The World After This One

1. Aeris

Aeris stroked the black cat's head, letting her long fingers play in the soft black fur between zir ears. Erebus purred deeply and pushed up against her fingers. Aeris had a great affection for the giant cat who's length had grown to over 300 feet over the past thousand years. The wind howled around the cat's midnight obsidian tail as it swung through the air behind it in delight at Aeris' attention.

Aeris spoke in her customary voice which was part softly spoken words and part song. She leaned down and intoned very close to Erebus's ear, "You look well fed? How many souls have you caught and eaten today?"

Erebus didn't answer, but arched zir back inviting Aeris to find longer strokes through the full length of the great cat's impossibly black and luxuriously soft fur.

Aeris loved the cat's deflection of the question and invitation of intimacy. She was always drawn to the magical creature who had the unique ability to absorb the lost souls of those that perished in the collapse. Souls that were floating adrift across the universe. Those were the ones that in some way survived that great apocalyptic moment when the entire world crashed down around itself and were not cast in the new production. They were numbered in the millions, but as they drifted away from the epicenter of the new big bang they became harder and harder to find. Erebus had a nose for them, able to sniff them out or just find them by luck or instinct. Who knows how the universe worked in this latest iteration?

She leaned further down so she could glimpse into the cat's eyes and see the pair of perilously deep black holes nestled in the cat's skull. She felt the hypnotic pull of those eyes. My god they were dangerous! She blinked and pulled back before she was tempted to let herself fall into that dark and peaceful abyss. 

Erebus didn't use words to talk, but rather a kind of telepathy that ze had inherited after digesting dozens of souls that harbored that rare ability. The cat thought-said, "One day you will surrender. I look forward to swallowing your beautiful soul."

Aeris smirked, "Not today."

Aeris withdrew her hand from Erebus' soft fur.

Erebus sighed and meowed his disappointment, "MrRRoowww."

Aeris narrowed her eyes and contemplated what she would do that day, not that days existed in this new world. Her eyes churned and swirled blue and ash gray colors as if they were being prepared by an artist to paint the ocean in a storm.

The cat looked up and studied Aeris's face. He watched as her eyes swirled and her fine luminescent hair slowly shifted and fought with itself around her face. Her hair was made up of thousands of long glowing worms, some as long as 100 feet, that clung to her head and squirmed over each other. They periodically glowed casting light on her face and all around her. One of the worms started sticking out and tried to escape. She placed her hand on it and smoothed it out against her head.

She found the worms basking on a methane beach on a lone planet with three suns orbiting overhead. When Aeris found them she explained that she could take them to the suns where the light was so warm and brilliant. You see the worms fed off the sunlight and it was so far away it would take all day to recharge them, but if she took them closer they could receive enough energy to last them for a hundred years. She gathered them in her arms and ascended to the nearest red sun. As they approached the sun the heat and fire of the crimson star was too much and they began to melt and burn. She held them up against the suns brilliant light and made them an offer. They could become her hair and live on her head and light her way for all of eternity or she would throw them into the sun where they would quickly perish.

They all agreed to live on her head.

The glowing electric sun worms, or jormungandworms as they were called quickly grew fond of their place on Aeris' head. She kept them clean, and let them bask before a thousand different suns, each radiating a different color allowing them to glow as each one. They could now light up in every imaginable color, except pink. For some reason there are no pink stars.

Aeris decided to have a smoke and found her pipe and the brushed tin container on her fireplace mantle decorated with pictures of birds and removed the lid. She reached in and took a pinch of delicate white bones she had gradually collected over the many years. They were from a mixture of lava gulls, ravens, trokken, magpies, owls of course, and a variety of sparrows. 

When Aeris first entered the new world, this last world, she did not breath. Although she had lips and a mouth sufficient to make shapes that could convey her mood to Erebus, her body didn't compel air to enter her body like other creatures and it seemed just fine. Perhaps the pores of her skin allowed air in and out. She did, however, find it fascinating how others had holes in their faces or on their heads in some fashion to allow air in and out. The rhythmic sound of breathing, like ocean waves, was soothing to listen to. Some even used their air holes and mouths to make melodic sounds like many birds she encountered. Others could form short sequence of hums and mouth sounds to communicate with each other.

One day, Aeris decided she would like to be able to breathe. She just narrowed her eyes, thought of the air chambers she wanted to have inside, closed and opened her eyes and she had lungs and a pair of perfect small holes in her nose ever since. She enjoyed the act of respirating; the air rushing in and out of her body was calming, and when she grew older it also allowed her the vice of smoking.

Aeris packed the pinch of bones into the bowl of the pipe which was carved from jade green stone and had a long thin shaft which she cradled against her arm like a mother cradles a baby in front of the fireplace.

In learning to use lungs and throat again, she discovered breathing some things tickled, some burned, some made her cough and one thing, the small bones of birds, awakened her senses. She one day, perhaps by accident, perhaps it was an experiment, threw a pile of bird bones she had collected into the fire. The smoke made her dizzy and light and she relaxed in a way she never had before. It was like the feeling of falling asleep under a really soft blanket, or the way it felt when Erebus curled up on her chest and purred.

She took a thin stick of wood from the top of the mantle and move it into the bright yellow flames of the fireplace. With her other hand she brought the tip of the pipe up to her lips. The stick caught fire and she brought the burning end into the bowl filled with small bird bones and drew air in through her mouth causing the bird bones to catch fire and start to smoke and crackle. She took a long breath in and then taking the pipe from her mouth she let the smoke slip and curl over her lips and float and drift around her face.

Her lips curled into a delicate smile and she moved towards the window and looked out on the field of stars scattered around them, just outside the window. They twinkled and winked at her. She could have built her home anywhere in the universe, but floating through the stars felt like home and the lack of day and night kept her from counting how many days had passed. There was a specific kind of madness that could take hold in your mind as you repeated the same daily routine for hundreds of years. If could ask Aeris how old she was she would reply, "6174 years." It was not her true age. She had given up counting, as there didn't seem to be much point to counting how old you were when it appeared you never aged.

In order to fight off madness, and because it pleased her she began telling stories.

They were real of course! every word...

probably

Erebus slipped between her legs and rubbed zir soft black fur against the inside of her legs. Ze thought-spoke, "You promised me a story today."

Aeris crossed her thin arms and leaned against the edge of the window. She took a deep drag from her pipe and blew the smoke out into space. After a long moment had passed she replied, "Of course." Some of her worm hairs stretched out towards the stars attracted to the celestial lights. 

She moved back to the fireplace and tapped the pipe against the side emptying the spent black bones into the fire. The fire crackled and flashed as it consumed the bones.

She carefully set the pipe over the fireplace and approached the red cushioned couch and draped herself over it, her legs dangling over one arm. Erebus leaped up and curled against her, zir black hole eyes stared up at her waiting for her story.

Aeris placed her hand on Erebus' head and began stroking zir soft fir as she began,

"Let me tell you the tale of the dark elves..."