Through planning and plotting through that longest of days, Omid had started to wonder something inbetween setting traps and or instructing servants.

Just how “public” was the nature of Sareen and his relationship?

It was of course known that he was her apprentice of a sort.

Which was most likely the assumed reason that he was being paraded around and consulted for his input on her plotting.

Their plotting.

There were duels to be undertaken, the elimination or subjugation of key enemies, the securing of bonds and allies, and of course the promise of a world that would not be brought to an untimely end.

The servants adapted quickly to this new voice they found themselves listening to, even if they did seem somewhat confused by the experience. Omid imagined that this could not be such a common occurrence as to become mundane for them, but the fear of Sareen was keeping their reactions and objections hidden.

Nor did any of them bat an eye at knowing that their princess was training a human last seen dragging him to his private quarters while whispering the sweet nothings to him of how she was going to crush foes and consolidate power in one fell swoop.

“Immortal is not invulnerable.” She clarified with a smile as she flung open the door to Omid’s private quarters. The vague implications of which fought for attention in the human’s mind as he listened intently to every new shred of information she let slip. “If we bring just one or two to heel and demonstrate that we could end them if we so wished, enough of the rest will fall in line. Enough so that those who do not immediately fall in line will fear retribution from the greater force and fall in line themselves!”

Omid felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth as she slammed the stone door behind them and looked absolutely thrilled through her entire speech which included making a number of particularly violent hand gestures that hinted at what those bloody victories might entail.

“Excitement is a good look for you.” The human said as he smiled and casually looked around the room with relaxed eyes that grew wider when he saw the addition of a new door next to his bed that he distinctly remembered not being there.

“Flattery will always be appreciated, but I know I always look good.” Sareen said with a proud smile that said this was a mere statement of fact, and not bragging in the slightest.

Omid tore his eyes away from the new door and looked to the likely and beautiful source. “I meant beyond obvious outer beauty.” He chuckled with a returning smile. “It’s an inner beauty that radiates out. A smile upon the soul that enhances whatever lies on the outside.”

The look of blank faced confusion and her brows pressing together into a question she couldn’t quite put words to had Omid gritting his teeth together and looking for an out as all uncertainty in the world came flooding back as it only ever could with a woman he was in a relationship with who happened to be aiming to take over the world and at least one moon.

“From your lack of shock, I’m going to assume you made that door.” Omid said as he pointed to the distraction and angled his body towards it as well before walking closer. “And given that I was positive that this wall is against the exterior and I have the suspicion it does not lead to such a place, is this another one of those...impossible doorways?”

“Indeed.” Sareen’s eyes snapped back to their normal focus once more as she cleared the distance to the door to fling it open and reveal the vast interior of her private quarters just on the other side of that exterior wall. “Our increased collaboration called for closer proximity. After intense training we should bathe, and I believed your personal bath would be acceptable.”

Omid stared through the door into that space beyond that shouldn’t be possible in that location. Up at that high window leading to the outside he wondered briefly if he was mistaken. Looking down to his feet to the bare patch of tiled floor he cast a Command spell to raise him on a stone pillar to that high window. Peering out the window he saw only the emptiness of the moon beyond and those pale white dunes. He commanded the pillar to retract into the floor and reached out a hand to put the tiles back just ever so.

Kirzallan had her head tilted to the right with a question written on her face that Omid immediately answered.

“I had to see for myself that there was nothing on the other side and it was just...magic making that happen.” Omid said as he walked over to the open door to peek inside with a lingering caution. “How exactly does that...work?”

She pondered and thought for a moment with a hand to her chin as she circled the human before asking: “Are you certain you wish to know? Most cannot handle such knowledge.”

The corner of Omid’s eye twitched as he pulled back from the door to Sareen’s quarters. He swallowed down that question through a dry throat as he put on a good smile. “Never will I shy away from knowledge. Especially something so valuable. I would imagine you have a number of such...arrangements in place throughout the palace?”

“Indeed. Passages that connect and disconnect based upon my will and a bit of geometry.” Sareen looked ever more curious as her circling brought her closer to the human. “Very well.”

She turned to a wall and with a series of large hand and arm gestures began explaining the logistics of making such an impossible passage to him, in order to allow him to one day better understand how he may perform this feat himself. As right now trying to understand it gave Omid a headache, one that was made surprisingly worse once she brought out the diagrams.

Diagrams that started as simple imprints upon the stone that she carved with a deceptively delicate finger.

And when that continued to elude Omid, she made the carving emerge from the stone into something of a scale model with the addition of depth that somehow still didn’t properly convey just what exactly was happening.

