The Etra Anthology

?th of ?????, ??? EA

The Aether

Mepka floated in blissful rest for one long eternity. Around her, the limitless fog danced and swirled in beautiful arrhythmia. The aether had enveloped her, fully, and at moments she had become it. It now allowed her to be truly and wonderfully empty, light for the first time in her life. It held no judgement, no expectation as she allowed herself to slip in and out of material being. Through it all, her word reverberated through her.

“Ahtr’ul”

It echoed, spoken on her unreal lips and those of countless unseen others.

“Ahtr’ul”

She felt herself being unmade, fading away as she was washed further out between the tides of corporeality. Her heart slowed, and the moment before it ceased to be she felt that word of power whisper around her once more.

“Ahtr’ul”

A wide seam of verdant black split across her vision, pulling her gravitationally. Out from it a slender hand of sheening aureate metal suddenly appeared, as though reaching through a hole in a wall. Real existence radiated out from that hand. She registered the wonder of something else existing here, the first coherent and singular thought she had had in as long as she could remember.

She reached for the hand in kind, her forearm becoming tangible only as it moved to grasp. She clasped it firmly, felt the rest of her body galvanize into definite existence, and then fell into exhausted unconsciousness…

Mepka woke to cool, dry air. Those first breaths were like nothing she had ever had before, fresh and clear in a way that had never been made available to her. She was laying in a bed, on sheets of clean linen. She shifted, fluttered her eyes open to find walls of stacked stone brick, her quarterstaff leaned up next to a window that shone onto a glorious blue sky.

“H- Hello?” An unfamiliar voice, low and lilting in it’s accent, sprang from the corner. “You’ve awoken!”

Mepka spun, jolted from her reverie, to see who was in the room with her. She settled on a tall, excited figure. His skin was dark and delicate, his features high and angular, with long thin ears coming to impossible points behind his curled tresses. He was dressed strangely, in tight-fitting clothes as though for labor but immaculately clean, decorated with bangles and brocade of a heavy amber-colored metal Mepka had never seen before. He had shot up from a chair propped into the corner of the room, strewn around by hardbound books.

“It’s okay,” He seemed to read Mepka’s bewilderment, putting hands out in front of him in a reassuring posture, “You’re okay. You were out in the Aether for a long time, it seems like, but you pulled through, by some miracle.”

“What- How-” Mepka felt herself scrambled, and as she moved to sit up she felt as though her muscles were soaked in molasses. “Where am I?”

“You’re in Athal.” He said, as though that would explain anything.

“I’ve never heard of that. Is Athal what’s on the other side of the fog?” She rubbed at her side, feeling bandages and bruises.

“Um,” The figure seemed puzzled by the question, wheels that she could not interpret turning in his head. “In a way, yes, we are on the other side of the fog.”

They both just stared at each other for a moment, unsure of what to say next.

“My name is Sylber, by the way. I was the one that found you, pulled you out of the fog, as you called it. It’s called the Aether, by the way.”

“I know what it’s called.” Mepka winced trying to stand. Sylber strode over to help steady her, gentle in his touch. “I’m Mepka.”

“Right, of course you do.” Sylber smiled apologetically. “Mepka, there are some things you need to know. You’re not at the place where you are from, anymore. You’re actually quite far from there.”

Tears of relief began to well up in Mepka’s eyes, tears which set Sylber into a look of concern.

“Hey, no no, it’s okay,” He tried to reassure, “We can try to get you back there, don’t worry-”

“No!” Mepka pulled away from him, “I’ll be damned if I’m going back. I don’t know where we are, where this Athell is, or how I got here, or that there was even anywhere out there other than Peyr Myarsa, but I’m not going to go back there. Never, not ever.”

Sylber looked momentarily taken aback, “Oh wow, no of course, if you don’t want to you don’t have to. I’m sorry if I brought up a sore subject. It must really be isolated, your home demiplane, how many others are in your subcluster?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mepka kept her distance, eyeing her staff.

“Right, sorry.” He apologized again, speaking with a bounce from one thought to the next, “I’m sure it’s a lot for you to take in. Just know, there are worlds beyond the one you grew up in. A lot, a lot of worlds. Demiplanes, is the technical term. They’re not really in the same place, any of the planes. You couldn’t walk from one to another, if that makes sense. That’s why the Aether is there, it holds each plane together. Like a cup holds water, kind of. Gods, I should be better at explaining this. You were in the Aether, which is crazy, but you were. And now, you’re somewhere else. Somewhere good, if I do say so myself. Athal. The Citadel of the Athalial Explorers League, to be exact”

Through all of it, Mepka’s eyes wiped appraisingly across the space, taking in this new paradigm without resistance but without traction either. “Can I see it?”

“See it?” Sylber cocked his head.

“This other world.” Mepka took a shaky step towards the window, taking up her old stave as a crutch.

“Oh, sure. Of course.” Sylber let her move of her own accord. “It’s alright, the view out of the Third Seat isn’t the best but, you’re welcome to it.”

Mepka approached the window, pane glass so clear that she might not have known that there was anything between her and the sky in that moment, and what she saw filled her with awe.

Rolling greens, hillocks ringed in neat curving lines by paved walkways. People, many myriad people rendered tiny for the distance, standing out under the open sun of a sky dotted by puffy white clouds. They bustled across lawns, hung in doorways, sat in the shade. They gathered, they greeted each other. They came from stone buildings with shingled roofs standing whole and tall, built higher than the last of old Myarsa could ever dream of. It was a place that was decorated grandly, in its facades and columns and statues. Where the buildings grew sparse a forest wended it’s way through in bright autumnal oranges, yellows, reds, and purples.

Mepka’s heart drew her gaze up, and out to the middle distance. There the aether stood, a billowing wall of blur bounding the whole of this new world her heart had drawn her into.

“Can I stay?”