Skybound

Morgan Mackenzie had no words to describe her day. Shocking revelations about her father had her racking her brain, trying to remember the details of the first time she had encountered the old witch. As angry as it made her, she realized Moghren had never stated she did not know the Titan. Everything she had said now seemed true, but vague and lacking critical context. At the time, Morgan had been more concerned with learning new magics, and caught up in the excitement of her growing power. Suddenly, she recalled her father's words in the dreamscape diner.

"Moghren never lies, and you should never trust her."

The Titan himself was difficult to read. He could speak, after a fashion, though he was even less inclined to verbosity than he had been during Morgan's previous life on Earth. He had always been a man of few words, anyway, and he ignored her questions as they continued through the gates and into the lost city of Avalon.

Lost and forgotten the city may have been, but clearly not unchanging; now, it stood drastically changed from the state in which Morgan had first found it. Pillars and columns still stood in disrepair; walls of houses, unroofed and bare; collapsed buildings, crumbling statues; all the signs of an ancient ruin were still unmistakeable. The difference was that everything was clean. The contrast was extremely odd to see as she walked along the streets that had been empty for millenia. The paving stones were still cracked with age, but now polished and gleaming in the fading evening light. Windows stood open and bare, wooden shutters long rotted away, but shining brass hinges and fittings stuck out against the backdrop of the ennui that was time's gift.

The culprits were the scrubby broods, of course. Faint wurbling sounds susurrated at the edge of her hearing, barely noticeable, like a distant creek or stream. Lulu gave a curious purring trill from Morgan's shoulder, and the sorceress noticed several pale frilly shapes shuffling back out of sight around corners and behind small bushes. It was not their progenitor or the human and her hulking titan of a father from which the scrubbies hid, however.

The edge of every building, and the limbs of every tree, every high place to either side of their path was lined with ravens. They watched in judgmental silence as the last rays of sunlight painted the crumbling tops of structures in dappled hues of red and gold. The watching birds flanked the path they walked, and Morgan soon realized it led to the center of the dead city instead of Moghren's cottage near the outskirts. As the two moons crept higher in the night sky, she continued down the stone street, carrying a quietly trembling Lulu and followed by an eerily silent giant.

The city was larger than she had realized on her first visit, and the moons were nearing their zenith by the time another gate loomed into view. A grand double arch of crenellated stone was the demarcation between the central grounds and the city proper. Enchantments still glowed dimly to Morgan's magically enhanced vision, the exquisite workmanship still holding up after thousands of years.

The archway was lined with ravens as well.

The silence was broken as Morgan crossed the threshold of the gate.

"One comes to claim the sky."

The words reverberated harshly, echoed simultaneously from a thousand thousand beaks. The enchantments inscribed on the stones of the inner city flared brilliantly, then faded into invisibility. Lulu wurbled with apprehension from her shoulder as she warily continued along the path. Even though the runes on every surface had faded, the power remained in the air, ancient and cloying in its potency. The sorceress barely managed to keep from jumping, startled, as a whirlwind of black feathers fluttered in the darkness before scattering to reveal Moghren standing to the side of the street.

"Power calls power," she said, seeming to stand taller, and to Morgan's eyes almost looking younger and stronger than the frail image the old witch usually presented. The woman looked up at the Titan, standing still outside the gates. "Old things, hungry things, and desperate foolish things, all drawn by power this night."

The Titan said nothing, leaning down to peer through the gate at the two women.

"She be safe enough in my care, this once," said the old witch, as the twin moons cast dueling shadows that shifted along the streets and alleys of the dead city. "Will ye guard the gates once more, as ye did in the days of old?"

"Guard from what?" asked Morgan, suddenly concerned. "And what do you mean about days of old?"

"They called him many things, in days long past before the last cities in the High King's holdings finally fell, abandoned. Lichbreaker, Goblineater, Lord of Last Stands. The people left, or died out; yet we remain, and a few others. Old fools, most of our ilk, save the ones that found purpose as he has."

"Why does he need to stand guard now?" she asked the older woman, as the Titan rumbled happily and walked away, parallel to the walls running from either side of the gate. Thorny vines spread in his footsteps, raising a wall that grew over the gate itself and spread along the masonry as he paced along.