And when that continued to elude Omid, she made the scale model...change. Where it started as having only length and height, and where it had once gained depth, it added a new indescribable dimension that was altogether visible and...challenging. This new dimension of neither up nor down, forward or backward, but almost out or in...it seemed to actively defy Omid’s senses. As though the mere attempt to comprehend it was the source of that scratching feeling behind his eyes and in his head, and every time he dared to so much as think of it as “out or in” it grew angrier at how such an insufficient term was an insult to its true nature.

It was the meeting of points that seemed to hate him the most. Where the parallel lines of the corridor remained separated as normal until they stretched off to where they touched while never touching. It was where that corridor intersected the chamber in question that was so clearly defined and yet it’s corners wrapped out and in on themselves to meet, at the same place that that hall intersected and yet never touched.

And it was right there, right where all those impossibilities made possible and dared him to understand. Right where his daring to understand was met with mockery. Right there he felt that scratching behind his eyes, as though all he needed to do was roll his eyes back far enough into his head and he would finally see it.

All he needed to do was look back there and the scratching would stop. It would stop and he would understand and it would all be so clear. The scratching and clawing would finally stop and he would understand it and everything would be not as it is but as it could be.

And if he was worthy, it may allow him to turn his eyes back to what he had once thought of as reality and-

“That’s enough, Omid.”

Omid blinked and gasped for air as he looked up into indigo eyes pressed into concern and a frown so troubled it powered through currently being upside down. Sareen blinked back at him as she pried his eye wide. He offered no resistance as she focused, blinking once before she let him close his eye. 

“What happened?” It was a bold question for Omid to ask, as right now he was still getting his bearings and finally realizing that his head was laid in Sareen’s lap to explain her leering down at him from above. 

“I showed you something that most brush off as too confusing to bother with.” She ran the tips of her fingers over his forehead, and their softness stood in sharp contrast to what he knew they were capable of without effort. “Some think about it though. And they always think too much, as you would have. The results tend to be quite unfortunate.”

Omid brought a hand up to his temple to rub at it as he squinted hard and took stock of wherever he was. He was on a soft surface...not counting Sareen’s lap, the ceiling was about average height for the rooms of this palace.

He was now fairly certain they were still in his room, laying on his bed.

“Why did you show me?” The human asked as he rubbed at his temple some more, voice still groggy as though he had just woken up. And considering his state, that was perhaps true in more than one sense.

“You were interested. And you had been such an adept student thus far-” 

Had been.

“I won’t make the same mistake next time-”

“No.” Sareen snatched away his hand from his temple, holding it in hers as she stared into his  confused dark eyes. “I need you alive, with your mind intact. Save that hunger for knowledge for that which won’t steal you from me.”

Need...how?

“I have so much more to show you...so much more to do with you.” She continued, holding his hand in place as she caressed his forehead with her free hand. “Don’t let a discussion of plans be your downfall. Especially before we get to enacting these plans.”

‘It would be a bad look for you if I were to fall so easily.” Omid’s smile was one born partially out of delirium, and partially out of trying to puzzle out whatever it was that she was feeling in this moment as a welcome reprieve from puzzling out slightly more forbidden knowledge. He inhaled deeply and furrowed his brow as he smelled not that the salt of an intense training session but the scented soaps and washes of the baths. Moving his limbs about he felt the soft comfort of the bath robe on him. “....how long was I out?”

“Too long.” She said with a small nod. “And while there is still much to do, you need actual rest soon to recover and so that you do not die. Before doing so, I had...a request.”

Omid sat up on his elbows as he pulled himself off of Sareen’s lap, wondering what brought on this new behavior. “By all means.”

The Kirzallan pointed to the post of the bed where Omid’s belt of pouches hung next to a pile of his clothes. “That...that disk. Show me how it works.”

The human stared back at her as he thought over that request and balled up the sheets in his fist. “It’s a communication device. To show you would be contacting my...entourage.”

“If they have any hope of meeting you down there in a timely manner while you are on your mission, they will need my aid.” Sareen said, eyes not on Omid but that singular pouch that she knew for a fact held that tiny obsidian disk. “Contact them as you would normally. Knowing who our allies are would be to our benefit, would it not?”

Omid could attempt to argue with that logic, but as he released the sheets from his grip he knew there was no point in doing anything but thinking ahead into how to finesse this encounter.

“Very well.”

SylasWrites

Yeah, it's late. Busy week. Let's plan on Fridays as a normal update day for this story for now. So you get a weird chapter that is hopefully still good.

A big welcome to my new readers from shoutouts!

Feel free to comment and enjoy!