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My story must begin and end with its own telling it seems. I wish I had more time for the writing, but I do not and must therefore apologize for any errors I may make.
My journey began when the narcissist I had fallen in orbit around collided with another equal in intensity but opposed in temperament. The first had seemed to me to be strong, appealing on some deep level and as I had followed him I came to see the world as he did, to see his truth as THE truth. The other styled themselves a compassionate figure and decried the first as being full of bluster but terribly weak. As their egos clashed I found that I could with only a little effort switch between these viewpoints. Like an ambiguous picture, reality itself would snap to whichever side I was trying to follow at the time, and in doing so made itself seem o much less real. It was a disturbing experience. Reality was supposed to be the bedrock on which everything stood, but I could feel it shifting around, undermining anything I might try to steady my mind upon.
Ultimately I left the orbit of both of them. Their’s was a fight that I would not be able to overly influence, and I had found my own problem to deal with. I began asking around what IS reality, as you can imagine or have even experienced I got a number of answers all pointing in different directions. Except there was one that came up again and again from people with rather disparate philosophies. Not a answer, but a warning, “do not seek The Desert of the Real, you will find only regret.”
I had spent too much of my life following the dictates of another simply because they were so very sure of themselves and I set out at once to find this place. Asking for directions proved frustrating at first, everyone I asked pointed me in a different direction. Walking east, people sent me west, the westerners would send me east, some people sent me north. But no one sent me south, and lacking any other leads I headed south.
After several days of walking through increasingly depopulated countryside I found myself in a desert. The hot dry scrubland of the sort no one would want to live in, and there did not seem to be anyone living there. Except a little ways in there was a large fence. Too tall by far for me to climb. I had not come all this way to be deterred by some shaped metal though.
I approached the fence with little in the way of a plan. I was simply going to reach between the bars to grab a little sand from the other side. Later I could figure out how to properly circumvent it, right now a minor act of defiance was all I could accomplish. But as I reached through the gap I was in for a rude shock. My hand disappeared. Denial came first, because surely this was not possible? Then anger followed, I had been quite attached to that hand. Bargaining was there too, when I thought to get it back if I just pulled my arm back from the fence. This did not work. I did get a closer look at my arm however. It was not bleeding, nor was it a stump like you would see on the end of a limb that had been healed. Instead it was smeared like wet paint. Eventually I wrapped it up in a bandage and tried not to think about it. Acceptance? That comes later I think.
Lacking any other plan, I began to walk the perimeter of the fence, towards the setting sun on a whim. This turned out to be the correct direction to walk in as I soon came across a sign encouraging me to continue in that direction if I wanted answers. I was soon rewarded with the sight of a figure approaching from the opposite direction. From a distance it appeared to be a human walking towards me. But as we drew closer together it became clear that while it was human sized, if on the larger side, and walking on two legs like a human, it was not a human. It was a dragon, complete with a pair of wings and tail.
(and he want me to let you know he’s male and named Dan, I somehow hadn’t asked until now)
On another day I would have been more concerned with the impossibility. But today it was just one more thing. I was still curious so I asked him.
“Why are you a dragon?”
And he responded, “In a world where you can be anything, be a dragon.” And shrugged his wings. “You have questions I assume.” He continued, and gestured with a clawed hand to a pair of rocks I hadn’t noticed before that were just the right size and spacing for us to sit on.
I sat down on my rock and asked, “do you have answers?”
“Some.” He responded while taking his own seat.
I felt rather weak at this point so I asked the most important question I had at the moment, “What’s beyond the fence?”
“You tried reaching.” He noted with a nod, “I’m sorry, I used to have signs warning against that, but they seemed to encourage more people to do it.” He explained. And then he continued, “As to your question, it is slightly wrong, you should be asking what’s is not beyond it. And the answer to that is magic, the whole area is a dead magic zone.”
“How did a lack of magic do this to my hand?” I asked holding up my arm, except I noticed that the damage had spread. It was as if my forearm was unraveling. I put it down quickly so as to not look at it.
“That is a bit of a story.” He said with a sigh.
“Imagine that there was a man in the desert dying of thirst, but just as his hope is about to give out he spies water in the distance. Alas for him this water is an illusion. But we might still ask how deep of an illusion, and how does it affect the man. An ordinary mirage reveals itself as he gets close. But a magically cast illusion might fool him for a bit longer, depending on how much skill is placed in the illusion. If the mage has thought to do so they could make sure it interacted with the environment and flowed like real water. They could make sure that it felt right when touched, making things wet and feeling cool on the skin. For every sensory experience, a sufficiently skilled mage could make a illusion that would pass the test. They could even make water that seemed to satisfy the this of the drinker. The one thing they could not do is actually satisfy that thirst. If the one who was dying drank this water until they felt well and went to sleep they would simply die and never wake up again.
But what if the illusion was contagious? If the person who drank the water lay down and die in truth, but an illusion of them woke up feeling refreshed and ready to continue living. And further what if there were no limits to this contagion? Everything this illusory person interacted with was itself covered by an illusion to make things appear consistent, up to and including the creation of illusory children. You would find the end result in population dynamics, eventually everyone is either the ancestor of everyone or no one. Eventually either everyone or no one is a tangle of illusion magic set in motion long ago.”
“And this explains things?” I asked.
“Yes.” He answered, “The illusions shape themselves based on what observers expect to happen.” He elaborated. “And so those who are most sure of themselves can seem to shape reality in their wake. Except not quite. Their shaping effects both reality and the expectations of those around them. Either directly, or indirectly by seeming to be right more often. And so those around them come to expect certain things to just be true, and what they see seems to simply be how reality is.”
“And you became a dragon by expecting it to happen?” I asked.
“And by being far enough away from anyone who would expect differently.” He answered.
“But then you’re not” I started by then switched tracks. “I’m not real?”
“You could be.” He said.
Maybe if things had been a bit different I could have believed him. But I just can’t bring myself to. I had already started leaking out. Whisps of essence leaving me like vapors from morning dew under a harsh sun. So instead I asked him for paper and something to write with. I won’t ask if he always had them or…
Maybe it seems strange to you that I should spend the last moments of my exitance narrating my demise but it seems to me entirely a p p r o p r i