Dragon Mirror- Ties Between the Veil
Two: The Mirror, The Journey, and First Contact

Time flows like water…

That was the only coherent thought Raina could make sense of as she floated within an impossible situation. Time became tangible to her, but it did not rush from one place to another as a river runs from mountain to sea. It swirled in eddies and deep currents, layers upon layers upon yet more layers.

She had no sense of direction or sense of self within the ocean, nay, the universe that was Time. Frozen icebergs of time drifted, pockets of steam, frenetic action speeding into expanded bubbles of Time growing, collapsing, condensing, dissipating. She suddenly felt movement, her being was melting within time. Her mind's vision expanded, rising on ridges of vapor.

Two women, strong of back, long of limb, coalesced from the vapor that was Raina. One was dark, with skin tinted the color of red ochre. The other had pale skin, porcelain shoulders rising above a sleeveless dress. Their faces were identical, golden hair fell in sheets, streaked black on one twin, and white/silver on the other. Their coloring was the only difference that set them apart. Something about their faces tickled the edges of her recognition.

Suddenly two pairs of bright ocean green blue eyes were riveted on her awareness.

“Wisdom.” The twin with black streaked hair whispered.

“Youth.” Spoke the other silver/white streaked twin.

The stripes of odd colors expanded in her view, swirling about within her mind. Raina was enveloped in the contrast of black and white, propelled forward until she felt crushed against the pressure building around her. She was being torn apart, her mind being clawed apart by Time. Colors burst from the cracks between white and black.

She saw glimpses of the black haired twin exiting a house, meeting a ginger man while carrying two toddlers with bright flaming hair, laughing. She looked older, but when she turned to someone exiting behind her, it was the silver streaked twin who looked so very young.

Another scene of the twins, the now elder aged twin holding a sobbing youthful twin who stood by a grave. Several red headed children stood solemnly by what looked to be the elderly twin’s grown children and their partners.

Heat and cold contrasted deep inside the core of her mind, the contrast elevating with the increase of pressure. Immediately, she felt the urge to scream, to let loose sound within the conflagration of beset senses, to fill the void of silence.

Liquid song poured forth, leaping outward, as voracious as liquid fire. Emotions built upon the bricks of song, the foundation of Time giving rise to the basilica of comprehensible words and the mental image of the silver haired twin standing before a wide mirror speaking in pentameter.

I’m struggling to breathe. I’m trapped in a spiral of pain and I try to release. Like a birth of a language that sings instead of subliminal. Your existence gives me the Wind. I inhale the perfume of fantasy and whimsy and art.

Parallel play ensues. I give everything to you. Yet the Horizon draws towards Us, and the precipice draws out a Line in this matrix of Souls. I am One in the euphoric unity of Joy and Saddness.

The woman pushed forward one hand, and the material of the mirror streamed outward to circle down her fingers and her arm.

A tandem cycle of Discovery and ReBirth.

Will we meet at the Helix of Time?

Repeating our Fathers mistakes?

Ignoring the Wisdoms of our Mothers?

She yanked her arm back, and the mirror fractured into soft droplets that floated around her body like stars.

Empty is the smile of a Child that grimaces in Fear. Until that Fear is replaced with sugar coated Lies in the landscape of Memory.

Is there ever an Ending? If every Voice is stolen from me- will I awaken, renewed to a new Level of Entrapment? I still think of you.

The fragments of the mirror began to shine, and the pale silver haired twin threw her head back, her face a rictus of pain. Her body began to fracture into streamers that flowed into the fractals.

And the fear of seeing you- reminding me of our time on our bed, Breathing for Eachother. It drives me forward to Escape.

Her mouth opened in a silent scream, but her voice continued. Her entire body began to flicker brightly, dissipating into the Mirror fragments.

But there is no Escape. Below is only Madness. Upward is Release UnEnding. But always the mistake is uttered- Inward we Fall. Yet Inward is not Below. And the view on High gives Illusions. To know All is to know One. And to know One is unfathomable.

The stars flashed blindingly, leaving the negative after image of the woman bowed backward in agony. And when the light faded, the woman, and the mirror within the frame… was gone.

