Chương 173: Act 3, Chapter 27: All the crutches

Day in the story: 12th January (Monday), morning I was sitting on the couch in our shared room, observing the overgrown wall opposite me, with a hot tea in my hand. The aroma was getting to me, filling me with warmth and comfort, while around fifteen of my paper spiders were climbing that wall or walking around the room's floor like they owned it. Liora sat on the table in front of me, his head following one of the closest arachnids.

I asked him to move a bit so I could straighten my only leg left, which, to my good humor, was the right one—reminding me of my own Domain's trial—but he ignored me completely.

"Seriously? You aren't going to move?" I asked him, but he turned to me and closed his eyes slowly while showing his teeth.

"You are angry at me or something?" It was the first day since they cut off a part of me that I was back at home. Sophie and Zoe helped me move out of the hospital, which in my case boiled down to them being there during my release, as I promptly took the chance to just disappear from there and come back here. Now both of them were at uni, while I was doing my own kind of research—observing my creations and listening to various songs on Spotify to find the ones that had a clear identity in my mind.

So far I had found a few that could represent fire with their erratic rhythms, escalating energy, and sharp vocal bursts. One, with an ambient build-up and rain-like textures, reminded me of a slowly manifesting storm, saturating the time right before striking. And while I was pretty sure that those flammable melodies would just burst into flames as soon as I gave the notes Authority to do so and continue to burn at the point of change, I was entirely at a loss about what would happen in the case of the storm.

The entire music-identity thing was a mind-bender to me. The boundaries of a physical medium were restricted and defined by space, and understandably the art would not be able to leave it. That suggested to me that whatever I manifested through music would be bound by the length of the song and the area in which it could be heard—a strong maybe on that part, as the music always existed in three-dimensional space.

I could not have tried it out in the hospital, and I couldn't here either, but I was planning on hitting my Domain after breakfast and confirming my suspicions later today. For now, I was focused on finding more songs for my practice. I went with movie soundtracks first, as it was what worked for me so far, and naturally I continued with the one OST that did. Hans Zimmer's Time would be my second check.

It felt to me like something designed specifically to give weight to time—slowing down movements and reactions, making it something that would hinder things temporally. There were a few songs that triggered strong emotional responses—a sense of dread and an urgency to run—or something on the complete opposite end of the spectrum: relentless pacing without a single wasted beat that could be used as an identity enforcing momentum forward. Collapse or decay were also ideas I had for a few songs.

This new avenue of my power reminded me that there were a few more paths I never explored, being so focused on my own experiences. Dancing and poems would probably work as well, once I finally realized how they could express identity and what medium they were bound to. And in case of the latter reciting some classical lines to trigger a spell, would be the most traditional and on-the-go spellcasting I'd be able to do.

My own artistic upbringing and focus were the crutches I used to move through the magical world, but they were restricting my movements as much as they helped me get things done. I giggled, which brought the attention of my dragon back to me.

"Now you're interested?" I asked him.

"I was imagining myself casting a spell by doing an incantation mid-fight like wizards from legends." His color changed to yellow to suggest interest, and both that swap of hues and my earlier musings about saying something to cast gave me another idea.

"Lio, the eyes you create on your scales—could you create a human-looking mouth on them that way?" I asked, and he turned fully to me, finally giving me his full attention. Then the scales around the area where his neck met his chest began changing colors as he looked at my own face for reference. After just a few seconds he had lips there that satisfied my Verisimilitude's sense. I reached out for them and asked them to become his own mouth.

The light of magic, coming from both my soul and the other world, took its place within the draconic creation, settling inside.

"Can you speak with a human voice now?" He thundered with a deep bass so unfitting for his small frame that I winced and took a step back. At first, the sounds coming out of the mouth were pure gibberish—strings of letters that made no sense at all. The mouth moved in strange patterns, shaping itself this way and that as he experimented with how it worked. For a good few minutes he flew around, spouting nonsense or something that almost sounded like a proper word, until he finally returned to me.

He stopped midair and spoke directly at me, staring down at the mouth on his chest.

"The sounds you make are funny, but you bet I can!" he cackled like a human, hissing with laughter as he lifted both front paws, marveling at his own power.

"Finally! I had to learn how to make the proper sounds! It was getting bothersome to instruct you, human!"

"You are much different from what I expected," I told him.

"Was he always like this, Ani?" [Pretty much, yes. A bit drunk on his own power and full of himself, but otherwise a good guy. He reminds me of someone else in that aspect.]"Are you suggesting that I am like her, mind spirit?" Lio asked, clearly hearing Anansi in his own head or soul, just like I did. [That's spot on. Good job!]"I can understand now what Oppenheimer felt when he watched the nuke go off. I feel like I made a terrible mistake."

