You had gone to sleep like this.

Laid back, stretched out. Aware of everything, like a hare among the flowers. The fuzzy lump of your chest, rising and falling. A hare among the flowers.

It was lovely to be here. Fallen from the sky. Staring back up at it as you fell. Falling into clouds, not through them. Green and crisp, chilly pastures on your back. It really made you feel alive again, like Jack, in the middle of his giant world. Head in the... breathing at last. Fuzzy lump. Up and down. You can feel...

The ceiling above has eyes. They're staring down at you, and you're staring up at them. Warm. They're soft. The eyelids narrowed, the cheeks being squished tight by a wide smile. Closed. Then, the lips part to whisper winds into your ear. You are sinking into the world below you. The grass is kneading at your back, enthralling you, enveloping you. You are a falling act-- you are falling. You are being embraced by the forces of this world. Crushed and shoved at once by your own weight-- coiled and caressed. You are being held safe. Locked tight. Nothing can get to you now, here. It is the best... you've had in...

You know me. You trust me. It is one of those things you never hide and never run from. I could accuse you of lying. Running. I do often, because you do often. But not here. Here you are simply... confused. And it's simple. I look down at you. I look up at you. I look within you. Outside of you. I smile with my eyes. Cheeks squished by...

You drift away again. You swear you've never moved from this spot, you've been here since the dawn of time. There is moss shackling your arms and legs, your claws are becoming flowers set in the earth. Your time. It's almost up, but you can't feel that. You won't. It is endless, like this mile of flowers and grass. It is infinity. With holes, of course, but stretched.

Stretching beyond you, you see it. Haze in the air like fire. Blazing and scarring the ruin ground, verdant and smoking with a might you cannot bear on your own. And yet here you are, alone. Standing. Kneeling. Staring. You feel drips of water tracing down your back. It's the blood, the sweat, and tears. It's the effort. Little speck, got taller. You watched it. You awaited it. You poured into it the last of what you had...

Eyes of green. Spots of radiance. They shine down on you. Little blue. Spots of hats. You wind and falter through and down these trails. Endless like your time. Endless as this mile. There are holes, certainly. And you will fill them.

It's the best you've ever had.

There's a hare among your flowers. It stares up at you, a bead for an eye, a lump for a body. Fear has no place in this domain. Death exists in its simplest form. Slow and cyclical. Someday, this hare will die. But today, it stares up at you, and you feel your heart burst for it. Lightning cracks above. You know how it feels-- you have seen it before. Your heart is raging like the sky above, hammered down by thousands of shards of rain. You cannot run from this, and neither can he. You stare at him, and your eyelids narrow. Your cheeks get squished by a smile...

That sky is yours. It has always been yours. You have known this since forever. That sky is endless, and yours, and you know it. You have gazed upon it. You have spent your whole life amongst those clouds in your soul, and yet your feet have never walked amidst them. It is a garden up there. A giant garden, or a giant's garden. You, a giant. It is your garden. Trees that form arbors, grassy fields, breezes that sweep the land like a blade swings over the head. Missing it. Sparing it. Laced within that sky is everything you know. All you have ever learned.

Everyone you have ever met. Wronged. Righted. Loved. Up there, awaiting you. Dear Zeus, come back to your Mount Olympus.

Today, you reach them.

Today, you wake up.

Think "Speak"

Standing in front, you can feel him long before you see him. You know his presence, and his shape. The growths upon the tree, the antlers that spread proudly from that trunk. Oh, how he has grown. A tall oak, prouder and larger than what can be contained in a single body. How he lifts his chin and shouts to the crowd, how they lean to him. How they lean on him. He is the rock. That was not a mistake. You once thought it was... and time has taught you well.

