*** SHE WHO SLEEPS AND HE WHO WAKES ***

Tick.  Tick.  Tick.  The clock's gears quietly droned.  On and on, inside that dim room—illuminated only halfly by the moon's silver glow from the balcony—the gears inside the clock sang.  As it sung its song of ticks and tocks, Beatrice laid in her bed.  She slept peacefully without a peep or a sound of snoring.  Laid comfortably in her pajamas the maids dressed her in, the torso of her dress went up and down slightly as breath flew in and out of her nose.  

The room held only two sounds.  One of soft breathing from the girl herself; The other being the drum of the clock's melody.  Tick.  Tock.  Tick.  Tock.  The clock's hands pointed at two numbers on its face.  The hand of the hour stood on 9, but it moved at a turtle's crawling pace as it moved to the finish line of 10, while its eager little sister of minutes went ahead and already laid there.  9:50 it told the eye.  Though, there were no eyes open to see it.

Tick. 5 minutes had passed.  The hand of the hour was almost there—just one more push to the finish line—meanwhile the minute's hand stood on 11—still waiting for the hour to catch up.  Tock.  4 Minutes have passed.  The hour was almost there.  Almost!  Just a little more, old man hour!  Just a little more!  That was the thought of the little minute maiden as it stood at the precipice of 12—tapping its foot, arms crossed, and a sour scowl paired with brows knotted so tightly, great grandmother month would wack her on the head with her knitting needles.

Impatience getting the best of her, little Ms. minute stepped onto twelve.  Finally there, Big sis hour stretched her arms out and shouted a loud 'Tock!' as she reached the number 10.  'Tack Tack Tack' Clacked the happy hands of the youngest sibling second.  Now, the clock read 10 PM sharp.  Not one minute more, nor a second less.  For that moment, all fell silent.  The 3 sibling sisters stopped their song of ticks, tocks, and tacks.  

In that dim room, all fell to sleep—even the gears and mechanisms within the clock's white face.

All except for a pair of eyes that shot awake.

*** AWAKE ***

Beatrice's eyes shot open as she laid on her bed.  She shook off the blanket on top of her, and sat on the side of her bed.  Then, she flexed her hands, staring at them all the while.  Opened; Closed, The back of her hands; The middle of her palms; Her gaze was fixed on them with the eyes of a worker calibrating a machine they hadn't used in a long time.  Finished fiddling with her arms, she got up from the bed—kicking her legs in the air just a tad as she stood—.

Her wide stare scanned the room from the ceiling to the floor and from the door to the balcony, and it stopped when it met the flashing light of a full body mirror reflecting the little light the room had that night.  She went to the mirror with quick and quiet steps without a hint of rush in them.  She looked inside it.  She gazed at her reflection.  There in the mirror's glass, her iris glowed a bright blue as it stared back at her.

It was then, she uttered words in a voice much unlike Beatrice.  "Neat." She said.  Her voice wasn't the high pitch that came from her mouth.  It was low.  It had the brassy, bass tone that sank an octave down.  "Didn't think that I'd get to move around as well.  This oughtta be fun."  She—or rather I—said.  And it indeed was going to be a fun night ahead.  That's what I thought, really.  Beatrice's hair was really long.  And I mean really, really long.  It even reached down to my hips!  

I hadn't seen anyone actually have hair like this.  They were restricted to more anime-esque style of media.  And it was strangely thick too.  When I put my hand on it, it sank into her hair like a 50kg dumbbell in a pool!  It was soft and smelled nicely as well.  Not really to my taste—the smell kinda hurts my nose—but the softness was appreciated.  I could use it like a pillow on the go.  Speaking of where to go, where do I go?

It seems like Beatrice has the main control of the body, but when she's out, I come to take her place.  But the thing is, what do I do with that?  I ballerina-spun in front of the mirror—looking myself over and under, head to toe—and once my twirl stopped, I had nothing else to do but sit in this room.  I could scroll through the memories of today and the days of yesteryears before, but my mind quickly wandered off somewhere else once I'd gone through everything that either sounded useful, or made my mouth curl its ends into a grin.

