The Grifon's Quiver - Chapters 7-9

Chapter 7 - Autonomic Fragmentation

After transferring onto a metal ship and heading out across ocean waters around a larger island called Ing, for another fertility god, the party arrived on the island Eriu the next evening.
“Welcome to Lyric,” said the ferryman as Ur stepped onto solid land once again.
Jura, the first Terran city Quid had seen, was a major interstellar port and had a substantial population of extraterrestrials. Lyric, situated on the border of Avalon and Murka, had a much higher population of natives, predominantly human and fae.
Quid had learned that there are many distinct species which are often lumped together as Elven. The Light Elves and Dark Elves, Ljusalfar and Svartalfar, were two distinct lands joining at the same border with the ancient human Nordic lands, and have since joined into a single, unified Alfheim.
The natives of Avalon are a friendlier race, who colonized the human world well into Europe in ancient human history. They settled on the Danube, partaking of fertility rituals and celebrating the sanctity of life hand in hand with humans, until the age of strife began to infect their region and they returned home.
Upon their return to Ireland they stayed for a time, ensuring that the bridge between realms would remain strong, and that their ability to preserve the beauty of the natural world would linger after their departure. They were known as the Tuatha de Danann, the people of the goddess Danu who presided over the Danube river basin, and were often described as having a radiant shimmer, an aura that was visible even to the humans of their time.
While the Avaloni are far more interested in peace and prosperity, they have been known to exhibit warrior behaviour. During the war that broke the Terran National Government they joined the Huldufolk Alliance with their nearby neighbours in Alfheim, fighting to ensure that the sanctity of life would be protected from the destruction of human ignorance. Since the war ended, they’d made substantial progress in repairing their relations with the humans and were proudly the first to reopen their borders to human commerce.
Here in Eriu, on the border of Avalon and Murka, humans and faeries lived in peace once again. The superstitious mistrust of the old world was gone, and both sides worked together to ensure that all life was upheld.
The city of Lyric was a very happy place. People played music in the streets, pixies were so abundant Quid couldn’t count the different groups he’d seen flying past.
Humans, with their ranges of brown skin, stood with the much lighter Avaloni in partnership. They’d worked hard to cultivate a healthy ecosystem, and as part of that ecosystem they too were sustained by their own efforts.
As Ur pulled the cart along the riverside to where it opened into Lake Dagda, Tremplir sang along with the words of each crowd as they passed. She knew the words to dozens of traditional Eriu songs, and hearing them again brought tears to her eyes.
They reached the opening, where the river expanded into a vast lake, just in time to watch the surface reflecting the sunset. Sparkly shimmers danced across the surface and merfolk floated, watching the sky change color.
Tremplir waved to a mermaid, who swam along the coast with them so they could sing together. A rich, green and brown energy poured out of the forest to mingle with the bright cyan rising from the lake and even seemed to be vibrating along with their song.
Quid had been developing a strong desire to lay with Tremplir. She was a beautiful woman, a kind and interesting person, and sometimes when she thought no one was looking she would do such adorable things.
But he knew she wasn’t available for that kind of contact, and having these feelings was filling him with a deep sense of shame and unworthiness, how could she possible desire a weird-looking alien who couldn’t even protect himself?
Was it even appropriate to be attracted to her, if they were partners in the Order? Were there rules about that he should know? He wanted to ask but didn’t want to be seen as rude or defiant to some rule he wasn’t aware of.
Sheran knew what was happening inside him and, though he couldn’t see it, his feelings were triggered a deep-rooted knot of emotional trauma around expressing love for others. He was raised in the Empire and constantly told he was worthless and inferior, being discouraged from showing or receiving affection, and told that his only value as a man was to be strong and empty-hearted. Attempting to break away from the mold he was forced into, despite not fitting it, was causing severe emotional distress in a number of conflicting ways.
If a tree has grown being constantly twisted and distorted, for so many years that it adapts to the bending, then attempting to put it back to a healthy position can cause it an intense pain, which it might feel unwilling to endure. For a tree, reversing this kind of damage might not be possible. For a beautiful heart, struggling to find itself, it would be a difficult process, but Sheran knew that Quid was going to receive all the help he needed in finding himself amid the chaos and turmoil of the slave mentality he’d been forced to embrace for survival.
She also knew the power of planting a seed in the right spot. She whispered, “loving yourself for who you are, and accepting your emotions as a part of your experience, will allow you to break away from harmful restrictions imposed on your mental wellbeing.”
Quid looked at her with tears welling up in his throat and almost said something but he didn’t know what to say, so he turned away and crouched down next to the weapons chest just in case he had to hide tears from his companions.
Nils knelt down next to him and gave him a hug. It was the first time he’d been hugged since his mother died and he was afraid to admit to himself how much he needed another one. She held onto him as he cried quietly, and when the last notes faded from Tremplir’s song, Nils stood up and held his hand, guiding him over to the food so he could find something to help him feel better. “Have some chocolate, honey.”
As they walked along the lively lakeside road, they looked at the lovely little houses with micro farms that supplied the neighbourhood with all the food that was needed, while small gardens ensuring the local wildlife had enough food as well.
The forest was lovingly tended to by the population in general and everyone knew how important it was, for the community’s wellbeing, to ensure the forest’s needs were respected.
This entire city had been created in a spirit of cooperation and genuinely loving partnership between the Avaloni and the Humans, who shared Eriu proudly as a strong and supportive community.
With the love shared between them, the merfolk had travelled through the rivers of Avalon from New Atlantis into Eriu, simply because sharing the joy of creativity with other species was the most rewarding goal they could ask for. They’d once held a presence in the oceans around ancient Ireland but as the age of strife deteriorated they departed for their own safety. Now returned, they were free to bless the waters with their playful love once again.
When they approached a bridge, Ur pulled off the road to the beach and Rendo detached the wagon so Ur could roam about freely. The Auroch waded into the lake and drank in the twilight as the merfolk danced around him. Rendo wandered off to admire the craftsmanship and architecture of the bridge.
Tremplir and Quid walked along the beach to a viewpoint, where they could see down the next branch of the lake. “This place is my home,” she said quietly, “I’ve missed it so much.”
Quid wanted to say something but couldn’t think of anything at all. He just smiled at her, hoping his facial expression was comforting to her.
“Ancient humans told legends of this place,” she went on, “this lake has always been the closest point of contact between our land and the human realm. You see how the lake curves away over there, while almost hiding itself behind those rocks? In the age of strife, humans couldn’t see in that direction, they believed they lived on a 3D planet.”
The entire concept of a 3D world seemed strange to Quid. How could they even breathe properly if they confined themselves to some flat, compressed, semi-spherical world in only three dimensions?
Tremplir continued. “They always felt the connection to our realm but they couldn’t see it, because their consciousness had contracted to the point of illness. Back then, the collective was sick and couldn’t act like a whole being. People stumbled through mazes of conflicting falsehoods, trying to figure out why everything hurt, while they closed off to protect themselves. And they couldn’t see, in the process they were blinding themselves to the only truth that would lift the veil of suffering and end their state of abandonment.”
Quid felt a certain familial relation to that concept. The Empire wanted to compress the thoughts and beliefs of their victims into a confined, collapsed state of unawareness. It hurt badly enough being trapped in servitude on his world, he couldn’t imagine the pain ancient humans must have felt. “How did they finally figure it out, and fix themselves?”
“It was the children of light,” Trem responded, “they fixed the collective consciousness by embracing a state of unity, even when it hurt unimaginably. They accepted the suffering of the human world and healed it inside themselves. They knew the only way to save the planet was to end the conflict of the human psyche, so that people could open up again and remember how much better it felt to love the life they shared the world with, than to hate everything, themselves, and destroy the planet out of fear of resolving the issues their ancestors created.”
The stood still for a moment, watching the lake and the trees on the other side of the bridge. Then Tremplir nudged his arm softly. “Let’s go, we’ll show you what life is like on the other side.”
As they walked back, Quid watched the other side of the water carefully. It didn’t look any different from this side, but he remembered the fractures and fragmented state of the map he was shown back in the Grifon’s Quiver, and wondered what it would feel like walking through the regions they called the veils, and stepping through distorted time differentials, or whatever it was they’d told him about this space.
When they got back on the wagon, Nils handed Quid a document with some seals and other markings on it. “This is your passport,” she said, “you’re a quartz merchant here to offer trade with the Avaloni. We’re just giving you a ride because your vehicle had problems. You don’t know us, you’re not part of our group, and if they ask why there’s dangerous tech here, you know nothing about it.”
