Throughout the bland and unassuming Tunnel E, there lie series of alcoves. Most of them are inhabited by all varieties of nothing. Nothingburgers with a side of nothing fried. Beefless breadless cheeseless none pizzas; grimace ___s, barren rock, disembodied blanks. Audland usually found this tunnel and the little river Styx running through its center to be quite boring. Its sisters, D and B, at least led to more interesting places. Tunnel E was the beginning of the path from the endless white of a mental institution (Ursa) to full on lunacy (Draco).
Today, however, Audland found the monotony of this cave to be a little more useful. In one of the alcoves, he had stashed a box full of stones, a few shiny coins, and the largest piece of illicit cargo: himself. In his hiding place, Audland attempted to create a shadow of a shadow. The results were not exactly impressive, but the gripping claws of darkness at clumps of his fur would do the job as he needed.
Usually, the lesser gembound running through this area knew to fear his unnatural darkness. They refused to go anywhere near it. This was helpful; it provided Audland with an unperturbed vantage point from which to watch his surroundings. It was especially useful in a cave that possessed many life-threatening underground secrets.
The tedium of life, however, tended to flee from all signs of Chaos. It wasn't really fair. Order had been a plague upon Ursa for many cycles before the dawn of Audland; and yet, nobody thought to fear her. Ah, well. Audland didn't really keep track of all that. At least, not yet.
He wasn't here for Mother. He was here for the Lessers. A few weeks ago, he had caught sight of something unfamiliar. In this very tunnel, two birds had been chittering high up above his head. He had been hiding unaided in one of these alcoves. He witnessed... what he had believed at the time to be the miracle of life. Not like that—the other one. One bird hacked up a stone, the other touched it, and then, right above his head, a beautiful baby chrysalis had formed. He had returned every so often just to watch it grow, to affirm what he saw.
And as he had stared at it, he had thought of something. He had actually thought a lot of things about it. He hadn't known that it was possible; that two Lessers could procreate the way Greaters did. Up until now, his gay yaoi life had been a little too busy for him to pay attention to small things like that. But, one nap and no friends later, here he was. Bored out of his mind and willing, in his solitude, to watch and listen.
Upon watching and listening to the behavior of these Lessers, Audland began to wonder what they were thinking about. Was it complicated? Was it interesting? Did they see the pictures in his mind that he did? Did they get... the blending, that he did? Where the pictures overlapped with the world? Did they know the darkness, outside of night? Maybe they did, and that's why they weren't particularly fond of him. How could they smell him? How could they smell each other? How did they know what the other one was...?
Was their magic different from his, or anyone he's ever met? Were the little birds also capable of spontaneous combustion, or bending water, or... or knowing what a homosexual was? When the little birdie above his head hatched, it would have a stone, and the blood in its veins would flow only through the allowance of magic. They would be at the same mercy.
So...
Audland camped out in the alcove now, obscured by darkness both natural and not. The birds weren't used to his presence here the way they were in Ursa or the other tunnels. When they flitted through this cave, they usually did so in a rush. So what would happen if he...?
As two birds began to flit past, Audland tossed a shiny coin out from the darkness of his hiding place. One seemed to startle at the noise of the clattering coin, but the other...
In the moment of pause, Audland's mind struck out.
Audland withdrew, and the Lesser seemed stunned. Terrified, it paused for only a moment longer before the chiding of its partner brought it back into being. Audland balled a fist.
The birds flew away, leaving Audland in the barrens where life refused to show its ugly face. Back to stillness, outside that piddly river. Back to wondering.
By the will of Chaos, he could have tormented that bird. He could have owned it. Controlled its mind. What else could he control? Surely it couldn't be possible to... make the bird like, his thrall? His "pet"? Well... Why not?
Audland pondered for a moment more, before removing a stone from his box. A stolzite, found long ago by a jaguar with a coral beard. He had traded with her, stones for stones. She had told him for the price of his stones' rarity, she would grant him a more powerful stone. Something with more magic in it.
It was time to test a theory.
