It was my first ti being teleported like that and I really hoped it would be the last. Even if it had been a completely stress free situation and it was to do sothing nice and positive, I still would have rather walked or hoped through a portal in a wall.
Instead, I spent what felt like an eternity trying to not let my insides beco my outsides while a little boy, who looked uncannily like when I was a kid, watched with wide eyes.
Eventually the need to hurl (and the need to stop myself from hurling) disappeared and I sat down heavily on the ground with my head in my hands. I really wanted a hug from you right then.
"Are you okay?" asked the little boy.
I looked between my fingers at him and considered my options and decided I didn’t really have any. If the kid could chuck across space like that then he could likely do just about anything.
"I’m fine," I replied. I dropped my hands then held one out. "I’m Misha."
The kid seed surprised by this then instantly bead at and shook my hand. "I know! I’m Mikhail!"
A chill went down my spine.
My na has always just been ’Misha’ but I naturally knew that this na was a diminutive of the na ’Mikhail’. I eyed the kid who kind of had my na and kind of had my face then smiled congenially.
"Hi Mikhail, did you bring here?" I asked.
Little Mikhail nodded. "Mummy told to bring you."
"Mummy?"
"Yeah. She wants to see you."
"...Okay. Where is she?"
Mikhail looked around then pointed. "That way."
We were in another part of the tunnels that looked more or less the sa as where I’d left you. I even got the sense that we weren’t that far off from the entrance to the normal part of the building though I was also pretty sure I was now pretty far away from you.
However, the tunnel that Mikhail was pointing to seed different. I wasn’t sure if it was the sll or the light or what exactly, but I sensed that whatever was down there, was radically different from where I was right now.
I got to my feet. "Alright. Let’s go then."
The changes ca subtly as we walked down the tunnel. First was the sll. In the other tunnels it was cold and dank like the ocean. Then there were the plants. At first I just saw a bit of moss but soon there were vines and leaves that we had to step over until we finally made it out the other side and into a adow. An actual adow.
It was a forest, a kind of gentle ones with tall trees and soft grass and warm sunlight that dripped through the leaves, and in the centre of it, where the light pooled the most, sat a woman.
She was beautiful, not in the usual pretty you see on TV, but a more primal, powerful kind of beautiful, like the feeling of beauty you get when you look at a mountain range. Strong and beautiful.
Mikhail ran to her and nestled into her skirts while I slowly walked over.
The woman smiled at her son, patted him on the head then looked up at . "Welco," she said, her voice full of that sa power.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded in greeting and stopped a few tres away.
She cocked her head to one side with a funny little smile and gestured to . "Co closer so I can see you properly."
I’d initially readied myself to fight against whatever kind of spell she was planning on using to compel forward, but the spell never ca.
I stood my ground and put my hands in my pockets since folding them seed too aggressive and leaving them by my sides made anxious. "Who are you?"
The woman smiled like I’d made a joke and went to speak only to be interrupted by the last person I was expecting.
"Enough of this rubbish. ," rang out a woman’s voice, a woman who you’d told earlier was Ling. I turned and saw her stride through the grass and trees like they didn’t exist. In her hand was a crystal, already glowing, and she held it out towards . "I knew I’d find you here with him. Just wait until-"
"No." The woman of the adow, as I’d decided to call her, flicked a finger and Ling froze, dropping the crystal as vines sprung up from the undergrowth and restrained her.
"You dare-!"
The woman rose. "I dare," she replied, then she turned to , smiling again. "Misha. What do you call this woman?"
"Uh..." I looked at her then at Ling. What did I say? "...Ling?" I ventured.
"And what is she to you?"
"She’s..." My eyes dropped to the grass. The feeling I’d had earlier had only gotten stronger but I didn’t know what else to say. "She’s..."
"Mummy!"
All eyes went to the little boy standing by the woman of the adow, half hidden behind her dress.
"Mikhail..." breathed Ling and for once I saw the expression of a mother on her face. "Mikhail... Oh, Mikhail..." She pulled at the restrains on her, pulling on them just to get a little closer to the child who was not .
"Who are you?" I asked again quietly.
The woman of the adow patted the little boy on the head and he looked up at her then trotted forward to Ling. As soon as he neared, the vines restraining her vanished and she embraced Mikhail with everything she had, sobbing and wailing. "My baby... My little Mikhail..."
I looked away. There was a dull pain in my chest that only got worse each ti she cried out.
A hand rested lightly on my arm and I jumped and found that the woman of the adow had, without realising, co up right beside . To my surprise she was a full head and a half shorter than and more strongly built than I’d initially thought.
"We can talk over here. She," the woman glanced at Ling cradling Mikhail in her arms, "won’t bother us."
"Mikhail... he’s not real, is he?" I said as I warily followed the woman into the grove.
"Not in the usual sense," she replied. "He is... a fragnt of a mory, a splinter of a life that once was but no longer is."
"An illusion?"
"If that is how you like to describe it."
"You’re giving her an illusion. Why? She’s going to be pretty upset once she realises it."
The woman stopped under a weeping willow and rested a hand on its gnarled bark. There was a small stream just a few feet away and a few feet down on the other side of it, just happily gurling along.
"She will not be upset," she said. "She will forever believe that she has been reunited with her son. Nothing can change that."
"But that..." I looked back at Ling and was suddenly struck with how the curve of her jacket sleeves and the folds of her shirt and long skirt made her look less like a human woman and more like a motley owl. "Is Ling... not human?"
"I do not know if you are familiar with them. They go by different nas, but their nature is essentially the sa: won who long for the children they lost in childbirth and who-"
"A gu-huo-niao!"
"Ah, you are familiar."
"Kind of. I know soone... I have a friend who is one," I said.
"Oh? That is kind of you."
"What do you an?"
"Well..." she cocked a head to one side and rested her chin on her hand. "Gu-huo-niao tend to feature on the more unpredictable side of the pendulum. Few can form strong emotional attachnts, not while their minds are so full of hate and fear. Her desire for her child has beco her shackles and that Arthur holds him above her head so skillfully that..." She sighed. "I hold no love for Ling but I do pity her. Oh yes, I pity her, her and all the others who have been drawn into this ever downward spiral. The sa river cannot be stepped in twice. It would be best if they understood that."
"I don’t think Athyst is like that..." I said thoughtfully.
"I am glad that you are kind," the woman said with a nod. "Is Athyst... a special friend of yours perhaps?" she added.
Despite clearly being in the presence of a very powerful being, I groaned and crouched on the ground. "Not you too..."
The woman crouched down next to . "What am I like?" she asked.
"I..." I looked up and into the woman’s face. It was open and curious and must be a lot like how I look when I’m asking you questions. "I have a special soone, but it’s not her," I said. I deliberated then decided to go on anyway. "It’s a boy, a boy nad Bran."
"You like him very much?"
"I like him very, very much."
The woman smiled the sweetest of smiles and pinched my cheek. "Good."
Then she rose and went to stand facing the river and held out her arms.
"You asked earlier who I am," she said. "They call the Naless Beast."
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