Sitting on the bed's side and swaying side to side, I shifted my gaze to the balcony—admiring what little glimpses and peeks of the moon I could squeeze through the back-and-forth sway of the curtains.  This... reminds me of something.  What was it again?   I snapped my hands while I tried to remember.  Snap. Snap. Snap. Crackle!  Fire engulfed the entire hand I snapped my fingers with.  It roared with the might of a forest fire in the night shrunk down to a size that'd fit in my palm.  

My eyes locked onto the orange flames.  They were the only color besides the growing dark inside the room.  I had no complaints to the dark and silent.   Still, the illuminating dance and twig snap singing of the fire was a sight that captured my heart.  I watched as it bent and swayed with the subtle, silent breeze that blew in and out of the room.  I listened as it raged its crying song of crackles and snaps on the little stage that was my palm.

And I hung my lips into a smile as the fire shrieked out its final, dying screams as it slowly faded out.  Before it did, the fingers in my other hand called upon the cold of the land.  I asked for but a parcel of freeze held within the dry air and icicles that were held inside the winter month's workshop, and it responded in kind.  With a silent voice, the freezing air of the mountain gathered at my fingertips, and then came its duty—its purpose.

"Shhh~"  I whispered into the darkness of the room, and it too was the sound of the flames as I put it out with a touch of my finger—like putting out a candle before sleeping.  Now, there was nothing.  No sound.  No color.  No light.  Even the moon trotted away from where I could gaze.  There was only me.  There was my breath that came and went.  Still, it was just me.  One.  Two.  Three.  Four.  The moment passed quietly.

I loved when the fire danced.  My heart beat to the rhythm of its snap-crackle song.  But there was something I relished even more.  This moment.  The present.  Silence.  Me, myself, I, and the world, that was it.  Nothing else but peace—pure bliss.  No ups or downs; No zealousness or drudgery; No high of orgasmic ecstasy, nor a drowning, throat strangling depression; It was just this, a peaceful land of darkness, a never ending nothingness that neither ebbed nor flowed.

Calm. Nothingness.  This truly was what I sought.

*** THE CALL ***

Moments passed just like that in the room.  She sat on the side of her bed, eyes closed, and enjoying the quiet calm that enveloped the room.  Then, a question popped out of her head.  "It's awful quiet out.  Why?"  She stood up, then she headed for the balcony.  As she neared it, the wind got stronger and stronger, and blew harder as it threw the swaying curtains at her face.  With every step, her ears picked up a noise.  It was a howl.  Not of a beast like the wolves, tigers, or any animal for that matter, but of the wind.  It was quiet.  Very quiet indeed.  Though a howl, it more resembled a bedtime whisper of a mother saying "goodnight" to her child.

One step.  Two steps.  A few four more.  Now, she was on the balcony.  The wind caressed her skin with the freezing touch of the tundra.  It ran through her hair like gentle fingers wading through the scalp of their closest beloved.  It was cold, yes—that  she knew and felt—but it neither made her skin shiver or her body tense.  It was pleasant—a cold shower in the evening but without the shower or the water.  "Is it eve a shower at that point?" She chuckled.  

The song of the wind was there.  It howled through the cold air of the night, and tickled her ears as she listened and enjoyed the sights around her.  Mountains far off in the distance were so small that they could fit in the palm of her hand, but she knew when they got close, they'd tower over her enough to reach the sky.  The moon that escaped from her curtains glistened in the night sky with a silver glow.  Beautiful.  That was the only word she could think.  It still wasn't enough to express what she felt at that moment.

Suddenly, the wind blew with a shriek.  It's cold reached farther down the thermometer, plummeting down to the base—and would have sank further if it could break the glass that held it.  She smiled then.  Her thoughts lit up.  A message; A sign, there was.  It was wordless.  No voices or strange things in the sky spoke to her—Aadi had gotten enough of that already, although he was beginning to miss it.  Still, she got it.  She knew what to do.  If asked, she'd have no idea what to answer, but deep inside the ocean of her mind—Past the reeves and forests of plants and schools of fish bathed in the light of the sun—she held the answer within.

