Chapter XI09.IV.2024
The void. Pure, unrefined nothingness as far as the eye couldn't see, with no color to it - it wasn't even black, it was lacking it altogether like the space one sees beneath closed eyes. The void had no space, no distance, and very little in terms of time.
Tayne was here for like the five thousandth time in her life. This was, to put it lightly, soul-crushing. She had no body to move, no mouth to speak, nothing. She was nothing. Nobody from nothing, capable of doing nothing, and the worst part was there wasn't anything to rage at and destroy to make this state go away...
"...Hey, Tayne!"
"Uh?" - Tayne blurted with a shaky, trembling, honestly disgusting low voice she wished to never hear again and immediately covered her mouth with her hands. Oh stars she can speak. She has a mouth. And hands. Does she suddenly exist again?
"Tayne, bestie, you can open your eyes. Everything's fine now."
She tried to open that weird thing the voice called "eyes". And it surprisingly also worked, blasting all of creation with the brightest stream of hot pink Tayne had ever witnessed.
She was laying on something she couldn't care less about. Above her was the girl named Lana, holding her hands and smiling from ear to ear like she just ate the tastiest cake in the entire Cosmos. And above her was a giant shapless sheet of pink, glowing from all directions, that was both close and infinitely far away, that in comparison to eternal void seemed like the best upgrade imaginable. Somehow Tayne knew this... not really an object is supposed to be called "the sky".
"Hey, it worked! It wooorked!" - Lana was just squirting with joy. So good to see her friend in such an awesome state... - "You're here!"
"Where are we?" - this time the voice came out softer. Tayne blinked a few times and sat up on Lana's laps. The sight before her was an endless green grassland with no trees or other defining features... or no, here's a tree, there's a couple, a whole line of them to the left, and a hill to the right, and a brook flowing from behind that hill into a giant lake that's suddenly behind her, and whoops, all that is covered in trees as well now... Tayne couldn't stop turning her head around trying to catch all these new objects suddenly appearing into creation, much to Lana's joy.
"At the edge of the world," - Lana proudly announced. - "As I knew it when I was seven. I used to come here all the time, watching the sunset and wondering what lies in the great beyond... Though you made some improvements to the place," - Lana vaguely gestured at the sky.
What is that girl meaning? The sky was always like that. Tayne knew since forever it's supposed to be like that. She had nothing to do with choosing that.
"It was me, right?.." - with every word Tayne's voice softened more as the connection with the void got severed. - "I was lying in the great beyond?"
"Yup, and now you're awakened! I'm so thankful the stars had sent me such a gift!"
"You're a gift," - objected Tayne and embraced Lana. She gasped and fell over under Tayne's sudden weight, and the two laid in the grass for a while more.
"Alright, dork," - Lana suddenly said, - "let's get to doing stuff."
The next moment she's suddenly raised off the ground in Lana's hands, and the next one she's standing on her feet all by herself. Wow, that girl is strong.
"Stuff like... what?"
"Stuff like changing the world, of course! We're at the edge of reality, what better place to try things like this," - Lana sprang her right hand forward, and a powerful wave rushed from her, raising the ground up and putting it down again in a moving hill that quickly disappeared over the horizon, - "or this," - she raised the hand up abruptly, and a fountain of transparent lightly pink fluid bursted from the ground in reaching range from them, Lana quickly filling a large flask with it which she pulled from who cares where, - "or this," - she raised both hands to the sky, turning them palms up, and...
"Can you please spare the sky?" - Tayne caught her by the arm. - "I like it the way it is."
"Sure," - Lana shrugged, - "your sky, your choice. Aaand you're up!"
"What?.."
"Your turn to imagine stuff! If you want."
No harm in trying, right?...
Tayne took a couple steps forward, took a deep breath and sprang both hands before her. Without really imagining the effect in advance. A grave mistake...
A bursting jet of raging black fire had erupted out of her fingers, engulfing a wide swath of the field. It wasn't spreading, thankfully, but that swath it hastily consumed - dissolving everything down to the very fabric of creation itself, opening a gaping rift into nothingness, the no-color void with no concept of space or existance or...
