The critter of no spur

  (Two months, or shimmers, '*after*' the death of Dorrad Chaos.)

  Heber

  "In summary, the culture of Dorrad Den is too different from Kyūkeisho's, Their space follows none of our natural laws save for the passage of time (which they track with nothing but intuition), they have a bizarre pantheon without its own music and what they consider to be death is more like a dream. Given the ample evidence sourced in this study it is concluded that Dorrad Den and Kyūkeisho are separate worlds, connected only through the clasp of time." Heber writes the last of the passage, exhausted and frustrated. She had begun this essay almost a year ago and throughout that year she learned so much of Dorrad Den. The scholars of Heber's time are naive, they think Kyūkeisho takes a turn in time (coming back around under the pseudonym 'Dorrad Den'.) It was ridiculous way back when and now it is outrageous, there never was any evidence to suggest Kyūkeisho and Dorrad Den are the same world.

  Janrala, the man in charge of protecting Heber and a temporary military director, walks into Heber's room just as a scribe leaves with the freshly completed essay. "It's done?" Jan says, excited to meet with Heber post-work.

  "Yes, an edit, a review and a scholarly endorsement are all that remain." Heber huffs, bringing a cup of coffee to her mouth.

  To the present party, the natural form is assumed. Jan is seven feet tall, a bipedal creature with the visage of a lion with it's golden mane, tail, whiskers and fur. Heber is around five feet posing the visage of a fox, bipedal as well. The demons of Kyūkeisho are clever little critters that evolved the ability to revise their shape, now as the prominent species on Kyūkeisho they have little need for the ability, making it completely cosmetic. Some find it a challenge to change from their natural form as it personally represents a perspective of their status in society. Heber strikes her mind away from this dialogue-train, hours of writing the essay had shaped her thoughts into this incredibly obnoxious scholarly tone.

  "What about you Jan, any news?" Heber asks, biting her tongue. The topic of their last conversation still raw, a dispute that lasted almost three hours. At its root Jan was trying to shift his focus from escorting Heber into Dorrad Den to becoming a full time military leader. Jan was Heber's only way between worlds, other passages exist yet none were allowed by Lord Gale for use and none were as safe.

  "I actually just stopped by on my way to meet with Lord Gale about my new role in his military." Heber had tried so hard to get Jan to change his mind, refusing to respect his choice in the matter. This was Jan's one chance to seize the power of their military and make way for his legacy as their greatest military leader. Heber wanted him to give that all up so they could frolic off to Dorrad Den together, she often told him of all the sights he was missing out on, yet here his name remained and here he would be buried. Jan was not planning to give up his future for an extended vacation in Dorrad Den.

  Heber understood yet her pain remained, a lucid mind was never the solution to this pain. Last they talked about this Jan was only thinking about it, Heber had always thought he was content to spend his days in Dorrad Den with her. What rumor it was back then had now festered into fact and fear that quashed Heber's heart like a bug.

  "Well I don't want to keep Lord Gale waiting." Jan interrupts Heber's internal panic, walking out of the room.

  'Look how quickly he is done.' Heber thinks, remembering all the days spent out in Dorrad Den with him, all sinking into the hopeless distance, soon to be forgotten by them both. It wasn't like this was the last she would see of Jan, they make meals together, they live in the same house and sleep in the same bed. 'If Lord Gale sends me to Dorrad Den I'm happy to go.' Jan had once said, a joke of a promise. Heber knew her father, it was conquest of Kyūkeisho first, and then the inevitable return to Kyūkeisho Castle (which was nearly impossible considering it had been shattered off the face of the planet years ago and now floated miles above.)

  These ruminations escalate with Heber pacing in her room, her feet quickly going stiff from the stress, as the passage of time slips out from underneath her. Once Heber begins screaming, about the end of Dorrad Den and the death of this and that, her nurses rush to her aid; holding Heber's hands and head, counting up from one until finally she returns to the mundane present. For the next half hour Heber's nurses help put on her wedding dress for the evening gala.

  ---

  Elder Janrala

  Jan sits in the waiting room of the library, a place to serve prep for traveling between worlds. The library is a tall structure made out of books, media fills the shelves and media makes the shelves. Dorrad Den was bizarre to Jan even one month ago yet this last month, the time he's had to read about Dorrad Den, illuminated how truly different the Den is from Kyūkeisho. Jan awaits his turn by reading a passage of a book written by Heber (the library was filled with them since Heber spent much of her time here conspiring with the owner, the Ortaro named Matrix.)

