What’s The Big Secret About Earth’s Moon?
If it had been within atmosphere, the oval-shaped, crimson-red spaceship that descended toward the gray dirt below would have given off a high-pitched whining sound. But this was not atmosphere. Or, rather, it was an incredibly thin one. The ship was landing on the moon. On Earth’s moon to be specific. Or Rysthael’s moon, as they would call it. Though they only dared make their final approach after sending out no less than a ten coded messages to assure the people down here that they were authorized so they wouldn’t be disintegrated upon approach, of course. None of those aboard wanted to risk someone down there getting an itchy trigger finger, considering what they were sitting on top of.
The ship landed silently in an unmarked spot before settling into place. A moment later, a circular opening appeared in the bottom before several figures were transported down on a beam of semi-translucent light toward the ground that was still over a hundred feet away. They were all Heretics who had been possessed by Seosten. Five of them in total, each heavily armed both with weapons and powers.
“Come on, this has to be at least a little bit of overkill, doesn’t it?” As he asked that, one of the five gestured at the rest of them. “This is the strongest human body I’ve ever been put in, bar none. This thing has powers I’ve never even heard of before. Shouldn’t it be on the front line? You know, fighting the actual war instead of sitting around on guard duty protecting something that probably isn’t ever going to be an issue anyway.”
The man standing at the back, the smallest of the group, cleared his throat while the transport beam continued to send them down toward the moon’s surface. “First, you should say ‘this guy,’ not ‘this thing.’ Everyone you possess is a living being, so keep that in mind. You might be the one in control, but it’s a lot easier to get along when you treat them properly and have some respect.”
He let that hang for a moment before continuing. “And unless one of those powers you’ve picked up with him is a heretofore unheard of perfect future vision, you have no idea whether this will turn into a problem. If it does, there won’t exactly be much warning, and we’ll need the absolute strongest first response we can get just to have the slightest chance in the void of surviving what comes out of that hole.”
By that point, they had reached the gray dirt. Before the beam could disengage, each of the five touched a spot on their shoulder, activating a spell that would provide fresh air and atmosphere around their face for several hours. Not that it was all that necessary, since not only would they not be out in the open like this for long, but also every single Heretic body came complete with powers allowing them to operate in space without issue. But it was better to be safe than sorry. Not to mention having the magical atmospheres made it possible for them to keep talking to one another out loud.
Together, they walked forward from under the large ship that had deposited them. Before they had taken more than a few steps however, another group of five appeared from under a protective invisibility shield. They too were all powerful Heretics who had been possessed by Seosten. The groups stopped in front of one another and exchanged several more codes to ensure they were all the people they were supposed to be. These were not simply verbal passwords, but magical ones as well, including using the aura signature-checking spells, something that was almost entirely impossible to change or fake, to identify both the Heretic and the Seosten possessing them. The entire ceremony took almost ten minutes, but none rushed. The five who were on their way out appeared weary and ready to be gone from this place. They definitely did not look like people who had been relaxing on a cushy vacation post for the past year, the entirety of their station here. They didn’t chat, didn’t joke around. They simply gave the codes, accepted the new group’s in return, and then walked off together.
The man who had brought up the idea that this assignment was overkill fell silent when he saw how ragged they appeared, and how happy they were to finish this post and make their way to the transport beam that would take them onto the ship so they could leave. Swallowing, he looked to the others, who had all served here in the past. He was the only new arrival. “Okay, what exactly is this? Everyone has been pretty cagey about what we’re actually doing here. From what I’ve picked up, it seems like this is all about a one in several quintillion chance the bad thing happens down there. And obviously, it didn’t happen. Otherwise we would’ve come with a lot more firepower than this. So why did they look so tired?” He paused before adding, “And for the record, my human really wants to know the same. See, I’m already taking his feelings into account. So what’s going on? We’re both confused.”
“Let’s get inside and talk about it there,” the leader replied. “And don’t worry, my human is nervous about being back here, so he’s anxious too. Once we’re in position and have everything set up, we’ll let the humans have some time alone. They deserve it, and I think we all need to stretch our own legs.”