Audland didn't know if that pair of mountain sparrows would ever return. It probably wasn't worth waiting around to find out, and searching would only compromise his position. All he could do was wait for the next one to arrive, and try to still be ensorcelled with shadow by the time it did.
Soon enough, Audland would catch it. A singular, fluttering wingbeat. These birds looked rather quaint, and their flights were rather elegant for something so small. Their natural trust in the world despite its strangeness, however, made their flight paths surprisingly easy to spot. You'd think something so small would be afraid of the largeness of teeth. Well, Audland hadn't detected anything like that in the memories of the bird he'd just peeked in.
Before wasting more of his energy, Audland would watch the bird from afar and look out for a glint on it somewhere.
When he couldn't see one right away, he nearly gave up the whole ruse. What stopped him was the recognition that an ill-tempered flare-up at this time would probably compromise the position he had spent this long conceiving of and maintaining. He really wanted this to be simple. Maybe enough to fight the threatening concept of a spiraling trajectory toward complication.
Before the moment could pass, Audland reached out with his mind again. The chaotic urge lurched forward with ease. Audland could almost see it play before him; his own thoughts manifesting like a hulking boar-headed beast, reaching out with horrible hoof-claws to grasp the mind of the bird in slow motion; captured in the middle of its flight.
ENTER THE DARK.
COME TO ME.
The thoughts overlayed and bled into each other; they all provided a similar concept. It might have been too much for the poor sparrow to parse on its own, but it seemed to follow along flawlessly anyways. It landed, right in front of him. Then it hopped into his outstretched hand.
Once delicately secured in Audland's grasp, the bird seemed to be released of his will, but now that it was physically restrained, there was no other choice. In time, if it was the right bird, it would have to obey.
Now trapped, the bird became more easily inspectable. Audland turned it around in his hand. The bird appeared to struggle at first, but against the deliberate pressure of his unyielding grip, the sparrow realized it couldn't stand a chance. Prying its mouth open with a talon, Audland managed to look inside to some degree, and...
There it was. Small and light, on the underside of its tongue. So easy to miss, but Audland barely managed to catch it.
Very, very unfortunately for the unwitting sparrow—it managed to make Audland smile.
This next part would be the most interesting, and perhaps the most difficult to pull off, depending on how all this could go. Audland wasn't much of a look-before-he-leapt-er. He didn't find much value in wondering about the possibilities for failure.
Gripping the stolzite in his other hand, Audland would raise the bird and the stone up to meet each other. Audland's yellow, gleaming eyes would pierce the sparrow like the light of stars. The bird, looking around wild, was clearly starting to panic. Curse Audland's perfect toothsome grin; the bird's mind was beginning to resist.
But Audland refused to be denied. Not when he was so close.
The imparted will would emblazon itself somewhere inside the bird's brain. What would it do with that...? It had only a few seconds of Audland's patience to decide.
A brief struggle, as if in pain, and the flash of magic, and then--the little gemstone swelled and engulfed the tiny bird, from the tongue outward.
Whatever the reasons, the universe or fate or just bad luck, it seemed that forcing this just wasn't the way to go.
@Audland
The magic leapt from his mind to his avian hostage specimen, but the result could not make it from the mind to the stone in Audland's hand.
For a moment, he got on his hands and knees to study it. He wasn't entirely sure why he did this. It wasn't like he would've done anything had he found it cracked or broken. Clearly, the sparrow was beyond his help, and beyond his influence now.
Getting up and dusting his hands off, Audland would ponder the results of his little experiment while he reached down and picked up the chrysalis to place on a kinder spot than the middle of the floor. It wasn't the bird's fault for being in just the wrong place and time to be subject to the consequences of Audland's boredom.
So, it was probably impossible to continue this experiment for now. Audland couldn't think of a way to influence these kinds of creatures without having them blow up and/or chrysalize. Maybe it just wasn't within his abilities to do.
That made Audland growl.
But, he had to admit, his curiosity had been satisfied. And without too much hassle either. It was time to pack up and go home.
Wherever that was.
- exit -