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@irishcelticredflowercrown

LOL, Lorcan be like “I don’t care.” Narrator: But he did care. XD I’ll leave Liorah in that mess for a minute so y’all can have your side-quest XD (Plus it’s just getting awkward and it’ll be fun to torture them for a while yet XD)

Acyn

I could now add “Procrastinated until I fell into another realm” to my long list of illustrious accomplishments.

It was not my fault. Or perhaps it was. You all know I shouldn’t have shown Sahar the void. Sahar was drawn to trouble like moths to a flame, the only reason she liked Liorah.

There I was, minding my business, copying a scroll exactly as I should have been. Sahar was poking around in the manuscripts as she sometimes did, and had somehow managed to open a gap large enough to see through.

“What’s behind here? Shouldn’t this be a wall?” she asked, tentatively.

“That’s our pet portal. He doesn’t bite. We call him Hector,” I said, ironically.

“Really?! Can I see Hector?” Sahar asked, delighted.

It wasn’t actually called Hector, but it was a good alternative to whatever Sahar would have named it.

“No, rules are rules,” I said, without looking up. “Law 650, paragraph 54, sentence 3 clearly states: ‘Don’t bother the void and the void won’t bother you.'”

Sahar tilted her head, and the coins on the scarf around her head jingled inquisitively.

I had been making up imaginary laws (with very specific rules) for months now, but this was the first time she’d seemed suspicious. Gavril had figured it out the very first time, but he was the kind of person who could recite a library in his sleep. So was I. That’s why we got along.

Liorah had been suspicious immediately. For no good reason, of course. I had never attempted to trick, or tease, or scam her. Ever. Of course not.

Yet, she had reluctantly accepted my (accurate) argument that she could only vaguely place the most important laws on her best day, and this was a footnote. I kept a tally of how long this had worked. Two months, one week, and four days.

Ferran was both amused and tired. Of course, Gav had told him and ruined my fun.

“I’m not going to bother it, I’m going to say hi,” Sahar said, ducking through the conveniently placed loophole.

She carefully shifted aside the bookcase and slipped behind it.

“Sahar, don’t–”

Too late. Why did these things always happen to me? Was a life of peace, quiet, and books too much to ask?

I deliberately cleaned my reed pen on a stray cloth and closed and put away my ink pots. Sahar might have just strayed into an alternate dimension but Magister Azriel wasn’t going to accept that as a valid excuse for letting the ink dry out.

With a final mental note to find some less adventurous friends, I wandered after Sahar, into the darkness.

“Sahar?” I called, tentatively.

A cheerful call came from ahead and I followed it. Perhaps Sahar’s natural habitat was among stardust and unstable portals, but mine wasn’t. I was having the same feeling I had every time Liorah had an idea. Namely, a very bad feeling. In fact, several. Imminent dread. Overwhelming exhaustion. Frustration, annoyance, and–

“There you are, I missed you!” Sahar rammed into me from behind, (Hadn’t she just been ahead of me?) and grabbed my wrist and pulled me along after her. At least she was here. She might aid and abet Liorah’s ideas, but I didn’t resent her company. I hated her a statistically significant amount less than the rest of humanity.

Perhaps this doomed-to-fail mission wouldn’t kill me. With that discouraging thought, I let Sahar yank me further into trouble. As per usual.

The void was quieter than I thought it’d be. I took a mental note that the endless nothing was more like a tunnel than like endless nothing. I’d need to investigate that further once I got back. Had anyone else found the void to be tunnelesque?

“Is tunnelesque a word?” I asked Sahar, with no context. Thankfully, she required neither context nor subject since she functioned by her own rules of conversation. I liked hers better.

“It is now! We made a word!” She said, excitedly.

“Your input was very instrumental in its creation,” I said, dryly.

“Thank you! I know,” she said, happily. She was clever enough to catch the sarcasm and stubborn enough to ignore it. She still hadn’t let go of my wrist, but I didn’t exactly mind. At least it kept me from losing her in the darkness.

“Do you think the void is more damp or dry?” I asked. I had been trying to decide on this for the past few minutes. Was it minutes? Was it hours? It might have been mere seconds but time was merely a social construct.

“Fluffy,” Sahar said, without a second’s hesitation.

“Quite right. Very insightful.”

“Now we have concluded the scientific research, let’s return, I have to finish copying that manuscript,” I said, regretfully.

“Okay, once you find back,” Sahar said, a hint of worry creeping into her voice.

“Back is the opposite of forward.”

“You’re a genius, this is why I put up with you.”

“I know.”

I looked over my shoulder and saw more void. In fact, I didn’t even see Sahar, only felt the grip of her strong fingers on my wrist.

On second thought, I couldn’t even see myself.

“Do you think we still exist?” I asked, matter-of-factly.

“Did we ever exist in the first place?”

“Philosophically speaking–”

“Don’t start with that. If we don’t, I’m talking to myself. Hi, self, you’re very nice and I like you a lot.”

“You’re talking to me.”

“I am?”

(At this point the Castle decides the attempt to torture them with unending darkness and uncertainty is strongly backfiring because they’re having quite a good time.)

The nothing dropped out from beneath Sahar and she gave a little squeal of fright. I tried to pull her back, but her fingers slipped and slowly let go of my wrist. I tried to reach after her, but it was already too late.

She fluttered down like a broken-winged butterfly, her yellow and orange skirts wrapping around her like a flame.

I felt my stomach drop, then realized I was falling too. Blinding flashes of light and color and snippets of noise slowly merged into some form of sense. I instantly wished for the quiet and calm of the darkness again. There were people here. I vastly preferred the void.

And buildings, and rubble and noise and black blobs that were exploding (What was that all about?) And there were horse-sized wolves. Of course. No setting was complete without those.

But Sahar was right next to me and that made everything a little better. She jumped to her feet, her golden anklets and bangles jangling in excitement.

“Ooh, look, other people!” She said, delighted.

“I know,” I said, disgustedly.

I slowly got up and shot one dubious glance at the roaring chaos around me. This had Liorah written all over it.

I leaned over to Sahar, who lifted her skirt and reached for one of the throwing knives beneath it.

“Bet you Liorah is at the source of all this.”

Sahar grinned, her joy only increased by the prospect of something interesting to do.

“You’re on, though I’m inclined to agree with you.”

I reached for my shamshir and remembered I’d left it to hold a stack of precariously placed scrolls in place. There was no way this was going to end well.

I caught the eye of a tall, black-haired man, a masked man, and a blonde man who was glaring at everything in the general vicinity.

They were staring at us, which was barely surprising, considering that we’d literally dropped from the ceiling.

“Greetings, friends and enemies,” I said, ironically.

“I’m Sahar, nice to meet you,” she said, perkily. How was she perky in these circumstances? She’d never fail to impress me. I couldn’t be more than moderately agreeable at the best of times.

She flipped her knife around in her hand, then clambered onto a piece of scrap boulder, to get a better view of the battlefield.

_____________

This is, without a single doubt, among the weirdest things I’ve ever written. Impressed? XD

This concludes me being too lazy to formulate a logical framing story and just launching my characters into the freaking void with zero explanation XD (Also, the scribe’s workplace doesn’t actually have a portal but it’s the kinda place that would. It just has those vibes XD)