The Privilege

Keria wanders through The Space Between. It has been a long time since she has seen something, anything, that piques her interest—interesting scraps of knowledge or magical trinkets or technological oddities she hasn't seen a dozen times over before.

"Maybe… I've finally seen most of what these universes have to offer? Have I run up against the limits of what the laws of these universes allow?" She pokes around in a pile of strange looking metal parts as she mutters to herself, not looking for anything in particular.

She shakes her head a little as she stands. "C'mon Keria, focus… if I don't cheer up then I'm never gonna find anything worthwhile." She forces a bit of pep into her step, but her heart clearly isn't really in it.

As she forces herself on through the forest, she comes upon a truly bizarre sight. A tree with a layer of thick, crystallized substance much like glass covering the bark, the crystals stretching up to the canopy and entirely encasing the trunk of the tree, save for a small opening at the base. It stands alone in a clearing, its solitude giving an ominous air to it.

Keria tilts her head at it, running over to the tree with a worried look in her eyes.

"This… hmm."

She scrapes off a bit of the crystalline structure and examines it, frowning unhappily as she does.

"I've never seen a catastrophe affect the very fabric of The Space Between… what did they do here…? And how?" She gets down on her hands and knees, smacking at the small hole in the crystal she can see, working to widen it enough to crawl through.

The figure looks up at her, their appearance dimly visible from the faint starlight. A young woman, no older than twenty, stares up at her. A pair of cat ears protrudes from her pale brown hair, and a tail lies behind her. The woman wears nothing but a medical gown, similar to those found in many universes.

"Ah... a hallucination... I didn't think I'd ever start getting them."

The woman laughs to herself.

"I really thought part of the torment was that I couldn't even hallucinate. But I guess I have something to entertain me. For just a moment."

She stares off into the horizon again, still softly chuckling to herself.

Keria slowly takes in the view. There have been places like this she's seen before, but none that seemed this… inherently wrong to her. She immediately gets the sense that this is not how the world here always was, the strange damage to The Space Between made her certain of that. Thoughts race through her mind, synthesizing and discarding possibilities as she looks over the glassy wasteland. She shakes her head, trying to keep her thoughts in line. After a short sigh, she looks down at the short woman, still utterly confounded. All she can manage as she crouches down next to her is "What… happened?"

Maddie puts a hand on her chin for a moment, thinking.

"It was a long time ago. I was in a lab, they injected me with a lot of things. It hurt a lot, but one day, it burned. Everything burned. It was nothing but heat and fire for..."

She thinks for a moment, trying to recollect memories from lifetimes ago.

"It must've been at least a hundred years. Just of fire. And when the fire was gone, it was just me and this tree. And you now, I guess."

Keria reaches out and touches the top of her head to make sure that she's not just some kind of apparition. After she makes contact, it takes her a long moment to form her next words.

"Why was there… so much fire? And why are you still here? Did those people who injected you make it happen…?"

"Before the fire happened, every day there were specs around the sun. Then, the sun slowly grew larger each day for a few days. I don't remember how many days. But one day, when I woke up, I heard cheers from around the facility. It was the first day I didn't ache or sting from the things they did to me."

She stops for a moment, tears welling in her eyes.

"But later that very day, one of the scientists, who had always been kinder to me than the others, came up to me silently crying. She just apologized to me. I didn't know why. And then the fire came. And I've been here ever since."

"How did simple tampering with the sun affect The Space Between… could they have been experimenting with dimensional travel too…?"

Keria looks over the landscape, answers no closer than when she arrived. She crouches down again next to the strange cat creature, looking her in the eyes.

"Now… I am normally not supposed to do this, but…"

Keria holds out a hand to the creature, pity in her eyes.

"You seem to have spent far too long here."

She pauses for a long moment, contemplating her next words carefully.

"Care to come with me? It… would take a while to explain, I think seeing where I come from would be easier."

She smiles a gentle, yet pained smile.

"What do you mean, 'come with you.' There's nothing here. Anywhere."

Maddie looks around, as if checking that something had manifested in the wasteland.

"But okay. I haven't done... anything... in over a thousand years. So I'll go with you."

She stands up, ready to follow the woman wherever she takes her.

"Oh you poor thing… there's always something more. I had to come from somewhere, after all."

She reaches out and takes Maddie's hand, leading her over to the tree carefully.