With that, he pointed toward a seemingly empty spot of ground in the distance and gave a sharp whistle. As he did so, there was a slight rumbling through the ground under their feet. Then a ten-foot-wide, six-foot-long spot of dirt and rocks began to lift upward, revealing a hatch that had been covering a hole with a glowing transport tube identical to the one they had just used to leave the ship. Together, they walked forward to step onto it. Again, their identities were verified through several minutes of scans before the group even started to descend. As they did so, dozens of defensive measures could be seen along the walls. These varied from simple turrets facing them, to gas traps, magical transportation spells, and more. As they neared the bottom, much more dangerous versions of those defenses came into view. The spells here, if triggered, would have killed everyone in the tube instantly, bypassing any defenses they had. These spells had clearly been created and powered by some of the strongest and most capable mages in the entire Seosten Empire. This was no game.
That fact became even more clear as they reached the bottom and stepped off to find themselves facing another group. These were five more incredibly powerful Seosten-possessed Heretics, flanked by no less than twenty heavily armed and armored ‘ordinary’ soldiers of various species. All of them looked tense and ready to simply open fire if given any provocation to do so. They remained that way until yet another session of identification had been passed. Only then did the regular soldiers head off to go back to their duties, along with four of the five Seosten-Heretics who were already here. The last, a woman with dark skin and dark blue hair, came forward to greet them properly. “Hey there, Essel. Glad to see you made it back, and sorry you made it back.” Her smile was more of a grimace. “Only one new guy this time, huh?” she commented while glancing toward the one who had been questioning everything earlier. “What happened to Faliah and his host, Dominic?”
“Faliah earned a favor and got transferred to another assignment at the last minute,” their own leader, Essel, replied. “Took Dominic with him. But you know the rules, we have to come in with five. This is Samyaza, and his human’s name is Karl McKenneth. He needs to see why this is so important. And why everyone’s so tense. He needs the tour, Adathan.”
Adathan looked Samyaza up and down briefly before grimacing. “Yeah, he does. And I’m sure you could all use the reminder. Let’s go.” With that, she pivoted on one heel and began to walk away down a wide metal corridor. This place looked like the inside of the spaceship they had just left. There was a good reason for that as well, considering it was a spaceship, though one that had been buried within Earth’s moon for… a very long time. Several thousand years by this point.
As they walked through the corridor, the group could see even more defenses. But these were not pointed toward the tube they just arrived on. Instead, these defenses were directed inward, as though prepared to stop whatever might try to get out of this place. And, if anything, they were even more dangerous and powerful than the security measures that had been on the tube. As much as the people who had set this place up clearly wanted to make certain no one authorized could get in, they were several times more obsessed with ensuring that whatever this place was guarding couldn’t escape.
As they walked, Adathan explained to Samyaza. “We have two sets of five powerful human Heretics here at all times, ten in total. Every six months, one group of five leaves and another group comes in. That means you’re here for one year in total before you get a break. And believe me, you won’t want to stay any longer than that.” She waited while the other new arrivals, who had all been here before, made grunts of acknowledgement and agreement. Then she continued. “As you know, this outpost has been in place ever since our people first arrived in this system and detected the energy reading here. We came here to check it out and this base has existed ever since what happened then.”
Ahead of them, a heavy door rolled upwards out of the way, revealing a forcefield stronger than any Samyaza had seen outside of the one time he had visited a command ship for one of the Seraphs, along with a full eight starship-grade turrets, all pointed inward, and all capable of utterly vaporizing almost anything that might wander in front of them. It took over a minute to disable the security measures there so the group could continue through, and those defenses were immediately reactivated afterward. Which just made Samyaza even more nervous to have those cannons pointed in his direction.
“Yes,” he agreed. “And all of that because they found a hole in the moon with something weird coming out of it.”