What lingered behind was the vibrating sound, a rhapsody that slowly faded out, drawing the colors inward in Raina’s mind

The colors shifted as the song tapered away, the litany still hummed from her, but the song was muted. Scenes began to flash by again, giving Raina the nauseating sensation that the world was spinning.

One of the Twins, her hair streaked silver, hugging a wizened old woman with white hair peppered with black. Light surrounded them, illuminating the hollow and sorrow stricken faces of dozens of children….

Two centaurs, creatures half horse, half human, facing each other. Their forms shifting and merging, their faces overcome with looks of wrath-

A kingly man kneeling in front of a dais supporting his throne. His keen black eyes watch avidly as an elderly crone tosses bones across an inlaid seal on a marble floor…

Water falling endlessly into a pit, showering the uplifted boughs of a great tree. Leaves with feathered edges cast a blue light, scattering the perception of an underground cavern…

The ground rushing past like a great river. The sensation of flight as golden light reflects off of-

Eyes. Dark, angry eyes. Blink. Eyes. Blue as a summer sky. Blink. Eyes. White and vacant. Eyes. Eyes staring. Curious. Wrathful. Covetous.

EYES. RED EYES.

Blink. Green. Blink. Blue. Blink. Purple. Blink.

Kaleidoscope eyes. Slit pupils narrowing.

Light.

PAIN. HURT.

“You do not deserve this gift!” A voice flowing like silt mud.

…….Darkness…..

“We- yo- ded.” Words, choppy and indistinct. Filtered through a fan. Where-? Zhao?

“Weave -red.” The words were spoken in patience. Raina lifted her head, grimacing as it pounded in time with an endless whirring noise. She tried to open her eyes.

“Where -you…. Time?” Her senses kept fading in and out, the lingering melody of a song dancing with the spoken words. She squinted up at the speaker. Sight eluded her.

“What?” She felt rather than heard a sigh. Raina was gently helped to a sitting position. Her hands were clasped within cool, silken digits. A presence leaned toward her and spoke into her ear. Her skin prickled.

“Where will you weave your thread into Time? You must pick your Key, mold yourself, card the fibers of your being. Choose the placing of your thread… You must be born.”

“I- I am already born.”

Laughter fell about her like tinkling glass. She hesitated as her hands were guided to something metallic and round like a bowl.

Raina opened her eyes a bit more, and her sense of vision was bombarded by color. Before her was arranged an assembly of life. Silvery platinum bowls lay under her outstretched hands, each filled with multi-colored discs.

One was full of discs that shone in gemlike colors of water. Blues, ocean greens, gray yellow sea foam, undulating softly as if the tides were trapped in solid state. The sounds of crashing waves and trickling streams bounced inside her head.

Another bowl glowed with the reds and oranges of firelight. The bowl emanated the ruby tones of crackling wildfire, the growling rumble of lava flow.

Bowls full of a quiet green, bright bird calls and the deep emerald and browns of an ancient forest, of white silvery light and the sensations of high winds touched by the gray dawn of storm clouds, dark loamy earth freshly turned in the spring, glittering mica and geodes safely sequestered beneath Gaia’s crust… all encased within round discs the size of her pendant.

She glanced up to the one who directed her and stared right into her own visage. Raina gasped, withdrawing her hands, and instinctively clutched her grandmother’s pendant.

Herself leaned back. “Ah, I see you have already chosen your Key, and molded the fibers of your own destiny.” The eyes of her doppelganger shifted in color like a kaleidoscope, a rainbow undulating about silvery slit pupils.

The hypnotizing eyes turned away, breaking the dizzying contact they held over her. The doppelganger gazed over her shoulder, regarding something in quiet contemplation. She turned back, seizing her attention once more.

“If I may, I will choose where to weave your thread into the Tapestry of Time?” The inquiry sounded more like a statement to her ears, and all she could do was nod numbly in compliance. Her doppelganger stood up straight, making a sweeping gesture with her hands. She plucked several discs from the selection of bowls, lifting them to her breast. They glowed, and as she lowered her hands, Raina saw a similar copy of her dragon pendant nestled in the collection of discs.

