The garden

Between life and death there lies a place known to a great many as limbo. Within this realm there lies great creations of unfathomable geometry, great mountains in the sky, paths that spiral and twist with scenery that defied gravity, sense and logic.. There where many such confounding places, but one in particular would always be in sight of those who were welcome, a massive ring of trees that had grown into a natural dome that stood miles high and wide.

The trees wound around each other, creating a barrier to the outside world. Even from the sky you could not see inside, thick tree branches above, intricately woven together provided a sturdy roof. The sheer precision of their growth seemed unnatural, yet at the same time the trees had a sense of harmony about them. This great dome at first glance would always seem to be sealed, however to those welcome, or just too stubborn to give up looking would find their path inside, as though made just for them.

Entering this place was not a wholly pleasant experience for most, as the path between the trees would go on for several minutes. Passing the gap between these unusual giants, on a path seemingly made to suit the visitor often led the mind to worrying places. After all if this path had seemingly been made just for their passage, thoughts of the trees sealing shut about them would often plaque the mind. Regardless of such dark thoughts, the giants would remain still, and allow passage without harm.

Once past the entrance, the sight of a curious town would greet the visitors. Houses and structures of mind boggling variety littered the outer ring of the great oaken dome. The whole place had a warm feeling to it, even though it would appear quite empty to all but the youngest or gifted visitors. Similar to the great dome outside, most would have their gaze drawn to the center of this unusual place, and would then begin to move towards it with or without the intent of doing so.

A large lake that glimmered with a mysterious inner light would soon come into view, surrounded by a ring of tall and very thin grey trees. Their thin, wirey trunks and branches seemed to defy nature as they stood tall and unwavering, and though their colour would have you believe them dead, they emanated a strange feeling of warmth and one of welcome. The garden around them gave off a similar vibe, unnatural and otherworldly, yet peaceful and welcoming.

Pale shining spheres hung from the branches far above and seemed to be part of some kind of flowers that grew around the garden in a variety of sizes. They pulsed slowly and subtly, it was almost unnoticeable as most would shift their gaze to watch the fireflies of differing hues circling them with slow dreamlike movement. The pale light served to give this place a ghostly semblance, while adding to it a certain ethereal beauty.

The lake, though seemingly small from the outer ring of the dome, was in fact quite vast its shifting light made it hard to judge its exact size however one moment the opposite shore seeming miles away, the next, metres. Near to the lake stood a quaint hut, built in such a ramshackle way it did not seem to belong there, an ordinary object in a strange world.

There was nothing of note about the hut in of itself, it was made of wood and had very little decoration save for some of the spheres of light hanging above the door. Outside of the hut however were some

rather odd furnishings, there were benches and tables, none of which seemed to match each other in design. It seemed as though someone had rushed this set up, and had just grabbed anything remotely chair like.

It was all organised in a way that betrayed the apparent solitude of this sanctuary, clearly having been arranged in a similar way to what you might get at a celebration or a festival. The layout, when occupied seemed unfit for a assembly or religious meeting place, with more focus on getting as many seats around large, long wooden tables that, quite contrary to the chairs, were mostly identical.

It was close to this communal area that the layout became even more chaotic. Dotted around haphazardly were some large T shaped structures, similar to perches for birds, some small and some apparently built for very large birds it seemed, for some to be practical the bird would have to stand taller than a man. Tiny hammocks had been tied between some small saplings nearby, so small a mouse would find it lacking. Ther was also a massive stone structure built to act as a cave that would hide whatever lay within from the light outside. These only being few examples of what lay in that chaotic sprawl of furnishings.

The hut and everything around it was so absurd that the garden could easily be forgotten about, if you tried to figure out the function of all that insane architecture. Though it usually would not take long for your gaze to shift from that mess to the adjacent lake, to be greeted by a sight both beautiful and melancholy.

Surrounded by a large ring of perfectly cultivated pale blue roses, an intricately sculpted stone slab juts from the earth, at odds with the communal area. Looking very much like a gravestone, it stood facing out to the lake. Though out of place, it belonged here, like the trees or the flowers it just felt as unnaturally harmonic with its surroundings.

Just past the stone, the lake shined with a hypnotic inner light. The surface was still, the small breeze that passes through the garden seemingly not strong enough to disturb its tranquil water. This absence of movement allows clear sight into the lake's depths, and to the millions of lights below its surface, sparkling brightly like stars in the night sky.

