glowfic | The endless waste

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The endless waste

Once, this planet teemed with life. It doesn't do that, anymore. The ground is dry and cracked and occasionally broken up by charred remains of trees. There are no birds, no bugs, no living plants - nothing but an empty, endless waste.

With one exception.

But the world is so very big, and the exception so very small. If someone showed up away from it, they could be quite forgiven for thinking this world is completely dead.

with Sable (Kappa)

with Aisilian (Link)

with Grendyne (Rockeye)

with Temple (Curiousdiscoverer)

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"Mmm. Sort of lost track, if I'm honest. There's just no reason to measure the time." She stops to estimate and convert time to appropriate units. "... Thirty-something years? Ish? Not very long, but I couldn't actually say it's been short, either. And I still have a long way to go."

"Well, that's longer than I was all alone in a hostile world, so good for you holding up this well."

Shrug. "Thank you. I'm not really alone, though. I mean, I am physically, but not when I'm asleep. I can talk to everyone that's asleep in the dream world, wander about, make friends, exchange book recommendations, get lessons in magic. It's lonelier than I'd like, but I can't accurately say I'm alone."

"That must be nice."

"Usually. In the first few years I had a problem of getting too much attention when I'd go to sleep. Having a dozen people waiting right for when you appear and then overwhelming you with 'Here's all of the theoretical notes on hungry nodes' and 'Can you see about finding my old house, I have an heirloom I lost that I'd like back' and 'You should keep your sleep short I don't trust the protections you have up' - that sort of thing. All well meaning, but no less overwhelming. Most of it wasn't even helpful, because I really don't need to know the theory of hungry nodes when my current problem is 'I have no roof and no food and there are shadow monsters that show up at night that want to kill me.'"

Edited 2015-09-18 01:34 (UTC)

"...And you couldn't, I don't know, appear somewhere else?"

"Other people can, I can't. Due to my weirdness. I can change where I appear by going to sleep somewhere else in the material world, but when there is exactly one safe place to sleep in the world..."