Adathan chuckled, shaking her head. “A hole with something weird coming out of it. Now that would be one way to put it. A very bad way.” She raised a hand to wave at the squad of ten heavily-armed soldiers who walked past on their way out of the long tunnel the groups were passing through. The tunnel was over twenty feet wide, and brightly lit, except at the very end where it clearly opened up into an incredibly dark chamber. “This ship we’re on right now is the one that discovered the anomaly. It crash landed here on top of the thing, and the rest of the facility was constructed around the vessel rather than risk moving it. The executive officer of the ship gave the original order to set up permanent defenses, an order that the Seraphs have upheld ever since.”
Samyaza blinked at that, squinting at her. “Why did the executive officer make that sort of judgment? What happened to the captain?”
She, in turn, gave him a look while they stood at the very edge of the brightly lit tunnel. The darkness in the room beyond was immediate, a clearly supernatural absence of light. The illumination in this tunnel simply stopped abruptly right where the innermost chamber began. There was nothing natural about it. When she spoke, her own voice was almost as dark as the chamber they were standing in front of. “The captain is inside. He’s the one we’re keeping in this place.”
“Wait, what?” Samyaza was even more confused, a fact that his host found both unnerving and amusing in some ways, but he ignored the man. “I thought we were here to stop something dangerous they found at the bottom of that hole from getting out.”
It was Essel’s turn to nod. “Yes, we are. That thing in the hole already took the captain. We’re here to make sure it doesn’t take anyone else. Come, better that you see for yourself before we say anything else. It just ahh… you need to see it.”
That didn’t exactly stop the man from having even more questions, but he fell silent and simply stepped out onto what turned out to be dirt. This was an underground cave. The tunnel they had just walked through had once been the launching tube for starfighters when this was a space-worthy vessel. They had just emerged through the end that would have led into space. Now it led to this cave. The others stood back, with Adathan gesturing for him to go ahead. “We’ll transport you out before it’s too late, but the best way to know is to see for yourself. Talk to it. Just don’t trust it.”
Talk to it? He had no idea what she meant by that, but exhaled before starting to walk that way. The cave was pitch-black, yet his host’s vision powers made that a moot point. He could see well enough, not that there was much to look at anyway. The cave was roughly three hundred feet underground, stood just under a hundred feet in diameter, and was almost entirely composed of nothing but blank gray dirt. In the center of it was the only thing that stood out. Well, two things. The first was a hole, about ten feet wide. It appeared entirely mundane from a distance. The second was the man who stood on top of that hole. He floated there as though standing on solid ground where none existed. Sure enough, he was a Seosten, or appeared to be. He was also dressed in the garb of an old captain from the days when Rysthael had been officially discovered and documented, several thousand years earlier. He had been a relatively young captain at the time, that being his first real command. And he had not aged whatsoever since that time. Despite the millennia that had passed, he hadn’t changed at all.
Except that wasn’t quite right. As Samyaza drew closer he realized there were signs of changes after all. The man floating there didn’t look like a normal Seosten. His skin seemed to be covered in a very thin, film-like protective shell, like thin ice that had settled over his body, or a layer of brittle glass. Yet looking at it with multiple protection-estimation powers told Samyaza that the shell might not break even if subjected to the force of every weapon he had seen on the way down here, combined with a direct bombardment from the ship they had arrived here with.
At first there was no reaction whatsoever. Then Samyaza experienced something strange. He felt as though he had been acknowledged. In a way he couldn’t put words to, he simply experienced a sensation of having been spoken to. A moment after that, a low, dangerous voice filled the air. It was half-growl, half-polite whisper, with a bit of gargling glass mixed in. “Ah, someone new.” And the moment after that, the head of the floating man turned to look at him, the mouth moving silently in direct relation to the words that had already been spoken.
