Tales: Journey to the Blink

Chapter 2: New World, Old Promise

CHAPTER 2: New World, Old Promise
   

‘No word yet!’ called a voice from below. The young woman placed the sheet of parchment she was holding onto the surface of the water, watching it sink and dissolve into nothing. She turned from the basin at her desk, answering the voice.

‘Nothing? No one’s heard anything?’ Her dark eyes narrowed as she tossed her lengthy hair over her shoulder, readying herself.

She was extremely beautiful despite her sharp features; even her ears were pointed. But her appearance was nothing to how she was dressed. She wore a long, sweeping garb of deep navy. It was light and loose where it flared out slightly from her hips. Her clothing was almost completely backless and flowed down at her sides to two points. Down her front, the whole piece was open, only barely covering her chest. A small, inconspicuous sash tied the two halves together below her midriff, scarcely cloaking her. The piece had cut sleeves at the elbow, and looked very similar to a thin, altered robe that wasn’t being worn properly.

The woman was shoeless and had dainty little freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her look would have certainly alarmed people if not for the fact that everyone living around her wore similar, if not more revealing clothing.

‘I’m afraid not Ava!’ the voice answered. The woman, Ava, huffed impatiently before walking to the hole in her floor. She paused briefly before jumping down to ground level. It was a long fall, but she landed quite gracefully. She strode up to a young girl who looked identical to her in almost every way. She had the same silky, straw-coloured hair, and matching jet black eyes. She even had a trail of freckles over her nose, but the pattern was the only difference that could be made between them, aside from their age.

‘I see. Thank you Lora. Tell your sisters where I’m going.’ Ava glided out of what appeared to be a doorway woven from vines and branches. Her home was massive: a converted tree. The middlemost branches were braided together on each side, weighed slightly down into six, little hanging rooms suspended above the ground. The inner tree and main rooms were made from the giant, partly hallowed trunk. Miraculously, there was no ladder system or stairs of any kind.

‘I will, where are you heading?’ asked the girl from the doorway. Ava continued walking, not bothering to turn as she answered.

‘Redwood.’

Ava kicked off from the ground, flying ever upwards. Her back-length hair fanned behind her as she soared, revealing a fluttering of blurry, transparent wings, completely undetectable to the naked eye. To an onlooker, it would seem as if she was floating without any help at all, lifting higher and higher as if being pulled by an imaginary tether.

All across the sky there were bodies just like hers, gliding this way and that. She even waved to few of them as she made her way farther from her home in the trees. Some wore goggles over their eyes as they whipped past, but all of them were similarly clothed. Only a few had any form of footwear, and fewer still were carrying things with them as they moved through the air.

Every once in a while, one or two would land, but just as often, a newcomer would lift off, taking their place.

She raced along in the sky for a considerable time, passing small dwellings and strange looking animals below. Not once did she stop or slow down until she finally landed amidst an enclosure of trees. A pathway stretched in front of Ava, and continued behind. The canopy of the trees intertwined in an elaborate, tangled mess overhead. Ava sighed, walking into the forest. Her invisible wings folded once more against her back, her hair falling into place. It was slow going without the aid of her wings; her feet were not accustomed to extended use, and the rough, uneven ground was extremely unforgiving.