*** DOWN WE GO ***

She got up onto the railings of the balcony.  She looked at the ground below, and the mist of the cliff just a short walk away from there.  Then, her long, red hair flew behind her as her baggy pajamas clung to her body for dear life when she entered the air.  Fmp.  Taa.  Taa.  The first was the noise of when she landed into the heavy snow.  She came from quite a long fall, but winter's frozen palms broke her landing when she tumbled onto the ground.  The later sounds came when she dug herself out.  It brought a dumb grin on her face while she scratched at the snow like a cat on a piece of furniture.

She skipped on over to the ledge with a smile as she swayed side to side.  "Ooh~"  her eyes caught a snow-drenched road that spiraled upwards to the manor she jumped from.  If it came towards the top, then the spiral should also head downward.  A little ding  noise in her thoughts brought her face to the sky and a finger raised, alongside a knowing smile of what she would do a few seconds into the future.  She slowly stepped back with the care of lion stalking its prey from the bushes of a savannah, then sprinted out like the world's most frightened cheetah.

FWOOSH!  Her arms and legs shot out to the side of the open air when she leaped out into the land below!  Wind rushed to her head, and blew her air upwards—parting her bangs, showing off her forehead, and left a long, red trail behind her as she fell.  Beatrice had experience with magic.  In fact, she was a genius.  She would use her time to practice magic whenever and however she could, all in order to improve it by any margin.  Aadi, for one, had never used magic.  He had a grand imagination that'd make any writer or painter burn with jealousy, but the arcane arts were never of him.

But Aadi wasn't just himself anymore.  He was a part of Beatrice.  Transparent and luminescent blue cloths extended from Aadi's arms and connected to his body's side and legs.  The wind was caught in its net, and gusted Aadi further into the sky.  He glided at the side of the mountain, and enjoyed the view of the land that could only be seen when flying.  The snow covered roads; The moonlit side of the manor's mountain; the pine tree forest at the mountain's foot; All of it.  It was nice.  But there stood another place for him to go.

In his eyes, he saw the dirt paved roads below.  They were a three pronged fork that lead to three places.  The one that went forward of the mountain went to the village that sat just a long stroll away.  The one that went to the right hadn't anything in sight,  It probably led back to the academy, but he wasn't sure how.  He turned his face left, and squinted his eyes the hardest he could without closing them.  Not there.  Not there... Maybe there... There!  He saw it.  The place he had to go.

Engulfed in the gentle light of the night, the moon enveloped the land with its silvery glow.  In the middle of it stood a large tree that covered the place with its embrace, and concealed the land from the birds' eyes with the leaves that jutted out of its boulder-thick branches.  Though it tried to hide that which was below it, the clearing that went out of its reach was covered with many different sized stones put together in rows and columns which zigged and zagged in chaotic fashion, some looking visited, some looking abandoned.

Aadi Knew he had to go there.  He didn't know why, but he had to.

Whether for joy and fun, or something digging into the philosophy people's territory, he had to go there.  He just knew it.

*** THE FALL ***

The wind sang into my ear its ghastly song of 'FWOOO.'  Its voice was never ending, and its breath never gave, though sometimes it calmed, it never took a break.  WHOOSH!  I fell past a bird.  It flew by just a bit below.  It looked to be as big as me with its wings spread wide, but I wasn't sure.  It was only a glimpse, a sly peak at a dashing-past blur.  What I'd seen might be right and maybe wrong, then again, I'd lost trust in what was there and what was not—whether something was real, or an illusion I brought.