Beside him is the one you have wronged. Arrays of worlds, colors abound. You have made sure they are in love here as they are in the flesh. You never knew what love looked like, until they taught you. And really, they were responsible. You hurt them. You stepped on them. You cut into their trunk and into their pond and into their heart, and you didn't have the words to say anything about it at all. For cycles, all you had to use to speak was your thunder. Lightning claws and darkened eyes. Terror. His colors and his blood changed you. You have never stopped being sorry, especially since you now know how to be.

Their pool lies with them. Calm, so calm, even when the world spins off its axis. You have never stopped wondering why-- or how.

Tucked away in a crevice, first is the smell. Fear has no place here. Golden and sweet, with eyes that perceive you. We know there is darkness in those eyes. It is a lie. It hides and deceives what is real: the light in him. Beaming like little suns from the ground. Buttercups. You can never get too close, but you can admire from here.

This domain is littered with trails of slime, carved into the undergrowth. They make a path for you to follow. It is a better path. It is the first better path you have ever received. At the head is where she stands, accompanied by unmoving rocks and the stumps of trees. You should be accompanying her too, but... not yet, you tell yourself. She looked fear in its face and said that it had no place here. You don't know how she did it. You simply watched, and then you were no longer afraid. She does it for everyone. You'll never get it, but the question remains. Maybe if you keep following these paths, someday you'll understand...

It's not buttercups. It's similar, but different. Something simple resides along the long forgotten here. You feed them with rotting memories. This one was kind and strange. You never understood them. At first, you never wanted to. Ever since, longing has clung and grown over you like moss upon stone. You can't describe them easily. You feel like even if you had seen them again, talked to them again, you still would not be able to articulate them. That is what this place is for, however. Placing everything you don't comprehend right in front of you, because even if you don't comprehend it, you love it. You want it back. You have been trying to admit this your whole life.

And of course, off all other beaten paths, you have filled the world with technicolor buzzing bugs. It's exactly as you'd hoped. They join you in your work. The stumble through this with you, and yet they seem to know far more about what they're doing than you do. They turn envy into admiration, fire into steam, and pollen into honey. You can follow paths, certainly, but eventually you will get lost. And when you do, you will end up here. They will transmute you, without any effort whatsoever. You love the colors they make.

There is still more to be added here. There are so many holes to fill. You have time. This is your life's work. It will not be built in or out of pain, but it might commemorate pain. There is a pain you would like to commemorate here. You only wish you knew how. You didn't know anything about them when you nearly killed them and they nearly killed you. All you remember is the size, the blur of color, the black spots and the red streams, and radioactive eyes. They stared down at you. They were not warm, or soft. There was no smile. Only jaws, and fear, and what should have been death for the both of you.

You dragged them into this. You wish you could apologize somehow, but you don't know the slightest bit about them. Not even their name.

There are other holes yet. Another begs to be filled. It's close to the buttercups. You don't understand its yearning. Or, more like, you don't know what to do about its yearning. You can't recall anyone who might fit there. It's such a small spot to fill...

There are holes, and you will fill them. That was your promise, and that is now your creed. This is your proof. The castle that floats in the sky is a testament to you, Zeus. Your power is not you. Your potential is your own, but that is not you. This is you. Come stare down, warm eyes, and smile. Come to me, and be proud of who you are, and who you will become.

Run to me. My arms are open and my hand is free.

Madhukar.

Madhukar.
Awoke, blinking rapidly. Her face was immediately accosted by a laughing breeze. The blade hovered over her face. Her eyes drifted toward the sky, then softened. Somehow, despite the cold, she felt warm. Her lips parted into a smile that squished her cheeks. She leaned forward, half risen, and shook the earth from her fur. Yawned and stretched. There was magic swelling within the fuzzy lump of her chest. She could feel it.

It wanted use. It wanted freedom. The time to let lightning loose from the bottle was today.

Slowly, Madhukar got to her feet. Bipedalism was so strange. Her body was constantly vibrating, always at war with gravity. The only way to stop it was relenting. Madhukar had been relenting a little too often lately. Her bones felt tired. Gravity was often cruel to bones.

