelry store had detached from the ground and floated skyward. Imbued by clouds, it had burgeoned to insurmountable scales. His shoulders shrunk. They were dwarfed with respect to everything. In the cabin, a man and a woman hugged each other in fear, as just a single prick of a diamond could send them on their way. Multifaceted reflections of hot air balloons slid over hard surfaces. Even the glint of a beam could send sparks. Fearsome sparks.
Pearls became mist in the eyes of the pilot as he cascaded through emotionless empty space. A stewardess paced down the main hall, passing out peanuts that were too salty in the opinion of one guest. Nevertheless, he made a gambit to the cart to steal more peanuts, but his hand was slapped. The skies continued, making a play at being space without essence. The pilot couldn’t see Panorama below. There was too much … interference. He dipped down at a reasonable angle. Without the landing strip he would have to improvise. To his relief a butterfly had alighted on a flower and extended its wings out, making way for the plane to land. As so they did. Gorgeous incendiary colors matted the wings. The group sauntered out to find a pond and with lily pads bathed in the substance of butterfly. One of those circles was a respite for some time for the pilot. He yawned, knowing his day would coincide with the honor of high spirits. Around him slushed a rainbow whose cloth felt the wind even in its most irate passions. “This is a good spot” he mumbled. Such an enticement did not go unnoticed. A beautiful white snail made its way to the surface, putting its slug foot on the lily pad. The man did not know what to say. Very long slimy eyestalks stretched out and looked him up and down to get a good look. He was taken aback until realizing that human impatience meant nothing to a snail. Behind the eyestalks, the shell was almost transparent and reminded him of dreams. A pause in the loft above gave clearance to a beam of light that impacted the wing at just the right time. The man with the peanuts was surprised to see all the invisible mermaids. He had stolen a new bag before they departed. He reached his hand out to pull one up onto the lily pad. She spasmed for a second on dry land, but soon regained her composure. From then on, the mermaid related to him how strange he looked in a shy, dopey kind of way. He grumbled and thought about why it was always him that got such a passenger during flights? And they always took the window seat. The conversation continued unabated until that dopey face almost won him over. Nearly. On the precipice. When earthbound diamonds headed in their direction and the very fabric was torn asunder, unloosing them all to wild plummets to the ground. An unopened bag of salted peanuts.
In the northernmost hamlet of Panorama, a mail boy rode his bike and tossed a newspaper against a door. Ignorantly he ushered the vehicle up the street. But the house was not amused. It got to its feet and ambled down the street, picking the boy up with a chimney smoke turned hand and gave him a stern talking to.
Regrouped, the tadpoles sauntered with newfound gaiety. The day had excelled only in misadventure. Even so, a simple day is what they longed for in their tiny tadpole heart of hearts. Brothers standing tall in the grass. Soon they could pursue the dolphin and gain its trust. Rowdily the crowd shouted “WA!” as loud as they could. Headlong into the parking lot. Inside that most human place, the cars were arranged in stacks on top of Greek pillars. It would take one of them to scale that height to survey the area, and find the dolphin relaxing in the bubbling cauldron of soup, the carrot bumping its happy belly. Young tadpole took the lead, and approached one of the columns. Above him, the trunk slowly creaked open. A handsome paw reached out into the balmy air. It was trunk wolves!!! Grizzled mugs blared with evil ivory teeth. Cruelly they wanted the car stack all to themselves, and they would tear anyone to shreds to keep it that way. Tyrannized, the explorers fell back to the safety of their peers. But the wolves stayed. They wouldn’t depart from the comfort of their trunks. Younger tadpole continued to search around the parking lot until he found a single car atop a single column. Forthwith he bounced into the driver’s seat and smacked the horn. Loud and dominant. Now the tables had turned. He returned and climbed his way to the top. At that altitude, some trees wandered by, growing grass on their roots. Some glistening sports cars were filled with bags of potato chips. But the air was weightless. The horizon seemed clear. Light currents of wind skimmed his body in a relatively new way. An electricity of youth raced across his skin. His entirety. And situated amongst some buildings near a hill was a nose that was too big for anyone’s good.