Tayne physically recoiled, turned around and ran like that thing's chasing her, until tripping and falling and burying her face into the ground. "No... Not again... Never again..." - her voice started glitching back just from her looking into that abyss. She felt like her entire body was about to also glitch out in some horrible way... until Lana touched her on the shoulder and that eerie grasp disappeared.
"Hey. It's fine. I scared it away."
"You did... what?!"
"Made the oblivion leave. It's easy, actually. That thing's so full of nothing any grain of existance tipples it over. You just bring forward everything that you are, everything you care about, and think it - and it dissipates."
"What... is that thing, though?"
"Oh, the oblivion? It's like... a stain in the Metacosmos. It's mostly harmless, only good at scaring."
Tayne stood up again, clenching her fists. She wanted revenge on that thing. She wanted to destroy it, all of it, forever...
The rift in the field was still present. But now it was leading into a completely different picture - a colourful one, a whirly rainbow maelstrom of intertwining threads.
"See? That's what the Metacosmos really looks like. It's bursting with life! And that's what we draw our power from. Unrefined chaos of creation."
Tayne got on her knees near the rift and touched it, and it responded with a gentle ring of waves spreading out of her fingers. Creation, huh... The one thing Caithe always aced in all of its aspects and she was never good at. The "unrefined chaos" part, though... that spoke to her heart a bit more.
"You want to try again?" - Lana gently touched Tayne on the shoulder.
"...Maybe. But not right here. I don't want to scar this place anymore. Or any place... Or anything at all..."
"Tayne, it will be fine," - Lana assured. - "The Metacosmos heals itself. No scars are permanent, the chaos always prevails. It's the second law of existance: everything is trying to be as diverse as possible. That boring emptyness will never win, it just can't. By design."
Tayne remembered the second law of existance differently, but that line weirdly made sense.
"Anyway, can we move to some other place? Like... more like there?" - Tayne gestured towards the rift.
"Why not?" - shrugged Lana. - "Hop aboard, we're going up!"
Tayne let Lana pick her up again ("ouch, my chest!" - "sorry! is this better?"), got accustomed in her grasp - and then the most wonderful thing of the entire day happened. Lana jumped up, and before she touched the ground again, three beautiful pairs of giant feathery golden wings sprang out of her back - spreading twice wider than Lana's armspan. And with a little tilt on Lana's part they quickly started to gain altitude.
"Wooooah. Lana, you know you're super cool, right?"
"Thank you!" - she said. - "Folks usually define my temperature the other way around. Which also works, but I'm glad you're seeing this side of me."
"Why three pairs, by the way?"
"Oh, that's just what works from experience. One pair - I get tired quickly and can't maneuver as much, two pairs - asymmetry makes me bob up and down. Any more than three and it's too much to handle."
They were gaining speed, fresh wind bursting through Tayne's hair. The planet far beneath them was spinning faster and faster. Zakossos swooped by, and Lana made sure to drop altitude a bit to pass through the hoop on the university. Tayne's heart pounded, but oh stars, she was in no way going to ask Lana to tweak anything.
After Zakossos they started to rise again, until the planet disappeared into the fog and the sky itself started shifting through hues, finally stabilizing at the whirlwind of every color imaginable at the same time.
"Last stop!" - exclaimed Lana and snapped her fingers. A truly royally-sized bed immediately appeared beneath them and they landed - onto a mattress so soft they both were sinking into it. Tayne rolled over, accidentially plunging right on Lana's wings, but that turned out to be alright - they were soft, almost ethereal, freely wrapping around Tayne like a blanket.
"This. Was. Amazing!" - Tayne freely spread on the bed, grabbing one of a hundred pillows and throwing it into the air. It followed a very unusual trajectory, slowing in the top part like gravity was tuned down, but promptly fell back in the end.
"Oh bestie, we're just starting though..."