  The book's topic is on a focal part of Dorrad Den and Kyūkeisho (the passage and measuring of time.) Measuring time in Kyūkeisho is simple, the planet makes a full rotation called a day and a portion of that is an hour, a portion of that is a minute and so on. In Dorrad Den it has been common place for ages to use the mood swings of gods to measure time (for example, a bout of depression always takes the same amount of time and so a 'depression' is one measurement of time, referred to with other, more poetic, terms.) Something like a year relates to a 'moon' and something like a day relates to a 'glow'. This has always been Jan's favorite work Heber produced because she mention's Jan on multiple occasions, citing him as her escort between worlds.

  The passage between worlds, known as the clasp of time, is only accessed during the right moment and position (both of which Jan can discern using a sense of feeling, the rest is more like a push.) Its similar to the act of finding something on the floor of a dark room. The connection between worlds and its many implications make up the major subject of the book. In the passage Heber relates the worlds like a confluent river, two currents running their course only to collide and become one, both currents flowing in opposite directions. 'The river of Dorrad Den runs east, up time, and Kyūkeisho runs west, down time.'

  "Times up Jan, you ready?" Matrix, the owner of the library and the author of most books that make up the library, is leaning in through an opening in the many books that make up this rooms walls.

  "Yep" Jan exhales the stress he had been pushing down and slaps shut his book.

  The two walk down a hall, towards the entrance of the library. It had been one month, for Jan, since his refuge at the library yet for Matrix it was all one day, possibly the busiest day of her entire life. thirty one times Jan had entered and left the library and thirty one times she fed him and took notes on his experiences, all in one day. There were thirty other Janrala's here in the library in their own waiting rooms, often the library was used like this as Matrix was an exceptional manager for the task. Any amount of your selves could be passing between worlds on a given day and so it's smart to have a place you can house those many selves.

  This Janrala was the thirty first, the last one. Whatever happens in Kyūkeisho this time either kills Jan or leaves him satisfied, either way he's going to keep at this quest to discover what happened that night at the gala. Jan remembered leaving the gala after his first time experiencing it, he had been fighting off a drunk and weakened mind while trying to escape the chaos of the night. Jan wondered if Heber was still alive, a hope he was letting slip away, no evidence had led him to believe she was out there. Determined, Jan steps out into the library's courtyard, takes a deep breath and reaches out across the clasp.

  In a suffocating moment Jan appears in a dark and vast place. Denizens and Dreamers call it the Deathal Void but Jan's people call it the clasp of time. A place where one travels physically between worlds. Jan stands atop a plateau, the ground made of a dark and viscous material. Far off the plateau massive visages of all shapes and sizes stumble along the black plains (Matrix had claimed they are old Gods but surely they were devils, what god mindlessly wanders like those shapes out there stumbling over their own size?) The plateau shapes up and away from Jan, and up he walks. The short journey is a great accomplishment to the unaccustomed, for Jan it was familiar as a nature hike.

  There at the top of the plateau sits a throne with its occupant, the Deathal Void. The throne is as simple as the rest of the ground, black and gooey with some simple shapes to garnish, the area littered with decaying body parts that give off the smell of burned bodies (A smell that haunts Jan a little less each time he passes through this place.)

  "Janrala, I know something that I believe you have guessed yourself." The Deathal Void a formless sprite uses the many body parts surrounding his throne as outfits to animate his actions.

  "I'm happy knowing what I know, don't need you getting your putrid..." Jan is interrupted.

  "This is the last time you pass through today, whatever happens this time around? it wont be pretty." The Deathal Void uses a skull to add a smile to the sentence.

  another suffocating moment and Jan is sent across the clasp of time where he appears in Kyūkeisho, half an hour before the gala. around the time his conversation with Heber had finished. Jan breaks into a sprint away from the gala's setting towards the forest.