"Just don't let go. It won't work if you do, okay?"

She crawls through the hole, trailing her arm behind her so she can turn around inside and help pull Maddie through.

Maddie clings to her hand, first softly, then with an iron grip as the flicker of hope within her turns into a desperation, a strong desire to be free of her eternal prison. She clings onto it as if her life depends on it, squeezing into the hole to follow the druid.

She falls a very short distance onto an outcropping of wood, the inside of the tree far larger than it is on the outside. Dark brown bark and a vibrant green moss surrounding what would be the inside of the tree, it stretches down a bit less than a hundred meters, but there's plenty of branches and wooden outcroppings to enable them to climb down.

"It's a good thing the inside is still intact. Perhaps they're more durable than the outside to… whatever happened."

"What... is this place? I didn't know the tree had this inside of it. There wasn't even a hole before."

Maddie follows Keria, still clinging to her hand with all of her strength. She carefully steps, almost tripping multiple times, the rough wood unfamiliar to someone with ten lifetimes of nothing but smooth glass.

"Where are we going? Will there be other people? I miss having other people around."

Keria helps Maddie climb down, shaking her head a bit.

"Where we're going is… kind of an in between place. It connects to everywhere and everything. Nobody will be where I'm taking you but… we can go somewhere else, if you like."

"First, though, a change of clothes and a bath is probably in order."

She reaches the ground and helps Maddie down, crawling through another hole in the base of the tree, waving Maddie on.

Maddie follows her through the hole, still overwhelmed by seeing a new place after a thousand years of nothing.

"I haven't taken a bath in a thousand years... that sounds very nice."

Keria smiles and nods at Maddie, looking up at the trees as she walks forward some.

"This place would be a lot for anyone, even more so for you, I'd imagine. If you have any questions feel free to ask. It is a bit of a walk to one of my bases of operations."

Maddie follows her, looking around with a sense of wonder. As the full realization of her freedom sets in, tears begin to form in the corners of her eyes. And a moment later, she weeps, Weeps with sorrow for the world she had lost. She weeps with joy for the end of her torment.

"Thank you so much. I thought I was going to be there... forever."

Keria simply turns around and pulls the creature into a gentle hug. The tears threaten to spread to Keria as well, a sensation she's not felt in many years as she speaks, slowly and shakily.

"I have never seen a creature be subjected to such a hellish fate. I need no thanks, a being like yourself simply cannot be allowed to exist like that… it is beyond torture. I am so sorry I did not find you sooner."

"I haven't seen any colors like this in so long... it's beautiful here. Are we going to your house?"

Maddie follows Keria, looking around with childlike wonder. The trees look bright and vibrant, every creek is fascinating, and each stone is a new discovery for the immortal woman.

"It's really nice here. You're very lucky to live here!"

Keria nods and wanders deeper into the forest with Maddie, looking around not to marvel, but just to take note of what Maddie seems intrigued by.

"Well… it's hard to say I have a house, and moreso a collection of little stockpiles. This whole place is my home, really. I usually simply sleep outside, though I do have amenities for those who need them, among other things. If it looks unfamiliar to you, please do not touch it; there's quite a few dangerous objects for one such as yourself."

As she wanders further, she's greeted by what can only be described as a relatively large shack made of logs, sheet metal, planks of wood, and many other unrecognizable materials. Several piles of an eclectic assortment of trinkets and materials lie outside the shack, a faint glow coming from within.

Maddie sees the shack and the glow inside it and immediately feels a sense of nostalgia, remembering days of warm fireplaces and cheerful dinners.

"Can I go inside? I want to sit on a nice comfy chair. And eat something. That would be really nice."

She walks up to the door, walking around the piles of materials around it. She looks back at Keria expectantly, waiting for her to come and open the door."

As the shack is approached, it becomes more apparent the glow isn't from a fire. Instead, a strange electrical hum emanates from the shack, a light blue glow coming out from under the door.

"Well, I have a fire pit behind it if you'd like to cook around a fire; I have some more… modern appliances if you'd like that instead. I'll show you the inside first though!"

She opens the door to a surprisingly cozy living space on the inside. It is warm and lit by candles with the exception of what seems to be a generator in the back of the main room, glowing with a blue light. On the left side of the room is an old looking sofa facing a fireplace on the right hand side. Next to the sofa is an end table with a small handheld device with a few brightly colored buttons on it. There's a small room off to the left and right that seem to be a kitchen and bedroom respectively.