Oh right. The creation thing. Well, now that she was submerged into primordial chaos from all directions, surely nothing can go wrong a second time? She sat down and folded her palms, and Lana embraced her with the wings, curiously looking over Tayne's shoulder.
She imagined a beautiful flower springing from in-between the palms - and so it did. Or at least, it was shaped like a flower, a thorny rose, but the color was pure black, making it look like a cardboard cutout with no depth. Well... at least the color existed. That's a start.
Tayne imagined further, and the black dissipated, getting overridden by a lighter and lighter gray, until pure white. Even better! Still not what she wanted though. She tried to color it a bit more and it acquired a light green tint; but trying to saturate it went only so far until the flower just... blasted off like a firework, exploding over their head into a shower of quickly fading green sparkles.
"I made a thing!"
"You certainly did!"
"Still a long way until this, though..." - Tayne ran her hands through Lana's wings.
"Oh, we'll get there!" - and that casual we was the best thing Tayne could've heard that moment. She had a new idea suddenly consume her thoughts, though.
"Tell me, are these wings sensitive? Like, do you feel it when they are touched?"
"Uhm? Yeah, sure thing."
"So everything you create on you is sensitive?"
"You mean like body parts? They normally are, yep."
"Like, as sensitive as they would be if they were natural?"
"Err, what are you talking about? These are natural."
That was very uplifting to know. "Then I can't wait for the moment I'll learn to take the form I want to be..."
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing as substantial as your wings, just need to rewrite some..."
Waaaait.
She examined her feelings. Carefully patted her body around. What in the Cosmos, is she dreaming right now?
"...body parts. I guess it's already done and I haven't even noticed?..."
"That's the magic of this place, Tayne! You are who you want to be deep inside. Actually that's always like that, but here it works literally. The chaos bows to your subconscious before everything else..."
Tayne clasped her knees and distanced a bit. She needed to process the full implications of that sudden dream-come-true. Of a heavy chain of mostly her own discomfort, that was previously binding a substantial part of her life, suddenly unclipping. She can now start to consider actions she wasn't even planning to pull out of the "maybe some day" territory in any near future...
That thought was going dangerously nowhere as she fell back into Lana's wings. Tayne wanted to ask for advice, but how would she even go about that?..
"Listen, uhm... what have you done first when you just got these wings?"
"Immediately started trying them out, of course! It was only one pair and I was a super noob, there was much falling, but eventually that whole flying thing started to click together..."
"Makes sense, I guess," - though this comparison was useless, her situation was entirely different...
"Is there something you want to try out?"
Tricky question. Define "want", please.
"There are things I've been planning to try out, which I uhm... was delaying until the end of that anatomy-physiology-alteration kaboodle. But it's more like me not wanting to do them prior - attempted several times, failed miserably, hated myself - than me dying to try them after. Besides, I would need solitude for that."
"I can provide it if you want..."
"No, you've missed the point!" - Tayne hugged one of Lana's wings, - "I won't be asking you to leave! Spending time with you is, like, way more valuable for me than chasing some weird idea that I'm unsure if it will even work or if I'll like it, and that I can test all I want in half a year anyway!"
"Do you want to wait half a year, though?"
"Err... I don't know, okay?" - Tayne fell back again and grabbed a pillow to cover her face.
She had one more idea to pitch, but that one outright refused to fit into a coherent sequence of words time and time again. She kinda hoped Lana would guess it and make an offer herself, but it wasn't looking like that was going to happen. Oh stars why haven't they invented telepathy, she could've just invited Lana into her head to get the point across with no information loss...
"So, Lana... you reiterated like three times how you're only with me because I'm seeing a side of you nobody really pays attention to, right?..." - Tayne tested the waters.
"Tayne, there wasn't an 'only' there! But yeah, that's one of the things I like you for."
"And what about that other side of yours?..." - Tayne wasn't a completely innocent child to miss the essence of what that side was.
"Oh, the horny one? What's up with it?"