The Order had passed themselves off as diplomats successfully for generations, human authorities never had enough information about the goings-on of other realms to know the difference.
Tremplir added one last note, with a stressful tone of urgency, “and don’t go near the giants.”
Every border crossing had at least one or two giants stationed there for protection. The ancient keepers of order, they were declared evil and outcast from the human realm because they insisted that the natural laws be respected, during a period in which those laws were considered detrimental to the wellbeing of humanity. Angry at being persecuted, they were especially hard on those who passed through human territory.
“Just try not to speak unless you have to, let us do the talking,” Nils’ voice was becoming the most comforting experience Quid had ever known, and her confidence was reassuring to him.
When they got on the bridge, Quid began to feel dizzy and disoriented.
Nils told him, “take deep breaths, try to stay still and focus on your inner self. It’s going to be a little confusing for you, but you’ll adjust quickly.” She was already amazed how rapidly his mindset was repairing itself, and how easily his natural psychic abilities were returning. She was sure he’d make the adjustment with equally impressive speed.
As they moved forward he became increasingly aware of an imminent urge to run away. Various aspects of his personality were surfacing from the hidden depths of the shadowy subconscious, and most of them were unhappy about what they felt. It was similar to the feeling of his light and dark aspects mirrored in the pool outside the altar back in the sanctum of the Order. Some parts of him wanted one thing, some wanted another, and no one was willing to cooperate.
They stopped and the human guards ordered everyone off the wagon.
Rendo jumped off Ur’s back saying, “we’re diplomats returning to Atlantis on behalf of the Federation.” It was technically true from his perspective, despite being a complete lie from that of the human realm.
The guards thought that seemed to make sense, as the Dwarf was joined by an Avaloni Elf and three aliens. They eyed the immigrants suspiciously, and when they reached Quid they looked skeptically at his documents.
Nils explained, “he’s a hitch hiker, we’re just giving him a ride to Avalava,” the capitol city of Avalon, “his throat was injured by a frightened boar.” She hoped that would encourage Quid to stay quiet.
The guards didn’t like any part of that, and glared at him suspiciously. They’d never seen a member of his species before, which only amplified their suspicions. “Where are you from?” One of them asked.
He was still woozy from whatever confusing experience was distorting his awareness, which numbed his fear but also decreased his ability to speak. He meekly offered the answer, “the Empire.”
The guard balked at the answer. He knew that meant Quid was an escaped slave, probably dangerous, and unlikely to cooperate with authorities even on a good day.
Meanwhile, Tremplir was paying extra attention to a guard who’d stayed back from the party, who was currently conversing with a large reptilian from Inner Terra, a descendant of the Pangaean dinosauric legacy.
While the subterranean Reptilian Autocracy was an important aspect of the collective consciousness of Terra, and a sacred component of the strength that would one day lead back into the unity of Pangaea, the past several aeons of war had accumulated large amounts of distrust between the reptilians and humanoid races.
“Let me ask you,” the guard said to Quid, stalling for time and hoping he could find an excuse to detain the alien, “why do they call themselves an empire when they’re an oligarchy?”
Quid’s anger was deeply triggered by this question and the scorn was visible on his face.
Nils patted Quid’s back and said, “we’d recommend not talking about that. As diplomats we know fully well how painful that subject can be for those who escape the Empire, we wouldn’t want him having a breakdown on your border, wouldn’t that just be too much of a mess?”
The guard didn’t like being argued with but agreed begrudgingly, he didn’t want some trauma victim crying on his shoulder. “Alright,” he said to Quid, “well you just stand here while we speak to your friends.” Then he turned to Nils. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing in Murka, then?”
The dinosaur from the border guard was walking closer to them. Tremplir was getting anxious, the party was starting to feel threatened by his posture. Aggression is easy to recognize in dinosaurs, and this one wasn’t in a friendly mood.
Sheran whispered to Quid, “if something goes wrong, stay near me.” She would get him to the other side of the bridge, where he could request asylum in Avalon.
Quid looked down the bridge to the other side. An enormous humanoid, three times the size of the tall Dwarves, was approaching them from further along the expanse. The giant was holding what used to be a full-grown blackthorn tree, wielding it as a shillelagh.
As the giant approached, he seemed to intensify the Quid’s dizziness and for a brief moment his amfur saw itself. It was a strange feeling, like looking to the side and seeing your own face looking back at you. He felt nauseous.
As the dinosaur got closer it hissed, “we’re going to search your vehicle for contraband.”
Rendo sneered. “What makes you think we have anything illegal? We’re diplomats.”
“Silence!” It screamed back. The guards pulled out firearms, a long-time favourite choice of weapon for humans.
Tremplir and Rendo looked at each other suspiciously. They weren’t carrying any illegal contraband but the weapons they were travelling with would raise questions they didn’t want to answer. They both knew this wasn’t a routine inspection. They were almost certain this was some ploy to arrest them under made up charges, or that the reptile knew who they really were and wanted to interfere with their work.
The dinosaur screamed, “you’re harbouring Urmah fugitives sighted near the border.” If the reptilians distrusted humanoids, they loathed the feline races. The Lyran-Draconian wars were mirrored through quantum fractal symmetry on nearly every world in the galaxy.
Tremplir stepped forward. “That’s an absurd accusation! I’m an official of the state of Avalon and I demand unimpeded passage to my homeland.”
The dinosaur leered in her face. “We’re going to search your vehicle. If you don’t like it you can file a complaint when -”.
Rendo shattered the man’s skull with a heavy blow from a hammer he’d concealed before entering the crossing space. Sheran pushed forth an energy wave, knocking over the guards before they could raise their weapons to fire. Nils grabbed Quid and shoved him behind Sheran, then joined Tremplir in running for the weapons chest.
Ur dashed forward, eager to get to safety on the other side. The wagon rattled as he carried it full speed toward the giant.
Loud bangs erupted from the side, where more humans were firing rifles at them. Sheran stopped the bullets in midair with a pulse of electromagnetism, and they fell to the ground. “Keep up with me,” she said to Quid as she ran along with the auroch.
Quid’s heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his hands. The adrenaline rush helped subside the nausea he was feeling, but his disorientation increased as he ran further along the bridge, and he almost fell over. Sheran could tell he was having trouble running in a straight line and held his arm to guide him forward.
Quid could feel a growing sense of fragmentation, like every part of him wanted something different and they were fighting each other over what to do. His anger was about to erupt into violence, his fear was about to run for the edge and jump off the bridge. A dozen other feelings wanted to drag him in every direction and the further he ran the more intense the feeling of fragmentation became.
Behind them, a loud buzzing rose above the gunfire as bolts surged past them from the wagon, arcing from one guard to another. Tremplir jumped out carrying a staff made from a tree whose roots had been grown around a large piece of lightning-struck Lemurian quartz.
Nils followed her, holding a similar staff from rose wood that had grown around a perfect garnet dodecahedron. She waved it in a semicircle and a force field shoved guards off the bridge.
Ahead of them, the giant slammed his foot down with a roar that could be heard all the way back at the port. The ground cracked and as he swung his tree-mace, a similar force field tore the roof off the wagon. It was a deliberate miss, a warning to cease hostility.
Sheran whispered to the giant, “we’re with the Emerald Grifon, we mean no harm.”
The giant was only concerned with preserving the peace. It roared again and the rear axel was torn off the wagon. Ur continued running, knowing the giant wouldn’t harm him, although he might destroy the wagon, which was now dragging along behind him.
The giant whispered back to Sheran, “then stop at the other side and we’ll discuss this peacefully.” Its rage was causing a disconnection between its violent tendencies and its desire for order, similar to the splitting that Quid was experiencing.
Sheran cut across diagonally to move around the giant, she knew that in its current state it would kill anyone who got near it.
Quid was feeling helpless, aggressive, fearful, ashamed, miserable, excited, and a whole cocktail of other emotions. His amfur was beginning to see multiple versions of his body, all trying to express their own reactions to this acute stress. He yanked his arm out of Sheran’s hand and wanted to stop running, but Nils grabbed his other arm from behind, and the two of them dragged him forward.
“Don’t stop moving,” Nils screamed, “we’ll be safe on the other side, just keep going.”
Tremplir was running straight for the giant, screaming in her native tongue that she wanted to go home and wouldn’t be stopped by the oppression of humans. They were not smuggling Urmah, these accusations were false.
The giant understood but was in a state of disharmony as it ventured deeper into the intersection between realms. It wouldn’t subside its anger until the fighting stopped.