However the stars that shone here did so in ways that both drew the gaze of onlookers, but left them wanting to drag their eyes from the confusing spectacle before them. Some shined with colour beyond the scope of logic or explanation, lights so confoundingly strange, that trying to remember them afterwards would be beyond the capabilities of the human mind. Colours that where not even colours, neither comprehensible or possible, and yet there they lay. Raw emotion into light is the closest you could come to describe this phenomenon, and that barely does it justice.

—-------

"Do not let your gaze linger too long, friend." Came the softly spoken voice of a woman. "Looking too long will only gain you dizziness and a sore head"

Dragging his gaze from the lake as advised, the visitor looked to the source of the voice. Sitting amongst the roses with her back resting against the headstone, where just moments ago no one head been, a strange hooded figure looked back. Head tilted to the side with her crimson eyes being all that was visible, her face seemingly shadowed beneath her hood.

Her body was covered, head to toe in a strange light brown garment that clung tight to her body, as though it where a second skin of sorts. Tied around it in many places, was a long white ribbon, that was held in place by several haphazardly placed loops in the brown fabric. Her attire covered her hands and feet too, leaving only her face uncovered, but shadowed under a large hood.

From what little of her neck that was visible to her mouth she had another ribbon of white wrapped around her, hiding away yet more of herself. The upper part of her face seemed to be an inky black void under her hood's shadow, with only her soft crimson eyes visible, emanating warmth, but also an unsettling knowing. It was as though she was not only seeing her visitor, but everything about him, leaving him feeling strangely bare before her gaze.

"Please be at ease my friend, I do not bite." She gave a small light hearted laugh as she got to her feet. The visitor forced himself to calm his nerves, and relaxed his body. Unaware he had been unconsciously preparing himself for fight or flight as something, primal, in his subconscious was clearly not pleased with her presence.

She brushed herself off and moved towards her visitor, giving no time for reaction as she seemed to almost glide across the ground with her delicate and quick movements. She stopped when the space between them could be measured in inches, gazing into his eyes. He in turn felt as though lightning had just struck his spine, every warning bell nature had seen fit to bestow upon him told him to run, because he knew the look in those incredibly ancient, terrifying eyes, and deep down he knew the truth they held.

Suddenly he found himself caught in her embrace, she held her arms around him , pulling close and dispelling any notion of escape. Though her hold was gentle, he could almost feel the raw strength hidden away beneath her deceptively delicate looking frame, strength he was sure could destroy him utterly to his basest elements in a moment. He closed his eyes, expecting the worst to befall him, but nothing happened for a few moments when he felt something wet against his cheeks. He could hear his mind screaming at him to run, deny her, ignore her, or face a cruel truth.

"You don't know... Do you?" Her voice a gentle and sorrowful whisper. She paused a moment before she spoke again. "I'm so sorry, if I could do this any other way I would..." He felt her hand gently wipe his tears away, as she pulled back from the embrace to look into his eyes. Her voice did not falter but the depth of the sorrow in her words tore at his heart. "Today is the day you fade from this world. I am sorry, but you have been dead for many years... Today you're spirit will fade and you will pass beyond the veil."

He said nothing in reply, what could he say in response to such an admission? Call her liar, denounce her and hate this creature whose eyes were full of sorrow over his fate? No he couldn't bring himself to do

that, he had been told before, spiritualists, so called exorcists and others had called him ghost, told him to disappear. He would scream and drown out their accusations, he refused their truth..

Yet now, face to face with this being that exuded a feeling of age that surpassed anything he knew. Looking into those ancient and sorrowful eyes, he couldn't lie to her, anymore than he could to himself anymore. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came, as he suddenly felt very weak. He began to fall to the ground, finding his legs no longer there to support him.

His fall stopped as the small light that remained of him was gently scooped out of the air by the hooded woman's delicate hands. He could no longer move, see or speak but he felt she could still see "him" even now, he was certain as he could feel her gaze even as he could no longer return it.