Putting that aside, the wind continued to sing, getting louder and louder the closer to the ground I bring.  I was falling.  Yes, I had neat little wings of a wyvern.  That was wrong, actually.  My wings weren't wings.  Nor were they anywhere close to being of the dragon kin's things. What stuck to my arms and legs were more like wing suits I saw daredevils use.  I always wanted to try using them in the sky, now here I am.  It was quite the nice feeling.

The wind's touch washing over my body like the cold water of a high-pressure showerhead in the morning; The sights of the mountains at the farthest, the forest nearer, the town and villages nearest, and the forest blanketing everything alongside the white snow that fell with me in the air; It was relaxing, at the same time, nerve-wracking too.  Despite all the beauty reflected in my pupil, I still knew what was going on.  Although I had the greatest view in my life, I was still hurdling down to the ground.

Slowly but surely—not exactly slow, but enough to let me appreciate the moment—I was due to a face-first meeting with the earth.  It was my first time flying after all.  I watched flying squirrels do it in nature documentaries, and I was trying to copy them, but my mimicry didn't give me too much of an edge.

So there I was, awkwardly spread out in the night sky, quickly getting to my dinner-date with the snow-covered soil.  With that, The world welcomed me again, with an embrace of soft and crunchy white.  Ouch!  Was that a branch?  And now more snow's piling on top of me.  Just great.

*** ARE THOSE GROWLING NOISES? ***

I dug myself out of the snow pretty easily.  Despite the dainty look on Beatrice's arms, they were really strong.  All it took was little push, and the whole bunch of snow exploded out of my way.  Very convenient to say the least of it.  She really did work hard for her prince charming.  It was too bad the prince wasn't charmed by her anymore.  She deserved it in my opinion, but opinions are opinions, 'what can you do with them anyway?'

I shrug my shoulders as I thought that, then behind me I heard something.  Footsteps.  Ta.  Ta. Ta.  No, not quite.  They didn't sound like boots or shoes.  It was quiet.  Whisper-like.  They crushed the snow beneath them, but only so much that the noise is minimal.  Ta.  Ta. Ta. Ta, ta, ta. Ta.  There it is again.  But it's different.  The steps' sounds were layered over one another, and I could hear the snow's whispered squash not just from behind me.  It was all around me.

I was surrounded.

I slowly looked up, and from the dim darkness of the forest, I saw a mound of glowing green dots stare at me.  As I gazed back at them, the sound of growling came again, resounding in the night all around me.  One.  Two. Three.  Then many more followed.  Finally came a howl, then all went quiet, save for the hushed footsteps in the snow that rang in my ear.  Ta. Ta. Ta.  Then a stomp uncaring of who heard it crashed against the snow in the silent encirclement of glowing dot-eyes.

I turned towards the sound, and found a white wolf standing a distance away from me.  It stretched its back into a bridging arch, and it towered its head to the height of my neck.  This thing was the same size as me—maybe a bit smaller.  It's mouth drew its teeth, unveiling the curtain, and revealing the flesh of its jaw and its large fangs that stood at the front of its teeth alongside the field of its smaller—nonetheless sharper—brethren.

It's mouth threw a snarl at me while it slowly closed in on me.  Encircling me slowly, it's eyes burned a deep green that seethed with frustration, desperation, anger, hunger.  While it stepped to my right, I followed it to its left, both of our steps breaking into the winter snow piled onto the forest floor.  Another growl.  Another snarl.  But now, its jaws opened wider each time.  Impatience.  It was written on its face—contorted with a beastial grit, straining, raining drool from its mouth.

It couldn't wait.  We both knew.  In just a few moments, it'd pounce on me.  In just a few moments, one of two things would happen.  It would pin me to the ground, snapping and biting with its razor-teethed jaws, and after drumming its skull with the bite force of its misses and botches—snapping its fangs in frenzied fury—it'd tear out my neck, and eat my corpse with its pack; A more hopeful happening would be me dodging its pounce, then fighting or running away—I imagine it to be both at the luckiest.

Now let's see.  What will it be;  A, B, or C?