The feline's head tilted skyward, and she stared for a while. At her feet was her own impact crater. She wished to return. The strings of her heart felt taut. She had to climb up there, but how?

A memory came to mind. The Hunt, in which... well, let's skip to the ending. She remembered the envy powers granted to the participants. Wings. Some were learning how to fly. She had left too soon to learn... Well, there was time to learn now. Madhukar had been wanting to practice magic on her own for a while.

The first step: breathing. She had to get on the saddle before she could begin to ride. Madhukar inhaled the laughing air, twitching just a little at the chills it sent down her spine. She held it for a moment, steadily, and focused her attention on her back. Her eyes were locked upwards. Hopefully this wouldn't turn out ba-- exhale.

And...

Woah.

Madhukar felt light. Not light-headed, just... light. Light all around. She tried to look to either side far enough to catch if there were wings or not. Um... nope. Not that she could see, or control. Maybe they were there and she just couldn't.... how could she test? Maybe try running... and then jumping.

So Madhukar ran.

The grass seemed to part under each foot before they even touched the surface. The felinoid blazed a peculiar kind of trail. She felt... carried. Somehow. The next breeze to wave across the meadows felt like it would almost sweep her off the ground.

Madhukar halted abruptly and nearly fell over. She was startled by whatever unexpected occurrence was transpiring here. But, well, not even seconds later, she began to run again. She felt like, somehow, she wouldn't get... hurt? Which was very very strange. Unerring calm, lifting her up... Madhukar began to run, and then she jumped.

Think "Speak"

She went higher than she had expected. Once entirely off the ground, Madhukar attempted to flap... something? But nothing was there to flap. So she was coming down. Softly. Laughter cushioning her fall. Air. It was everywhere, here. My, how it ran.

And my, how she would run too. This was... this was fun, actually. Really really fun. More fun than... yeah. The best she'd ever. You know.

Madhukar ran, and then leapt, rising to height after height. She looked up. The sky, her kingdom. Maybe if she could jump high enough, she could...

So Madhukar put everything into it. Dashed through the grass with a drive akin to fury, held in a breath and then released it in a burst of laughter. If it wasn't contained fast, it would turn into a fit, and maybe that would ruin the spell... but maybe Madhukar was fine with that. Why was it so nice to run in the grass?

She leapt. And that it precisely when the spell ended. She could feel her control on swaying gusts of wind begin to fade, as wind slipped through her open hands. The take off was significantly less grand, the height significantly shorter. Madhukar was about to crash, to fall, again and again and again--

Her eyes bored into the floor, a flash pang of panic set off in her mind. She breathed deep, holding her breath there, as if she could will at the wind to stop, or some kind of cushion to appear right beneath her, or--

Oof. Madhukar landed stiff on her feet, rickety and unstable like a tower stacked too tall.

Think "Speak"

Pretty soon, she could hold it no longer. Madhukar fell face-first onto the ground.

Ow.

Magic was so strange. She had felt herself attempt to do something there. What was that? A moment more on the ground before curiosity would push her back on her feet again. You know, the more she tried out this bipedalism thing for real... the more she kind of liked it. It was slow and jittery, but running in the wind had felt more exhilarating than it ever had before. Had Madhukar ever run in the wind before actually? ...Huh.

Well, anyways. Two spells. She has tried to make something to cushion her fall, right? Madhukar stared at somewhere in front of her, some location that wasn't actually tangible. Yet? What had she tried to do... make a cushion...

You have spent your whole life amongst those clouds in your soul, and yet your feet have never walked amidst them.

What was this power, anyways? She had felt it when talking to the deer as well. Wind. Air. It was everywhere, here. Surplus amounts. What did Tahi-shei say about magic? What did it want?

and yet your feet have never walked amidst them.

Madhukar focused, breathed in deeply, and then... put a foot forward.

Solid.

walked amidst them.

She put another one forward, her mind very much trained on the path ahead.

