Prologue to the Universe
NAHANDRIEL FOCUSED ALL OF HIS ENERGY ON OPENING THE PORTAL WHILE TRYING TO FLY THE STARSHIP AS LEVELY AS HE COULD. He lassoed a random tree that he’d been flying by. Truth be told, Nahandriel la Jaguar wasn’t the best flyer.
“Sir, you’re going to slice one of the wings off!” Bernard informed. The cinderform sounded kind of panicked. He looked humanoid in shape, but his body was made from black charred stone. Nahandriel knew that sloshing back and forth inside that stone casing, was hot hot magma, that made up the cinderform’s innards. Right now, only Bernard’s eyes were glowing red, to give any hint of his inside consistency.
“We’re going to make it!” Nahandriel had his teeth clenched.
Strapped across his chest was a large tube full of violet ink and embryonic fluid. The case made it extremely awkward to drive. Rolling around in the liquid was an unborn baby. The baby let out a little giggle. <I didn’t know it could do that yet.> Just the other day the baby was an embryo about the size of a pea. “You like my flying — don’t you?” Nahandriel said to the baby.
“We have a 30% chance of making it,” Bernard reported.
“Foundation! Who expelled you and gave you sentience!?”
It was meant as a joke, but the cinderform didn’t completely understand humor, “You did, sir.”
“Will you stop calling me sir!” Nahandriel yanked the wheel counter-clockwise to veer left — but it was a lot sharper than he was expecting. Anything that was loose in the cockpit, went flying. The baby thumped to the left-leaning side of his tube. Again, the baby giggled and Nahandriel could swear that he caught the baby clapping out of his peripheral vision.
Bernard was making a blaring alarm-sound. “Sir, there’s a 98% chance we are going to crash!”
Nahandriel yanked the wheel in the other direction in an attempt to level out, but now even the instruments on the starship were blaring. Everything was blinking red and screaming at him. “Would. Everything. Just. Shut up!”
Nahandriel felt the lasso, a golden-bronze light that only he could see, that reached from his gut to the tree a few yards back. Maybe it was a mile now. He felt his lasso thinning and thinning. He needed to use the essence before his lasso snapped! He pulled the wheel towards him and up, in an attempt to swoop the craft up into the air and potentially gain some drag on air resistance. He needed to slow down, and the brake under his foot felt like there wasn’t any pressure, which he assumed meant that it was broken.
“Sir.”
“Not now, Bernard!” Nahandriel pressed his power into the lasso. The poor tree disintegrated into dust. With that chaos of destructive energy, Nahandriel willed it before the starship and ripped open the fabric of reality, etching a portal in the sky before them. Only the foundation of a living thing, something as big as a tree, could open a portal from the Dreamscape into Truth.
“The wing!” Bernard screamed.
Nahandriel yanked the wheel counter-clockwise again. Everything was still mostly on the left side of the cockpit from the first time. The baby released a squeak of excitement. The sound of ripping metal sliced through the air as the starship’s right wing collided with the lip of the portal. With the speed, trajectory, and current angle of the starship, this collision caused the ship to spin horizontally. Nahandriel felt like he was on a Tilt-A-Whirl!
Their starship collided with trees as it spun and fell towards the earth. Everything happened far too fast for Nahandriel to do anything about it. He could smell burning. Then the starship slammed into the ground!
Nahandriel woke up when the hatch snapped open. The baby in the birthing capsule was crying now. Nahandriel instinctively cradled the tube and shushed calmly at the baby inside. It was enough to quiet the baby. Nahandriel pressed the release on his seatbelt. “Bernard?” Nahandriel called.
“Sir! Thank the Zodiacs you’re awake. You might want to come out here.”
Nahandriel groaned. He had pains in various places. Some, he didn’t even know could hurt. “What do you think I’m trying to do!?”
“There’s a 100% chance that we might be gathering an audience.”
Nahandriel ignored the cinderform. He gingerly slipped from his tangled seat and fell! He slammed onto domed glass and slid, falling about three feet, to grass. He landed on his ass with a grunt. The baby in his birthing tube started giggling. “You think that’s funny?” Nahandriel groaned. “Think you can help me up Bernard?”
There was a tiny school of maybe five fish swimming in front of his face. He waves the fish away, but it was only seconds before they were back. “I think I might prefer gnats!” Nahandriel said, hoisting himself onto his knees. Bernard was too occupied to help him up. <I’m gonna make that cinderform stay inside for a week!>
Nahandriel had forgot about the wildlife here on Searth. Everything was adapted to life under or above water. And that included swimming creatures being able to float and “swim” in the air. Nahandriel had never been on a planet quite like Searth. At least he’d arrived during low tide.
“What seems to be the prob…!” Nahandriel had been walking around the hull of the crashed starship. A huge streak had been dug out of the sand. Strategically placed coral trees rose up and around the ship. Luckily, they hadn’t collided with any of them. Nahandriel wasn’t sure how strong those trees were. And honestly, they were too beautiful to be run over by a starship.