*** THE SCYTHE AND THE OCEAN ***

Passing through an ornate gate decorated with golden dolphins, sharks, whales and octopi, a skeletal figure carrying a scythe whose wooden hilt dragged across the void-white floor passed through its arches.  Walking through, its boney feet stepped past the shiny marble pillars that held the gate up.  The realm transformed before it.  From a white nothingness akin to an empty canvass, it turned into a bustling open sea with many creatures swimming beneath the waters—ducking and diving through thriving forests of kelp, and hide-and-seeking in the vast coral land that covered the ocean floor alongside the dancing leaves of the kelp vines.

Where the skeleton was?  Above the water.  Not floating on it like a buoy or floatie out in the big blue; Not swimming like the fish and other such critters there too; but standing upon it surface like it were a house's floor or the soil of the earth.  The light from above struck its hooded figure, and cast a large shadow behind it—enshrouding the sea floor's coral reeves, kelp forests, and whatever else was behind it in darkness.

"I'm here for a visit!" The skeleton sat in a squat, and called out its words into the waters underneath it.  A few bubbles surfaced from the water and hit it with a heatwave of displeased and annoyed air.  After enduring the bubble's heat, a feminine figure dove through the water's surface and into the air—flipping and twirling like a gymnast performing for the most loving of crowds and the most nit-picky of critics.  Her upper half was a beautiful woman with light skin that'd make any man before her drink the potion of love, and her lower half was the long tail of a fish.

Her light blue hair resembled the very seas and oceans that she'd governed—coming from the top of her head, and flowing in uniform synchronicity like the river's streaming water that made its way through the land of dirt and stone, back to its origin and home.  The tail had glistening scales that shined a gorgeous turquoise akin to the bright beauty of  a pure, blue diamond held in the midst of the dull gray of rock and stone.  On her chest was a bra made from the simple craft of clams and seaweed.  Her fins that stretched as wide as the arms were see-through, and glowed a dim, night-light luster.

She caught herself onto the surface with a cartwheel move, and stood head-to-head with the skeleton—standing a bit taller than it with a puffed out chest.  "What do you want?  I'm busy with something." An annoyed grumble stitched itself into her words as she said this.  She glared at the skeleton—her eyes gleaming with a scolding gaze that felt stronger than the one of a mother's felt by a son or a daughter.  "I won't judge you for playing with the animals, so calm down." The skeleton lazily moved its jaw and sighed a done-with-this exhale.

The mermaid's hair boiled as her face flushed with pink hue on her cheeks.  "Don't you dare tell anyone about that!"  As she shouted, titanic waves that blotted out the sky appeared behind them, then crashed together—engulfing the two of them in a violent crash of harsh currents.  If the skeleton—or reaper—had a flesh and blood face, it'd look at her with the most unamused gaze of a man jaded from life itself.  "Ozean, can you not?  My clothes are getting soaked."

"Hmpf." Standing over the skeleton with her arms crossed, her mouth curled into a polluted, satisfied smile. "Anyway!  What did you come here for?  We already held our little deal just a while ago."  The reaper nodded. "Exactly that.  I'm here for a few questions."  Ozean's brow perked up as she tilted her head.  "Questions about what?"  It used its skeletal hand to draw to draw a circle into the air to the side.  Following the reaper's finger, a line of white light formed a mirror that showed Aadi being attacked by wolves in a snowy forest.

"Questions about him—or is it her now?"

"Just call him whatever you like, bone head."

*** THE REAPER'S QUESTIONS ***

I kept my scythe to my side.  I held it by the middle with my left hand.  As I rested its handle against the water's surface, it rippled slightly at its touch.  I came here out of curiosity.  I wanted to know more. "Why did you pick out the boy?"  My teeth chimed against the bone of my jaw.  Ozean's proud filled face squirmed on one side.  Her brow knitted deep into her forehead.  Her eyes and cheeks scrunched up against her nose that threw out a puff of air.