Samyaza was still trying to wrap his mind around what had just happened, before it came again. He felt a rush of indignation, then a little bit of fear and confusion. Just as those feelings settled in him, the voice followed. “It’s too bad they didn’t go with someone stronger and more capable when searching for a last-minute replacement. I’m afraid you won’t be up to the task. When I leave this place, Samyaza, perhaps I shall do so through your husk. Your aunt would be so very disappointed in such an ignoble end for the boy she put such faith and work into.” And again, while the voice was almost halfway through its speech, the mouth began to move, giving visual indication of words that had been spoken several seconds earlier. Everything this creature said, everything it did, came out of order. First one experienced the feelings and reactions its words created, then they heard the sound, and finally saw the visual of it physically moving.
“Whatever you are,” he announced, “you won’t be killing anyone here. And you won’t be leaving.”
That time, knowledge came first. This thing was known as Absence. The human word, he knew that from his host, who was also taking all of this in. The information simply seemed to spontaneously appear in his mind. In their minds. Then, the words came, belatedly followed by the movement of that mouth completely out of sync with the glass-gargling whisper voice. “I have many names, but in this case, I prefer to be known by the Earth word of… Absence.”
“Are you from that other place?” Samyaza found himself asking. “The place they call Tartarus.”
A sense of embarrassment and even more indignation filled him then, just before words that caused those feelings were audible. “Foolish, tiny thing. Not every force in the reality you experience comes from that place. The beings of that universe doomed themselves and created what you call Tartarus hundreds of millions of years ago. I was to them what they are to you. But there will be no more after you. This universe shall be the last. I shall see to that.”
Before the Seosten man could ask what made this creature think he could follow through on that threat, a rush of images filled his mind. He saw a universe. Not this one, one that had come several iterations earlier, so far in the past as to be utterly incomprehensible, time-wise. It was the very first universe to have ever existed in all reality. Nothing lived there, nothing existed save for two invisible forces, opposed and linked to one another. The first was creation and creativity, light, power, even life itself. It was magic, at the very core of its essence. This force, half of the first universe, was something. It was energy, power, the invisible field that would stretch across all of creation and allow those who knew how to manipulate it to one day do incredible things.
But the other half, the side of the first universe that hadn’t become magic, was… nothing. No, it was the lack of something. It was a force that destroyed, that devoured, that took away and erased what its counterpart created. That was why nothing had existed in that first universe. Nothing was allowed to. Whatever the creation side of the forces made, the destruction side erased. Nothing could last more than an instant before it was gone again, devoured by this opposite of magic.
Then the creation-side, magic, had formed something its darker half could not erase. It was a physical form for that darker half, a body intrinsically tied to it. And it was tied directly into the energy of that destructive force. Devouring the form would harm the force itself, making it lesser. Being lesser was anathema to a force that stretched across all known reality, so this wouldn’t do. It could not harm itself, yet it raged against being confined. A body was a prison. A body, even one the size of several galaxies as this one was, remained only a tiny fraction of its intended size. Its creation-side managed to trap the force of destruction within a physical shell, albeit one large enough to casually swallow a solar system.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
That was the second universe, one in which the dark half was locked within an albeit massive body. Yet it still caused untold destruction. Even while forced to physically travel across space, it killed and erased everything it could reach.
Thus, in the third universe, it was forced into a smaller body, one merely the size of a solar system. Again, its destructive path was slowed, yet not entirely eliminated, and over the billions of years that universe lasted, it continued to annihilate trillions upon trillions of lives.
Then came the fourth and fifth universes. In one, Creation formed all of the life and things it desired. In the other, it sent its darker half. The fifth universe existed solely to house that destructive side, as an empty place where it could be happy that nothing else existed. Its other half, its sister-self, had been attempting to please it by putting it in a place where it could be alone. Yet it was not happy, because it knew that other things existed in the universe right next door. And as its entire purpose was to erase, much as its other half existed to create, that would not stand.
It escaped in time, and Creation was forced to try again, several more times through more universes across trillions of years. Finally, it had been locked away successfully, trapped where it could only view the living universe, not interact with it, not destroy it. Only watch. This, of course, was torture for a living force, the opposite of Creation, who only existed to destroy.