Unknown to anyone on the bridge, especially the Order, Gnosa was on the lakeshore a few kilometres away with a group of three Urmah, two black lions and a spotted leopard. When they heard the eruptions from the bridge, they’d shoved a small craft into the lake.
The merfolk shielded them from detection as they crossed the border into Avalon.
They were escaping the Murkan Republic before they were arrested for conspiring against the federal government. While these activities were seen as hostile in the human realms, many other races would be glad to harbour them and help them complete their objectives. Gnosa was simply helping them reach safety among the Elves.
The Urmah preferred to move on four legs but could use their front paws as hands, and were capable of rowing the oars with impressive speed.
Accustomed to shifting through time differentials, and not subjected to the stress of battle, none of them were experiencing any disorientation. They were used to living in a state of internal cohesion that allowed their emotions to be experienced without fragmentation.

Rendo was catching up with the wagon, moving around the giant in the opposite direction from the others.
The giant seemed to ignore him, and as the party made it past safely, the it constructed a barrier to prevent interference from the humans. It shouted, “we will deal with these emissaries according to our own laws. If they’re found guilty of your charges we will return them.” It had many issues to resolve in this situation, but above all it detested humanity’s approach to what they called justice.
The natural and cosmic order protected by the giants transcended the distorted conceptions of control and authority manipulated by humans under the guise of law. They often had similar issues with the Reptilian Autocracy. Giants preferred to ensure the perpetuation of higher ideals among the collective, typically they aligned well with groups like the Order of the Emerald Grifon and respected those who strove for balance and harmony among the realms.
The differing approaches to legal issues between realms often caused tension, but with mutual respect across borders, disputes were often resolved by appealing to the laws set down by the Dragons during the golden era.
The humans would be unhappy about the destruction, but they knew there were higher authorities who would ensure the laws of both sides would be respected, once the situation cooled off.
A contingent of Avaloni were waiting for them at the other side with weapons drawn. Some wielded staffs similar to those Nils and Tremplir carried, others had swords or bows drawn. Elves dislike the disruption caused by firearms and other loud, destructive weapons like Rendo’s disruptors, preferring more traditional weapons and magical artifacts.
Ur came to a stop a safe distance from the Elves and they approached him cautiously, knowing how dangerous an adult auroch can be. The Order put their weapons down gently and surrendered to the Avaloni.
Tremplir approached with her hands displayed so they could see she intended no hostility. Most realms outside of Murka were more accepting of the Order, and she could safely tell the truth here. “We’re with the Emerald Grifon. I’m a citizen of Avalon and we request asylum here.”
The local captain, a male the size of Rendo, tall for their people, approached with a heavy spear. “Why did you battle the humans?”
Tremplir answered, “they accused us of harbouring fugitives and wanted to search our vehicle. I told them we were diplomats and demanded safe passage but they insisted.”
The Elves has heard of the fugitives as well. The captain looked closely at the wrecked wagon dragging along behind Ur. He didn’t see any way they could be smuggling fugitives but he wanted to ensure human laws were respected. “We’ll perform the search ourselves, then.” He eyed the rest of the part curiously. “Why didn’t you let them search your vehicle?”
Rendo spoke up. “We don’t trust humans and they don’t trust us. Their reptile companion made false accusations and we didn’t want to subject ourselves to their whim.”
The brutality of the dinosaurs was known across the globe, they’d once been the favoured enemies of the giants who prohibited them from travelling to the surface in most realms, but once the giants were removed from the human realm the reptilians found tunnels to the surface. Since then they’d been a normal part of life on Terra.
Quid’s heart was calming, but he still felt unsafe with the armed Elves blocking their path. His disorientation was fading but the fragmentation was even more intense.
He wanted to scream, to cry, to erupt in violence and establish his own dominance so he could be safe from the enemies who would surely close in on him. The gap between his various bodies seemed to be magnified as his breath became more difficult to control. One of his bodies knelt on the floor and vomited.
The Avaloni knew exactly what was happening. One of them carried a crystal over to him and pressed it into his back between his shoulder blades. “I’m going to harmonize your nervous system,” she said calmly. “The effects of our time matrix will be painful for you unless you manage to embrace yourself fully.”
Tremplir had decided it would be best not to warn Quid about this extreme side effect of entering Avalon, because it would have amplified his worry and placebo would make the effects even more difficult to endure.
The time-space matrix of Avalon was attuned carefully by the Dragons to make its inhabitants aware of their various timelines and the ways they’re affected by the discordant state of emotional instability experienced by someone who has not integrated their subconscious mind into a cohesive whole.
The victims of severe trauma are afflicted with extreme discord in their autonomic nervous system, which prevents their emotional state from reconciling with itself and establishing cohesion. Constantly fighting themselves, such people tend to find it difficult to reach a state of internal harmony. These individuals will find the effects of Avaloni time-space to be highly stressful.
Each of the various bodies Quid had torn into was a projection of some aspect of his subconscious, each corresponding to a specific emotion he was feeling in the moment, and each was able to create its own timeline based on its reactions to a given situation.
When the Elf exhaled into the stone she held into Quid’s heart chakra, he could feel a surge of rose energy soothing his frayed nerves. Every body he felt could breathe more easily, their muscles relaxed in ways they hadn’t done for years, and many of the bodies began to gradually integrate into each other.
The Avaloni are capable of seeing the fragmentation of visitors to their realm, even feeling the discordant timelines they produce when their disharmonious emotions begin to interfere with their ability to function as a single individual. To them, the shadow integration involved in reaching a state of balance is comparable to the experience of a fragmented collective beginning to integrate into unified consciousness as a collective.
The Dragons created each realm and its time-space matrices very carefully to ensure that each realm held puzzle pieces that would assist the collective in its journey toward unification. The purpose of Avalon was to provide a semblance of internal unity that would guide individuals through their own integration, allowing them to see the effects of their discordant emotions on their behaviour, and the resulting effects on the timelines they create. This would prove an invaluable skill when such a fragmented collective began to step toward a state of universal love and harmony.
Quid took a few deep breaths, immediately feeling more calm and relaxed. He stood up and smiled at the Elf. “Thank you,” he whispered, unsure if he was still supposed to be pretending to be a merchant.
The Avaloni could see the effects of the lie he’d been told to wear as a false identity. The captain looked sternly at Quid, then back at Tremplir. “What’s the story with the outlander?”
Nils said, “he’s an escapee from the Orion Empire. We’re helping him find a home on Terra.” The captain was about to ask for more information, she provided it freely. “We told him to lie to the humans so they wouldn’t interfere, we wish to request safety for him through Avalon, he’s under the protection of the Order.”
Tremplir took the conversation’s helm back toward business. “We’re moving through to New Atlantis, on a mission for the Galactic Federation.”
The captain understood the necessity of lying to humans for the safety of their companion, but he felt it necessary to question them further. After establishing enough trust to believe Quid wasn’t a criminal or a threat, he questioned them on their mission, searching for any indication they might be helping the Urmah fugitives. He didn’t particularly care either way, but if they were committing crimes against the Murkan Republic he would be obligated to return them for prosecution.
Eventually they convinced the captain there was no illegal activity they’d engaged in until battling the customs officials, and that was enough. He conversed for a time with the human liaison officer and they established that under Dragon law the Order had committed no crimes, they’d been defending themselves from unjust arrest and were free to go about their business, provided they made reparation for the damage they’d done.
Most of the guards suffered only minor injuries, the Order preferred to take nonlethal actions in combat. Only Rendo had killed anyone, and would be held to the accords governing Dwarven interactions with Reptilian citizens, following a hearing that would be arranged later.
Rendo swore an oath to return and face any lingering consequences for his action, but he was certain the Dwarves would insist the dinosaur had acted unlawfully, as the reptilians were generally regarded as mischievous and overtly hostile by the rest of Terra. In any case, punishment for unlawful acts were not as severe as had been during the age of strife, and Rendo was certain he would be able to handle any decision made under the appropriate accords.
Nils and Sheran gladly used their expertise in angelic healing magic to restore the damage done to wounded officers. Meanwhile the giant magically restored the bridge with help from Ur, who knew how to repair rock to any previous state, as it held memory of its shape across time, especially in Avalon where some timelines were still visible without damage.
Tremplir sat with Quid for a long time, helping him calm his various bodies. He was feeling much better after a while, but with his ease growing he began to remember his attraction to Trem, and the emotional responses to her presence became a whole new form of discord.