Maddie walks over to the device, her curiosity piqued. She picks it up, looking at it quizzically.

"What's this thingy? It looks fun."

Maddie sits on the couch, holding the object and staring intently at it. She sighs deeply as she sits on it, enjoying the soft cushions

"I missed cushions. Glass is not fun to sit on."

"Ah, it's a device for playing 'video games' on, I figure you probably had those in your world, right? I use it on occasion when I'm not busy, which is admittedly pretty infrequent."

Keria sits on the opposite end of the couch for a moment, sighing as well as she gets a little comfy.

A wave of nostalgia flows over Maddie. She looks at it for a moment and then presses a button to turn it on, gazing at the screen.

"Can I take this with me? It's been a really long time since I've done something fun. I missed these, I loved these back when there were people. Before they all got obliterated."

Maddie gets comfortable on the couch and begins playing on the device.

Keria smiles and nods a bit at Maddie.

"I probably have a spare lying around somewhere, sure! I've loaded a lot of games on it, maybe you can use it for a little while as I make you some food."

She gets up and starts to head towards the modest kitchen before stopping in her tracks and whirling around to face Maddie.

"Oh! I totally forgot to ask! You're an omnivore, right?"

"I uh, don't really need to eat. I've been living in a glass wasteland for the last thousand years with nothing to eat and I think I'm okay. But it tastes pretty good. Yeah I eat pretty much anything. I could probably eat like... a rock and be okay. I don't know what the limits of my immortality are but I was completely engulfed in flames for a century and came out fine."

Maddie leans her head onto a cushion, holding the game device above her as she boots up a game, 'The Myth of Chayn.'

"This game reminds me of "The Tale of Cinekt" we had back in my world!"

"Right... still, doesn't mean certain kinds of food won't make you feel weird."

She makes a point of not touching the years of fire comment and instead scoots over into the kitchen and begins cooking up something that smells like a kind of stir-fry, leaning out the door to chat every now and then.

"Which one is that again? It's hard to keep track of the ones I don't play much."

"It's 'The Myth of Chayn.' You play as a little guy with a funny purple hat and you solve puzzles and hit monsters with a sword. I enjoyed a similar one in my world. Although the hat was green in that one."

Keria hears a faint "HEEEEUUGGHHAAAUUAAAA!!" from the game console and notices Maddie looks slightly frustrated.

Some sense of normalcy returning to Maddie, she looks over towards the kitchen, smelling food.

"Are we eating soon? That smells good. I'm hungry."

"Oooooh! Yeah I remember that one now. It's a bit old-school but still really fun. Took me a little while to beat it, same for you, it seems!"

She chuckles a bit and after some shuffling in the kitchen she comes out with two plates of food, one piled high with noodles, vegetables, and meat, the other smaller and more reserved in its portioning. She hands the larger plate to Maddie.

"I wasn't sure how much you could eat so... I just gave you a ton and we'll work from there."

Maddie sets down the console, taking the plate and beginning to eat. She takes a bite it, unsure at first, but is quickly reminded just how good food is. She eagerly devours the meal, eating fairly messily.

"Can I have a napkin? I haven't eaten in such a long time I think my manners have decayed a bit. It was really good though, thank you so much!"

Keria reaches into a small bag she carries and... pulls out an entire roll of paper towels.

"Aw, thank you! It's not often I get to share a meal with someone, much less someone as eager to eat as you!"

Keria chuckles and digs into her relatively small serving, finishing well after Maddie.

"You know... I suppose we're in a bit of the same boat. I've never had to eat but it's quite fun!"

"What do you mean by that? Are you like me? I didn't know there were others like me. How long have you been alive? I think my 1164th birthday is right around the corner!"

Maddie chuckles, clearly in a great mood after the events of the day. She yawns, looking around the small cabin.

"Is there anywhere I could sleep? I've had to sleep on hard glass for a long time. A bed would be nice."

Keria chuckles a little bit, leaning back and relaxing some as she speaks.

"Well, we're not quite the same in the way you're thinking. I am certain I have been here since the beginning, whenever that may be. I don't count the passage of time like you do, but a thousand of your years is a drop in the bucket for me… think of a moment of your world's history, I was around for it."

"Oh, also, there's a bed over there."

Keria waves towards the door on the right hand side nonchalantly.

