The sensation of sparkling satisfaction settled in. Hunger had bloomed in her stomach after a time, and though she had been walking for… For… Well shit. How long had she been walking?
Didn’t matter! The flash of [MANA] that had sparkled into the air was too much to ignore, even with the sensation of [STONE’S GAZE] blooming underneath her. Maybe it would ignore this opportunistic hunt on its territory? And what even WAS it? Powerful, that was for sure. But it didn’t seem terribly annoyed by her?
Wait, what was she doing?
Where was she again— RIGHT! On the street, in… This odd town. Having just eaten what was effectively a massive [MANA] battery that got ejected into the air. [UNASPECTED] too. So obviously it wasn’t [STONE]’s.
God, she couldn’t focus, and she was TRYING.
She was tired too, but, alas. She hadn’t slept, not that she really ‘needed’ to, if what she remembered of the… Scientist?
Jemma paused in her jaunt, letting her thoughts trickle around in her core like water in a babbling brook. It was… Easier. To think, now. She had spent so much more time around
people now. And the whorls and eddies of [MANA] that spiraled everywhere had done, well, something! To her.
A memory jiggled itself loose from the moors of the past; a clinical voice whispering to another. “
Honestly? I think the more, ah, solution we feed it, the more stable it’ll get. We’re already seeing it comprehend reflections, and…”
The words faded. The memory was fuzzy, like trying to hold sand. Hm.
Jemma shrugged, twisting herself in an acrobatic maneuver to duck under a massive length of bone being carried by two men. They called out to her, one scolding her inactivity. ‘Don’t stand in the middle of the road!’
The other whistled, congratulating the move she pulled. ‘Where were you when I need a gymnastics teacher?!’
They moved on, balancing the … rib? Rib. Between their shoulders as they continued up the street. They hadn’t even commented on her state of dress. Though… Maybe that had to do with the massive, now brown and navy feathered, wings she had wrapped around herself. Maybe they thought it was a cloak? Hm.
And for Jemma, the words settled on her thoughts like balm. The buzzing that had taken over her mind for MONTHS had faded.
She waved goodbye to the two of them, turning and sprinting down the busy thoroughfare she found herself in. Lights buzzed above her, surrounded by moths and other midnight bugs.
Time began to, well, melt. It stopped holding importance for her, even as she tried her best to hold onto it, and even as she tried to remember what a
second meant, or even felt like.
She was all of a sudden stood at the wall again. Or… Part of the wall. There was a
scent in the air. But it wasn’t a scent, as much as it was a [SMELL].
Her mind started buzzing again, but she tamped it down. Shut it in a box. Quieted it with a pillow. Slammed the door closed.
Wait! There. A wisp of… familiar… [CRIMSON]. What was it doing here?
A trail bloomed before her, as she focused, surprised that she could even MISS it in the first place.
It writhed in the [AIR], coiling and uncoiling like a snake being electrocuted. An eel out of water and struggling for breath.
Jemma tilted her head, and followed the path. It led up, and up, and up and up. She could [SEE] the main path above her, and the comparatively dim and dull branch that she was following.
Her wings flared open, and with a great
WHUMP of air, she rose up.
And then swiftly settled fifteen feet away from a familiar woman, whose breathing was as erratic as her thinking.
[CRIMSON] seethed around her like a nest of vipers, lashing out at itself and everything around.
Hm!
Another memory rose unbidden, of a man of auburn hair slumped against the wall. Another man knelt before him, and his voice and words were soft; gentle and quiet. He walked his fellow through… Breathing? Breathing.
The memory swiftly faded, and Jemma sat down silently.
And then, like a fool, she spoke.
“
You’re… Panicking. Do you want help?”