Standing about a foot away from the starship was a little girl. She had purple hair — which Nahandriel had to remind himself was common for Searthians. And she was staring up at the ship with her chin nearly on the ground. She never looked away from the ship. <The Zodiacs are watching out for you, child.> Nahandriel thought. Nahandriel slung the testtube to his back so that the strange baby was out of view. Nahandriel began crouching down to get eye-level with the girl. He felt aches groaning. “Are you okay?” He asked calmly.
The girl, mouth still hanging open, never looked at Nahandriel, and simply nodded her head. “Good! Now, can I ask you a favor?” The girl nodded again. <She’s gonna be catching fishes if she leaves her mouth open like that.> “Think you can keep an eye on my ship for me?” Again, the girl never looked away from her near death experience and nodded. “Great! You’re already doing such a good job!”
Nahandriel turned, slinging the baby back to his chest. The baby giggled. “Let’s go Bernard.”
“But sir!”
“Bernard!” Nahandriel commanded. “And that reminds me…The next time you leave me to get off the ground after a crashing landing, you’re fired!”
Bernard hurried to catch up with Nahandriel. “But sir,” he said. “I don’t work for anything.”
“True,” Nahandriel replied.
He began walking aimlessly towards something. It was obvious that they were in a park. The coral trees were planted in some sort of pattern. Nahandriel guessed that the pattern was visible from the sky. He hadn’t remembered seeing it. <Shame,> he thought. There was a playground off to the right, behind a swath of tall seagrasses. A throng of green, blue, and purple-haired kids were playing on the swings and taking turns down the slide. The grasses prevented the little children from seeing the excitement of a crashed starship.
He felt the slits on either side of his neck open. Slipping through were feathery-like gills that waved back and forth as if they were in the push and pull of the ocean. These gills tasted warm ardor. Nahandriel knew that it was the happiness of the children playing — and he was almost certain that he’d taste it. However, just tasting it made him hungry and he regret even doing it at all. He pulled his gills back into their pockets as he pressed through a line of seaweed and coral branches.
“Sir, where are we going?” Bernard asked. Nahandriel looked back to see the cinderform struggling with coral branches. Bernard shifted the black rocks that made up his flesh as if they were flakes or islands that he could easily manipulate. In between each black rock revealed the red and orange glow of molten lava. Bernard used these breaks in his flesh to burn through the scratching and reaching coral branches.
“Bernard! We can’t just go around burning through all of our obstacles.”
“That’s not what you said when we were leaving the Nweatish lab with that baby.”
“That was different,” Nahandriel said.
They emerged into a backyard. The sand was a different color than the sand from the park. It was nearly white, finer, and seemed to glitter like diamonds. “This is the place.” Nahandriel said. The hovel was typical of Searthian homes and architecture. It was domed in shape and made from compacted sand and clay. The buildings were all domed shape to prevent too much friction when the tides rise. It minimized damage, considering the tide would rise so high to cover all land masses on Searth twice a day.
“Where are we?” Bernard asked.
“Just let me do all of the talking. They have probably never seen a cinderform before. They aren’t common on Searth.” Nahandriel explained.
Nahandriel stepped to the back door, which was a window, and knocked. He immediately saw Lake peek around a wall at him. Lake Green had green-yellow skin with darker green hair. The baby in the tube was more a baseline green. Either way, the pair were a match. Nahandriel saw Lake call for someone else within the hovel.
Lake opened the door, “I’d thought you’d come through the front.”
“Can’t do anything conventionally.” Nahandriel said.
“Oh! Nahandriel!” Lake’s wife squawked. She threw her arms around him. Nahandriel felt some new places where he’s acquired bruises.
“Hello, Shell.”
Shell grabbed Nahandriel’s shoulders and pressed him away at arm’s length so that she could get a good look at him. Then she saw the birthing tube. “Holy shells!” She swore. “Is that him!?” The baby turned towards Shell immediately, as if he knew that he was on display.
“Yes. And we need to get him out of this tube soon. Just a day ago he was the size of a melon and didn’t have eyes.”
“Is he okay?” Lake asked.
“Yea. The ink. I guess it caused him to develop faster than normal.”
“Oh Lake! We have a baby boy! You have a son!” Shell snatched Lake into a strong embrace. “Can I see him?”
“Sure,” Nahandriel swung the strap over his head. He was hyperaware of Bernard acting as his shadow. He handed the birthing tube to Shell.
“Would you like anything to drink?” Lake asked. “Does your — uh…”
“Bernard doesn’t drink,” Nahandriel said. “I’ll have something with a kick please.”
“Oh he’s so beautiful!”
“Yea, the Sidhe’fae are not shy about their enhanced appearance.” Nahandriel said. He’d had way too many run-ins with the Sidhe’fae. They were a court of people that valued beauty above all things — even if that beauty was a lie. If anything, Nahandriel saved the child from a lifetime of self-hate and judgemental eyes.
“He nearly has Lake’s skintone. You almost can’t tell.”
“Almost.”
Shell was purple-haired, eyed, and skinned in various shades that didn’t make her appear monochrome. “Thank you,” Nahandriel said when Lake came back with a cocktail. Nahandriel took a small sip, just to test what it was. Then he took a second sip that finished the drink.