It had been trapped through several universe cycles by this point. Trapped with absolutely no outlet. Until… until something created a hole. A tiny pinprick, in the wall between this universe and the prison where it was held. It was hardly anything, the equivalent of a prisoner being able to push their pinkie through a hole in their cell.
But holes could be expanded. And with that pinkie, the dark force could reach out. This hole had existed within empty space when it first appeared, several million years earlier. Then something had formed the moon around it, had put the moon there to act as a barrier in order to ensure no one stumbled across the hole and made it worse. Because any form of life that touched that hole would be absorbed into it. And every time it absorbed something from this universe, the hole got bigger, allowing more of its prisoner to emerge.
So long as no one touched the hole, this destructive force would remain trapped. It could not escape through the hole as it was, any more than an ordinary man could escape through a finger-sized entry into his cell.
The captain of the old Seosten vessel had been taken when he made the mistake of touching the hole during an investigation upon their arrival to this solar system. Now his long-dead body held a tiny fraction of this other-force’s essence, all that it could fit through this hole, as it used that body like a puppet. Though right now, it could only extend an incredibly small fractional portion of itself into this universe, even that portion was enough to turn its puppet, the dead Seosten captain, into one of the strongest, most dangerous beings in existence. One who merited the level of defenses they had erected here. And he quite possibly could have walked out of this place, through all of that. But there was just as high of a chance that this body would be destroyed, entirely cutting off the destructive force’s link to this universe.
On the other hand, the Seosten who protected this place could have attempted to cut off that link by killing the body of their old captain. Yet there was also just as high of a chance that doing so would result in actually making the hole worse, allowing more of the destructive force to escape.
Maybe any battle would result in Absence’s puppet being annihilated and its ability to reach through that hole cut off. Or maybe it would result in it being able to reach even more of its power through, swallowing up the moon and then more beyond.
Neither side knew what would happen should they actually fight. Thus, this stalemate. The creature stayed on top of its hole, ensuring no one could approach to tamper with it. And the Seosten guarded this place, ensuring no living thing accidentally made the hole between universes wider, that no one went near that creature.
Samyaza bumped up against a forcefield that surrounded the hole while absorbing all of that. His mouth opened and shut, trying in vain to comprehend it.
He felt cold fear, then the words that had caused that fear came. “I am Absence. I am patient. Your people knew of me long ago. You have feared the Void for so very long, yet most have forgotten the source of that fear, have created other explanations for it. You considered the Void a place that your dead descend into once they are forgotten. The Void is not a place. It is me. I am your fear. I am your eventuality. In time, all come to me. All become me. You believe Creation is the strongest of us, yet everything she creates falls to me in time. It always has, and it always will. Whether you seek the long path or the short, I will taste you. I will take you. Through all that has ever existed, I have been.
“And I am the only one that shall always be.”
********
Sariel and Lucifer
Striding across the crimson-red grass in front of the Seosten school where he and several hundred others received their education and most of their care throughout the year, the small blond-haired boy known as Lucifer tossed two orange plucca fruit up and down in either hand. It had taken quite a bit of negotiation for him to get both of these from the boy whose father had sent them, considering how rare they were. But it was worth it. Even if he was going to have to do Welean’s chores in the kitchen for the next week. He would’ve done them for twice that long in exchange for being able to share the fruit with his best friend. And speaking of that friend– wait, shouldn’t she have been here already? Turning in a circle as he observed all the other children running around in small packs, Lucifer frowned thoughtfully. He looked at the fruit in his hands, assuring himself that they were still perfectly ripe and delicious, before focusing on a stand of trees at the far end of the field, as far from the main trio of school buildings as possible. With a soft chuckle, the boy walked that way. The trees stood at the very edge of the grounds. Or at least, at the edge of the area students were allowed to go in. There was a magical line that would alert the school authorities if anyone crossed it. At least, it was supposed to. Lucifer had it on good authority that there were ways to bypass that line without getting in trouble. He was still working on the negotiations for that. It was probably going to take more than a week of kitchen duty.