The discs began to unravel as if they were balls of jeweled yarn. They flowed together, braiding intricately… She turned revealing a long flowing tapestry, and plucked several threads loose, tying them together with the material in her possession. A non-committal grunt emitted from the doppelganger.

“It seems the balance demands its payment.” She clutched at the air, seemingly drawing a darkness into her palm, and viciously twisted the dull blackness into the weave. Raina felt her heart leap in anguish, wincing as the dark miasma contaminated the bright braid that seemed to represent her life.

Raina’s soul was suddenly jerked forward as her doppelganger moved a shuttle across the tapestry weave, binding her life within the OtherWorld. Darkness closed in on the edges of her vision, and she did not have the time to panic as it rose to engulf her consciousness.

Jrash leaned back on his heels away from the collapsed lump of flesh and fabric on the forest floor. Hazel eyes glanced questioningly at his companion. Color shifting eyes slit by silver blinked back. Sunlight reflected off of blue feathered scales as a muscular roll of withers affirmed a similar confusion.

Don’t ask me, discover for yourself.

The feminine voice was churlish, hiding mutual ignorance. Or possibly an unwillingness to share secrets. The tone reverberated in his sinuses, making him scowl. He crouched forward again, taking his dirk and using its hilt to gently prod the prostrate form.

A raspy groan emitted abruptly, surprising him. He had half expected that it was a corpse of an unwary traveler.

Maybe not a corpse, but still unwary. Jrash rolled his eyes.

Stop eavesdropping in my thoughts.

Then stop projecting them.

His lips tightened in irritation at his traveling companion. She was such an uppity overgrown lizard. A loud whuffle sounded behind him, and he grinned at her annoyance.

A head of golden hair lifted in the dappled sunlight, revealing silvered highlights. He jerked back as another moan ground out into a growl, and a tan hand with a rosy golden tint lifted to part the mane of bright hair. The action revealed luminous green eyes, squinted in confusion.

“Zhao?” The voice denoted the being female. Her clothing was a strange flimsy weave top and heavier rough leggings of blue.

“What is your name?” He winced as his voice came out in a hushed whisper. His companion moved closer, her long sinuous neck dipping down to smell the stranger’s odd clothing.

A stifled shriek was wrenched out of the girl’s throat when his companion moved forward. The visage of a horse shaped head, covered in tiny featherlike scales, haloed by a crest of fur and feathers alarmed her. The crest flattened at the unexpected shriek, then slowly rose again.

Do not fear me, Child. I am Tralna, Sacred of the first born Drakonis. She withdrew her head, watching her with eyes shifting to the blue and green of amusement. The crest of white feathers along her neck lifted, casting bright reflections of light and dark shadow across the lithe body the shape of an overlarge lion.

Jrash stood up, reaching inside his travel pack that was mounted behind a minute saddle, really, no more than a formed leather blanket that lay across Tralna’s back. He retrieved his water canteen and squatted down to offer it to the girl.

He could feel the calming effect of Tralna’s empathy and watched as the tension slid from the girl’s shoulders as she sat up. Her eyes seemed mesmerized by Tralna’s long tail that swept from side to side with a tuft of fanning feathers flexing rhythmically.

She spoke, but in a language he did not expect.

“Where? Where am I?” Jrash lost his breath, and a few moments of coherent thought. Who or what was this person?

She speaks Darkuni. One of the languages spoken on the other side of the Mirror. Tralna tilted her head. You do not speak it fluently enough, but your grandmother does. True Speech will reach her, until she can learn the common Szrathian tongue.

She turned her attention to the girl. And Jrash was surprised as the girl held out a tentative hand in awe. Tralna lowered her muzzle to blow into the girl’s palm. Large silvered pupils dilated and caught the girls' gaze.

What is your name?

“R- Raina…” She blinked repeatedly, “I- I…” Her eyes lost focus and she fell forward, losing consciousness.

Tralna looked down at the prone girl, then over to her travel mate. She is in shock, which is not surprising since she has fallen through the Drakun Mirror from somewhere far away. A serpentine tongue darted out to taste the girl’s hair. My Drakunmate, she will know what to do. It is time we returned home anyways.

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