Coils of Fate Page70

If you're following this series in order, click here next . For more information on the entire series, read the "'Demon's Due' Defined" journal entry here faile35.deviantart.com/journal… or the "'Demon's Due' Plus" journal entry here faile35.deviantart.com/journal… .

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Drea is impelled from within, her vision blasting through the mural before her. She is moving, much faster than she can run, leaving mural, altar, chamber, and darkness behind. It is not a dream--there are no familiar images, fears, or hopes of the day merged sporadically and bordered in vague sensation. What the Magistrate sees, hears, touches, smells, and tastes is crystal clear and absolutely free of subjective emotion.

She hovers precariously in an expanse that is endless, yet enclosed. The boundaries of enclosure float within the space itself instead of wrapping around it; thus the bounds are paradoxically held within the space they define, like an open prison cell with its bars and door free-floating around its interior. About the dark, spherical boundaries sprawls an infinity of motes and sparks of color, their hint of motion and energy coalescing into massive bodies like translucent clouds--it is difficult to distinguish where one ends and the next begins, while the distinct identity of each is obvious when viewing them at large. The Magistrate senses that the clouds are aware of and observing her, like kingdoms of individuals all gazing up in unison at the moon.

Abruptly Drea feels again the will she gave words to moments before. It is a declaration of identity, a definition of agency and power. The force she has called "Harbinger" arcs through the expanse like a bolt of brilliant, curved lightning. The cloud kingdoms in its rolling path seem to reach out for it where they are consumed and vanish with it's passing, replaced by completely new and different cloud-bodies in its wake.

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For those who are curious about exactly which controlled substance I was "on" when I thought this up, it's actually a loose interpretation of a waking fever-dream I've had off and on since I was a youngster. As odd as it sounds, I think learning mathematics has helped me arrest and make sense of the dream, so that in the last 10 years, whenever I've been feverish and had it, I haven't become unnerved by it.

But it used to terrify me.

And, just so people can keep things straight on the timeline ( comments.deviantart.com/1/1701… ), we've now transitioned to about 3:40 pm, although time has a different meaning and passage where Drea is, currently.

Drea's stock model has been pinpointed as a wonderful, anonymous stock model. My thanks to her!

As far as publication of this storyline goes, things are moving, and if you want to know how, you should watch the journal updates posted by collared-by-faile .

Enjoy!