"Because power draws power like blood in the water brings sharks, girl." Moghren slammed her walking stick into the stones, and power rippled out into the night as she vanished into a whirling vortex of black feathers. The ravens spoke again then, continuing the old woman's words.

"The time draws near."

This time, the rush of power following the strike of Moghren's cane didn't fade back into the atmosphere. The air pulsed with it like a heartbeat, and the runes along the walls and streets flared in time with it like a living thing, the light growing brighter and sliding along the etched lines to flow towards the middle of the city. The moonlight became as radiant as day, and as the magic resonated in the air, the ravens took flight in a storm of feathers and wingbeats. Moghren's voice came again, mirrored by uncountable numbers of birds.

"One comes to claim the sky-"

The power in the air was thick and rich with mana, and unlike the tower Morgan had constructed, the mana was not hers. She could feel it pressing against her own senses. It wasn't aggressive, but it was ancient and potent and cold. And it was growing stronger as the moons neared their zenith.

"-to her is put the question, why?"

Morgan continued forward, Lulu wurbling nervously from her shoulder. She wracked her brain, trying to find words to explain her reasoning. Freedom. Power. Capability. All completely valid reasons to wish to fly, but all rang hollow deep inside where she could not lie to herself. She knew why, but lacked the ability to find the words to fit the gravitas of her current situation.

How do I tell her I just think flying would be awesome and cool?

The pressure of the magic in the air increased with every step, pushing back against her like a strong wind. The sound of wingbeats drowned out everything else, yet they refused to speak further. By the time she had covered the distance of barely half of one of the ancient city's residential blocks, she was leaning forward with her hair blown back. Moghren's power, it seemed, demanded her answer. She stopped, looking up at the whirling vortex of ravens and tumbling feathers.

"I don't know what to tell you!" she shouted at the wind. "I don't have a reason, or a need. I just want to fly."

Wild defiance rose in her soul, and she tossed her head. "You ask me why? I'll ask you," she said, taking another laborious step forward.

"Why not?"

As soon as the words left her, the arcane pressure gave way, and the raucous cries of the ravens seemed to change to a gleeful, approving laugh. She stumbled further up the stone street at the sudden loss of resistance, drawing herself upright after a few steps and resuming a more dignified pace. Feathers swirled to her left and Moghren stepped out of nothing with a smile on her face.

"There be no motive more true or pure than simple desire. The sky cannot be tamed, but claim a part of it ye can, if ye have the will."

Moghren disappeared once again, the swirling feathers left in her wake vanishing into the shadows that rippled in the dim light. The path turned once, then once more, following a pattern Morgan could sense but not see from the ground. Every step brought her closer to the center of the city.

One last gate marked another border between High Avalon's layers, and the path continued through a grove of trees half a hundred paces ahead of her. The Sorceress approached from the south, and to the northeast she could see the towers and walls of an ancient and crumbling castle jutting above the treetops. Any other night, she would have rushed to explore the ruin, but tonight, her purpose took her straight into the small section of forest. The trees were eerie and lifeless, their leaves long lost to autumn while the harsh cold of winter layered them in frost. There was a sinister beauty to the glittering branches that grasped skyward as if reaching for the living cyclone of ravens spinning in a column over the center of the copse. Yet, if the trees had been beautiful and distracting, what stood in the clearing at the center stopped Morgan in her tracks completely. Only the thick and tangible presence of so much power and will in the air kept her silent.

The clearing was ringed with vertical stone pillars, their tops capped by more stone slabs like a circle of solid stone gateways. 

Stonehenge? She thought to herself. It was easy to forget just who Moghren was, but Morgan set questions of ancient history aside to walk up the handful of steps to where the path went through under one of the squared arches. She put a hand on the cold stone, feeling the age emanating from the pillar.

"I never got to visit the one on Earth…" she whispered to herself, turning to face the center of the circle.

In the center sat a low stone table, roughly circular, and made of a singular piece of stone almost fifty feet through the middle. Morgan barely noticed it. Above the table floated a pair of outstretched wings, the feathered tips not quite stretching the full width of the dais. They turned slowly, gently suspended on billowing cushions of mana-soaked moonlight reflecting off the table. The feathers were a deep, unreflective black but with glimmering sable and purple patterns briefly visible as the wings shifted in the light. The edges of the outstretched feathers caught the glow of the moons and glittered like distant stars, and the effect took Morgan's breath away. She stood speechless until Moghren spoke from her side, having appeared silently without the Sorceress noticing, so lost was she in the glamorous sight.