"Too late now, human. When do we go hunting!?"

"Honestly, I don't know, Lio. I need to have a prosthesis for that. I can't imagine myself fighting while standing on the battlefield with crutches."

"Why don't humans fly? Can't you do it? You wouldn't need a leg for that."

"We don't fly because we don't have wings, and gravity is too strong a force for us to just ignore as we please." I winked at him.

"You mean the thing that brings things down when they are up. I feel it too."

"How are you flying then?"

"I don't listen to those rules. I am the king of the skies and they are my kingdom. No puny force will tell me what to do there."

"I am telling you what to do. I ask you often."

"I chose you, therefore you are special. You can enjoy the benefits of my presence." I wanted to remind him that he is bound to me and would have to follow me if I ordered him, but I caught myself from doing that. I gave him my word that I would treat him as a friend and not my subject, and I would.

"I'd do the fighting. You would watch it." He finally returned to the previous topic as he noticed me diverging too much from it. I scratched him behind the horns and he purred like an oversized, glorious cat. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"I didn't know you liked it so much," I answered him honestly.

"I thought you liked speed, freedom, and art."

"Yes. Creation and destruction in equal parts. Such is the way of the dragon for me. And the skies are my kingdom, so I have to show myself, so they don't forget."

"Makes sense." I said, finishing my tea, taking the crutches leaning against the bed and using them to get to the kitchen, where my blueberry and nuts oatmeal was cooling down to an appropriate eating temperature. I preferred my food on the cold side rather than hot. Tea was a drink and the only exception—everything else could be dead cold and I'd consume it anyway.

"You will eat now. Sustenance before the fight, human?"

"Can you call me Alexa, Lex, or one of my other names when I am using them? You seem smart enough to understand the use of names, right?" I asked him while taking the first spoonful.

"I can," he said, flaring green.

"It's not that I don't respect you. Of course I do, otherwise I would not have chosen you. It's that it's the first time we speak."

"You wanted to impress me with your prowess?"

"Yes." He hissed.

"Lio, my cloud serpent. I am always impressed by you. Whether you paint a seabed, a meadow full of flowers, or rip a vampire to shreds to save me. Even when you cuddle with me. If you want to behave like a big, bad dragon, go ahead and do so. I really don't mind. Just know that I appreciate you anyway."

"That's appropriate, Alexandra. I will reign the skies on your behalf, my… master."

"I am not your master, Liora. You might be bound to me, and as I said I might ask and you may refuse, although know that I count on you when I ask about something." I told him, looking at the crutches I left standing against the kitchen island.

"I will repay the kindness." He replied, stopping his ascent on invisible stairs around my face level and lying in the air there with his head elevated to look at what I was eating.

"I could send you to the concrete jungle if you want to go hunt alone. Anansi could teleport you to me on her own if you tell her that you need it, right, spidey?" [Yes. I can. I don't think that it's a good idea to stroke his ego with power over me, though.]"Guys, let it not be all about the power or who is above whom, okay? Let's be partners in all of this. We are all living as pretty much one soul anyway." Took another spoon. The oatmeal was okayish.

Spending time and eating at Lebens skewed my appreciation of food toward the high end of the spectrum too much.

"I have made my decision. Let me hunt. I will inform the spider when the prey poses no challenge, or will come when you call me in time of need."

"Great." I replied as my spellbook materialized in front of me and I placed my hand flat on top. Lio bounced off some vertical invisible platform, then the second one, and landed on my knees.

"May the winds be glorious, human!" he said and hissed.

"Alexandra! May the winds be glorious, Alexandra!" He corrected himself, standing proud. I sent him to the hunting grounds as a reward.

"Will he be okay?" [Yes. You two fought there extensively. I will also keep an eye on him and pull the string when necessary.]"It's time to test those songs, isn't it?" [Yes. It is.] I grabbed the crutches and stood up straight thanks to them and my one good leg. Asking the world to move has become second nature for me, but it was kind of a big deal, wasn't it? I wasn't moving inside the space so much as making everything move for me instead.

In the grand scheme of things the difference was irrelevant, of course, but it made me feel important and appreciated by the universe as I appeared on the plaza of my Domain. It had been sunny here and warm—the world caught in perpetual spring, when everything was waking up from the long slumber of winter. I squinted my eyes, looking at the distant wood-covered hills, and lowered the gravity around me to a level that allowed me to stand on one leg without any issues, letting me put my crutches away on the ground.