"I don't need it, I mostly keep it for the occasional visitor or lost wanderer."

"I actually don't know how long I'm going to be alive. I don't think I've aged at all for over a thousand years. But it doesn't matter now. Now I just want to make the most of however long I have, I spent too long doing nothing. And currently the best way to make the most of it is to crash onto a nice soft bed. Good night!"

Maddie walks over to the bedroom and then quickly climbs under the covers, only her head poking out, her cat ears flattening down as she falls asleep within minutes. She is notably very cute sleeping like this.

Before Maddie can scurry off, Keria says to her "That's… a very good outlook to have. Have a nice night, if it can ever be considered night here."

Keria walks with Maddie to turn off the lights and uses an odd mass of vines that seem to absorb light very quickly to block out the ever-present sunlight in this realm. The room goes dim, and once Keria starts to leave she almost on instinct pats Maddie on the head a few times before leaving the room.

She spends some time tidying up the house before lying on the couch and pulling out a game console from her bag, similar but not the same as Maddie's. She has no intention to sleep nor a need of it, so she simply passes time until Maddie awakens.

About ten hours later, Maddie emerges from the room, stretching her arms and letting out something between a meow and a yawn. She strides into the main room, her hair a complete mess.

"Good meowning. That was probably the best thing I've felt... ever. Whatcha doin now?"

Keria can't help but chuckle at 'meowning', as she does she stretches out some on the couch, sighing quietly.

"Now… I'm trying to think of what kind of place we could send you, but I didn't get very far without you. I spent a little time exploring some options while you were asleep but nothing spectacular came up."

"What do you mean 'what kind of place you could send me.' It's pretty nice here. Can't I just hang out with you for a while? I feel like I'd get bored of one place after too long. I don't want to be trapped again."

Maddie sits on the couch next to Keria, snuggling against her a bit.

Keria is taken aback at Maddie's snuggling, clearly not used to physical contact in her many centuries alone.

"I suppose…"

Keria stops to think for a little while, working through her thoughts.

"It's quite dangerous out here, I was going to say. But I don't think anything like what you've experienced has ever happened here… Either way, it can get quite samey here. We should at least do some exploring. The worlds up there are vast and grand, each too large to experience in their entirety even with an eternal lifespan. Why don't we at least take some tours and see how you feel…?"

"Sure! I'd love to accompany you around. But you have to promise me you won't leave me behind."

Maddie continues to cuddle against her, tail waving lazily. She holds onto her arm. She's significantly shorter than Keria. Sitting next to her, her head barely reaches Keria's shoulder.

"Anyways. What are we doing today? I'm bored."

"Well, we could tour today. Seems rather uneventful today so it'd be safe to spend some time out, perhaps."

Keria sighs gently as she allows Maddie to snuggle up against her.

"But you seem quite comfortable where you are, from where I'm standing!"

"Yeah. I sleep a lot. Maybe I naturally started doing it, my only respite from eternal boredom was sleeping. I'd dream, in a way, my dreams were more real than reality. My life was just dreams and a waking nightmare."

Maddie pulls away and then stretches. She stands up from the couch, and looks down at herself. She's wearing the same medical gown she'd been wearing for the past thousand years.

"Do you have some other clothes I could wear. These are a bit... old. Well loved?"

"I suppose I might... but they'd also be quite old. Less loved, though, for sure."

She rummages around in a closet, taking out a variety of clothes, hoodies, shorts, pants, skirts, leggings, gowns, dresses, along with a couple things Maddie doesn't exactly have a name for.

"Pick whatever you like. I don't have many... explicit outfits so you'll have to mix and match."

Maddie looks at the clothing pile, considering her options. She digs around a bit and then settles on a black skirt. She also finds a pink hoodie, which clashes pretty poorly with the skirt, but she doesn't seem to mind. The rest of the outfit consists of random underwear and socks she finds, nothing else of note.

"Thanks for this! I'm going to go change, be right back."

Maddie scoops up the pile of clothes and then heads to the bedroom, closing the door behind her. She emerges several minutes later, wearing the clothes. She gives Keria a hug, the soft hoodie making it quite pleasant.

"Thanks so much, this is so much more comfortable than what I had before! Now, are we going out soon?"

Keria hugs her back, still sort of unsure of how to approach physical contact, so the hug is very light and uncertain.