Making his way up to the base of the nearest tree, the boy turned and put his back against it. It was a very large specimen, standing a good eighty feet high, with a purplish trunk that was about twelve feet around, and a thick foliage of white leaves. For a few seconds, Lucifer did nothing after putting his back to the wood. Then he spoke conversationally, though loud enough to be heard. “Did you catch it this time?”
There was a moment of silence before a soft, somewhat embarrassed voice answered from much higher up, hidden far into the foliage. “No. He jumped to one of the other trees. I’m too big to go out on the branch he used. But I was really close.”
Smiling to himself, Lucifer tilted his head back to look straight upward. Way up in the tree, near the very top, he could see another blonde-haired figure peeking down at him from where she had perched herself on the last branch that would hold her weight. The two looked similar enough that people around here already treated them like they were twins, even though there was no actual relation. At least, not by blood. But as far as he was concerned, the girl was his sister.
“You were chasing one of the wirkles across the grass again, and followed it up the tree,” the small boy noted. “Then it went out on one of the little branches and jumped to the other tree so you couldn’t follow. How long ago was that?”
Once again there was a brief pause. He could see the face above him turned pink before she ducked out of sight for a moment. Then she slowly poked her head back out into view and reluctantly answered. “Um, maybe an hour?”
“And you just really loved how comfortable it is up there?” Lucifer teased gently. He could do that. They were Lucifer and Sariel. He was allowed to tease her about stuff like this. Just as she teased him about a good many other things. But if he had seen any of the other children doing so, he would’ve landed in detention for quite a while for fighting. He could tease her, nobody else. Especially not about this sort of thing.
Once more, she blushed and squirmed there on the branch before adopting a defensive tone. “Maybe it is. Maybe you should come up and see just how comfortable– wait no, you’re not allowed. There’s only room for me up here and I think I’ll make it my new bed. I need a sign that says ‘no Lucifers allowed.’”
She would not, of course, admit that she couldn’t get back down. Like an eager cat, she had gone right up the tree, using the incredible physical prowess their people had even as children to get herself all the way to the top while she was laser-focused on chasing that small mammal. But once it had left her reach, she’d found herself stuck up there. As easy as it was for even a very small child with Seosten ability to get into the tree, looking down from that high and needing to climb back the way she had come was a different story altogether. But perhaps the biggest barrier to it was the whole thinking part. She had spent so much time hidden in the hospital where her mother lived that she still wasn’t quite accustomed to having the space to run and jump and, in this case, climb. When she turned her brain off and chased the animal up the tree, her body knew what to do and simply did it. But the moment she looked down and saw how high she was, her brain kicked back in and started worrying about slipping, so her body couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Thus, she was stuck clinging to the branch.
Lucifer considered for a moment. Then he carefully checked the two fruit before tucking them away in the extra-dimensional storage pocket in his pants meant for books and other school supplies. Taking a few steps back, the boy knelt down and did something on the grass there. Once he was satisfied with that, he squinted at the top of the tree, then ran forward and jumped. After a few seconds of quick scrambling and climbing, he was on the branch opposite from Sariel. “Well, I guess I’ll just be on this branch and you can be on that one. See, I’m not breaking your rules. Even if you don’t have a sign yet. Which really means that’s not official at all.”
Shifting a bit on her branch, Sariel carefully sat up to stare at him. “Well, maybe if you’d brought a sign up with you, we could deal with that.”
Lucifer’s response was a grin before he straightened up to his feet, balancing perfectly on the branch. “Knew I forgot something. But come here, I wanna show you something.” His request was accompanied by an insistently beckoning hand, which he kept up until the girl sighed and hesitantly moved across the branch so she could carefully stand up next to him. She didn’t say anything, instead simply looking at him with a mix of curiosity and light suspicion.
“I learned a new spell from Casvienel,” the boy began conversationally. “Cost me that tin of cookies from home.”
Sariel gasped and shook her head. “But those were really good cookies.”
