The Price of Grace

 

In the same way that we can never reduce the Premier to the material of a colorful set of ringlets, neither can the clownspicious ever be reduced to the ridiculousness subject, the latter is never a mere receptacle for it's host, a surreal magical mutation distorting its contents, but an empty space of temporal-spacial spillage where her contents happen to be. It's because clowns are the only characters that make sense in live performance. Clowns are people who live on the edge, whose whole life is a mask and a ridiculous performance. As Grace could imagine, seeing her mistress go from watching TV and rolling on the touch, to a full on circus performance was not the largest smile-bringer. She did everything in her power not to invade on her subject's integrity, but Ellie appeared to take the opportunity to tailor herself from form to form. From a large squeeling pig, to an oil baron pulling a scarlet jacket and biting down on a cigar, to a large hello kitty plush stuck in the hallways of her abode, the fox subject was constituted in terms of the relation between these forms, changing from shape to shape and leaving an array of different shadows upon the wall by the hour. Even with all her acumen pertaining to the Mistress's vast conditions and capabilities, her librarian had not satisfied herself with a grasp of what it means to be among a rapidly transforming master, much less one undergoing some strand of sickness or condition. Even with the access to her knowledgeable vision and a full overview of her grand library, the librarian could be seen rummaging through book after book, tossing entire aisles aside in short order uttering 'Nothing nothing nothing' in the way of cures or ailments for Ellie's transfigurations.

 

Ellie had been like this for weeks. After a long night of attempting to reverse her master's condition, the librarian had gotten up before Ellie and went on a routine of her own, finding a way to get to the main part of the house. When she came to the living room to watch the TV, she found a housewife curled up in her chair sleeping, her head resting against the arm of the chair. From the look of things she had been up cleaning mindlessly and to the point of listlessness with her housekeeping tasks. She was fully dressed in a shining polka-dotted dress and yellow gloves and looked like she had been getting ready for a while, her face pampered with makeup. She was clearly still dazed, her eyes fluttering slowly, waking up to her position, soon she stood up and looked around her. She noticed the librarian standing in her living room and smiled broadly. "Oh, hello dearie! I was just cleaning." She waltzed over on her heels and pinched Grace's cheek. The librarian looked at her with a smile, she asked  "I'm sure you are, but aren't you tired of doing it?" Ellie the housewife looked at her diamond ring and redid her lipstick. "Nonsense! A mother's duties are never done." The bright concentric spirals in her eyes were making Grace somewhat disoriented, making it hard to look her in the eyes. She looked at her with sympathy. "You don't have to do that, that's all. I don't want you to do that. There is much more we can do today." The Premier gave pause.

"Ellie, you've been cleaning up after yourself for weeks now."

With a brief snurfle of her olfactory sense, the librarian could only but watch as she lost her companion to a rancorous sneeze. In the ensuring flurry of multihued sparks and flying colours, the housewife stood no more. Standing now before Grace was a scarlet-gowned woman with lethally luscious lips, the far back of her straight hair dyed red of flames with her hands swayed to her side. The Trophie stared out vapidly, who would dare to love again, Ellie bonded into a role of nigh-present eternity of sensuality, only cut short by perhaps another involuntary transmutation. The ground beneath them shook. When she looked outside the window, the book keeper saw isles floating, uprooted and glowing with the explosive properties of reality unyielding, entire floors collapsing and flipping over into pancake pandemonium. And for Grace's sake, it was as if the world did not stop, but for whatever reason she could sense that the world was somehow at a place of peril and the solution lie nowhere but her own self. With each day Ellie grew sicker, and the sicker she got, the more the Tower destroyed itself. After she could take no more of her own humility and patience, Grace decided something needed to be done. She packed herself a small leather purse and, taking Trophie on a leash, set out upon the green that lay ahead. An absurd pile of boxes were left outside the doorstep, tumbling with cheap pie tins, coffee makers, specialty vacuum cleaners and tacky knickknacks.

Grace stood to the side, eyeing her mistress's state with, the trauma and fear of all her incomprehensibility hitting her at once. She took out a small flat pouch and removed from it a stapled book with a red amulet on the cover, the pages poorly strewn together inside. Her soft nails flipped through and opened to a random page.

