This story is fictious. None of the characters or situations are intended to represent any real life character or situation. This is a fairy tail that came to me over many rough nights. This story contains sexual acts and/or sexual inuendo. If you find this offensive, leave now. I have no desire to offend you.
Fantasy Winter Landscape
A silver dawn slowly rose over new-fallen snow, casting light across the northern plains. Frigid wind scraped the steel sky like a dragon's talons. Then the wind stopped suddenly, as if the Gods had taken a deep breath. Nothing stirred for a long moment. Then a shadow spread like water across the snow, growing larger and darker until a great beast could be seen in the sky. The dragon's magnificent wings glittered like diamonds in the sunlight as it soared over the plains. The wild air beneath its wings swept the snow below, blowing it across the plains. The dragon soared higher, disappearing into spiderweb-like clouds. All was silent and still once more.
Author Unknown
===============================
Blue Dragon -- The Orion Transcripts, part 3
I had realized that the strange sensations I'd felt while attending the government ritual was somehow being used to invade and control our entire society. Now don't get me wrong I'm not coward, while I was a young sprout in the woods, some of the things I had to face in the forest were things that decent folk didn't even talk about. Creatures with fangs so large they'd take off a limb in a single bite; claws that would reach out in the darkness and end your days in a flash. But this ... this was something beyond me. I needed to run to escape this madness and return after I had a chance to sort it out.
The evening had been a nightmare; I stood and watched as the life of my friends was sucked out of them. I knew that for a short while, I easily fell prey to that wonderful sensation myself. What would I do now? Who would I speak to about this? Who could I trust? The 3 clans had already fallen. Tears formed in my eyes when I thought of my friends being taken so easily by a fiend. Why did we trust Whitaker so easily? It was evident that he was behind this madness. Why did we allow him in? He wasn't even part of the 3 clans. Nobody really knew what a Whitaker was, ugly pale skinned thing.
I headed home to collect some things. I didn't take the trains. Paranoia was beginning to set in; what if they were watching me? I traveled down quiet paths and dark ways that others rarely use. When I got home I quickly ran to the cupboard. "I don't need much," I told myself. Hell I'd spent most of my life in the forest. I only needed enough to be sure that I could make my way a good distance into the woods without stopping. I grabbed a small amount of food and stuffed it into a pouch on my belt.
As I left my apartment, I turned around and looked at the `stuff' I'd accumulated. I noticed all of the memories organized in neat and tidy fashion on shelves. I gave a moments thought to the wonders of indoor plumbing. I was going to miss this quiet little place that I'd created. I wondered if I would ever see it again. Then I locked the door and turned into the hall.
"Hey dude you're out kinda late aren't ya?" It was Korel-Orion in the hall. Korel was a caretaker in this building where we lived. He had been a friend for many of the years I'd lived here.
"Not that it matters to me mind you. I mean I'm not one to nose into other's affairs. I just like to be sure that everybody is OK," he went on. "Sometimes you don't get out much at all and now here you are goin' out twice in the same evening, and with that food pouch no less. That is a food pouch isn't it? Somebody might think you were headin' out on a trip or ..."
Once you've noticed those dark eyes they are difficult to get out of your mind. In fact, I could barely take my gaze off of his eyes. Korel had always been such a wonderful person. The kind of person everybody found themselves comfortable speaking with. He always got along with everyone and yet he had a sense of mystery to him, an aloof quality that made you wonder if anybody really knew him at all. His soft skinned nature made you want to take him into your arms and into you heart so as to hold him and protect him from the evil in the world. His smile could make you melt into a gibbering idiot. Words like corruption and deceit would never enter your mind as you found yourself opening yourself up to this man. Yet here he was, just another victim of Whitakers treachery.
"... house?" Korel said as I found myself snapped back into the moment. I fumbled around for a moment to get into the conversation and try to understand what he had asked me.
"Oh, yes ... um ... I'm sure that was ... um ... well I was just heading out for the evening" I said.
"So you don't want me to keep an eye on your house?" spoke Korel.
Of course now I realized what he had asked, "Oh that would be great, Korel". I gave him the keys and taking a moment to enjoy his touch, I let my hand glide over his as I pulled it back. "Just be sure that it's all in one piece for me when I return OK?" I knew that I was being a bit more personal than I should have been but I thought that I might never see him again.
(As I write this I realize that in your world the touch of another can be slightly more common. Understand that in this place such things as physical contact occurred so rarely that it could make for a truly amazing moment. Some people would remember such a moment forever, while others would draw away in embarrassment and try to forget it as quickly as possible.)
We smiled at each other and I turned to head down the hall. I looked back over my shoulder and for a moment I thought that I could see a touch of that sparkle back in his eyes. I found some fleeting sense of relief right then.
As I left the building my `sense of relief' evaporated quickly. It seemed like everyone I passed was staring at me with those cold, searing, creepy black eyes. How could I possibly have never noticed this? How blind have I been? How is it that we go through our lives seeing only what we want to see and never giving a passing thought to the things that we choose to ignore?
I headed to the rail station and found myself on a conveyor traveling up through a transparent shaft that would drop me off at my transport. I was completely enclosed in this cylinder but I could see the clear night outside. If I lifted my gaze just a bit and looked to my right, I could see the moon brilliantly illuminating the city. The stars sparkled in the sky like candles left lit in the window for some long lost traveler who might find his way home by their light. As I traveled higher and higher, I began to emerge above the city itself. I could see the image of this perfect skyscape in the glassy reflection of the dome. Despite my general reluctance to admit it, this place was an awesome accomplishment.
