sugar berry

[imeanforever]

Near a stream that pours off a high cliff and then snakes away is a garden, carefully tended, and a house, built of wood and stone and transmuted pearl. Fairies weed the plants. One is fixing the roof. A berrybush, hair atangle with spidery branches, is painting gold stripes onto her purple arms.

Comments

[infinitely_stranger]

And so is Arcane.

[imeanforever]

Time passes.

Probably Arcane eventually sleeps again.

[infinitely_stranger]

That does happen, yes. Pretty regularly over the course of their journey.

It takes them seven days to reach the jeweled seas, and Arcane is asleep at the time, so their approach is slow. First the blue-green shine is visible on the horizon; then the shores of glittering gem-sand creep into view, and the water.

They are coming up almost exactly on the border between the Sapphire Sea and the Emerald Sea; to their left the sand is blue, and to the right it is green, and in between it mixes. The colour of the water obeys a similar gradient. In fact, from this height, it almost looks like a huge liquid sapphire and a huge liquid emerald lazily fighting over the contested territory between them. Streaks of colour ride shifting currents from one side to the other, then diffuse peacefully until no trace of them remains.

[imeanforever]

Oh, pretty.

[infinitely_stranger]

Very pretty! And persistently pretty for the next several hours as they pass the beaches and continue on over the water.

[imeanforever]

Promise watches it be pretty, semi-alone with her thoughts.

[infinitely_stranger]

Arcane wakes up.

"Ah, and here we are. I told you it would be pretty."

[imeanforever]

"It's gorgeous."

[infinitely_stranger]

"One of my favourite landscape features."

[imeanforever]

"What are the other best ones?"

[infinitely_stranger]

"I started over a much bigger ocean, all the way on the other side of central Queenscourt territory from here, and it had floating islands with incredible crystal formations growing on their undersides. For a good few centuries they were the only landmasses I had any experience with. I was mildly disappointed by my first sight of ground I couldn't get underneath; it seemed to be missing the best part."

[imeanforever]

Awwww.

Promise doesn't say that, but she thinks it.

"Do you know the big waterfall that starts out of nowhere and falls for miles before it forms the tiled river?"

[infinitely_stranger]

"Yes. I like that one. Let's see... as of about a century ago, there were a set of tuned canyons nearish your tree that whistled music in the wind; are they still there and have you heard them?"

[imeanforever]

"They were there when I started. I was going to go but didn't get a chance. I was very new when Thorn got me."

[infinitely_stranger]

"Ah."

[imeanforever]

"I was waiting until I learned to turn invisible because I'd heard they were colonized by razorfeet."

[infinitely_stranger]

"Sensible."

He is quiet for a second or two, then says, "The first thing that really sold me on the merits of continents was a mountain range. They weren't even particularly good examples of mountains - I've seen prettier ones since - but they were enormous and solid and mountain-shaped, and they had beautiful lacy trees growing all down their sides."

[imeanforever]

"I heard that on an island in the far west there's a volcano made of bands of clear gemstones."

[infinitely_stranger]

"I've seen that. It's a sight. I wanted to see it erupt, but I couldn't stay long enough that trip and I haven't been back yet."

[imeanforever]

"I don't remember hearing anything about how it erupts."

[infinitely_stranger]

"Mercury. Kills most of the plants all the way down to the shore every time, but the interval is usually long enough for things to grow back, and some of them thrive on it."

[imeanforever]

"That sounds gorgeous."

[infinitely_stranger]

"Yes."

[imeanforever]

"The library I used to go to was built into a cliffside. There was nothing naturally interesting about the place but they'd done a lot of art around the entryways."

[infinitely_stranger]

"I am extremely fond of libraries. Pretty libraries, so much the better."