Feathery sawdust matted the leafy ground. Disheveled clutter littered the remainder. Chunks of wood sullied the natural order, making it cubist at best. Carpenters’ tools laid nearby on a table. Beyond the circumference of that locale spread a ubiquity of flowers. Some pure violet. Others tones of violet. Deep blue like photocopies of the sky. The man hobbled out of the shed; his clothes yellow like durable parchment. Much to his chagrin he then turned into a flower. Self-absorbed and a retiree of sorts, he took the saw and continued its division of a certain rafter. Fulsome scents lapped around the hut like tides. But he had quite enough to deal with, his face being an ovary and all that. The grain of the wood was quite fussy that day. Hourglass dust sprang from its cracks. The orientalism of the blue lands had gone unnoticed. The rude metal of the saw set in motion new furrows. Its angle perfect. As that happened a loud moaning from above irritated his not giving a damn about society sensibilities. It was one of those passenger planes with a long tubular cabin. The flower man grew hot with rage. He was a brute with a temper who chose solitude. In anger he grabbed the hammer and jumped up into the air and grew to a size much larger than a cloud and smashed the airplane with the hammer exploding it in a magnificent fireball. When he returned to earth there were some pesky tadpoles so he chased them away, and smashed whatever brick houses they hid behind. Debris hung weightless in the air, seemingly trapped in time. But the little ones had teamwork and he did not. They circled around him skillfully and made their way to the other end of Panorama.
Farther away from the town, a circus had arrived in search of riches. The clowns were on their daily break when a cloud stunned them into sleep. Falling over each other, like a bed of colored toothpicks onto the grass. From that silence the curtain of the circus rose, and out hopped a giant frog from the zoo onto the scene. Bloated and fat, it stood on a platform for some time to review the surroundings. A trail of clowns fanned out into the direction of town. Not wanting to get its feet dirty, it hopped on one after the other. At each turn, the frog's butt hit them and their nose honked. The path of honks led to freedom.
Safe for the time being, the pool boy dismounted from his steed. “Wa!” the tadpole added approvingly. The sights and sounds had largely become a hush. The purpose was unknown to him, as such a thing followed only the dreamer. A few residents had made their appearance and milled with pleasant banter. He craned his neck to see the hamsters still spinning in their hamster wheel clouds. A particular one drifted to the center of the sky. Its revolutions quickened, ushering the powerless winds into circles of unfeasible beauty. Diminutive black eyes tightened for the endeavor. Whiskers shivered. Suspended in immediacy, the wheel’s physical form ceased to be discernable. Pulled by barbarous force, the clouds become a whirlwind of insatiable strength. Channeled through such a labyrinth, the light formed into an eloquence of such dapper pinks. Sinews of clouds burst in unexpected directions and reformed. Light radiated in sheathes bending to the will of the whirlwind. The pool boy saw things pass through each sheath. Unable to escape the velocity, the hamster was spun inside the wheel. The winds slowed their campaign. Eventually its center was done. And the cherry blossom pink was sprinkled like powder on the undersides of the clouds as they molded in shape. The pool boy looked down again and heard the others pick up where they left off. More people milled about and it was starting to look like a regular afternoon.
A soup bubbled and a carrot continued to bounce against his belly. The dolphin clapped his flippers together in glee. With such hot pleasures, he was sure to have a joyous day. Around the bowl something ruffled in the grass. He leaned to look and saw himself encircled by funny tadpoles. “Wa!” they pleaded in dulcet choruses. Knowing his time was up, the dolphin dived into the soup and slurped it all up. His mother had told him not to play with food. His belly swelled and a gratified look alighted on the marine mammals’ face. “Yes, I know the way to the sea, but you don’t need to go,” he answered. The solution to their predicament was obvious. The fact that they were so thick began to humor him. “Wa, Wa, Wa” they protested continuously. At last, the dolphin jumped out and gave them a serious look. He explained how they were residents transformed into tadpoles. It wasn’t that big a deal honestly. They all turned back into humans and talked about the weekend and their plans. All except a single soul who needed to be alone. Still burdened by the weight of memories, she clamored through the bush. In the world of the fluff, they had played endlessly. Did anyone guess that it was a pillow? And that of Veles, a personage who no one knew. Dreams filled the chambers of her heart. She was immersed in them and their gravity. The cedars and their branches faded from view. From her vantage she witnessed a castle, its boundary cast of glass. It had a portal and a balcony. And a woman whose presence was dazzling and whose figure graced the night. Unforgettable feelings broke the dam of her spirit and flooded in. Light assailed the inner recesses of her being. And she buckled as the dream became birdsong and soared to infinity. In the daylight she would witness the descent of leaves from the canopy, and see the columns of cedar spring from the very base of the world. And she would be released from that dream, as its contents were not made for the vessel. Later on, Teddy found the Siberian Dusty and adopted him. Having been accepted by great grandmother Echo, he was most pleased with himself.
