Some people believe, honestly, that the universe as we know it is some big, sinister place. The universe cannot care, they say, about something so insignificant as a human being, so small as a simple world. Life is a mistake to these people, and all is cold and unforgiving. Nothing is certain in their world, and life is just random and cold... it does not care. Nothing cares, nobody cares.
It is basic human nature to fear what we do not understand. Fear is a basic reaction, and not far behind is its next step... Hatred. Man hates, thus, what he does not understand, cannot understand. It is this nature of us those people believe that... it is this basic nature that makes their lives austere and cold, causes them to suffer... for the universe is not understood, they fear it. They do not recognize the basic idea that the universe is not out to get them.
Wrapped in the embrace of light and sound, a man such as Seimachna Maranthas... understand this better than most. He does not see the universe as a random string of hatred and cold matter... he knows it for what it is, what its true intention is. Masked and shrouded, Maranthas kneels in that field of broken stones, hands held in his lap, eyes shut tight. The broken ruins around him are dead and gone, remnants of a past long gone. Few would dare to tread in this place alone... its darkness is remeniscient of that of the void of space, each sound, each cry within, sounding clearly through the skeletal hall... but he is not truly there.
His spirit... his mind.... who he was, it was not there. Only his shell remained, a hollow husk, sleeping peacefully. The mask he wore echoed occasionally with lights, hummed softly... but he was not there. He was in a place of light, wrapped in another husk entirely. His body was a woman's there, and he felt the warmth of another being's touch on his skin. They sat in a field unlike any the mortal world had ever seen... light was not a concept, but a thing... something you could sit upon and embrace a beloved. They sat upon a field of green light, the deep blues and swirling shades of violet far underneath clearly visible, and the air they breathed was blue light. their forms were white light, defined only by the touches they made to one another, he and this presence... she was warm, and familiar to him... and he was in her world. Words meant little, passion was everything then. He was slowly learning to let go of his form... to douse his understandings in the waters of truth... but he was still bound to a human body, and she was as a concept:
Love.
He could have basked in this temple... this glorious place... this heaven... for an eternity. She was the only thing he'd need... but this was not so. It could not be so, not yet. He was a scientist... he used the power invested in him by the universe to better his circumstances... to get what he needed, what he wanted. This was not evil, could not be evil, as long as he knew what he did: All is full of love. His works, this suit he wore... it was a work of love. This was truth in application. His understanding of the embraces of the Leylines allowed him to find this world in which he sat with his beloved... where he found her. It was big beyond big... yet one could traverse it, one end to another, in an instant. It was a paralell, yet completely different from the world in which his body existed, a creation of ages long gone.
He knew his body was weakened... he could feel its nagging indications through the veil of his favored reality... so he said the first words he'd said in well over three days in her embrace, wandering this world of hers.
"I..." he began, and she became a being he could see and relate to instantly, snapping to a form of what looked like, but was not, flesh and cloth, a form she'd developed along the way. He could barely see her until he himself bound himself to a form, when she snapped clearly into view... it was something he'd gotten used to in this world: form and perception were temporal things, and took a back seat. She looked to him like an elf, her long ears and pleasing frame gracing him as slowly, their etherscape melted into a percieved truth of reality, and they stood in an open savanna under the cover of moonlight. He was like her then, and, so like sisters in appearance, the two embraced and touched their lips together in a gentle kiss.
"I know... Its alright. Be safe..." she warned, eyes shut as she trembled against him. He smiled weakly, and was gone.
Maranthas reawoke with a shudder, and collapsed on the spot, gasping for breath furiously and clutching himself, curling gently into a ball on the cold stone floor, suddenly thrust into all the dark sensations of a real body. His eyes ached, his body shook, his stomache burned, and his head was on fire, but he stood anyway, finding himself weak. He'd grown used to this, really... he was even relative: He did this so much, never removed this suit so often... that he'd actually forgotten what gender he was. He had no idea anymore... and it no longer mattered to him. This was not his home.
"Fine..." he said, and started for the surface.
He was walking on cloud nine, really: HE had once again spent a good portion of his week in his beloved's embrace, once again enjoyed her company. His step had no bounce, and bore great weight with each clinking plod, but he was bouncing on the inside. The sun would never reach his eyes, but Maranthas knew by the warmth that seeped through the cracks in his shell that he was in the light.
"Seimachana Maranthas, you're back!" a man's voice cried. The visor he wore filtered the voice, and began its interpretation of the reality around him, showing him the world in 360 degrees around him very clearly, beyond the concept of sight. Another little trick he'd learned how to do from that otherspace and his beloved's guidance.
"yes, I return to you once again, so again I fail." he said cryptically, but not intentionally so. "Be a dear... fetch me some food, some water..." he said, collapsing at last. The boy, his apprentice, a little anthropomorphic cat, ran off, saying "Yessir!" as he left. Smiling, maranthas felt him go, and sighed deeply. The boy was spirited, that was sure.