  ---

  Lord Gale

  Lord Gale is sat in a room, dressed and ready for the gala, preparing a chocolate drink while awaiting the upcoming meeting with Jan. The room is decorated with the lord's armor and sword, a window looks upon a mountain known as 'The Worlds Wound' and next to the window is a painting of that same mountain with a dragon sitting on its peak. In front of Lord Gale is a table with incense and a small instrument that can be plucked with your thumbs to make a simple song along one octave. Lord Gale's attendant awaits at the door.

  "Jan and I will be in complete privacy when he arrives so please take a walk, I will remain in this room until the end of our meeting." Gale says with a controlling pattern.

  Immediately the young attendant steps outside, where two guards ward, and scurries off. In the moment of peace Lord Gale moves to the painting and admires it, the stature of the dragon atop The Worlds Wound, its dangerous ophidian eyes and the way it dwarfs the mountain by comparison. Lord Gale takes this painting with him where ever he goes, and never has he stayed in a room that faced away from the mountain. He would be that beast one day, looking down upon his land. In his old age Gale was rushing the process, trying so urgently to grasp as much of Kyūkeisho as he could. There is no pain greater than his legacy, if Gale dies today he will leave behind a useless daughter and a fractured kingdom. Gale laughs at this, the humor of it, tales of flying castles seemed so foolish now, how was he supposed to get up to a flying castle? Yet there it flew above Kyūkeisho making small talk with the stars.

  Kyūkeisho is fractured into many islands, to the east of The Worlds Wound lies one of the biggest islands; word had recently gotten back that this island now belonged to Lord Gale. Tonights gala was in celebration of this most recent conquest, being held at a hand picked town from which a perfect view of the conquered island could be achieved. There it floated in the sky, shattered off the surface of the planet, the Island closest to Kyūkeisho Castle. The supernal Janrala enters the small room with a bow.

  "Lord Gale forgive me for making you wait." Janrala says muffled by his bow.

  "Enough, I have you to thank, I might've needed my own excuse to avoid the gala." Gale huffs, forcing Janrala to his feet. "We're business partners after today Janrala, if all goes as planned you should already be up there claiming the castle for us."

  True that Janrala might already be enacting Gale's request, the mans ability to move along the clasp would enable him to do many things all at once. In secrecy Gale knew it was Janrala that enacted the conquering of this new island, Gale had been receiving letters, sometime in Janrala's future and Kyūkeisho's past he will be there on that island enacting Gale's will. These things often made Gale jealous of himself, sometime in his life Kyūkeisho would all be his but to know it all now as fact was an ache he could not cure. In a way Gale thinks this connects him to his daughter, Heber, who suffers from Niamance (An infection that causes its victims to know the path of time intimately, causing madness and a temporal slip in perception.) It's why Gale spends a fortune on so many nurses to watch over the useless girl, without their grounding practices she would quickly fall into madness.

  Janrala, shocked by the informal attitude, offers a surprised expression and a quip "Avoiding the Gala yet retaining its libations Lord Gale?" Trying his hardest to add to the informal tone.

  "Not so much that I would ruin your moment with my own indulgence, but yes I tried the local concocter's make, their drink is a beautiful floral alcohol but please, I insist we speak on the focus matter." Gale gestures to the other seat at the table.

  Janrala sits and when Gale presents a cup of the concoction Janrala happily sips, pleased by its flavor. Jan gets after something to say but Gale beats him to it "Later we can get a scribe to run the details by you, I did not ask you here to say what we already know, you will be given charge over my military. Its this upcoming week that I wanted to talk to you about." Gale pauses to take a sip.

  "You wanted to talk about the honeymoon?" Janrala asks extra curious.

  "Oh I never understood that fools tradition, besides, you're married now what difference would a honeymoon make? No I wanted to plan a hunting trip with you. I hear the local songbirds are quite the game." Pleased with himself Lord Gale knew he grasped Jan with this simple offer. Well it was hardly an offer, Gale knows how to play Jan. The poor boy was probably pretending to be torn up about it inside but inevitably there would be no honeymoon.

  Janrala

  "I have heard of those songbirds, I talked to one of the village hunters and he told me they spend days tracking just one bird to learn its song. Apparently all the hunters keep the songs memorized to save the bird from being forgotten." Janrala tries this, avoiding portrayal of his innermost emotions.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Gale moves over to doors that lead out to a balcony bringing the pitcher and a cup "Very well Janrala, it is settled. We leave in the morning and tonight? Lets begin the evening by finishing this drink." A jolly tone coming from the attitude of a bad winner but Jan complies and together they drink.