"Just because.  He was the best fit at the time."  Her words lingered in my mind.  "How was he the best fit?  He seemed calm and nice, but I don't see why you'd choose him out of the millions of other mortals."  This time, her face struggled with itself as a whole—both sides fumbling against the other.  "He was most compatible is all.  He had a similar condition to the girl, so I thought it best to pair them up."  I tapped my toes against the water.  From her face, I could tell.  She was hiding something.

"Be honest with me, Ozean.  Why did you pick the boy?"  Noises of footsteps roughly ploughing the snow and garbled growls and roars of beasts interrupted our silence.  I Turned my head to the portal I drew.  Aadi was still fighting with the wolves.  He'd been sent to protect Beatrice.  Why was he getting her body into trouble?  "Okay!  Fine!  There was a reason I picked him out.  I had my eye on him for a while."  Ozean's eyes faced away from me.  Her frown almost stretched below her chin.

"He's... weird.  He's a freak.  I saw him be a good son, brother, and friend.  But in that head of his...  A mortal shouldn't think like that.  The other mortals he learned it from weren't so extreme.  There's something wrong with him—very, very wrong.  But his soul is powerful.  It resonates with the world far more than any I've ever seen.  That soul of his... it could change things.  Though his mind has abnormalities—no, maybe even because of them—that power could be used to change my world."

"So you had me get him for you for that?"  She's not telling the full story.  I can feel it.  Under every bit of bone in my body, I could sense it.  There's something else.  "Look, reaper.  Look at what he's already done."  Ozean pointed at the portal I drew beside me.  I looked into it, and saw the something I was looking for.  The growling sounds stopped.  The rough, messy stomps into the snow did too.  What was left was a sight that took me a few seconds to understand.  It was nothing special, but there's an off feeling about it.

Aadi sat in the middle—surrounded by a pack of 30 wolves—with one wolf asleep on his lap with two tiny cubs perched on top of his knees.  He pet the one resting on his lap with a gentle brush of his fingers, while the baby wolves quick and fast pats on their heads and cheeks.  I've seen sights like this before.  Many had done something like this.  But why did this feel different?  "Reaper, those things are violent beasts.  They can only be tamed by magic.  The boy doesn't know that kind of spell."

"I've seen animal tamers before.  Is this strange?"  I watched Aadi pat the wild animals' heads like a pet owner to their many dogs.  His eyes were closed.  Then one opened slightly.  Its pupils glowed a faint baby blue that let out ethereal tendrils that swayed with the winter winds.  I stared at Aadi as he looked somewhere in the distance.  And slowly, his head moved to look at where the portal was.  Both eyes opened, he gazed right where we were watching him from.  Could he see?  Does he know we were watching him?  Can he tell? My skull rattled with those questions.

Soon, it stilled.  It cast away the thoughts.  I didn't think of anything.  I just looked back into those eyes—into Aadi's eyes.  My whole body stood still.  Even though my cloak swept onto my eye socket, all I did was stare at the portal—back into those eyes.  I couldn't say anything.  I couldn't describe it.  I wanted to, but I didn't need to.  I had to be still.  I had to look.  I had to watch.  I had to gaze.  There was something that stole away my words, and I'd let it keep them.

I stood as a statue stood.  I stayed still.  It was tranquil.  It was peaceful.  In the moment, I was as a pebble by the roadside river was.  My head was empty.  In front of me, there was a calming sight, beholden unto me by something I didn't know.  I could feel myself get lost in it.  I could feel my thoughts, my feelings, my own consciousness slip away into its gentle-blue stare.  And I didn't mind it.  I could feel myself becoming nothing—becoming one with this thing—and I accepted it.

Perhaps it'd be okay to.  Maybe I could become it, be it.  Maybe-

"SNAP OUT OF IT!"  The shriek brought firelight into my eye sockets as I crouched to the water's surface.  I heaved my breaths out of my jaw.  I bobbed up and down as my ribcage expanded and compressed with my ragged breath's rhythm.  What... What was that?  That was strange.  That never happened before.  How...?

"Understand now?  Why I picked him?"

"...Yes."

-END