As I ascend the stars flicker, I look down and the kingdom lights flicker. All is beautiful up here. But what goes up must come down, that is simply how the world works.
It is truly peaceful up here, a scene only a dream would produce. I wish it all a dream, perhaps it is truly a dream. When I fall and hit the ground I would just wake up from all of this, perhaps I am still sleeping in the mattresses in the lab. Surely the absurd things that I have witnessed are not real.
I come to a halt, the force pushing me upward is no more. I am getting pulled back to the ground, I am falling. I want it to be all a dream but I feel everything. My grief, the wind, the cold, everything I feel is real.
I need to think. I need to be somewhere safe to think. Away from it all.
As I fall I thought of where to go, I thought of many places of where I can take shelter. Somewhere I know I will be safe. Somewhere far, where I can hide and sleep. Somewhere that maybe there is someone I know I can trust.
My cave. My flora. I must go my field.
I gaze around as I fall, looking for a waterfall in the west. My cave is near it. But right now I have no sense of the direction, so I scan the kingdom looking for the gate I use to leave the city to go to my field.
I see it, a giant twin gate that has an obnoxiously large hammer statue on top. That is a sight that is carve into my memory until the end of my days.
I twist my body around, turning it to face the direction of the gate. I am still high up so I still have time but the wind gets in the way. Still I persist, I am now facing its direction.
I angle my body slowly, I adjust my posture. Arms to my chest forming a cross, legs closed, and posture straight head to toe. I want to be as aerodynamic as possible.
I cast bulan. As strong as I casted before.
Like an arrow I flew high, I have already passed the gate. And like an arrow shot high, my pathway will resemble an arc, I will slowly descend but the forward force will still be there.
I can not land properly with this posture, I can not twist my body as easily as I am with free falling. I can only brace myself on the incoming impact.
Everything my eyes see is going fast, but clearly the ground is getting closer. I slowly relax and released my arms. I clasp my hands and I cast barrier to myself.
I hit the ground. I tumble up and down again and again like a pebble thrown in the right angle and with the right strength towards the lake. I was about to lose consciousness but I reached the basin of the waterfall.
I am underwater. I mustered the remaining strength I have to swim up to the surface. I reach the top. I do not have the energy swim towards land anymore so I relaxed my body and merely float. I let the gentle current generated by the waterfall to push me to land.
The water feels cold but pleasant, I used to take baths and swim here everyday if I am at my cave observing and taking care of my plants for months. The forest surrounding the waterfall is abundant with food, animals and plants alike. Though some could actually kill you because that is how nature is.
I reach ashore. My robe is wet and heavy but I cannot lose it now. I drag myself circling towards the back of the waterfall where the entrance to my cave is. I look down and see my boots are in terrible shape. Scratches and holes are visible, and I assume the runes I imbued on it have been erased to some extent.
I stand in front of the entrance to my cave, it looks like just how I left it. With my limping body I force my hand to clasp, magic gathers in my hands faintly but enough to make this work. I put my palms on the surface of the entrance and hole emerged. I step in.
I smell my flora, I smell my life's work. As I keep walking deeper to my cave I gaze upon how seamless my contraptions work to continue to tend my plants even when I am gone. As I pass my working table I grabbed some vials of medicinal extract that I brewed before with my plants. I reach my shower room, I hanged my wet clothing to a wooden beam and I poured the medicinal vial to a compartment that connects to the shower.
I enter the shower and turned the valve. Hot water mixed with medicine poured onto my body. My body twitches as the water passes my graze wounds and cuts from the window glasses. It stings but the thoughts in my head overwhelm the pain.
I pat myself dry. Put on a some clothes from the wardrobe I left here, and proceeded to head to bed. In the middle of walking towards my bedroom I stopped to observe my field.
I like working here. I remember when all of this was all dim and full of weeds that thrive on minimal moisture. The months I spent preparing this field to be viable to grow my assigned flora was fun, I have fond memories of those times. The field head would consistently barge in here every week to inspect and assess, in rare cases he even helps out although he blurts out controversial opinions on the kingdom and its governance from time to time.