Solid. Again.

Madhukar wasn't standing. She was.... floating. Hovering, above the grass. There was her shadow below her, waving goodbye. And where was she going off to? Well. Up.

With each step, for quite some time, Madhukar was... actually walking on air. It took a great amount of concentration. She felt as if she couldn't laugh with the wind, could scarcely even breathe. But she was... going up. Actually. Actually climbing the air. It was holding her steady. She began to feel exhausted... like she was holding her bowstring taut for too long without firing, just putting every muscle into keeping this wild air together enough to hold her.

'Air wants motion.' It just made sense. Clicked with a core component of Madhukar's being -- she knew it vaguely and entirely, as one can have a clouded sense for how certain scenarios would turn out, even scenarios they had never witnessed before. If lightning wanted power, violence, or direction, then air wanted motion or freedom. They were not complete opposites. In fact, in some ways, they fit together hand in hand.

Madhukar would give it motion. Her focus felt like it was weakening. She had risked the leap, she didn't really want to risk the fall. She had already fallen. She was going up. Well, in this very moment, going up by going down. Did that make sense? Madhukar was stepping back down.

Soon, the pawpads on her feet were back to bathing in the grass.

Now, about wings. How was she supposed to do this? With air, it felt like she just had to trust it. A strange pseudo-opposite to her redoubted lightning. With lightning, some amount of trust had to be placed -- trust that lightning would follow what little intrinsic rules it had. But really, the trust she had to have there was trust in herself. With air, trust in self wasn't entirely required. Or, at least, it felt that way, because it didn't seem like she could do anything instantly deadly with it. The worst thing that could happen if she couldn't guide it correctly was apparently cause a gust, which was pretty close to nothing. With time, Madhukar would understand that better.

But yes, wings. Wings were different from air and lightning. She had only just seen others use them at the Hunt. They had been granted by those three voices in that one strange creature. Madhukar didn't want to remember the Hunt, but if she ever wanted to use the wings... she had to. The power was granted for her to flaunt it, which still sickened her. Madhukar could already flaunt her power just fine, thanks. Tahi-shei. Comet... Madhukar's record of "flaunting power" went back to the moment she was hatched. Flaunting power... felt nice, like an ultimate affirmation that she did indeed have the will and the force that she craved. But it never ended up making her happy, and it never ended up keeping her friends safe.

So did she want to learn to use these wings? Was there a way to flaunt this power... casually, or something? Or maybe she wanted to figure out something else...

Tahi-shei. Tahi-shei. Yeah. 'Tahi-shei.' She hadn't practiced those spells. Those spells weren't to flaunt power. She had reserved it for later... well. What better time than now?

Madhukar decided to sit in the grass and close her eyes. She tried to do what felt comfortable for this body rather than what felt familiar and... she ended up leaning back in the grass. Meditation. How was someone supposed to meditate? Just lay here and close eyes and... think? Uh...

Mushrooms. Mushrooms. Madhukar knew about mushrooms. She knew them from Tahi-shei, and from her own exploration. In fact, an old memory... learning more about her powers from a mushroom. The big mushroom in Eridanus. Madhukar smiled. Sunny wanted to-- and let's just not think about it. Let's just remember why she loved who she loved for a moment here...

And suddenly her breathing was calm again. Very calm. Negative thoughts threatened at the perimeter of her mind, but before them she placed a barrier. Just... let her have this. She was returning. Let her return, just for today.

From her the fountain of her lungs sprung a surprising amount of force. A spell she recognized but hadn't intended. A gust that blew in a long-lasting stream, even after Madhukar had stopped blowing. It was impressive. For once, a welcome backfire.

Think "Speak"

Madhukar stuck her hand into her self-made gust, admiring it. She liked these new abilities, wondered what else was possible with them. Maybe she ought to find someone with this kind of magic who could teach her. Maybe she ought to find her friends first. Would they even be friends anymore?