He heard her voice. "The hours you had left preserved by your denial, I have taken, and I am truly sorry..." Her voice was quiet, a whisper, but he could feel raw emotions behind them. Reduced to this speck of light, this curious energy that somehow was "him" he saw the world in new ways. Able to hear the whisperings of the lake's lights, see its very birth, and witness as the streams of radiance fired off to places beyond his sight, beyond his imagination. He suddenly felt an inexplicable need to follow the lights, and see it all for himself.

Though now, more powerful than the urge to explore this new existence, he could feel the emotion the woman felt, emanating from her in powerful waves that surrounded his being. Regret, sorrow, pity, urgency and a strong sense of hope coalesced around him, the pure physicality of these emotions kept him grounded to himself, for the moment.

"I must make a request of you..." She began, waiting a moment before continuing. "As you are, you will disappear in a few minutes, and you will go beyond this place." He felt a slight tinge of desire and a hint of envy come from her. "I know, as you are, you will want to spend you're last moments following the light, bathing in the warmth of emotion and drinking in the joys of such... freedom... And if you wish to, I won't stop you."

The feelings holding him in place suddenly shifted, easing away from his body as he felt her try to suppress her doubts and fear. He stayed in place for now, struggling to resist the song the light made as it pierced through the space around them.

He felt her relief that he had stayed, as she spoke with slight trepidation. "If you permit me to, I can send you beyond now. You would lose your final moments here, however with your remaining essence I could safeguard some who still live." As she spoke he could feel just how desperately short for time this old creature was in doing so, even as she tried to suppress that feeling, and the half truth she told, "some", had its real truth laid before him. " Billions."

"Using what you are, I would entrap the "trigger" of an event. The shifting of a stone causing a quake, or the flap of a butterfly's wings that would be the push needed for a hurricane in years to come." He tried to reply, sure if she sent out emotion as she did, he must too. He wondered how best to convey he understood, but as he wondered she spoke. "I'm glad you understand."

"With that energy contained, I can either place it in the lake here, for safekeeping, or I can give another like you, a new life here with an echo of your experience to guide them." He knew she wanted to say more, and he could practically feel her suppressed urges to say what would assure his compliance. Like the life would be given to a person, dead like him, but instead a child not even in his teenage years. He had little time, she was keeping it short for him so if he said no he would have time to live a little, and she did not wish to use guilt to drive his actions.

"Its you're decision, friend, I shall not think poorly of you should you choose the freedom of the lights." Her words were said in truth, her own feeling of regret and sadness made him quite sure she would only blame herself if he said no. He wasn't sure he would be able to shake the guilt for making her feel like that, to fail a being bearing such an impossibly heavy responsibility.

There were other things to consider too, all of her words had been truth, the fact his decision bore the weight of so many lives seemed almost unfair, even as she had tried to cushion that. It was both the most human, and logical choice he felt. Regardless of what mysteries the mysterious lights held.

Also to give someone else the chance at a new life, regardless of the form it took, was probably the part that weighed on him most. He recalled the screaming and fighting to prove he wasn't dead, to make the world see him as he felt, anyway he could. He would destroy things, hurt people, tear at the world with only the wish to prove his existence. Imagining a child in that situation, he felt a sense of horror and sorrow that struck through to his very core.

He would have sighed, if he had the ability. The lights beckoned, but he could not heed their call, there was too much to gain for so many, and just for a few minutes of his time. The only hope to say no would be to scream to the world how unfair it all was, and had been doing that for years.

Focusing, he tried to convey his affirmation, his acceptance. He didn't need to bother it seemed, as barely a moment after trying he felt a surge of warmth and joy that swirled around him, it was almost overwhelming, her gratitude and joy. It was an experience beyond any he had felt, living or dead. A gentle, comforting warmth filled him, almost intoxicating in it's benevolence.

He soon began to feel somewhat detached as she began her work. The lights around him began to fade, though her warmth did not. Ambrosia for the soul, the lights where ephemeral but in a sudden and final moment he realized that the warmth that filled him would be something he would carry with him "beyond."

He heard a very faint. "Thank you." He however still felt undeniably intoxicated from her joy, and could not help leaving a message of his own. She was something he had never even imagined could exist. Something so strong, so otherworldly but moments awash with her emotions he found someone so compassionate and caring it seemed impossible. He tried to be as clear as he could, and from the somewhat confused and amused reaction he felt, he knew he had succeeded.