I need to sleep. I continued to walk towards my bed glancing on my field along the way. Blue lights from the cave crystals guide my way, they feed on dead matter to produce lights which my field is abundant of. They are classified as mushrooms even though they have hard interiors and exteriors and are not edible.
I reach my bed, I lay on it. Everything is heavy, my body, my eyes, and my thoughts. The thoughts weigh me down as they are loud.
Me and my father are of the demonkind huh. Horned and blacked-eyed winged creatures that wrecked havoc to all of humankind and elvenkind decades ago. In the past they said that we got along with them just fine, they looked like humans but with horns, as the elves with their long ears.
We traded they said, some even say that they helped build the great cities and kingdoms that still exist today. Though in the history the only depiction it has of them was of the Great Havoc many decades ago.
Their horns were long and sharp pointing upwards, purple skin from head to toe, and four wings in their backsides. They massacred every living creature that they see, and they are known for their eyesight to be excellent. The books say they posses immense strength and defense and they kill just to kill, cities were decimated in days as they do not get tired. There were no mentions of sexual violence or if they eat what they kill. Animals, humans, and elves were devastated by their attack. In response the humans and elves banded together to rid of them all, it took fifteen years to hunt them all down since it was easy to locate them.
They are mindless, they do not hide, they do not eat nor rest, they only move if they see something to kill, that something is anything that moves. Many offensive and disarming spells were invented and prospered during those times.
After the confirmation of the demonkind's extinction, humankind and elvenkind turned on each other. Even today they are still not in good terms, elven cities are hidden, deep within forests across the land. Humans avoid uncharted forests since that would mean that there are elves there and they kill anyone who steps in their territory uninvited.
Their conflict began with slavery from both sides, survivors of the massacre were being taken in as slaves both elves and humans alike. Of course it was abolished by the elves and humans to mend their relationship and maintain trade but it did not work out so well. And everyone in the kingdom knows that the slavery did not end, they are well hidden and kept secret by an higher authority who no one knows which is probably why the conflict between them is still alive. Slavery is illegal in the Kingdom of Condura, but rumors are still circling around.
They accuse me of being a demon but I do not posses purple skin, great offensive and defensive capabilities, no wings to let me soar the sky, no horns, and no blackened eyes.
They have wronged me, they have wronged my father.
But then I kept thinking, why did my father have a purple arm during the attack, why did he say that we were being hunted. What could it mean. How did the military pinpoint it to be my father and I. Sure there were many that hated my father's guts but not the extent of taking his life, or maybe there is someone.
Surely a purple arm is not enough to brand someone a demon. They were in the faculty office, perhaps the soldier and my father conversed before they started fighting. I do not have enough information to process this through.
I am drawing a blank. My father is dead and I assume I am being hunted now. Damn I might even get killed in my sleep, I am already out of mana and energy to fight back if someone infiltrates my cave.
I chuckle to the absurdity of it all. The only people that knows the location of this cave are the members of my committee and the one most familiar with the ins and outs of the cave other than me is the field head.
I chuckle again to the thought that he might be the one to kill me in my slumber. My thoughts won't let me sleep but my body is giving up, my eyes are seeing blurs and are heavy.
I wished I had taken my father's body with me or even just the head. I would give him a proper burial beneath the stars. I think he would have liked that.
I close my eyes. At the very least I fell at home, the smell of my flora is pleasant. I thought of things to do tomorrow if I survive the night. A weird smile of despair formed when I thought of that I should think like a wanted criminal now.
I cannot even cry, my body is too fatigued to cry. A strong sense of hope began to stir within me pushing me to sleep. Hope that assures me that it is all dream, a nightmare to be specific. When I wake up I will see a different ceiling, it will be the ceiling of my room in the dormitory.
Tomorrow I will test out new ideas with the gravity boots again, I will learn to fly efficiently with confidence to prepare myself to present it to the headmasters of the academy. With some luck I might get awarded with money and I won't ever work a day for the rest of my life. I would open a restaurant in the centro and probably get a lover, that would be cool.
I leave the waking world and succumbed to slumber. My body rests as I have a smile on my face.