With a few quick jumps I moved closer to the edge of the agora, where I reached for my phone with all the musical creations I needed already downloaded. I went into the menu of the thing and into the settings, looking for Bluetooth options. I turned it on and opened it to search for new devices. I reached for one of my sound cards that I had painted to look like a Bluetooth speaker and turned it on by providing the necessary Authority.

Shadowlight danced around my hand briefly, like an eel hiding between the rocks beneath the surface, catching stray white light coming from above, before it went straight into the rectangular piece of paper, saturating it with blues and whites until it shone no more. I looked at my phone, where a pairing request appeared on the screen. It made me smile when I read the name: Cloudy Day, Test Card 01. I allowed the process and the phone confirmed it was successful.

Apparently information, light, or whatever it was that was at work here was allowed to go in and out of my creations freely. It was the same with eyes and ears anyway—both needed light and sound to enter the paintings for me to see and hear, so no surprises there. I threw the card away and it shone silver as it accepted my Authority to become steely. It soared briefly before dropping into the grass around fifty paces away.

I clicked play on the device and Riders on the Storm started playing, centered on the card's position. The sound of thunder and rain began immediately, and the softer metallic cymbals of percussion joined in, building the ambience. When the voice started singing with barely noticeable echoes, I sent my Authority into the mix of the sounds, letting it settle within." Become the storm," I whispered into the wind.

The music continued to play, but it had a companion now—the unmistakable sound of real rain striking the grass below. Clouds gathered out of nowhere—thick, black, swelling masses forming in the air above the fallen card. The densest of them churned at the center, but their reach stretched outward until even I stood beneath their shadow. Darkness rolled across the land, split open now and then by lightning threading its way through the bellies of those storm-heavy shapes.

A tear slipped down my cheek, and I stepped back, out from directly under the growing weight of it. The first lightning bolt struck the ground seconds later. A blinding fracture of light. Then another. Then another. Each one tearing through sky and earth in uneven intervals. It went on for seven minutes—seven long, trembling minutes of clouds weeping with me, of thunder answering a power within my soul—giving it the life. I could only stare.

For the first time in my life, it felt like I had made something from nothing. This wasn't paper masquerading as flame. The sound itself had become matter—had unfolded into cloud, into rain, into unleashed force. It roared because I had willed it to roar. And yet it obeyed a boundary. The storm collapsed precisely when the song have ended. The rain softened, the thunder stilled, the clouds thinning. My theory confirmed—it had a duration, a frame. Even this fury was structured.

It too was a projection, something cast into three-dimensional space through time, convinced it was weather. But conviction was enough. It was the gift I gave. The grass was wet. The air smelled charged. The ground bore the marks of impact. Animation and Identity had performed for me again—had woven sound into substance and let it loose across the sky—and I stood there utterly enchanted, baptized in rain that hadn't existed minutes before.

"It was real," I whispered to Anansi. [Yes. All your magic is.]"This felt different, Ani." [It's only because music is not corporeal and therefore more difficult to imagine becoming what it represents. A painting changing into something else is no less magical than what you just witnessed.]"I was lucky too. If one of those lightning bolts had struck the card, the storm would have probably ended on the spot. No music, no storm." [That seems likely. Yes.]"It's still a great tool I could use."

[You are planning on using it against him?]"Yes, Ani. I will turn all of his allies against him until he stands alone. If I can't beat him in a fair fight, I will make it as unfair as it can possibly be. It feels only proper, you know?" [How so?]"I see her sometimes when I close my eyes—like I saw her during my trial. Part woman, part spider queen, carved from obsidian and moonstone. Webs stretched around her, shining with dew and refracting rainbows.

That other Alexa reminds me that I should be like the spider too. You remind me of that. I like those creatures now. I never truly did before, so it must be coming from her as well. I know them. They weave silk into art—webs, parachutes, cocoons, anchor lines, even diving bells. Did you know that?" [Yes.]"They are artists of the animal kingdom, just as we humans are. But their webs are more than art. They are extensions of perception.

They sit at the center and when something touches the silk, they feel it instantly—the size, the struggle, the exact position. The web speaks to them. It tells them when and how to strike.

"I need to be like that again. To return to my thieving roots. Setting traps. Designing systems that speak back to me. Executing them cleanly.

"There is a jumping spider called Portia—a tiny thing. I based your body on it. It's small beyond reason, yet it studies prey larger than itself. It watches. It plans. It calculates the angle. It waits for the perfect moment before it moves." [That does seem like a proper path for you. The way of an artist.]"Yes. Liora has his way of the dragon. I have my way of the spider. I will paint, pretend, and cast webs until everyone is exactly where I need them to be. I will feel every movement before it reaches me.

"And when the moment comes," I said softly, "I will strike properly."