A body developed in him, which eventually reached out to kiss her. He could only see it in his amfur but as a native Avaloni, she could physically see every timeline cast by his emotional bodies. She pushed Quid away from her and stepped back.
He felt ashamed of his inappropriate reaching out, and fear spiked that he would be outcast from the Order. He began to resist and struggle again, while other bodies attempted desperately to restrain those who wanted to disappear.
Tremplir could see every response to this and sympathetically knew that he wasn’t attempting anything inappropriate. His distress was obvious to every Avaloni present, also to Nils and Sheran, and Tremplir gave him a gentle hug and kissed his cheek, whispering, “it’s ok friend, I understand. Just don’t hurt yourself, ok? You’ll get through this.”
As Quid adjusted to the feeling of frayed emotional timelines he began to admire the way everyone else around him seemed to hold cohesion so easily. Only occasionally and briefly did anyone break away from themselves the way he was. Nils assured him no one held him responsible, he was clearly a trauma victim and they understood he needed treatment. There was no judgement on anyone’s part, they simply wanted to help him.
As dawn rose they were finishing up their reparation of injuries and the Avaloni guards allowed Ur to carry the wagon into their lands. Rendo had managed to reassemble a wheel well enough to pass for the time being, and attached it to the back. They would have to carefully avoid weighing down the rear but it would hold until they reached Atlantis.
Nils helped Quid onto the wagon and he was asleep almost immediately, although his various bodies were still struggling to remain in touch with each other as he slept.


Chapter 8 - Desire

Rendo spent the night meditating on the life he’d taken. He didn’t enjoy killing the dinosaur, he’d felt it was necessary to accomplish the higher purposes of his mission but that didn’t make it easier to accept the guilt he felt for destroying a man who was simply doing his job.
Sheran understood how difficult it can be to process guilt, a very tricky emotion to work out of anyone’s energy field, especially for something as significant as taking a life. She offered him healing energy for the process several times over the night, but he refused.
Rendo had killed people before but never like this. He could still hear the sound of the skull cracking, feel the vibration resonating through the hammer into his heart, and it made him wonder if he deserved to relieve himself of this terrible feeling.
He insisted that the only appropriate way to resolve this began with deep introspection and meditation on every causal trail and every resultant trail connected to the experience. The feeling of guilt makes us believe that we deserve the pain it instills in us, creating a cycle of self-resentment that makes a harsh healing process.
As the first hues of dawn streaked across the sky to mask the firmament, Rendo was still in half lotus position, meditating on the experience of shame and the fear that he might deserve to hold onto it.
As the first of Quid’s four bodies began to stir, Sheran stood over him and nursed his quivering fear of punishment by sending healing energies into Quid’s aura. It calmed the fear, but the anger for his hopeless situation would not be assuaged.
The body of Anger was beginning to disturb the apparent tranquility of Quid’s repressed sexual desires and as this third body woke, its stirring woke the fourth: Sadness. These were all the emotions Quid was capable to feeling at the moment, all else had receded into their latent state in the back of his mind, waiting for a time when there was energy available for their expression.
Quid’s first sight was Rendo sitting in meditation, as the Dwarf’s sense of guilt persistently broke away from the rest of him and struggled against the united cohesion of his essence.
A sudden fifth body of Confusion forced the rest of Quid to sit up. “Why are you doing that?” He couldn’t remember having seen anyone else experience this problem before he went to sleep last night.
Rendo smiled, trying to laugh but couldn’t muster the enthusiasm. His shame recentered itself into stillness and he said, “wrestling with the idea that I deserve punishment is a way for me to subconsciously punish myself in advance.” After a short pause he continued, “that’s all guilt really is for anyone but some people find it easier to shove the feeling aside than others.”
Quid sighed in frustration and lonely despair. “I wish I could shove my feelings aside.”
Sheran whispered in the side of Quid’s mind, “that would only cause them to hurt more. There is only one way to rid yourself of emotional distress.”
Quid was wondering whether Rendo could also hear Sheran, when Rendo spoke up to continue for her. “you have to let yourself feel them, truly feel them. You have to sink deep into the feeling, whatever it is, and see it for what it truly is without the distraction of ego. Let your emotions show you what’s underneath them, why they feel this way, and then you can decide what you want to do about it.” Rendo still hadn’t decided anything at all, but he had enough experience processing extreme emotional distress to know that he would make the proper decision when he was ready for it.
Quid’s amfur stared longingly at Tremplir, who was laying on the floor pretending to sleep. His sexual desire tried to reach out to her but Anger and Shame made him stay still.
Sheran sat down next to him and gently guided all four into a unified state of anguish and gave Quid a hug he desperately needed in ways he’d never even acknowledged before. He wanted to cry but he could feel Anger resentfully telling Sadness not to let himself be seen. Sheran tightened her hug.
Nils’ voice suddenly appeared next to him as she silently swung back into the wagon and gracefully sat down on Quid opposite side. “Sweetheart, you really need to let yourself feel.” She put a hand on his shoulder and Anger tried to shove her away but Sadness wouldn’t let him. First of all, we’ll have to show you what you really want.”
Nils stood up and stripped naked in front of him, completely nude and utterly shameless, knowing exactly who she and her body were and taking full pride in their complimentary beauty.
Quid’s bodies began to diverge again as every part of him wanted to respond differently. Sheran gently slid behind him and wrapped both her arms and legs around him to hold him steady. “Just relax and look, there is no need to act.”
Nils smiled, taking no sexual action but simply standing, being herself. “Do you desire my body?”
Quid’s fear stirred the hardest and he shakily let out, “no!”
Nils laughed shyly, “are you sure?”
Rendo tried not to laugh.
Sheran whispered, “you have been taught not to express your sexuality.”
Nils added, “you believe you’ll be punished.”
Quid didn’t know what they were talking about, no one ever punished his sexuality. ‘Granted, there was a great deal of shaming and guilt-tripping, and threats of being outcast for anti-social behaviour.’ Quid thought about it a long time. ‘There was a lot of stuff in our media about how it was wrong, I guess I was raised to see sex as shameful and dangerous.’
Nils sat down again, covering her vulva but not her breasts. “The Empire was implanting these emotions in you to keep you under control. They filled you with emotional toxins to keep your aura closed and your consciousness altered. Similar things were done in Terran history, in the age of strife.”
Sheran asked, “have you noticed how rapidly your senses are expanding?”
Nils nodded. “You have a naturally powerful spirit, your people have impressive psychic awareness and magical abilities. The only way to keep you in their control was to close you off, keep you fighting yourself so you wouldn’t break free.”
Sheran whispered, “and now you can’t let yourself align because you’re afraid of your own nature.”
Nils pointed at Tremplir, who was sitting up slowly. “Look at her.” She waited for Quid’s amfur to slowly move toward her. “She’s a gorgeous woman, isn’t she?” Quid nodded. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to touch her, as long as you express it appropriately.”
Trem joined the ladies sitting around Quid and held his hand. “And the only way to do that is to know what you really want, and why.”
The images of sex portrayed in popular media on Quid’s world flashed through his eyes. Distorted people lashing against each other animalistically, moaning and crying in sick pleasure, begging to be covered in each other’s fluid. There was nothing appealing about it, and yet he wanted it so deeply that even the thought of either indulging it or releasing the desire, either way hurt in ways he didn’t know how to explain to himself.
Sheran could see some of the images, and Nils could feel the emotional distress associated with them. Nils said, “none of that is what you really want, it’s just the only version of sex you’ve ever been exposed to. You think it’s normal, and the desire you feel was wrapped up into these distortions but they’re not the same thing at all.”
Quid was confused even more than ever. “What do you mean, if that’s not the sex that I want, then what is?”
Nils stood up, reaching for Sheran’s hand. “Well I can’t say exactly but I know you’ll find out when you let yourself feel it.”
Sheran moved around to embrace Nils, joining her in nakedness, and they sat down together, Nils wrapping her legs around Sheran’s hips to sit in her lap. They wrapped their arms around each other to embrace passionately and Quid’s amfur could see the light emanating from them intensify. Deep red and orange hues erupted from the bases of their spines.
Nils said, “we don’t have to touch each other’s genitals to experience sexual pleasure. Sexuality is about opening up your auras and embracing each other’s energy so deeply, so passionately, that your roots intertwine. It’s about expressing the love you feel for yourself and for the other, in a way that brings you closer together, and slowly becoming the same entity.”