Well she couldn't just assume. Okay, actually, no, she could just assume. Feral beasts gnawed and thrashed at the walls surrounding the circumference of her thought space. They craved the flesh of any hope in sight. But today, Madhukar had woken up after a happy dream. She was in a good mood, and as long as she kept actually trying, the monstrous hatred could keep gnawing, and getting no closer.

So what to do now? An answer came rather quickly. Madhukar wanted to run again and experience the joy in this form. She wondered if she could use that spell the made the wind carry her without having to backfire something else to get there. What had she done to activate that spell? She was trying to form the wings, she was focusing on her back and looking at the sky. Now, Madhukar mimicked that -- stared at the sky and trained her attention on her body -- her feet. Focusing on her body at all still brought a level of discomfort, but she wanted to see what it could do. Madhukar wanted to start to like it.

Inhale...

POOF!

And suddenly Madhukar had knocked herself back into the grass. Gosh darn it.

Think "Speak"

Madhukar got up slowly, a playful kind of grimace on her face. Now the wind was laughing again, most likely at her.

It felt, to the felinoid, as though she had come on too strong. Tried to guide the wind with too much force. The wind wanted freedom, she had to remember. Madhukar couldn't just clutch it in a death grip and hurl it like she did with lightning. Too excited. Alright.

Try again?

Once more, with a little less gusto.

Inhale, and--!

Ah, there it was. Madhukar still felt more rigid than she probably should. A faint breeze tickled her heels and intertwined its fingers with hers. A presence so faint, a fading ghost. Madhukar would try to use it well.

Off she went!

Madhukar ran and ran in her little circle, feeling the aid of the wind leaving her by the second. She kept running anyways, because the running felt... really, really good. She began to run in a wide circle, trying not to think about it too much. She ran and ran and ran... until her legs started feeling weak and, at last, she collapsed. Wooh...

For a while there, breathing felt hard, but not because of something panic-induced. Madhukar learned rather quickly that lying down while breathing like this wasn't actually very pleasant, so instead she propped up her torso with her arms again. And again, Madhukar tried to breathe in deep, very very deep, even as her lungs protested, in the hopes that it would help...

And slowly, as she exhaled, Madhukar cast from her mouth a ribbon of wind that curled into a spiral, twisted against her will. What was this? It kept going, the more she breathed out, the more it spun, twisting and curling and racing, almost like watching the past few minutes of herself in a loop. Madhukar's eyes got wider and wider proportionally, first in amazement and then in realization, as the final product came into being.

A tower of swirling air began its minute-long stampede throughout Pegasus.

Madhukar could only watch, stunned. She wondered if she could... control it? Its direction? Madhukar focused on it and tried but... nothing. Air wants motion. Maybe Madhukar should've been a little more cautious after all.

Adrenaline kicked in, even though Madhukar was feeling a very weird form of calmness, and her body forced itself up and away. Was there anywhere she could get to fast enough that it would be out of the way of the billowing beast?

Hm...

Think "Speak"

Now that Madhukar needed it, perhaps the wind would listen. She would try to remain calm despite the... well, you know, the storm. Focus, inhale--

Yet again, it was faint, but the wind was listening. She summoned the gusts to her feet and began to run, much slower this time. At least she wasn't the only one carrying the burden of herself.

Eventually, Madhukar made it closer to the river. From a distance, she leered in an attempt to spot her tower of wild wind rolling about in the grass. But... she couldn't. Had it vanished? Huh. That was fast.

And now she was near water. Water... what did this river feel like? Madhukar felt very warm from all the running. Exhausted. She stuck her hands into the stream. Oh, that felt excellent. Yes!! This river was nice. She didn't have to see her reflection in it, but she could still feel the coolness of it. Although, at the moment... Madhukar felt like even if she did have to see her reflection, it wouldn't be as bad. Maybe that feeling was a product of the exhaustion. ...She liked it.

Think "Speak"