  For some time they stay to admire the floral alcohol and when the effects begin oozing out of Jan, he panics. Jan looks at the entrance to the room, towards the gala, towards Heber. What was he going to tell Heber?

  "What was THAT!" Lord Gale yelps.

  "Heber?" Jun drunkenly utters turning back to look down off the balcony, in the grass... the beautiful grass full of flowers and ferns and... Heber? Below was beautiful Heber in her gala dress, probably meant to be a stripped back version of her wedding dress with many cloth strips missing from the original design. A flash in the sky leashes Jans attention away from Heber where he witnesses the appearance of a Dorrad. "What?" Jan's brain pops and fizzles out the single word as the alcohol squeezes tighter around his mind.

  "Is that... one of those beasts you told me about? A Dorrad?" Lord Gale yips excitedly.

  "Yes or... you see it too?" Jan, trying his hardest.

  "So it can fly? very well, I will see this thing with my very own... lordly '*belch*' eyes." And Gale scampers off to the Dorrad.

  "Heber, where did she go?" Janrala, soaked drunk, practically crawls off to find Heber.

  ---

  Elder Janrala

  Janrala was not really Janrala, in proper terms at least. He was supposed to refer to himself as Elder Janrala now. If this where his first time experiencing this moment the default 'Janrala' would do; but since this was not his first time, nor his second or thirtieth time, it was Elder Janrala. Elder Janrala had investigated every important moment Matrix could think to investigate, the last thing on her list was here where the Dorrad first appears, the bottom of the list since Jan had already seen it.

  So Elder Jan waits in the forest outside the gala, just off the clearing from which the Dorrad appears. A flash in the sky places Heber out in the clearing, exhausted and struggling to stand she gathers herself and begins to walk off towards the gala. Elder Jan hadn't seen Heber in a month, he had been up and down this day scanning every inch of the village for answers and never once did Elder Jan go to see Heber. Another flash in the sky and the Dorrad arrives, Dorrad Famine. Elder Jan had to be sure it wasn't a mistake, if that was really Heber, or even an Elder Heber, that meant she could still be alive.

  ---

  Elder Heber

  Elder Heber had just spent the last month in the clasp of time, traveling to this moment (Something one can only accomplish with the use of Historical Evidence, the artifact Heber had devoted her life to researching and the reason she suffered from Niamance.) In the blink of an eye she is thrust out of the clasp. Unprepared, exhausted and slipping; each moment a fraction of its default size, a minute for everyone else on Kyūkeisho felt like seconds to Heber, a side effect for those who dare to learn the language of confluence. The first thing Elder Heber needed to do was find one of her nurses, preferably one that was off duty for the evening, to do a grounding exercise.

  Minutes pass as Elder Heber anxiously searches the halls for a nurse, eventually she is embraced. The Hug lasts a noticable second and then Janrala reveals himself to be the one hugging. Drunken and wet-eyed the handsome demon notices that Elder Heber has slipped into Niamance and quickly he tries to reenact a grounding exercise, eventually giving up to go find a nurse. Another thirty seconds go by before Janrala returns with a nurse.

  "Heber? Why aren't you with your nurses at the gala?" Janrala asks, drunkenly ogling over Heber.

  "I was looking for you Jan." Elder Heber says, happy to see Janrala for the first time in over a month.

  "Oh right, I was looking for you too." Jan slumps when he says it, turning off his ogle.

  Jan could be so handsome with his uniform coat and well kept mane, even when he was soaked in alcohol. Heber afforded all she had to get back to Jan, now all she had to do was keep him close. Janrala strikes down his next sentence as his lips are smothered by Elder Heber's, she embraces him upward, pulling Jan off his high-horse-stature and down to her height. Jan could die tonight, there was no telling but truthfully Heber knew it was near impossible for Jan to survive the night in his drunken state.

  Janrala is the first to pull away to catch a breath and say "I'm happy to see you in a good mood, I am, but I have something I need to tell you." The drunk wiped off Jan's face as he gets serious.

  Elder Heber holds him close, waiting for Jan to shut up but giving him the space to say what he wants to say "Go on."

  "Lord Gale has asked me to go hunting with him." Jan says looking suspect.