"Be sure of purpose," said the old witch. "Once begun, I cannot stop, lest thy soul reject all or part of the grafting. That would leave ye as a twisted thing, caught halfway between land and sky."

"I'll be able to fly…" she murmured breathlessly.

"Eventually."

"What do you mean eventually?"

Moghren smirked. "Did ye walk the day of thy birth?"

"Oh," replied the Sorceress. "Will you be able to teach me to use the wings?"

"Nay, lest ye be willing to bargain after sunrise," answered Moghren with a shushing gesture. "With the wings, my debt to thy sire will be paid."

The moonlight, splashed with rippling dappled shadows cast by the swirling storm of ravens, seemed to freeze in place as the smaller moon caught up with its sibling at last and slid behind it in the sky. Half of the shadows vanished, and a column of pure light shone vertically over the table.  Morgan stumbled as Moghren pushed her forwards a step, plucking Lulu off her shoulder. The scrubby gave an undignified wurble of protest as the witch gently placed the scrubby on a stone block to the side of the table.

"The hour is nigh, grandchild. Make thy choice, and forever turn away from regret."

Morgan didn't hesitate, stepping forwards and climbing onto the table with an excited hop assisted by one hand. She took a deep breath, and then stepped towards the wings, and into the column of light--

--and found herself surrounded by clouds, facing a familiar and very naked woman, now likewise covered in tattoos, with purple magic glowing in her eyes. Another Morgan, decidedly other, yet the same, grinned back at her with palpable excitement. They both stood upon the rough grey surface of the stone table, but the city had fallen away to leave them surrounded by roiling stormclouds. The winds howled, but didn't touch the two women on the platform.

Before Morgan could say anything to her other self, a familiar golden cage sprang into being, a gilded spherical shell drawn in lines and swirls and runes of intense solid light. During her class selection, she had thought the sphere had been ornate and detailed, and massive at just a few hundred feet across. The scope of her own personal growth in power and magical understanding compared to her arrival on Anfealt had never been presented in such glaring and obvious manner.

The current sphere was miles across, and the density of runes and symbols and shapes that interconnected to form the sphere was so detailed that most of it blurred in her vision. The lines of light had to be several feet thick, and the strands that spun off into fractal patterns and swirls like arcane cogwheels in a vast machine made her eyes hurt to try to pick apart the smaller details. Both the original Morgan and the other stood side by side, staring in wonder. The cage pulsed like a beating heart, and both women stood transfixed in silence. 

Their transfixion was broken when, suddenly, a gigantic black talon, wickedly sharp and savage with power, speared through the wall of the sphere like a paring knife through the skin of an orange. More vicious claws punctured the perfect symmetry of the sphere, peeling open sections of it at the seams between the golden lines that formed the structure of Morgan's soul. 

Both Morgans screamed, falling to their knees in unison. Thrashing upon the table, the sorceress writhed in place with her heels drumming on the stone as she flopped onto her back. Power pulsed again, but this time it wasn't Morgan's soul. Instead, a soothing wind calmed the storm. The pain did not recede, not completely, but suddenly it became slightly less intense. A temporary reprieve. She felt a cool touch on her forehead and gasped, opening her eyes.

Moghren knelt on the stone table, one hand touching each Morgan gently. It was Moghren, but not as the old witch. This Moghren seemed younger, only middle-aged, and as naked as Morgan herselves. Her figure was slim, but wiry, with woad paints sketching patterns across her face and arms and breasts. Not tattoos, but a form of art even older, though how she understood that to be so she didn't know. It was instinctual and intimate within the landscape of her soul, a place where truths conveyed themselves and no lie could be spoken.

"You must hold on," said the younger Moghren, all traces of her accent gone as Morgan realized words were hardly needed. "The pain will pass, but if you fight it, it will wound us both. Or destroy us."

Morgan whimpered, as did her other self. She felt bare and exposed, torn open from within her own mind and almost violated, save for the memory that she had chosen to grasp this power of her own free will. Like standing close to a fire and refusing to budge, she grit her teeth, clasping the fingers of her other self's hand. In unison both Morgans nodded, and Moghren seemed to turn transparent with a smile, dissipating like smoke into the surrounding storm.