"I'm glad you're comfortable… sorry I don't have anything nicer looking but I suppose you don't care too much. We can go now, if you like."

Keria takes a few steps towards the door, opening it and glancing back at Maddie as if letting her lead the way.

Maddie puts on a pair of sneakers from the pile of clothing, now ready to go. She strides forward to the door and walks out. She breathes in the fresh air, a grin on her face.

"C'mon, let's go. It's so nice out today, too!"

Keria chuckles at Maddie, closing the door behind her and looking up into the bright canopy.

"It's always like this outside, so yes, I suppose it is."

"Really? This is such a great place to live!"

Maddie begins to wander off into the woods, with seemingly no care for direction or paths. She simply wanders around, occasionally stopping for Keria to continue following. She looks at the thousands of trees, although she doesn't particularly feel drawn to any of them.

"So... what do you do here? Are all the trees weird? Or only the one you pulled me out of?"

Keria follows, looking at the trees Maddie looks at, letting her lead the way and see how she reacts to the various trees and sights.

"All the trees connect to different universes, if you know that word… but each tree isn't anchored to any individual place, it's moreso that… each tree sends me somewhere depending on how I feel, and the position of the tree itself. Trees close together are more strongly related universes."

Keria shudders as she thinks of the empty clearing around Maddie's tree; what could it mean? A great many possibilities rush into her mind but she pushes them aside.

"A great many things fall through the cracks in reality, and those that do end up here."

Keria walks up to a nearby tree and places a hand upon its bark, smiling a little.

Maddie continues walking, still looking around.

"What do you mean, 'the cracks in reality.' Is that where you got the game consoles? Did they just fall in here one day?"

Maddie spots a tree by a small stream, with a wide opening in it. She points to it, then cautiously steps toward it.

"That tree looks cool! How do you go through the trees, anyways?"

"Well, sometimes they slip through, usually though I get them while traveling. I spend a lot of time finding things to help keep this place safe, among other things."

Keria steps over to the tree, feels its bark, and turns back to Maddie, nodding happily.

"Yeah, we can look around!"

Maddie smiles, gleefully looking at the tree. She turns to Keria, not quite sure what to do.

"So how do I go in? Do I just crawl into the hole in the tree and we get there?"

She walks over to the tree, sticking her head into the hollow.

"Well... as I said before I am very in-tune with this place, as if I myself am a part of it. I must go with you if you wish to travel, so... take this."

Keria digs through her bag and hands Maddie a small, cyan bracelet made of some kind of fibrous organic material.

Maddie slips on the bracelet, looking at it curiously.

"What does this thing do? Does it help me teleport?" She sticks the arm with the bracelet into the tree, reaching around. "How do we go? You pulled me through so effortlessly earlier."

The bracelet suddenly shrinks down and fits snugly over her wrist, and she suddenly stops feeling it as if it's not there.

"No, it's not so much a teleport bracelet and moreso... a locator. I have a little thing I can use that tells me where it is, and using that knowledge I can even find you in other universes, and to go... well, I need to be nearby."

Keria pushes her way in after extracting Maddie's arm, before turning around and motioning for her to follow.

Maddie, much smaller than Keria, easily fits into the tree, pushing in with the taller woman.

"So what's this universe like? I hope it has people. I miss people. Can we go to like a town or city? Somewhere populated would be nice."

Maddie lets out several questions as she follows, not giving much time to answer.

Keria giggles some at Maddie's excitement

"Well... it's not quite an exact science unless I have a specific place I am trying to go... so, let's go ahead and see!"

Keria begins climbing up the inside of the tree towards a small hole just 15 or 20 feet above them, seeming to be the exit.

"Looks like that's our goal."

Maddie, being at least partially a cat, begins climbing up the wall, quickly scaling the rough wood of the inside of the tree. She climbs onto the ledge formed by the hole, and looks down at Keria.

"This one, right? Should I wait for you to go through?"

Keria stops for a moment.

"Wait for me, just to be safe!"

Keria clambers up to the ledge, dusting her clothes off a bit.

"I never will be good at that, I think. Anyways, you ready to go?"

"Yes! Let's go, I wanna see a new world. I wanna go to all the places. I want hot chocolate. I miss having hot chocolate."

Maddie grabs Keria's hand, pulling her through the hole with her.

"Woah, you're strong!" Keria exclaims as she's yoinked through the hole without much more protest.