Crowned

Arc 1, Chapter 25: The Aether Speaks.

———

Immortality, The ability to live forever.

True Immortality, cannot be accomplished. The term, 'forever' is a concept.

In the wake of such a concept, our 'forever' means nothing.
Forever wasted.
Forever loving.
Forever dying.
Forevermore.

We will all not last either.

Hold dearly, your forevermore.
Hold it dear.

———

The wind was not cold.

The wind, by all means, should have been cold. It should've stung, prickled, and sank deep into flesh. The grass that danced below should've been crushed, been touched, felt. Something. Yet it wasn't. Leaves made no sound, beside the ones above, the ones that blew in the sensationless wind. The darkness was different, for it no longer had meaning. Everything nearby. Everything that could've been seen by eye, it was known. Surface, ridges of bark, the vitality of each leaf, and the dew of morning soon to come. It was known. Seen, without eyes.
Down to every last speck.

Had she died?
That was the question that arrived first and foremost.

She'd raised her head, her body felt light as a feather. It was without pain. Her moving required no effort. She merely thought of what she was to do, and it happened. Her hands, she looked at them first. A white mist that danced in the breeze, it was not to say, transparent. But she could see gaps that flicked in and out of existence. She'd raised a hand to feel it, to feel her face. She felt nothing, nothing there. Nerveless features that she'd been aware of, yet she could not tell if it was reality. There was nothing that stopped her from sinking into the ground but her own will. She wondered if that was what being a ghost had felt like.
Surely, it must've been different, however.

The world around her was different. Darkness had no meaning, and neither had light. Vision, or simple sight. She scanned anyway, colours unknown to her. Auroras that wrapped around tree trunks, and slithered through grass, lined treetops and even the sky.
A light show she felt as if she'd always known. Could touch. Could feel. Yet it was all so new simultaneously. Each surface had a vibrancy that would've hurt her eyes if she truly had them. But what had been truly strange, was that she'd also seen her own body. Herself. Her. A silhouette that was nowhere, yet where she was. In that forest. A disorienting thing indeed.

Soon enough.
She'd begun to have a sort of feeling in her feet again. It wasn't a pleasant one, but she hadn't the brain to process pain. She looked down to see the bone, flesh, and muscle begin to reform at the soles of her feet. She could feel—or felt as if she should have—the grass beneath her again. Tiny crinkles of leaves began to drift through the forest soon enough. She attempted to lift something—which had been devoid of verdancy, merely withering away; a dead leaf. It made only a sound when she'd lifted it. Attempted to interact.
The leaf had no colour. At least, it sustained its normal vibrancy. Full browns that signified it lived no longer.
She frowned. Why? Why would it not be allowed to appear as vibrant as the others?

It could've been life itself, and she wouldn't have known how to tell. Perhaps she could ask her friends.
Ah. Yes. Her friends. She wondered if they knew she'd been gone.

She gathered herself to her feet, instinctively dusting herself off, until she'd realized that was unnecessary and stopped entirely. Her journey through the forest consisted of dodging the bits of glass that littered the ground, and stepping around patches of blood. She eventually stuck her hand out, allowing the vibrant river of colours dance through her fingers. Each blink caused a wisp of mist to flow out in different directions. Despite it all, her eyes twinkled with amazement.
The skin, flesh, and other such things had begun to reform along her shins, and calves. It felt cold, the wind then. It finally had sensation, though dull and distant. It felt cold, it felt prickling. Though not the cold kind, instead it felt like ants crawling along the surface of her skin. She would've had complaints, but she couldn't have found the words at that moment.
She continued and noticed that it seemed the lights were all flowing to regroup in the same direction, like a river flowing out to sea. The aurora led down a path she'd known as familiar, but she dared not follow.