As he disappeared from her sight, she smiled as she set to work, not wanting his choice to be wasted."If we meet again I'll have to hold you to that." She muttered with a small laugh at the sheer boldness of his

final words. "Who makes a request of a date, their last breath?" She shook her head and pressed on with her work.

—---

Leaning against the headstone in her garden, her work finished. She sighed raising the small translucent sphere she grasped in her hand, watching the pulsing energy within. "A few thousand years from now you just saved your whole world..."

She stood like that for a while, staring out across the lake in quiet contemplation. Suddenly she let out a startled cry, almost falling off the headstone after feeling a tug at her back. Hearing both familiar laughter and the laughter of a child, she composed herself and turned to face the culprits.

Immediately in front of her, clearly sent as a buffer for her anger, stood a small human child wearing several articles of clothes far too big for him, probably having been gifted them by her folk to welcome the next of their kin. His laughter abruptly stopped at her piercing, unamused gaze.

The other laughter however continued. Rolling on the floor and putting on a show of trying to regain it's composure. The creature wore robes that surrounded it, much like her, but that's where similarities ended. It stood on four legs for a start, its rear legs looking like they belonged to a lion, its tail swishing through they air as it laughed, its front was more avian in nature.

The robes it wore had been made to allow it to spread two majestic black wings, that now where splayed out across the ground, as it realized it may have gone a bit too far. Pulling it's talons against it's belly, it lay it's head flat against the ground, inadvertently pressing its hood down over it's face, covering all but Imagined a long black beak that poked out from the fabric.

"I'm already beaten!" She called out in a overly dramatic, singsong voice. "See kid this is why you don't mess with Calamity! She has the death stare!"

Calamity sighed softening her gaze, and patting the child lightly on the head. "Sorry about that, a little play is fine but don't go catching any of her bad habits." She let her looked over to the prostrate gryphon. "Like sending in children to do your dirty work."

The gryphon got to her feet, and shook herself off. "It was only a joke." She mumbled, her demeanour not too dissimilar to someone being scolded by a teacher. "To be fair we did get told to come here, and waited ages, and you looked kinda sad so I thought you needed a pick me up!"

Calamity was certain that they where told to come here. Though while the latter was also true, she was doubtful the prank was intended as as way to cheer her up. She knelt down next to the boy and looked him over. "Well you got Moggy here in one piece." She winked and gestured to the gryphon. "You must have worked hard to do that so I'll let you go with a warning."

Moggy, who had jumped back as though someone had just given her an electrical shock, voiced her displeasure.. "My names not moggy its Mog'gehenna, mog-geh-hen-na, Calamity you promised not to

use that name! I went all day with him avoiding it!" She quickly glanced at the boy. "Don't call me Moggy Ok?"" She whined looking somewhat desperate. The boy looked between the dispirited gryphon and an expectant Calamity. Then, proving he was wise beyond his years, said absolutely nothing.

Sighing, while somewhat pleased to have the distraction from earlier, Calamity began to lead the boy to the lake, calling over her shoulder to the dejected Moggy. "I hope you arranged a place for him to stay already."

Moggy sighed and slumped down to the ground theatrically. "Why me though? Can't you have him stay with humans... Or humanoids at least?" She mumbled quietly, her displeasure seemed half hearted however, Calamity suspected she head been getting along well with her new housemate.

"You care for who you bring in." Calamity called back. "Besides you seemed happy enough being looked after by the bakers who found you if I recall!" She suppressed a laugh seeing Mog's face twist in a mixture of displeasure and annoyance, no doubt unable to think off an appropriate retort.

She then turned her attention to the child, he seemed happy enough, looking at the lake with curiosity clear in his steel blue eyes. She was somewhat impressed that he seemed to have no fear of her, as many others often do upon their first meeting. Maybe that little prank was more than she thought after all, it seemed to have helped ease any worries he probably felt in coming here, impressively so.

Calamity was surprisingly pleased that fate had put the child in Mog's unexpectedly capable claws. She had felt a sense of dread for the boy the moment news reached her that Mog had been the one to find him. Her fear had been misplaced it seemed, as if by some miracle, Mog was actually taking to her role as the boy's teacher and guardian quite well. Having eased the child into their home , leaving him with little to no fear of its denizens spoke volumes of her ability, though Calamity did hold out hope the boy wouldn't take too much to Mog's mad ways.