The dolphin pillow fight continued until one had won a medal for most smacks in one day. The faces of its enemies were cherry red, resting against coral to regain their breath. Now he was king of the slumber party. They gave him a splendid crown.

CHAPTER 47 - TELENON’S PLAN

In the Temple of the Voices of Reason, Telenon awoke from mere idleness and reveries. Alone in the room, and at the whims of darkness. The man brushed a hairy, hyena-like chest and got to his feet. He spied the window and its thin rectangle of light. Raising his hand, the shade retracted, granting him a macroscale view of the town below, “The best way to destroy Priya is to turn her world upside down. Her daughter Snow will be the first. She is an impulsive one. I can trap her in the turbulence. It will drive her mad and then I can watch as Priya fights her daughter. Inevitably, she will vanquish her in thoughtlessness, and that will break the champion’s will. Overcome by grief. That is the fastest way to do this”. Yet that was not enough. Knowing what battle truly was, he forced himself to plan for all contingencies. Securing a private channel, he spoke to the most fiendish adversaries of the SOTA. Orchidia Everglow, Visioness of the Infinite Black Rainbow, Kyloptos Rama, and the Giftbearer. “Telenon, is that you?” Orchidia murmured. She was tall and lithe, with mesmerizingly long hair, blonde to the extreme. An intricate armor clicked repeatedly upon her person. The second was trapped within the champion. Dark … like a shadow twin. The third was resting in a sarcophagus. Towered over by an elegant triangle. He was an old man, frail of body, but seething with magic. And the fourth was just a fragment of her former self. In some remote place. Covered in glitter. Naturally, Telenon related the design to them. Kyloptos Rama would have none of it. He was a sore loser, and left of his own accord. The SOTA had done him in. Giftbearer was in no condition to assist … and so she slinked away. With Visioness, only a few words could be traded before that one faded into the spirit of its captor. And then Orchidia remained. Telenon nodded to her and revealed the expanse of the prairie below. The place for an evil enterprise. “Do you see that, the honeysuckle upon the house” she noticed. “What do you consider about it then?” he wondered, intrigued by the hint of rebellion. “It means Snow has a portion of Honeycomb Man’s power, which means she must have a portion of Etheria’s power. It will be a barrier”. “No matter, let’s get this underway and you will see me do my justice” he concluded, stepping into the diagonal of light cast onto the ground by the window. Below, the challenger approached her phenomenal destiny. It was now a waiting game.
A rabble of birds larked through the air on a journey to a certain roof. The house sat on top of the hill, wreathed in vines of honeysuckle, bright yellow. Across the walls of the shelter, lines overlapped with one another. Resourceful beetles made their way along the thoroughfares. Further down the hill, the grass met its match through cycles of endless wind. Cleaving semicircles through the prairie. Sweetness filled the air from the interiors of the honeysuckle. It swept across miles, piquing the interest of anything that it came across. But beyond that was the vast ever-present green of the prairie. Flecked with sturdy trees. A copious nursery to arrest the spinning world. To make it blink. Because there, even loneliness was an ecstasy. Later on, more winds were arriving. Forthcoming from the east. Adding mountain air to the fragrance. Making the tone of it elusive. It was the kind of place that journeys led to. Ambling about, getting lost even in the shortest, insubstantial grass. A century to pass the wide sweep of that plane. The sun sent a torrent of light below. It made an obstruction perpendicular to someone’s face. The clouds drifted because that was in vogue these days. And the grass continued its juvenile dance. As if the shell of a person had entered the pure layer of the earth. Through the layer of space. Or being a shell and walking along the prairie with the wind that flows. Or awakening within the cardinal directions of a compass dropped upon the ground. Willing the needle to its rightful place. Despite all of that, the afternoon lurched forward. The trees bent as only they could, stretching their backs, as they had seniority. The house on the hill looked sequestered. The yellow of the honeysuckle welcomed travelers.
The mouth of the hyena smiled with toothy delight. Soon enough, there would be that righteous warrior coming up the hill, who was most definitely still a nerd and not hot. Maybe if you looked at her sideways … there were some bodacious curves. But that didn’t matter! She was just a student, like all the rest. A simple scholar that likes books and falling asleep in lectures. Just a regular, commonplace girl. With echo powers and a sword and a heroic look on her face and all that - let me save everyone - nonsense.

Chapter end