Their auras had become completely enrapt in each other, a radiant circle of rainbow energy surrounded them and their bodies seemed to almost merge into each other, but only in his amfur, their physical bodies embraced each other more and more intensely without ever moving in the ways he’d seen on his world.
Quid was so amazed by the beauty of the scene that he wasn’t even emotional, the entirety of his energy was synchronized in the act of observing the beauty of the moment.
There was a sweet tear in Rendo’s eye. He’d seen the couple doing this before, but only once or twice, it was a rare sight and something generally done in private.
Trem wondered, “have you ever had sex? Any kind of sex?”
For a moment Quid was actually happy. He remembered his first and only lover, the intimacy they shared in secret as a pubescent young couple, hiding their shameful, dirty little secret from their families to avoid the embarrassment of being publicly seen as deviants. The things he’d done with her felt wonderful, and were nothing like what he’d seen portrayed as sexuality in later years.
The happiness collapsed suddenly when he remembered the way his parents treated him when they’d found out. The young lady he was in love with disappeared from his life, they were never allowed to see each other again. What they were doing was dangerous.
A deep, slow-burning rage could be felt somewhere in his depths and as the body of this Rage began to stir, Trem tapped his shoulder with the gold-green light he’d seen in the Grifon’s Quiver, and the emotions calmed again. He glanced at her and she kissed his lips lightly.
Fear tried to move away. Shame covered his genitals. Sexuality reached out to kiss her back.
Nils stood up quickly and Sheran faced Quid, showering him with a purifying energy that returned his tranquility. Nils hugged Fear and guided him back into the rest of Quid. “We’ll have to keep working on your stability before we can enter the city.” She knew he would disturb the locals with this kind of misalignment but she didn’t want to say that, knowing he’d feel ashamed of his own trauma if she said it out loud.
Quid got a quick headache trying to wrap his mind around the bizarre experiences of this world. “Why is it so much easier for all of you to stay as one body?”
Tremplir put her hand on his. “It’s because we know who we are, and we’re able to be fully present with ourselves, fully whole. We stay aligned with our true nature, which means being honest with yourself about your Self.
Rendo said, “back in the age of strife, many humans lived like this as well, they just didn’t realize it because their consciousness was too contracted to be self aware on that level. They learned to fully embrace their feelings, their thoughts and beliefs as being part of their body, what binds the soul to the physical world, and realizing that forced them to integrate into wholeness.”
Nils said, “because of what they did to you in the Empire, you’re facing a similar crisis, except that you’re supposed to be even more aware than where humanity rose to. Your species is very highly evolved.” Or rather, they were until the Empire arrived. “You need to accept who you are, and what you’re feeling.”
Sheran whispered, “and then you can decide who you want to be.”
After a moment of thought, Quid asked, “so do you all see things this way all the time? Do humans?”
Nils laughed. “Well, everyone sees things differently depending on what skills they work with more naturally. Humans tend to see things differently than elves but they do have their own psychic abilities, like seeing auras or being empaths.”
Tremplir said, “I could always see your fractured responses, but not like it is here.” In a way, he was living in the same way 5D Terra was, fractured and unable to reach cohesion again.
Quid wanted to know, “what’s the next realm going to feel like?”
“Well,” Tremplir hesitated, “we’re not sure to be honest. The Atlanteans conceptualize experience relative to collective memory, but you have no memories on this world, so...”
Nils finished, “we’ll have to see when we get there.”
For a few minutes, Rendo watched them all sitting in silence around Quid, wondering how Quid would respond to the rest of the realms if he learned from each of them as his aura opened up to where his species was supposed to be.
Eventually, Nils asked, “what are you feeling right now?” She knew the answer but needed Quid to find out for himself.
Quid thought deeply about what he’d been through in the past several days. He looked up at Trem. His Sexuality kissed her again. This time, Shame only followed after it was over and she didn’t kiss back. It was a bizarre experience, watching these different aspects of himself forming parallel realities, as if both of them did and not exist in each other’s timeline.
He looked at the way each body’s hips resisted integrating into each other, his emotions were being reflected into physicality. He was watching his psyche play out. He looked at Rendo, who’d been meditating here all night, and had no conflict the way Quid did. “What do you do to stay whole like that?”
Rendo breathed deeply and answered, “once I accept the reality of the situation, there’s usually a single response that can be reached with internal consensus. Sitting with my thoughts gives me a chance to recognize, say, why I feel I deserve to suffer for what I’ve done, versus why I feel it was justified. Is either of those responses trying to destroy me by hiding something from me?” He took another deep breath. “They both are. And knowing what’s hiding beneath these impulses allows me to stay with the truth of who I must be, in order to stay above the circumstance and remain self aware beyond the petty limitations of momentary consequence.”
Quid looked at his hands as they vibrated into variations of up to ten different sets of fingers. He wondered what was causing each of them, he didn’t feel anything important bubbling up. “So...” he trailed off, and looked back at Trem. There was so much more to say, do, feel. Then he looked back at Rendo. “Why did you kill him? Surely you could have gotten through that without resorting to violence.”
Rendo smiled. “There was no legitimate cause for the search. He was planning it before we arrived there. He knew we were coming.” He let Quid think about it. “We have enemies out there and some of them blend in with others. He looked like a customs agent, he could also have been with the Brotherhood of Entropy.”
That didn’t assuage Quid’s concerns. “Will we have to deal with that again at the next border?”
Nils smiled. “Not between Avalon and Atlantis, we’ll be totally safe. We won’t be taking you anywhere more dangerous than Murka.”
“Hopefully!” Rendo added. In his mind there was never certainty of anything. He believed that remaining open to possibility allowed a greater flexibility in his approach to life.
Quid looked at Nils, still sitting there naked. He remembered the beautiful lights she and Sheran were creating when they made love together. He wondered if he’d ever be able to do that himself, but he doubted he was capable of it. ‘I’d probably ruin everything,’ he thought to himself as one of his bodies punched the rest in the hip.
No one mentioned it, they wanted to leave him as much privacy as he could get with his own thoughts.
Quid was thinking about how Nils and Sheran weren’t even the same species, their genitals weren’t the same. What he wanted was something they could never do together, and yet what they did seemed so much more fabulous. He could see how the distorted pornographic images he’d seen back home were different from what he wanted but what did that mean for him?
He looked back at Trem. He wanted something much softer than that, but he was afraid she would judge him for it, or that he’d be outcast. Was there still something wrong with his desires?
After a moment he asked Nils, “what were you saying about Ozaiah and her vulva being an altar? Is that like what you were doing?”
Sheran nodded. Nils said, “yes, it’s similar. We don’t use our genitals for that but the same thing can be done with more conventional sexuality. When you build up to an orgasm you can harness a lot of energy and direct it into a specific intention, like bringing healing to the planet. Ozaiah used this energy to manipulate timelines across aeons to accelerate the spiritual evolution of Terra and ensure peace and prosperity, and love for al life.”
Quid was impressed. He’d never heard anything like that before. “And that’s done with sex?”
“Well,” Nils shrugged, “with a very mature and spiritually enlightened form of sexuality, yes.”
“Not like the things I want?”
“It could be, if you bring enough love to it for your aura to open up enough.” Nils didn’t know anything about the sexuality or the magical practices of Quid’s people. He’d have to find out about that for himself.
“The Empire did this to us to control us.” Quid thought about it a lot. “You said things like that were done here, too?”
“Yes,” Nils said, “a long time ago there were people who manipulated their knowledge, distorting the half truths they shared with the public while taking advantage of the knowledge they suppressed. And the humans lost the ability to see the difference as their pain increased.”
Tremplir added, “it got so bad it began to infect the collective consciousness, it wove into the problems of other realms. The Galactic Federation determined the Earth Experiment was being interfered with so they stepped in to protect Terra from psychic invasion.”
“From who?”
“The Empire.”
One of Quid’s bodies exploded in rage and threw a bowl at the weapons chest. Rendo laughed as he got up to clean the chest, it was a family heirloom.
“That’s why you’re here,” Sheran whispered to him. “No one else knows, you’re an emissary from your world, we’ll teach you to heal your people.”
Quid was dumbstruck. “What?” He had no idea what she was talking about. He was just an escaped slave, running away from another life.
Trem looked confused but shook it off. Normally Sheran communicated with everyone in the group, but this time it was only to Quid. Trem didn’t need to know what was said. “Look, the important thing is for you to start recognizing the subconscious motivations behind your reactions. Every response, every emotion is trying to tell you something, but you can’t know what until you sink into it with full self-honesty and face up to the reality of who you are.”