  "That's a good thing right? I'm happy he's giving you more than a speech as initiation." Elder Heber says, knowing she might have been less understanding a month ago.

  "Well sure I just wanted to warn you... he wants us to leave tomorrow morning and..." Jan stops as Elder Heber drops her embrace.

  "Are you going?" Elder Heber asks curt, having taken a step back in a show of caution.

  "Heber it's a request from Lord Gale I can't say no when I have his favor." Janrala says trying to avoid sounding like a soaked drunk beast, heartless, hopeless and apathetic... (Elder Heber's thoughts.)

  Elder Heber hears almost none of this as she takes deep breaths and seriously considers punching Janrala on the shoulder. Instead, after a few seconds, she turns to her nurse and walks away.

  "Oh don't be so dramatic, we're married now there will be plenty of time to spend together. Not like the honeymoon makes us more married." Jan stops and his eyes go wide as Elder Heber punches him square in his stupid ugly drunken runt mug (Again, Elder Heber's thoughts.)

  Elder Heber and her nurse walk a few steps down the hall before Elder Heber decides to stop and do one more grounding exercise then leave the nurse with Janrala to clean him up. Curious though how she remembered him differently this night, not drunk, no coat, no bloody beaten nose. Then it hits her, the obvious. She hadn't seen Janrala at the gala, it was Elder Janrala, he actually wasn't dead; and she knew exactly where to find him.

  ---

  Heber

  Heber hated the gala, originally it was planned to celebrate her wedding, it was hijacked by her father Lord Gale to celebrate his latest conquest. All the decorations, all the food and the music had been changed to fit Lord Gale's taste, the same Lord who had yet to even show up to his own gala.

  Heber sits near the center of the room, surrounded by four nurses and donning her wedding dress. The dress designed to flow out in hundreds of cloth strips to create a large spectacle while still allowing nurses to sit close to Heber without sitting on the dress. Heber's dress blends in slightly with the floor's carpet, walls and ceiling to look as though the whole room is a part of the dress. For the next four hours Heber has the wonderful opportunity to sit there as guests walk by, congratulating her family on their most recent conquest. Only a select few guests were earnest with Heber, congratulating her directly for the wedding, all of whom are close friends of Heber.

  In a free moment, Heber takes the time to do another grounding exercise, a simple task where she and a nurse count up from one while making physical contact. The counting goes on until Heber feels right and usual the physical contact is maintained (often Heber can be found holding hands with her nurses.) Just when the grounding exercise is reaching an end, Janrala walks in. Immediately Heber notices Jan's outfit, a rare sight to see him out of a full uniform, he was missing his coat and thank the melodies for that. Janrala's officer's shirt buttoned up almost to the top with no tie around the collar, the creature a statuesque image in his prime. Jan makes his way over to Heber and greets a nurse, requesting to take the spot closest to Heber for a moment.

  "Hello my little ghost." Jan says giving Heber a peck on the cheek "How is the gala?"

  "Not good." Heber says with a humorous pout.

  "Yes I figured as much. I thought I saw you outside just now? Was that not you?" Jan grabs Heber hand and begins to play with it, a simple grounding exercise she taught him.

  "Someone as beautiful as me and this dress?" Heber smirks as she says it.

  "Only someone as mystical as you could trick me like that, I must have imagined it." Jan says standing up.

  "You're leaving already? Stay a while." Heber requests, giving a proper beg. "Oh fine but I want to talk to you about our honeymoon, I've had some last minute ideas for things we should bring with us."

  Jan leans in for another peck "Alright, I'll come back to you when I'm done." And then Jan gives her the strangest look accompanied by a tear.

  Elder Jan

  Elder Jan pulls away from the kiss, a tear rolling down his cheek, and steps out of the dress. How wonderfully undisputable, it was Elder Heber he saw outside the gala, she was alive and here somewhere. Jan steps out of the room, chasing after his little ghost. Elder Jan turns to look down two hallways as he thinks about where the punch happen, finally finding his way. In the hallway where Elder Heber punched Jan a hand tugs Elder Jan into a room. It was Heber, or more likely Elder Heber. The small critter, beautiful and covered in exhaustion, Elder Heber embraces Elder Jan.

  "I thought you were dead!" Elder Jan says.