I noticed Maraqq-Aquin traveling on another runway along side me in a shaft that was beginning to come into mine. I wouldn't have even noticed him except that he still wore the orange, red, and yellow robe he had been wearing earlier in the ceremony. The ceremonial silver band of the Nequii was still on his shoulder.
As the two paths became one I spoke first, "You are Maraqq correct?
"Yes I am. Do I know you sir?" Maraqq replied with a smile.
"I saw you this evening in chambers. Welcome to our city and to our community. I hope that you find whatever it is that you're looking for," I told him.
"I've never before been happy away from the sea and the far shores, but this place suggests that there can be so much more to our existence. The feelings you all share with Whitaker, they are like nothing I'd ever dreamed possible. This place is truly the center of all things."
I just looked at him for a moment, dumbstruck. This crap was really beginning to get to me. "I'm sure that everything will be just (aahh) great for you here." I shook my head a bit thinking that if I add some colorful gestures it might cover up for my sudden lack of good sense. "Yeah that Whitaker, Wooo Boy, he's just everything really, ya gotta know that, that's aahhh hmmm ...". Damn, what a great conversationalist. My brain was suddenly racing for words as I was certain that Maraqq must have noticed that I had become a complete fool.
"So where are you headed Maraqq?" I asked as I finally got a grip.
"After the ceremony, Whitaker spent some time with me in private. He told me that he had a special assignment for me. That he needed me to travel to the southern borders as quickly as possible and report back to him on the status of a project going on there. I am amazed, and so honored that he choose me. I am so new here. Where are you headed?"
"Oh, I just need to spend some time with my friends in the woods. This place can sometimes feel confining and I long for the open skies" I answered.
"I know what you mean. For me it is the water that calls me. If you like, maybe we can travel together?" Maraqq said in a gesture of friendship.
I looked at his eyes and saw the darkness there. I didn't know exactly what all this meant but I knew I didn't trust Maraqq. Despite his innocence, he was a pawn in Whitaker's game. "I'm sorry, and I mean no disrespect, but I do this so I may have time to myself. If you would take no offense, then I'd say I need to be on my own."
"No offense taken my friend, I have an important job to do and will travel faster on my own. Maybe some other time," he said flashing that wonderful smile again.
Our conveyors approached the tranny station and I glanced back to the city one last time, wondering if it would be the last time I saw it. My fear of what was happening here growing to ridiculous proportions. Creatures, friends, having there minds altered in such a way as to cause them to conform to the fantasy and whim of one other creature. Truth fading into non-existence; love and caring being replaced by bigotry and the self serving corruption of the Whitaker; my heart raced and I longed to be out in the open where fresh air might clear my head.
We'd reached the station and the transports were lined up awaiting our arrival. Small bullet shaped carriers that could be propelled along thru a tube-like structure that hung a few hundred yards above the landscape. Each car could accommodate as many as 12 people comfortably but they were fully automated and nobody monitored there usage. I entered into one car and he entered into another. I gazed at him through the glass and wondered what sort of project he was heading into at the southern border.
A low hum sound hung in the background as my car whirred off into the tube. What was ahead of me laid quietly in the darkness of ancient treetops and mountains. The tube initially curved around the city as it positioned itself to head to it's destination and I was afforded one last look at the city. The sparkling lights of conventional life faded gradually into the distance as I head back into the lands of my youth.
=============================== I found myself lost in thought and drifting in an out of awareness:
Years earlier I would frequently take the trannys to a place outside the domes. Nequii had been a beautiful world of endless forests. But as the years had passed I found that I spent less time traveling and more time obsessed with day-to-day life. Things of little or no consequence became more and more important while true beauty became more and more ignored.
Hours passed I found myself realizing that every passing year the city seemed to grow larger, encroaching on the forests that we claimed to hold so dear. The great tubes that carried the trains beyond the parks, to the edges of the forest seemed need extensions upon extensions. The forests grew farther and farther.
Something had happened to my people, something that was causing us to destroy our world in the name of "progress". It seemed to me that we had changed our path, as if the dream that made us what we are had suddenly been ripped away and replaced with something more sinister. I thought we were on a collision course with disaster and I couldn't have been more right. Tears swelled in my eyes as I recognized my own failure to support the people and ideas that I held most dear in life.
My trip to the hostile outlands ended with an abrupt stop at the station. I disembarked and the transport reversed it's course and raced off into the night.
I left the platform and walked briefly down a well kept path to find myself at the edges of my precious forest. I wandered amongst the trees listening to the other animals as they told me of the joys they had that day. I marveled at an ancient tree and tried to imagine all the changes it had seen in its lifetime. It must have been 20 feet in girth, possibly even fatter near its root. My eyes glanced upwards and saw it glistening with pre-dawn dew on the tips of its leaves. I hadn't had anything to quench my thirst in hours and I stuck my tongue out and licked the moisture off. The taste of the trees, it's texture in my mouth, I was home.
I needed sleep and the trees could hold me gently in their arms. If I were at the tree-tops I would be safe and unseen by any hostile creatures of the night.
In an instant I looked above me and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I spread my wings and took to the air.
========= Peter ORion bd_POrion@Hotmail.com