The talons resumed their terrible work, and Morgan, both of them…

Morgan endured.

New patterns appeared across the upper sections of the spherical shell of her soul, but instead of solid golden flame, they were threads of midnight black that radiated cold and wintry darkness. Where the shadow met the lines of light, Morgan could feel a burning in herself, not quite like that of fire, but an agony similar in intensity. Her soul felt scalded, outraged, and she struggled to keep from pushing the pain away. She could see, could feel the smaller threads of darkness intertwining with her golden beams, and as they meshed together more smoothly the pain receded in tiny increments. As each runic pattern settled into place, the seams of the sphere melded back together as the talons withdrew.

Minutes. Hours. Days. Weeks. Later, Morgan could never be sure. It was over in an instant. It took years. An eternity, she realized, was an entirely subjective experience. After an unknowable period of time, the pain finally began to noticeably recede as the last sections of the lattice that was her soul finally stitched itself back together under Moghren's indomitable will. 

Surely the worst is over, she thought, gasping and staring into her other self's teary eyes as they wept side by side on the stone table.

The sound of shattering bones was as unmistakable as the horrified rictus grin on Other Morgan's face. Morgan herself choked as she felt the grinding crunch within her own ribcage, felt her heart being squeezed as her ribs separated from her spine one by one. She couldn't breathe, couldn't scream; nor could her other self. They mirrored each other in agony as bones popped and scraped and flesh tore. She could see thin threads of crystal protruding from her other self, growing and shifting, and felt the same workings in her own body. The new bones tore their way through the skin between her shoulder blades, shattering the bones and tearing the ligaments and tendons. Her shoulders dislocated as more crystal bones shifted, and new muscle tissue grew around them before her shoulders were relocated once again with terrible grinding pops. Both Morgans suffered in silence, hands clutched together, unable to even scream.

Thankfully, once the initial limbs had come into being, the pain receded much quicker as the internal changes finished applying themselves. She gasped, sobbing with every breath, slowly recovering her ability to think. Both women scrambled to their knees, helping each other stand as the skeletal structures continued to grow from their backs. 

The next part wasn't painful, though Morgan almost would rather have experienced that particular fate again. Instead, what came next was itching. She could feel the new limbs, the bones finish growing into place. As the tissues grew in around those bones, the tingling she felt was similar to her regeneration regrowing a limb, but amplified. Her new muscles cramped, sending twinges across her ribs and chest, her body unaccustomed to the extra structure. Blood vessels grew with the muscle tissue and tendons, and as the gory flesh extended over the shape of the wings, the itching grew a thousandfold as skin began to form with a downy black coating. She held on to Other Morgan for balance, feeling the winds return as the feathers lengthened and caught the air, threatening to push her over.

The itching finally faded as the last feathers grew into place, and they both collapsed to their knees in relief, still holding onto each other for balance. The wings sagged as the last remnants of Moghren's intrusive power left the soulscape, the wind growing calm. Other Morgan simply held on to her, taking deep ragged breaths as both took time to recover.

Other Morgan gathered herself first. While she lacked speech, as she did in their first meeting, she smiled, pressing her forehead to Morgan's with a grin as she gingerly flapped the oversized wings. The gust this created almost knocked the pair over, and Other Morgan gave an unapologetic laugh.

"Show-off," grinned Morgan as her other self stepped back. The other woman grinned in triumph, and the wings beat once, twice, then again. Other Morgan lifted off her feet to hover for a few seconds over the table before settling back with visible tiredness, but already recovering.

"So it's done," said Morgan with a happy smile. "Now how do I do what you just did?" 

Her new wings felt clumsy, like trying to move a limb that had been asleep for hours. She was suddenly envious of her other self and her instinctual knowledge of so many things. Her other self just smiled knowingly, then shrugged. She stepped forwards and suddenly kissed Morgan on the cheek and gave her a brief hug, before turning and dashing for the edge. She leapt off the stone table into the storm without another word. Morgan stood for several minutes, looking at the clouds with nervous apprehension. 

"I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of here and back to the real world," she said out loud, creeping to the edge and looking down into the endless sky with no ground in sight. She knew the soulscape was metaphorical, but that was little comfort.

"Could use a bit of metaphorical ground, here," she said to no one in particular.

Bracing herself, and concentrating, she spread her wings.

And Morgan jumped.