The One

Hopes and dreams

The replay of Izar's memories ended there. All around her, the scene faded into white. All that remained was a doorway—the portal to the parts of his past that he was willing to show her. Feray stepped out of the portal Izar had created, which disappeared as soon as she did. She blinked a few times to adjust to her surroundings again: she was standing on one of the two cliffs in Izar's animorbis, having crossed the bridge to get to this portal. Her host was sitting on the ground, watching her with a searching gaze.

"Well?" Izar asked, a bit wary.

"Is this the first time you've shown anyone? You look kind of uncomfortable," she noted with a twinkle in her eye.

"Perhaps." That was a yes then. "Aren't you going to say anything about it?"

"I am. Say, Izar, have you seen happier skies?" Feray asked, taking a seat next to him on the barren land—almost too casually, and would be too casually if she wasn't...well, Feray Inglebird.

"Happier skies?"

"Animorbis."

"...ah. You're talking about that." Odessa's cold animorbis. His own dangling bridge...and his mother's grimmer-than-death animorbis. "No."

"Come then," she said, reaching out with an inviting hand. "We're done here, right? Let me show you mine."

"When did you learn that?" he asked skeptically, although a grin was starting to find its way to his lips again. "You're not going to get us stuck in the middle of nowhere, are you, dearie?"

"With the help of a book, some professors, and Zanna." Feray gave him a playful wink. "It won't fail, I promise."

He took her hand.

It took only a minute to warp from Izar's animorbis back to Feray's window, and from there to Feray's animorbis. As she had claimed, Feray's animorbis was unlike any Izar had ever been. At first glance, it seemed like merely a large area covered by vegetation with a blue sky up above—and all these were accurate observations, but this was not all. When Izar watched more closely, he found that they were in fact standing on a floating island. The island was surrounded by a protective force field, preventing anything or anyone from falling. In the middle of the island was a two-storey, beige-colored house. It came with a front porch and a balcony on the second floor. Izar followed Feray to the edge of the island. He looked down to find that the piece of land they were on was moving constantly, albeit slowly, over the landscape. They traveled over bustling cities and abandoned deserts, as well as dark forests and large bodies of water.

The curious thing was, even as they traveled over the ocean, and even though the waters were as deep a blue as any other, they did not give him a desolate feeling: he knew there was an end to these waters.

"You're smiling," Feray noted, tilting her head up at him.

"I always am," he protested, although his smile only grew.

"I meant your eyes are smiling," she specified.

This time, he shrugged, not bothering to deny it.

She took him by the hand and led him to the porch. "Come see inside!"

The first floor of the house was divided into three rooms: a library, a bedroom, and the living room. The library was still empty—she would put books in there once she owned any important ones, Feray explained. The second floor was a laboratory, connected directly to the balcony. In some of the shelves in the laboratory were plants in containers.

Izar walked closer to the side of the laboratory that was connected to the balcony. As he drew near, the glass doors slid open automatically. He stepped out. Feray followed and sat on one of the chairs. When he sat down next to her, she stretched.