“His eyes are so weird.” Lake said. “But he is quite handsome.”
The baby had black scleras with purple irises. “His eyes are like that from the ink.” Shell looked up at Lake suspiciously. <Fuck, Lake didn’t tell her.>
“Is there something wrong with our baby?” Shell asked Lake. Her eyes were piercing. There was no way that Lake could lie to her.
<At least she was calling the boy her baby.> Nahandriel thought. But he wasn’t going to be the one to explain what was going on to Shell.
“You know the Gardeners…” Lake began.
Shell snapped a glare towards Nahandriel. “They might be extremists.” She said. “Please tell me this isn’t some ‘greater cause’ type thing for them.” Shell pleaded.
Nahandriel saw Lake’s cheeks flush and the bead of sweat falling from his forehead. “Look,” Nahandriel stepped in. “It’s not that serious. It was the only way that I could get you a child…”
“Don’t. You. Speak your honeyed words to me Nahandriel la Jaguar!” Shell was pointing at him now. The baby still gingerly tucked under her other arm in his birthing tube. “Where did this baby come from? Is he legal? Is it even legal for us to have him!?”
“Shell…”
“Don’t you lie to me!” She seethed.
It was never a good idea to show someone the continuum if they weren’t ready for it. It took years of opening your mind and learning how to relax your body, in order to receive the tolkens of the past or the future for what they are. Psychometry and foresight could break the mind. Nahandriel winced at thinking about his sister. He’d broken her.
But Shell was a strong woman and Nahandriel was certain that he could control the continuum just enough to show only a single strand. The strand that he hoped would come true — concerning that baby that she was holding in her arm. Nahandriel pulled a marble from his pocket. He plucked that particular string and pressed his finger into Shell’s forehead.
Shell’s irises split into three different shades of violet and began to pinwheel opposite directions from each other. The wheel spins. Nahandriel rolled a marble between his fingers on his free hand. Before the marble was able to roll between his ringfinger and his pinkie, it had completely dissipated into dust.
The moment only lasted seconds, but it took Shell a few minutes before she spoke. She turned from Lake and Nahandriel and went to sit at the dining room table. She cradled the baby and rocked it like she would every night before bed, until the little boy was old enough to ask for bedtime stories. The future had been just opened up before her and it seemed to blow her mind. Foresight had that effect on everyone — except maybe Nahandriel himself. He had become so used to seeing the possible futures that often each read like a story to him. Like some new TV show that he needed to binge for hours until someone yanked him from his daydreams.
“Where were you?”
“You looked like you were far off.”
“You with us?” They’d say.
After a long time, Shell let out her breath. It was audible. Nahandriel could see that Lake seemed to let go of some tension he was holding. “We’ll do it.” She said. She rolled her neck, relieving clenched muscles there. “We will raise him as our own.”
“For the good of the universe?” Nahandriel asked, a stupid smile plastered on his face.
“No.” Shell snapped. She looked Nahandriel dead in the eyes. “We will raise him as our son. He will be family. And we will do what we think is best for his well-being.”
“Well that’s great!” Nahandriel said. He pulled out some crumbled papers from his pocket and handed them to Lake. “Sorry,” Nahandriel said sheepishly. “I had a rough landing.”
“Sir, it was a crash landing.” Nahandriel had almost forgot that Bernard was even there. Cinderform could stand so still, not breathing.
“Bernard,” Nahandriel warned.
“I know, I know, ‘let me do all the talking’ you said.”
“When will we get those here?” Lake asked. He handed the paperwork to Shell’s free hand.
“Hopefully never,” Nahandriel replied.
By this time Shell was able to read the crumbled papers. “Lake!” She gasped.
“What is it?” He sounded concerned. Nahandriel just smiled — because he knew what was coming. This happened often for him.
“These…” Shell couldn’t finish. She looked at Nahandriel, tears in her eyes. “I never thought I’d have a baby…With my problems and all…My mother was so sad for me…We were so sad…I — I was ashamed.” She tried to catch her breath. “I thought our family was done…Our marriage done…” She stumbled into Lake’s arms and squeezed him, crying on his shoulder.
“What is it?” Lake asked over Shell’s shoulder, directed at Nahandriel.
“He’s really ours,” Shell cried.
“I thought you couldn’t get legal adoption paper.” Lake said.
“No,” Shell pushed off Lake. She cradled her son, pulling the baby’s face close to hers. The only thing separating them was the thin birthing tube glass. “He’s made from our combined DNA. He’s truly our son.”
“Nahandriel!?” Lake asked.
“It’s true…” Lake pummeled into Nahandriel, wrapping his arms around him in a bearhug. “…I pulled some strings,” Nahandriel tried to say.
Lake turned to Shell and they hugged and kissed. “We have son,” Lake said. Nahandriel could hear the tears on his voice. “How will we ever repay you?” Lake asked Nahandriel.
“Just raise him as I know you will. And if the weave of the many futures I’ve seen are true — he will become one of the greatest heroes in the universe.”