  "No YOU were dead! I was alive this whole time you big cat." Elder Heber giggles over the words and kisses Janrala on the cheek "I'm sorry about the punch, I shouldn't hurt you even if you can handle my weak hits."

  "Weak hits? Heber I hadn't been hit like that in almost a year. It's okay, I remembered the punch, that's how I found you here." Elder Janrala says.

  "Can we leave? Please?" Elder Heber asks muffled by Elder Jan's shoulder.

  "There is a place nearby where you can get back to Dorrad Den." Elder Jan says looking around with his eyes closed "Or, oh! its this room." He opens his eyes to finally notice this room was where Lord Gale invited Jan on the hunting trip.

  "Me?" Elder Heber asks appalled "No, we're leaving together, I came here to get you!"

  "I thought you thought I was dead." Elder Jan says pointedly.

  "I had no expectations but now that I know you're still alive, yeah I kinda did." Elder Heber says.

  "Im sorry Elder Heber, I've been here trying to get a clear record of what happened, to try and save as many as I can. I can't just stop with you." Elder Jan says as he prepares the ritual to send Elder Heber back to Dorrad Den.

  "Elder Jan please. please." Elder Heber whimpers.

  Elder Jan stops the ritual and helps Elder Heber over to the balcony "Have you seen it for yourself? I've seen it ten different times."

  Down there in a courtyard garden Lord Gale is drunkenly waltzing right up to the Dorrad.

  Slurred and loud, Gale yelps up at the Dorrad "Let me see it. Let me see if you can REALLY fly!"

  The Dorrad jumps like a frightened chicken then lands right over Lord Gale "I can do much more than fly tasty critter."

  Lord Gale laughs as if at a comedy play "Good, thats good aha!" Gale turns to the growing audience of frightened gala goers "With this! with this we will finally return to the castle in the sky!"

  "With this? No, with this you will all be eaten." the Dorrad says.

  Gale turns back to the Dorrad, over extending the turn "Oh? you're hungry? We have food, bring out... heh, bring our friend the gala feast."

  "Yes, a feast, Dorrad Famine will consume all you have to give!" Dorrad Famine roars and leaps into the sky.

  "Elder Heber." Elder Jan says trying to pull her into cover with hesitant compliance.

  The two hide under cover from the sight of the Dorrad as a flash of sickly green light bursts into the room. A choked pause spawns from awe. Elder Heber steps out of cover to look back down in the courtyard where the unsuspecting crowd and Lord Gale once were. All gone, no trace left behind. Heber gets sick and hurls out her guts as a putrid stench fills the air.

  "The hunger of Dorrad Chaos has come! Burn in its stomach!" Dorrad Famine shouts across the sky as screams sprout up from all across the village.

  Shivering and unable to properly speak Elder Heber returns to Elder Jan (Who has restarted the ritual.) "Please Jan PLEASE. What, what is it... WHAT ARE YOU GOING... what are you going to do against THAT? PLEASE come with me." A headache already coming on as she slips into Niamance and spills all her tears.

  "I owe it to everyone that survived, including you, to stay and do all that I can." Elder Jan looks at Elder Heber, having completed the ritual prep "I'll be fine little ghost, Matrix is on the other side she will reunite us when I'm done here." A smile for assurance appearing on his face

  "Then I want to help too." Elder Heber huffs trying to calm her anxiety.

  "You can barely even breath." Elder Jan says.

  "I spent too long trying to find you, it would be a waste to leave you now." Elder Heber says.

  "What are you going to do?" Elder Jan asks.

  "What? I mean, I mean I can help." Elder Heber stutters.

  "Help what? write a book about this? I'm happy you're still alive, I'm happy we were able to find each other but you'll slow me down you're trying to stop me, you can't do anything help and you're the one that started this. That Dorrad followed you here from the clasp, I saw it all. so it's settled, back to Dorrad Den with you." With the wave of his hand Elder Jan sends Heber into the clasp of time.

  As she goes Elder Heber remembers a time that she overheard Jan and Lord Gale talking. 'That girl is trouble, a useless troubling girl.' Gale had said, Janrala with no rebuttal.

  It nearly killed her back then and now she heard it again in his comment, vicious and haunting. She was useless, To Jan, to Gale and to her people.