“It’s a really good spell,” he informed her. “But I haven’t had a chance to really test it out the right way.” While she stared at him curiously, the boy gestured toward the ground below them. “Look down there.”
She leaned over carefully to do so, blinking at what looked like a large green puddle in the middle of the red grass. “What happened?! You didn’t hurt it, did you? The Director will get really mad if you hurt the grass after what happened with those flowers last month.”
Lucifer, in turn, held up both hands placatingly. “It’s alright, really. Remember the rule? Reckless, not stupid. Being reckless is fun. Being stupid is stupid.” She said the whole thing along with him, and both smiled at each other before he continued. “It’s a gooey spell. But we have to test it together. I don’t weigh enough by myself to really test it.”
Sariel looked that way, then turned back to him and tilted her head. “A gooey spell? Does that mean what I think it means?”
In answer, Lucifer held his hand and extended it to her. “Only one way to find out. You trust me, right?”
It wasn’t even a question. She might have been trapped in this tree and embarrassed about that fact, but Sariel didn’t waste a second before her hand clasped his. She would have done the same whether he asked if she trusted him to jump out of this tree, off the roof of the school, or through an airlock into the empty vastness of space. No matter where they were, or what he asked, she would trust him.
The two children held hands tightly, then looked down. Sariel could feel her stomach turning a little queasy, but she forced the reaction back. Beside her, Lucifer counted down from four. On zero, both of them stepped out. She was too nervous to even climb down by herself, too stuck in her own head. But when she was with him, the fear went away and she could simply jump. With his hand in hers, she could do anything.
Both children shouted as they plummeted toward the ground. When they hit the green puddle, they vanished from sight, sinking all the way under what looked and felt a lot like thick gelatin. For several long seconds, they stayed down, while the surface of the magically transformed ground remained completely still and motionless. Then Sariel broke through, popping out of the green gel while coughing rapidly. It was all in her hair and over her face. She was half-floating and half-standing in the stuff. Soon, the coughing turned to laughter as she squirmed and slapped down into the goo a bit frantically. “No tickling! That was supposed to be a rule! I said no tick–aaaahhh!”
Managing to push free of her attacker, she took a quick breath before diving down under the gel. Once more, the surface went peaceful, though only for a moment before Lucifer came scrambling up out of the shell, laughing and coughing as he clambered onto solid ground, completely covered in the goo. “Okay, okay! No tickling, I got it!”
His eyes widened and he yelped as a small hand snaked out of the goo, caught his ankle, and dragged him back into it. With a squishy popping sound, he fell right into the middle of the deep puddle before Sariel surfaced behind him and breezily noted, “A good scientist thoroughly tests his material, right?”
“Sure,” the boy agreed, a bit too readily for her liking. “And he tests it with the help of his assistant.” His tone made her shrink back reflexively, before squealing as he dove at her and both went under the goo once more.
Eventually, the two of them pulled themselves out of the goo and looked at one another. They were completely covered in the slime. It made both of the young children giggle before Lucifer finally asked the girl, “Why do you keep chasing the wirkles anyway?”
She, in turn, looked embarrassed and fidgeted, kicking at the grass. “Dalasiel.”
Lucifer blinked at that before his expression became a scowl. “He’s been making fun of you for the whole possession thing, hasn’t he?”
“Why shouldn’t he?” Sariel pointed out with a sigh. “I’ve already been here for six months and I still can’t actually possess anything properly. I have less skill with it than a toddler. He’s right, I might as well not even be a Seosten at all. And when they figure that out, when they decide I don’t deserve to be here–”
Lucifer caught both of her hands in his, meeting her gaze. “No he’s not right, Sariel. And no one’s going to decide you don’t deserve to be here. Come here, anchor hug.” It was a thing they had come up with early on, when Sariel had been woken up repeatedly by nightmares about being sent back to hide in the walls of the asylum again. He was her brother, her anchor, and he wouldn’t allow her to be taken away.
