310. About power, 5

(Rose)

Being able to see another dimension as well as your own, opens up your understanding to a lot of things.

It's as if we could see galvanism in action, and not just its effects.

We can actually see the flow of particles, nutrients, inside plants. From the roots, to the sap, to the leaves.

Our sight can focus on these now. Being to see that at will is amazing.

We can see that identical looking trees are sometimes very different in metabolism, like very different species.

Some are like we know, and others completely know how to play with these new things.

These hallucinatory particles are like very tiny leaves flying around almost transparent, or sticking to each other and building things. Just things, many of which making me think of short silk ribbons, but it's really chaotic.

Sometimes beautiful, like embroidery, sometimes ominous like insects.

We observed how some dying animals see all the invisible ribbons within their flesh beginning to compete with each other.

And how as death occurs, these things from the other side can take over, and recycle the body, recovering what may be of its tissues and fluids; up to a form of resurrection of it in a monstrous and incomplete way.

Quite an instructive show about what nature has become.

Every biological structure, plant or animal, is an opportunity for these flying colourful ribbons to attach themselves. There they can melt, feeding it, or parasite it, feeding themselves, building something old or new, or just wait around for a time. It's a roll of dice, and a competition between microscopic organisms.

Life is boiling everywhere. It's a primordial sea all around us. And within us as well.

If we look very carefully, we can see this boiling sea of chaos in tiny swirling particles, all around us and around ourselves too. We see it on our skin. Inside our mouth, inside of ourselves. Everywhere. The flora inside of my guts Blume taught me about, I see it for the first time. It's everywhere.

R - Blume did teach me a little about bacteria living inside of us, and it being normal. We're not one individual lifeform from the beginning, but also a complex collection of microscopic life she called flora.

It's amazing that being able to see that invisible energy also makes this other invisible world noticeable. The microbiological world appears as hazy and warm glittery fluids, it's blurry, but their presence is visible.

There's active life on every surface we look at closely.

Our flying tree is glowing with energy. Its roots absorb these particles and its body converts it into this sap able to refuse gravity. The process also makes it glow a specific and bright way to our eyes now. We can see it's burning energy to fly, albeit silently and gently.

B - Look at Ana.

Ana is far more than just a bird.

Her body is wrapped into a cloud of dust absorbing light. She's actually quite one of a being-like-her.

She has a floating soft brain protruding behind her head, like a soft horn or head extension. And she has more than two wings. She has six, like a cherub. Two are real, and four little ones are only existing in this other side. I wonder why she has them.

She also seems to have links to us, like leaches or umbilical cords, one reaching me and one reaching Bleue. But they're thin and we don't see anything transiting through, so they're really just threads to keep a link.

Why? Well... I guess she's bound to us now, any way we see it.

Maybe it helps her find her way back when she flies around?

Bleue says something to Ana. I can see small sparks running along this cord toward Ana's invisible brain, where activity reaches Ana's head.

Ana opens its beak for a few seconds before saying the usual Hyaa.

R - Maybe she's learning faster thanks to this brain, to better understand our thoughts and words this way.

B - I told you crows were smart.

I smile. We resume our journey in this colourful world.

Ana flies ahead, pulling this wider shadow of hers behind her.

~

It's like seeing the true nature of things.

Or a very different perspective at the very least.

The more we focus, and the more intriguing details we notice and learn from.

Like Bleue's patchwork nature, like a modern Prometheus. It shows.

Not that I look very much better oddly enough.

We can see through her flesh, different influences that originated from as many other beings. Now they are all a working symbiotic chimera, or very well tuned mechanism, but Bleue is the child of more than one thing.

We know there's some of myself, of Licht, of Blume, a few other human fragments, even a little bit from a male german brain I know Blume had along, and finally the dark one.

Well, not finally. If there are cells or elements that once belonged to Ogre, there's mostly other things, and no way to tell for sure which is which now. The colours are twirling endlessly in there.

There are leftovers from a few other people or things we don't quite recognise, though they feel familiar.

It's hard to tell. This new sense, or this set of new perceptions, have their limits and we're new to them. We can smell some of the history and memory these flows carry, but it's more like a perfume and colour reminding you of something you've known before. It's not like opening a book and reading the answers.

Looking at myself after Bleue, I'm a good cluster of madness as well anyway.

The influence of Dragod's architecture is still lingering in my flesh. Blume is also still heavily present inside of me. She looks completely inactive though. Maybe if we one day see her again, new roses would sprout across my chest.

But I was surprised to see how much of her is constituting me.

I also carry scars of a rip around my neck, as if I had been beheaded, and repaired later. I think it's a memory, given I also carry visible scars of lost limbs. My left hand has a phantom memory of once being bitten and shred. I can recognise the scratch, teeth and claw marks around my arms, legs, shoulders.... Too many to count.

There are also phantasmal remnants of Blume's body all around my flesh. The flower buds, the briars, vines and brambles ready to sprout, the ribbons around my waist. They are like dormant seeds or memories that could reactivate someday if needs to.

The more we focus our new gaze onto something, the more it drains and we see of it. It gets tiring however. After one hour or so of high focus, our head hurts.

And when we're tired, our second sight vanishes. The things become less and less visible as we get closer to sleep or hungry. These senses consume lots of our energy it would seem.

We eat more. And we have fun.

~

It's unusual, but one of these days hiking west, we decided to train ourselves a little on swordsmanship.

We had found a square that made us think of an arena. A place lost in this sparkling forest, we found a large open field, in the middle of which lied a clean floor of wide stones.

Like the ruins of a castle, at the summit of a fallen kingdom. It has some unexpected charm with the wilderness surrounding it.

We equipped ourselves and covered the blades of the two swords with cloth. Then we drew the swords on each other.

I am far more experienced than Bleue with this weapon, but...

Something made us think we should train a little more.

And before we do, Bleue thought we should try to fight each other seriously.

Of course that makes me feel a little uneasy, but I can't pretend it's a bad idea.

The better way to train oneself is facing someone else. Stronger preferably.

I slash Bleue's shoulders and legs, hurting her despite the precautions we took. She launched a counter offensive as I was about to call the fight off. Our sword went to contact. Bleue punched me. I knocked her out with the pummel of my sword. I felt bad doing it, but I didn't restrain myself as decided before.

She forgave me right away, as she came back for another round with a swollen cheekbone.

However as I was parring her, this time she whistled for reinforcement. I stepped back, afraid for a second.

The huge and suddenly scary silhouette of Ana was diving right at me. I escaped its talons by waving my sword at her.

Bleue struck me in the ribs as I was doing so. Breath cut. I fell on my knee.

Something dark covered my sight.

Bleue was about to strike me, as if to kill me. My thorny instinct woke up and I blocked her blow despite the pain and lack of breath.

I threw a violent attack at her, sending her to fall.

Dark thoughts twirled around for a few seconds, and then I stopped.

We stopped there.

I held my ribcage as it hurts a lot. Bleue's face was puffy and grazed. Only Ana was fine.

We ate slowly that evening, as every movement hurt.

B - We need to train more... Ouch... That hurts.

R - Let's take it easy though next time, alright?

B - Alright...

We see the stars above us. And the night rainbows between them, and around us.

We will train to use best what we have, together. But we'll find a better way to do so.

~