They’d made camp in a forest on a small path off the main road. They’d be alone all day, so they let Quid laid on the ground amid the trees, which waved back and forth even when there was no wind.
Sheran practised healing magic on him to help his emotions integrate. Over the day he learned to connect the subconscious patterns connecting his anger, resentment, shame, fear - mostly fear - and helping every reactionary body integrate into a cohesive whole. It felt like getting fused together inside but as the day went on he started to feel he suddenly knew himself much better, and was able to be present with himself on a whole new level.
As the night grew into a clear, dark sky, the stars came out and to Quid’s amazement they were moving, like some of them were dancing while others stayed still.
Trem explained that all that exists has consciousness, and the way that consciousness experiences itself affects its behaviour, which is reflected on a physical level through quantum dynamics and its interplay between consciousness and electromagnetism.
“Every star is feeling something different, and that causes it to play or run, chase or stay still, depending on what it wants to do during the time period we’re capable of seeing it. The time-space distortions of our veil, relative to the rest of the universe, shifts the way each star experiences time according to our inertial frame, so we see some of them move while some others aren’t even blinking, but tomorrow night they’ll be different.”
Quid was amazed by this realm. “You live your lives according to different time rates than the rest of reality?”
Nils knew first hand, “that’s always true. Time is much more relative than a lot of people think it is, especially when they’re locked in a linear experience.”
Trem finished. “It’s just a lot more relative here than in other places. You’ll get used to it, if we stay long enough.”
But as everyone was getting tired, they decided to keep moving and Ur was rested enough to move through the night easily, so they headed on to their next destination.


Chapter 9 - AvalavA

Quid dreamed about sexuality all night. He watched versions o f Nils and Sheran who had the genitals of his species, lashing against each other like in the distorted pornography of his world. He watched Tremplir laying with Rendo, cuddling and sweetly making love.
It all made him feel a hundred different emotions, and he followed every one of them to a hidden fear, a pain he’d been hiding from himself since childhood, a pent up feeling of worthlessness or inadequacy, an expectation that everything would crumble if he took a misstep.
Gradually the sexuality become more drastically different. The parts of it he wanted seemed to be more intimate, while people from his past became more distorted. A growing sense of discord threw the circumstances of his life into sexual disarray and he could watch all the pains of his past hump each other disgustingly while his first lover laid with his childhood bully.
The fears intensified, only to be dissolved when he saw them for what they were. And as they disappeared from his mind, the psychological complexes built on top of them collapsed, leaving him with a sense of freedom, coupled with uncertainty as to who he was supposed to be, what he was supposed to want.
Occasionally Nils’ voice echoed through the chasms of his consciousness, telling him things like, ‘there’s nothing you’re supposed to be,’ or ‘you can do anything you want but it has to be what you truly want.’ And every time she said these things, he found them more frustratingly confusing.
How was he supposed to know what he wanted, when everything he experienced was clouded by fear?
As the fears collapsed, how was he supposed to know what he wanted to put there, if he never knew himself?
The nagging feeling that he was missing something important eventually woke him up and he found Rendo still sitting in meditation with Sheran.
Sheran smiled. “You’re making huge progress.” She was quite surprised with how rapidly he was clearing out the infestations of emotional complexes knotted through his psyche.
Rendo couldn’t see things the way Sheran did but he trusted Quid would figure himself out. “You know, there’s more to life than running from life. Have you ever considered letting yourself go wild and feral? There’s nothing more liberating than allowing your inner animal to do what it wants.”
That idea made Quid insecure with the worry that he might do something inappropriate, and he shyly avoided looking at Trem. Instead he looked at Nils, sleeping soundly while Sheran was awake. “If you’re the same being in two bodies, do you know what she’s dreaming?”
Sheran whispered, “we don’t dream.”
“You don’t dream?” Quid looked perplexed. “Do you sleep, though?”
“Sometimes,” she said, “but it’s more like a deeper meditative state that relaxes the nervous system enough to regenerate.”
“Eat,” Rendo said as he stood up and made his way toward the food. “We’ll reach the edge of town soon and you’ll need your energy when we arrive.”
It was still dark out and Quid couldn’t tell how long he’d slept but he felt like it was a very long time. He wondered if night and day were different here but he decided to eat instead of asking, he felt like every explanation these people offered just brought up more questions.
Eventually, he thought of something he needed to hear the answer to, urgently for reasons he couldn’t fathom. “Are you really ambassadors from the Federation, like you said at the border?”
Rendo nodded. “Galactics aren’t allowed to interfere directly, due to free will laws upheld in higher levels of reality. The Dragons won’t consent to their involvement from the stars, so they send emissaries, like Sheran here, to live among the worlds they want to assist. Terra requested assistance the Federation couldn’t provide, so they began sending souls to incarnate among the locals. My soul travelled here from a long way away, and inhabited this body as a service to Gaia.” He wondered how much more of an answer he should give. “The Federation has no official status on this world, neither do we in most realms, but we do represent Galactic interests.”
“In most realms,” Quid repeated to himself, “so there are places where you have official status?” He was hesitant to ask what he really wanted to know, but he needed to know whether they were lying to the border guards, and to him. “Are you really diplomats?”
Rendo considered carefully. He didn’t want to lie or bend the truth, and really he had nothing to hide but knew that Quid’s concerns were valid and should be addressed carefully. “No, we’re not diplomats.”
Sheran added, “we’re rebels.”
Rendo continued, “but there are places in this world, like Lemuria, where we’re recognized as diplomats. The realms our bodies are native to usually give us extra leeway and support, as they know we’re here to help the planet evolve safely. Trem, for example, has official diplomatic status in Avalon, but no one else recognizes her authority.” Terran politics are extremely complicated. “I have a certain amount of support from Nidhavellir as well.”
Quid looked at Nils, wondering if she was aware of this conversation despite being asleep. “And her?”
Sheran shook her head. “There are no groups who see us as more than aliens here.” Sheran would never be anything other than a revolutionary in this world, neither would Nils, and they were comfortable with that. Working toward higher Galactic goals was more important than the perceptions of those she was here to teach.
They ate in silence a while longer.
Eventually Nils got up and started her contortionist calisthenics. It kept her body limber, loose and ready for anything.
Tremplir stayed asleep as long as she could. There was no way of knowing how long it would be until the next opportunity to sleep, so she made the most of it.
Quid still had a lot of unresolved feelings for Trem, and something different stirring for Nils, but he was willing to embrace these feelings instead of trying to resist them. He seemed to be holding cohesion like the rest of them, and found that radical self love was the key to integrating these conflicting impulses.
When they reached the edge of the Avaloni city Avalava, they dismounted the wagon from Ur and Rendo gave a hug to his auroch friend. They removed the chests from the wagon, then sold it to a merchant nearby who could repair it for himself.
Quid wandered down to the river, which was running along the main road since they entered Avalon. The waters were filled with salmon and occasionally merfolk swam by, singing happily.
A ferryman washed ashore on the tides of the shifting waters, led by a pair of horse-fish creatures called Hippocampi, who could use their strong front legs to move through the shallows even while heavily loaded. Their hind legs were long, shark-like tails which could swim rapidly through the waters.
Rendo gratefully loaded the chests onto the ferry, they’d be carried into Atlantis and wait for them at a prearranged spot.
When they were all ready, Ur headed back to the Grifon’s Quiver in the city Jura. Quid wondered just how strong, intelligent and capable Ur really was, the auroch clearly had the ability to understand what was happening without being told, surely he’d make it home safely but would he be able to protect himself alone?
They walked toward the city Avalava, and a shimmering white horse with a rainbow-coloured horn ran up to them, stopping happily in front of Nils who gave it a hug. “Hello my dear friend,” Nils said as the Unicorn made a happy purr sound.
In Quid’s amfur, they shimmered in unison, the same colors pulsed to the same rhythm as they came together. It was fascinating, the variety of colors he could see was increasing every day as his amfur became sensitive to a wider range of the electromagnetic spectrum. Apparently this was a complimentary ability to the psychic visions he was experiencing lately, which were becoming difficult to distinguish from other forms of vision. He wondered if there even was a difference to begin with.
Nils climbed on the Unicorn’s back and hugged its neck as they walked into the city.
Rendo nudged Quid and joked, “I bet you’d like to see them playing together, eh boyo?” Quid didn’t get it. “Ah, I’m just messin’ with you, brother. See, unicorns are connected to one of the groups Nils descends from, they’re genetically compatible despite looking completely different.”