Guiding her to sit beside the tree, Lucifer disappeared for a moment before coming back with a small animal cupped in his hands. It was about the size of an Earth squirrel, with six legs, dark red fur with a few white streaks through it, a prehensile tail, and three nostrils on its beady little nose under a pair of dark eyes. The creature clearly wasn’t very happy about being there, but couldn’t squirm free. This was one of the wirkles Sariel had been chasing. Lucifer had simply found one and picked it up.
“Okay, here.” Plopping down next to the girl, Lucifer held up the creature. “What happens if you try to possess him now? Just check.”
The girl hesitated, before slowly reaching out to put two fingers against the creature’s head. Her nose scrunched up a bit and she focused intently for several long seconds, then vanished from her spot next to him. But her disappearance only lasted for a moment before she came flying back out of the animal, flailing and yelping as she landed hard on the grass. “Oof!”
From there, Sariel lay with her face in the dirt and sighed. “See?” she mumbled. “I told you, I can’t do it. I sort of possess them for a second, then their brains freak and throw me out.” She pushed herself up and turned, a grunt of effort escaping her as her hand moved to touch the animal once more. And once more, she vanished. This time, it lasted for all of five seconds before she reappeared and was sent flying violently off into the grass.
That continued for several more attempts, before Sariel finally slumped down, face in her hands. “I can’t do it! I can’t even possess a little animal, I can’t…” She trailed off, squeezing her eyes shut as her head and shoulders shook. The young girl, only a few years out from being a toddler herself, gave a very soft, “I’m just… broken.”
Swallowing, Lucifer shifted a bit, picking up the small animal once more before holding it up. He was much too young to truly understand everything his best friend turned adopted sister was feeling in that moment after having spent the first several years of her conscious life locked up in a hospital and forced to hide from everyone, but he did know one thing. He would do anything to make her feel better.
“You’re not broken, Sariel,” he insisted. “You just need time and… and practice, that’s all. So that’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna practice for a little bit. And we’ll do that every day. That’s the problem, you know? You were stuck in that hospital while the rest of us were learning all this stuff. It’s not like you had a bunch of ways to use your possession before, Sariel. You just need time to catch up. Some extra work.” He flashed a small smile at her. “I’ll teach you.” With that, the boy disappeared, possessing the wirkle before making the creature do a complicated little dance in front of her, one that really needed a top hat and tiny cane to pull off completely, but he worked with what he had. It was enough to make Sariel giggle, before he popped out, scooped the animal up in one hand, and gave an exaggerated bow. That made her giggle even more, as Lucifer took the time to give the animal a few nuts from his snack pocket.
“See?” he announced simply, “I know what I’m doing. So I’ll help you learn. Then you can shove it in Dalasiel’s face.” His shoulders gave a slow, pointed shrug. “Too bad we can’t find one of those time-extending spells, right? Then we could take days and days inside it to do all the practicing we want without losing anything out here.”
Sariel gave a soft gasp, poking the boy in the forehead. “Don’t even try it, Lucy. You know those spells are way too dangerous.” She wouldn’t have put it past him to find a way to sneak into the adult section of the magical library just to try to cast a spell that was far out of his league. “If you try to cast something like that and it goes wrong–”
“I know, I know,” he assured her. “Reckless, not stupid. But since we don’t have that sort of magic, we’re gonna have to use real time, okay? So we’ll meet every day and practice.”
“Every day,” Sariel agreed, biting her lip uncertainly before pushing herself up to embrace him. “Thanks, Lucy.”
A small smile found its way to the boy’s face as he returned the hug. “You know, before you thank me, you should think about where you’re standing.”
“Where I’m–” Sariel blinked, then looked over her shoulder at the still-extant deep puddle of ooze. “Oh don’t you da–”
Her words became a squeal as Lucifer gave a push to send her backwards, but his cocky grin transformed just as quickly when her flailing hand grabbed his to pull the boy back with her.
Both of them fell into the ooze with a loud, satisfying squishing sound.