  ---

  Heber

  Heber was becoming dizzy with nausea, the rancid smell filling the air around her, people screaming outside and gala attendants running every direction. The sickly green flash had taken one of her nurses who was trying to take a closer look at the commotion. Now, standing in the gala trying to get her self oriented, Heber had just one nurse left as the other two went running off. In a moment of adrenaline the nurse, Surtera, grabs Heber's hand and begins running off, opposite from the Dorrad. People were tripping over Heber's wedding dress, nearly torn to bits now it had lost many of its strands. Rushing was certainly not helping, most things would snag on the dress and pin Heber down until it was pulled free.

  Finally Heber and Surtera make it outside with fresh, non putrid, air. Heber catches her breath before they begin running again. They keep this pace for a few minutes but in the panic it felt like an hour, every moment stretched as thin as it could get. Heber catches on to Surtera's plan, they were headed to the royal shrine to gain access to the clasp of time. The shrine was at least an hour away but without Jan it would be the easiest and the safest way off Kyūkeisho.

  "Jan!" Heber says, turning back towards the village.

  "No, he'll find you in case of an emergency, that's how it works." Surtera says, she was Heber's longest working nurse and often regarded as a friend though as a princess it felt like no one could be Heber's friend. Surtera was right, what was Heber going to do anyways, Jan would find his way to Heber.

  On que a ubiquitous roar of the Dorrad says "It will be a feast tonight!" and a daunting sickly green glow reaches across the sky, growing over the clouds and stars. Like a blanket the sky goes green, the village now a bright green glow and nothing more. Heber drops to her knees, sapped by the light, where she cries like a child.

  "Please, we don't know how much time we have left, lets go." Surtera begs, helping Heber to her feet.

  the two hike slowly to the shrine, each minute significantly harder than the last as the green glow saps away their energy. A stench like before grows stronger from all the forest critters and plants getting eaten by the green. Heber has to stop two different times to hurl from the smell alone. Bright waves occasionally flow across the sky making the green glow's effect stronger and stronger.

  Once they arrive at the shrine Heber realizes they had gone the whole hike without a grounding exercise. "Surtera can we do some grounding?"

  "We will once we make it to the Den. For now if you want you can hold my hand." Surtera, sounding weak, replies holding out a hand.

  "Thank you." Heber says taking her up on the offer.

  Surtera and Heber begin setting up the ritual, a simple job in which the layout of the shrine is made to mimic the layout of its sister shrine found in Dorrad Den.

  "Mind if I pry a bit?" Surtera asks, looking sickly to Heber who only just noticed now that they were close to each other.

  "Shoot."

  "Why did you marry Jan?" Surtera shoots.

  "He's so pretty." Heber offers as a shy response.

  "No, I get that but you two don't really seem to get along." Surtera shoots again, giving a weak laugh.

  "Yeah I getcha. Its frustrating at times, we can both be quite independent but I love him, simple as that." Heber says looking at Surtera with a smile who in turn smiles back and puffs into smoke as a wave of green washes over the sky. "Wha..." Heber yelps, looking with wide eyes at Sutera's smoke. The look on the poor nurses face burned into Heber's mind. Again like a child Heber cries, useless and weak, grasping a small bag which was all that Surtera had left behind. For a time Heber lay sobbing as she squeezed Surtera's bag, eventually she opens the bag and notices the pieces of a thrower. One last thing Surtera left with Heber, a horrible tool that would keep Heber safe. She completes the ritual and fails at least three times to find the clasp, Heber's tears and Niamance playing a major part but mostly her lack of practice since Janrala was always the one to setup the rituals, finally she reaches across the clasp.

  In a suffocating moment Heber appears in a dark and vast place. Standing on the plateau surrounded by devils and black viscous ground, free of the stench. Heber had been here many times before but always with Jan. It wasn't so bad compared to the apocalypse. The cumbersome hike up the plateau had not changed; and there at the top sat a throne with it's Deathal Void.

  "You look awful!" Deathal says.

  Happy to be out of the apocalypse, Heber takes a seat on the ground to grab some calm breaths, here in the clap Niamance had no say over her perception of time.

  "Not gonna talk? Been a long day?" Deathal pokes.

  Heber lays down on her back, closes her eyes and falls asleep.

  "Very well princess, you're going to need the rest."