Avalava was nothing like Jura, at all. Here, the houses shifted slowly, just like the trees, and ivy both grew and receded across the walls. Water rippled across puddles that seemed both to be present and nonexistent simultaneously. The clouds were thick and dark in some places, translucent in others.
With the fluid, folding time lapses he was experiencing in this world, it seemed that everything around him both was and was not there, and only existed in the first place because of the cohesion he’d been practicing.
“Trem!” An elf called from a tavern nearby.
“Joya!” Trem ran over an hugged her old friend, and they disappeared into a shifting cloud of glitter that transited past in that moment. When it was gone, they’d disappeared into the crowd.
Quid stayed with Rendo, he was afraid to be separated from the group lest he get lost in this strange place, where time seemed to be almost permeable. He worried he might end up wandering into the past, somehow.
He noticed that every time they passed a musician or troupe, they were all playing a similar melody that evolved as they walked. The entire community was playing the same song, without even hearing the chords struck by other musicians.
A herd of elk walked past the other way, heading out to the forest after making sacrifice in the temple. Here, all nature was honoured as sacred and the fertility gods of the realm did their best to ensure that all life had its needs met.
As they neared the centre of the city, Quid noticed the time distortions becoming more intense. He could even see where, in some timelines, certain buildings looked different or even weren’t built at all.
He could see people who seemed to be fractured like he’d been, except every part of them was serene and held close to the rest regardless of the differences in the world around them. In actuality, what he was seeing were timeline differences resulting from circumstances external to themselves, and these individuals were not fractured, they in fact maintained enough integrity to exist independently in each timeline.
Then they reached the Apex, an enormous ball of light surrounded by people with stag heads, who stood on two hooves and had humanoid arms and chests. This ancient breed of Nymph was the spiritual leader caste of the realm of Avalon, nature spirits who inhabited higher realms of consciousness in 6D Terra, along with the Dragons, Lemurians and many other groups. They held a presence here as assistants to the realm’s fertility gods, who lived in awareness of the inherent unity of all life on Terra.
Rendo stood and took in the sight with a deep, satisfied breath of admiration for the wonders built by the time-shifting Avaloni. “Glorious, isn’t it?”
Quid didn’t hear. He was walking, almost in a trance, toward the nearest Nymph. It seemed to be watching him as well, and as he approached it took a step toward him.
“Your time has not arrived yet, child.” Quid heard the voice in his mind, like the telepathic communication Sheran transmitted, except much louder and less gentle. Not threatening exactly, but forbidding in a way he couldn’t quite explain.
Confused, Quid stopped mid-step. “Time for what?”
The Nymph pointed to the side. Quid’s amfur followed in the same direction and somehow, and there he was. He saw himself, standing alone in the same crowd, holding a crystal-imbued staff in one hand, with a broken spear across his back tied to a small bag over his shoulder.
His eyes turned to get a better look but couldn’t see this peculiar spectre his amfur was so certain was standing only a few feet away.
Rendo slapped his back heartily. “Best not to get too close, lad. They don’t like people interfering without permission.”
Sheran was aware of what Quid was seeing. “Don’t dwell on it, friend. Time reveals only what we’re ready to see.”
Quid’s confusion spiked yet again. If he was ready to see this, why wasn’t he ready to understand why it was happening?
“Come on, boyo,” Rendo pulled his arm in the direction they’d been headed before they arrived. “There’s lots more to see.”
Quid continued watching his spectral doppelgänger, and just before they drifted away from sight, he watched it step past the Nymph and into the orb of light in the square.
Was this a parallel timeline? Some glimpse into the future? Even after spending a full day trying to integrate different emotional bodies, he just couldn’t wrap his head around the experience of seeing himself standing there.
They followed the luminescent trails left behind by the hooves of the Unicorn, who was further ahead and out of sight.
Most of the locals seemed to ignore them and go about their business, but the children and some of the elders were curious about the visiting extraterrestrials, who they’d never seen the like of before and wouldn’t ever again. Remarkable, they felt, to see such drastically un-Terran beings walking the streets alongside Dwarves and Elves.

Meanwhile the Urmah were stalking through the forest, avoiding any other life form as they rushed through the underbrush. They’d left Gnosa behind after crossing the border, thanking him for his assistance.
They moved quickly on all fours, and preferred to travel without much baggage so they could roam freely. While the Order camped and helped Quid integrate, the Urmah had made rapid progress and were already far past the city Avalava.
They had business in the golden cities of the Sky Dwellers, above the deserts of Turtle Island. They had to reach the golden cities quickly and communicate with their tribe off-world, before they could head on to the next branch of their mission.
At once they all stopped, smelling something on the breeze.
To the Urmah, scent tells stories far beyond simply knowing what lifeforms they smell. In a place as transcendental as Avalon, volumes of information could be transmitted through smell, especially to beings as powerfully clairalient as the Urmah.
After tuning into the information being presented to them, the leopard departed in another direction, leaving the two lions to complete their journey.

Gnosa was waiting in Avalava. He didn’t know where he’d meet the rest of the party but he knew he would find them in perfect alignment with the natural flow of cosmic rhythms. This was the way to live, for everyone in the Order, and he was used to the feeling of trusting what he couldn’t perceive, allowing his heart to lead him where it wanted and knowing that he’d end up where he needed to be.
At the moment when Quid approached the Apex, Gnosa was drinking mead in a tavern near the edge of town, but a hunch told him it was time to leave. He drained his mead and headed out.
As he walked through the crowds of Elves, he passed a few Dwarves and some other Terran races. A Pegasus stretched its wings as he passed and he bowed respectfully to the majestic creature, as the children giggled gleefully at its sparkly aura.
Maintaining internal cohesion is strictly necessary in order to follow the yearnings of the heart in good faith, and to Gnosa there was never any question of what he should or shouldn’t do, feel, believe. He simply did as his internal unison desired.
This kind of radically individualized integrity is a necessary step in preparing to merge with other lifeforms into unity consciousness, and he’d been able to teach that level of discipline to many Terrans in his time on this planet, stretched out across lifetimes in various realms and ages.
To the Avaloni, retained integration was a crucial aspect of life, but not only for cohesive wholeness. They also knew that, if the entire Terran population was ever to rise into true unity consciousness as a whole collective, it would need to learn the kind of self acceptance which, to the Avaloni, was only natural.
He passed another Unicorn, this one had a tiny lemur on its back, a Lemurian from the city of Mu’ante that bridged Avalon and the distant realm of Shangri-La, and connected to the rest of Lemuria through the tunnels of the Aether Networks.
Gnosa gave a friendly salutation to the Lemur as they passed and the Unicorn sent a stream of sparkles over Gnosa’s head in blessing. Gnosa tossed a piece of fruit to the Lemur, bowing in gratitude, and moved on.
A bipedal wolf bared her fangs at him but he ignored her and kept moving. This was no time for conflict, he had more important things to work on.
A big, blue butterfly fluttered past him and something inside felt that following it was a good idea, so he simply fluttered along behind it.
The butterfly led him through a series of small alleys between houses and across laneways, through a thicket of thorny brambles where it stopped to eat pollen for a while. He patiently waited for it to eat its fill, then it led the way past tree-studded roads and through more houses.
Eventually he noticed a similar butterfly hovering around Quid’s amfur, which was raised above the crowd, looking around wildly to take in as much of the experience as it could.
Gnosa’s butterfly companion fluttered after its potential mate and they both disappeared from sight. Gnosa simply followed the blue amfur through the crowds until he caught up with it.
Rendo stopped in his tracks. “I smell,” he sniffed at the air, “Vestri!” he proclaimed loudly as he spun around to embrace his brother, Gnosa.
“Nordhri!” Gnosa yelled, slapping Rendo on his back. They were referring to the names of their tribes, the Western and Northern Dwarven tribes, respectively. Despite being brothers, they were born and raised among different tribes, only coming together in later years as family.
“Where were you? We almost died fighting for your Urmah friends!”
“I know,” Gnosa looked uncomfortable knowing he could hear his friends in danger, and that he used it as an opportunity. “We were nearby. You helped us a lot, actually.”
Gnosa had sent ahead an anonymous tip that the Urmah would be smuggled through the border by a group travelling with an auroch. He didn’t expect it to go as far as it did, but he was hoping for a distraction to open a path for them, and it worked.
“Oh, I see!” Rendo was happily furious. “Well I’m pleased to help your majesty with my own two hands!”