"Well... I... um... I wanted to ask... given your words about experimenting on you and stuff... wouldn't it be a disappointment for you if I wanted you to expose me to it as well?... Like, this wouldn't make that other-side-stuff null and void, would it?"
"Oh." - Lana was looking quite surprized there. Who's innocent now, Tayne was waltzing around that topic for a good minute! - "Ooh. No, no, it certainly wouldn't. Nulls and voids can go screw themselves. Are you sure you really want that, though?"
"There's no harm in trying, right?"
"Riiight..." - Lana licked her lips, visibly getting a bit nervous, but excitingly so, - "well, for me that actually wouldn't be bad in the slightest! I was kinda holding myself on a leash this entire time to make sure I'm not inconveniencing you. Was a bit afraid to deviate from that image that got you so hooked, you know? And don't get me wrong, that was no big deal, I can certainly continue if you walk back the desicion, which you by the way should feel free to do at any time... but uhm, if that is an option... you know, leashes aren't exactly my thing... oh stars what am i even talking about..."
Now Lana was going through the coy word-jumbling. Lana of all people! No, Tayne must be dreaming right now... And weirdly that circumstance had only fueled Tayne's own courage and determination to go through with her devious plan.
"That wouldn't require that romance thing, would it?" - Tayne assumed. - "I've seen examples both in favor and against that..."
"No, not at all, for me at least!" - assured Lana. - "No obligations, that kinda deal."
"Perfect! Sooo," - Tayne continued with growing enthusiasm, - "with me now in this shape, if you want... you can take me, like, right now?" - Tayne's heart pounded in a very tasty way as she said that.
"Wow. Well... You don't have to ask me twice for activities like that," - Lana took a small break figuring out an explanation she felt the need to convey. - "I like you, I adore them, nothing more is needed. However. One rule." - she now sounded extremely serious in these following words, the furthest from that careless stream of sunshine she always was. - "I don't want to hurt you, or inconvenience you, or do anything at all you wouldn't want. You might be surprised, but undesired actions can do actual lasting harm in sexual contact. So please, please, please, take this rule seriously. Since I don't yet know you at all in that regard, I will be asking your permission for... almost everything new I'll be doing. Even about things you were letting me do before. Please, listen to your feelings and only agree on things you really think you want to try, this is important. And if you start feeling discomfort from anything, literally anything, you can revoke such permissions at any time. This code of consent is usually applicable both ways, but you can treat me like you already have all the permissions you'd want, if I'll be uncomfortable with your actions, I'll revoke them case-by-case. Understood?"
"Holy stars how overly methodic..." - gasped Tayne. She was expecting anything but that level of... mindfulness. But she was seeing the logic behind the idea and trusted Lana with the execution. - "Yeah, why not. Where do I need to sign that with blood?"
Lana laughed out loud. "Oh stars, stop it already with your blood, I don't need it!"
"That was a joke!"
"Yeah, I know!" - Lana got closer, but weirdly more distant at the same time, as she severed all tactile contact intending to start it all from scratch. - "So... if you really do want that right now..."
"Yep!"
"...what would you want me to start with?"
"I don't know," - shrugged Tayne, - "you literally have, like, infinitely more experience than me. Where do you want to start?"
...Surprisingly, that "consent" thing turned out to be not annoying in the slightest. It really was what Lana pitched it to be, a tool for getting to know each other's preferences (and for Tayne - for getting to know her own preferences as well). The further they went, the less they needed to pause to clarify that stuff out. And the less Tayne wanted to get distracted from the process. The things this body of hers was able to feel were definitely, definitely up her alley.
They tried out several interesting objects Lana was pulling out of thin air, and these were nice, but honestly, none of them were comparable to what Lana herself was making Tayne feel...
It felt endless. Like time itself was slowly dissipating into a meaningless concept all while her consciousness was bombarded with a stream of pleasure of ever-increasing intensity, overflowing far beyond what Tayne ever expected to be reachable - until anything and everything beyond that feeling dissolved into the swirls of the primordial chaos and all she was able to think was how much she desired for this state to continue for the rest of eternity...