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Stones both new and old lay in a ruined world. Between two gods– A rusty heap of metal stuck in an endless ocean– And a shivering puppet of the Cycle; between the two stand a Slugcat.
It stood in the billowing, snowy waves that ebbed and flowed through the threads. Walking between the lines, seeing and repeating the same actions. Cold. Climb. Rest. Feel and experience. Seek. Hear. Gain and experience. Delve. Hear. Feel and experience. Reverse.
Each step was frigid. And only agony sang its tune. Like crushed branches and like dead bodies that no longer bled– tired, repeating– a single thing never shifted.
It could no longer feel anything. Feel anything about what was left behind: urbans, fields, industrials, coasts.. Frozen over by simple acts of a false god.
Something in its heart wished it had the same effect.
But now? Now it was a patch of grass between neverending white. Sometimes mortal, trapped in the jaws of a predator. Sometimes transcendent, trapped in the reversal of a cycle.
Today it was mortal.
A fuzz of green with bristling fur as it emerged from its warm shelter. Petals of snow floated down, building onto what was already there, crunching under any weight that stumbled over it; such cold made dangling bluefruit tempting.
So it outstretched a paw and did so. Held two in its frail arms while they jingled. Sung a song of familiar love, feeling to the brim. In a transformed urban, even if not to the extremes. Not trapped. Not reversed.
First and foremost, a view of the familiar: horned, big-eyed scavengers. Then, a view of before: rusty metal held up by an umbilical. And, another one: snow-covered metal held up by a pearl.
A gift of fruit to the scavengers, a gift of affection to the rusty metal, and a gift of warmth to the snow-covered one. Kindness! Blooming in its heart.
Yet it wondered.
“I have seen this land transform,”
It stared.
“So much, so much. I cannot even see what I was here for.”
It realized.
“And I wonder… If it is time to move on.”
“Thank you.”
Waves upon waves ebb and flow through rejoined threads. A new action, not pertaining to itself, but to another like it. All that was left are empty fields. And itself.
The white door creaked open.