“Oh, relax,” Gnosa chided, “you made it through just fine.” He pointed to Quid. “Look, even the new guy’s unharmed!”
Their joviality was cut short by a pair of Dwarves wearing armor made from corundum, a stone harder than steel. “Rendo Galdrasson, your presence is demanded by a tribunal of jurors in the case of your murder of a citizen of the Reptilian Autocracy.”
Rendo nodded, “alright, I’m comin’, just don’t be too hard on me, seen?” He gave a warm hug to Gnosa and gave one of the enforcers a soft punch on her armor. “That’s some good ruby there, wanna trade?” Ruby, the red form of corundum, was the primary material for her chest plate. “I’ll give you some shattuckite, it’s great for protective magic.” The enforcer did not look amused. Rendo laughed awkwardly and asked, “where’s the tribunal being held?”
“Ugradek.”
“Oh good,” Rendo cheered up, “I haven’t been home in years. Are the stoneshrooms still luminescing?”
Rendo was still trying to joke with their stoney stares as they led him away.
Quid didn’t understand why everyone was so calm. “Shouldn’t we be helping him out of this?” Where he was from, being led away by armed guards meant submitting to a death sentence.
Gnosa smirked confidently. “This ain’t the Empire, son, everything’ll be fine.” He wouldn’t admit it to Quid but he was also worried. Dwarven tribunals were a fair system for assessing situations and determining the appropriate response, but with the complexity of geopolitics on Terra there was never any way to predict their decisions.
Nils saw the Dwarves jogging past her and tossed Rendo a homemade crystalline matrix with a unique energy signature, so they could locate each other if there was an emergency. Sheran could track it between realms or even across the planet if need be.
The Unicorn trotted along behind the Dwarves for a while but was eventually blocked by the same wolf who saw Gnosa earlier.
“Your friends are dwindling,” the wolf snarled at her, “you’ll be down to one soon enough.”
The Unicorn clacked a hoof down firmly and snorted sparkles at the wolf, who looked disgusted and disappeared into the shifting crowds.
Nils sighed sadly, wondering if there was enough time to prevent that sombre prediction from becoming manifest. She waited for the rest to catch up.
Quid had been letting his thoughts drift back to the events the led him here, and anger was beginning to boil up again. Hostile resentment for these newfound friends, who seemed to be keeping secrets from him while filling his head with strange ideas, was becoming difficult to shake off his shoulders and once again he found himself judging Sheran harshly.
‘Look at her,’ he thought, ‘with that stupid robe, acting like some enlightened sorceror, she’s just pretending like all the rest.’ The feeling of distrust was gnawing at him. Everyone who ever tried to act like a friend had turned their backs the moment he started wanting better for himself than society was willing to offer. They all just blamed him for wanting life to get better, for seeing things as badly messed up as they always were to begin with. ‘They’ll just call you crazy and they’ll reject you.’
On his right he noticed a tavern, and subtly snatched a gold coin from a table near the door, then used it to pay for an ale at the bar.
He remembered people back home, playing by the rules and obeying the laws, but then deliberately screwing each other over just because it wasn’t explicitly forbidden. They were perfectly fine with being rude to each other but as soon as someone went against the rules, that person must be a trouble maker. “That’s the entire point of having rules,” he muttered furiously to himself, “to prevent people from hurting each other like that.”
He was starting to dis-integrate again and didn’t even notice.
He cycled through the same angsty thought pattern again, and this time when he got to the end he screamed, “why should I do what you want, if you don’t even give a shit in the first place?” They were all just going to use him, like everyone else, and then he’d be alone again. And why? “Because you think you’re better than me.”
He’d gotten himself through everything, alone, and no one had the right to tell him how to live his life. He’d broken away from the prison of his homeworld, and he’d break away from this, too.
He didn’t notice everyone staring at him.
The barkeep politely said, “excuse me sir, you’re causing a disturbance. I need you to leave, please.”
Quid glared at the woman furiously, then allowed Rage to throw the empty glass past her head and stormed out of the building as the shards of broken glass clattered to the floor.
Everyone in the street was staring at him as he began to walk with increasingly fractured paths, each new reason to be angry becoming a whole new body. Some of them made rude gestures to the people on the street. Some shoved them out of the way. Some of them attacked other aspects of himself.
He was so angry he didn’t notice Sheran behind him. She grabbed his shoulders tight and shrouded him in a cloak of grey energy that concealed his distorted emotional complexes from the crowd.
Everything in his mind went from a cacophony of rage to utter silence and he was filled with a numb uncertainty. The world faded away and he started to forget where he was. He didn’t notice himself vomit as he lost consciousness.

Quid woke up laying on his back, listening to the soothing sounds of the river flowing past. He couldn’t remember anything about the city, or his outburst.
He sat up slowly, watching a swan float on the water.
“You forgot to love yourself,” Nils’ voice said beside him. “That’s the only way to forgive the feelings you’re carrying around.”
Now he vaguely remembered getting angry and having a drink. With a frustrated grunt, he said, “maybe I don’t deserve to love myself. I’m a no-gooder.”
Nils frowned. “That’s not true at all. Everyone who’s ever known you has seen a good person. They can’t love that person if he doesn’t love himself.”
‘Whatever,’ Quid shoved the thought aside. ‘Such bullshit.’
“This is a self-defence mechanism you fabricated into a personality trait,” she said, “to protect yourself from the pain of reaching out to people who weren’t able to reach back the way you needed them to.”
The swan dove into the river to eat a fish, then reemerged with a happy feeling of satisfaction. Quid watched as nature enjoyed the act of devouring itself, feeling bitter, cold rage at the idea that life was loving itself as it thrived on mutual destruction.
Through Sheran, Nils was aware of Quid’s thoughts. “You forgot how to see the love in these interactions, because the way things were in your home life wasn’t conductive to the love you wanted to share. You forgot how to see the beauty, because you closed yourself to your own light.”
“Why are you saying this?” he asked in exasperation.
“Because you’ll never be able to heal if you won’t look yourself in the eye.” She said it with a note of aggression, her voice tightening into a stern reprimand that only masked the compassion from his ears, no one else could’ve missed it. “Come on,” she stood up, “let’s stand in the water.”
She grabbed his hand and they waded into the river. He went along begrudgingly, solely because he was afraid of hurting her if he resisted. They stood still for a minute, holding hands and facing each other.
“Look at your reflection,” she said.
He looked and the moment he met his own eyes he split into three bodies. One of them lashed out at its own reflection. The second burst into tears. The third just stared blankly.
“All three of these faces,” she said gently, “are masking the one that doesn’t want to be seen. You are creating these emotional reactions to hide from yourself.”
The crying face looked up into her eyes, trying to hide his tears from her without success. He remembered the first night with her, looking at the stars of the Terran sky. She told him that everything was an illusion for his awareness to distract itself.
He wondered, “why would I hide from myself?” He didn’t mean to say it out loud, it slipped out.
Nils nodded, knowing how tricky this step can be. “The real question is, who are you hiding from who? There’s a wonderful, loving and powerful person inside, whose strength and beauty was scorned by a society that was taught to fear light as a threat to their safety. Your light was slowly dimmed into obscurity, to protect their shadows. You chose to hide your light from itself, by creating a false persona as a mask. This shadow self has created numerous psychological blocks, to prevent you from shining, and now it is desperately trying to avoid releasing control, because that’s what it was made for.”
Quid didn’t really want to hear or understand what she meant by all this. Some part of him wanted to shove it all aside and run. Suddenly he realized, that was exactly her point. He was trying to avoid looking himself in the eye. He didn’t want to acknowledge the truth because it would mean opening up to who he used to be.
It would mean becoming that child again, the one who was hurt and repressed for his ‘protection.’
Nils hugged him warmly and he began sobbing again. His amfur wrapped around her, trying not to let her move away again. She didn’t want to, in her mind there was nothing more worthwhile than helping someone through this kind of struggle.
They sat by the river for the rest of the day, the two of them and Sheran. Gnosa had gone ahead with the Unicorn to prepare with the Atlanteans, and Tremplir hadn’t been seen since she disappeared with her friend.
The songs of the merfolk blended with the music of the Elves, and Nil’s voice gently nudged Quid’s psyche into a warm self-embrace that was gradually dissolving the psychological bindings he’d wrapped around himself as he grew up.
As dusk settled, Nils’ Unicorn friend returned and since Quid was feeling more relaxed than ever, he assented to continue on with their journey.
He was beginning to feel that his real journey, perhaps the only journey that was ever taken, was into the depths of the Self.