 

[Uh oh! The loquacious librarian found herself in a real shickle pickle! It seems that Ellie caught some strange ailment and is now hypertransfiguring from form to form, even ordering packages in a housewife-y guise! Be warned, delivery cost extra Miss Ellie! How's Gracie-Daisy going to get out of this one? She'll have to locate the Space Witch and find the Book of Sorrows within the Sea of Despair to go on a condescending chapter in this filipendulous page of her existence! Let's hope the braggadocio of Oricco doesn't put her in dismay! Grace closed the book and then the prophecy was-]

 

Grace closed the book out of spite. There was no prophecy. Originally a magic jokebook with pages from the Book of Sorrows, she was sick of her literature being cheeky with her, and had heard that gag countless times by now. She had to work much harder to put together a little vignette, as all of her magic was useless now past the forging and manipulation of books. The only one that worked were her wistful fancies of this jokebook, so she would need to get some of that from someone else. She needed more powerful magic right now, if for no other reason than she wanted to make her mistress's germs pay, if only the tardy manner of living could make her pay in kind. The girl took Trophie by a leash and set out, making the long trek towards the wayward Kingdom of Kristeria.

After a day and a half of traveling, she found a lonely, yet prosperous town on the southern borders of Kristeria. The town was called Niteyard and the townspeople within the travern mostly consisted of a family of dwarves, a pair of bickering brothers, a cat woman, and a band of four musicians, three of which happened to be ghosts and a dreamwalker that spoke in a foreign tongue, they were fond of pretending to snore in a comedic fashion, bubbles leaking from their head. The townspeople looked at the woman and her Trophie with wonderment and suspicion. A handful of them spoke the foreign tongue, to which Grace nodded, but not to the extent that she would be identified by the locals, having been a bit of a stranger there herself. She opened up the book.

 

[Gracie poo drew quite a lot of attention in the bar didn't she! She was about to take herself to locate the Space witch, who would be taking her where she needed to go, but first she needed help. The Dream Lord was a low level entity, occupying many forms and reincarnations depending on the REM CYCLES. They could summon the ancient ferry as needed, but only after having a drink and a game with the residents. Playing poker would be no auspicious parcel of precious moments on her chapter here, but it would occupy her for atleast an hour]

 

"A pale ale please." Grace said to the tender, seeing the dwarves and the catty rogue throwing down cards. She tied the leash around the counter and went to sit down. "Room for one more? I must warn you, I'm not a gambling woman. But I haven't a single heartbeat to miss when it to a good bluff." The others smiled and tossed her a deck and some chips. Sun and shadow were cast as her quiet game followed, a kind of reduction to the severity of countless realms to a serene gesture of propitious fortune. By the time one of 3 moons came overhead, the entirety of Grace's area of the table was stacked obscuring her gentle visage. "See? I was bluffing.. It would appear I am quite the gambling woman afterall. Now if you'll excuse me.."

She got up and turned to Ellie, who had grown lynx ears, a lion's face and mane and large wings, her hands paws. The sphinx roared and awoke the Dream Lord from their rest finally.

 

After the room quieted down, the Lord of Dreams looked at Grace, a hint of a half-smile upon her features. He had brown hair and blue eyes that looked to be somewhat familiar to her, but could not quite put a face to, perhaps she'd seen him in a book once. After his initial smile, it had started to fade as he looked at the poker table. "I dreamt of you, Miss Grace. Of course you'd show up, my dreams never miss." He backed away on his seat from Sphinx Ellie that was hissing at him with a snake dangling from it's mane. "You need my services. What say you we play a game for it? Don't mind if I cheat, I know a couple of tricks, they say I've beat a couple of wizards before. You can't make a habit of that." Before he could say anything, the bartender turned back to the house snickering and then said "A game of chess would be better for the boy, but since it's a gambling town, that would be a bit of a no-no, I suppose." She turned back to the group of defeated players, then to her chip stack, her face looking somewhat pained, then put her hand on the counter and closed her eyes for a moment. "I'm done play poking for the evening. And trust me, if you're hoping to beat me you better keep dreaming."

 

He folded his arms. "What have you to offer me then?"

She shrugged and looked at her winnings for the evening. "Free drinks on the house everyone, my treat."

 

He smiled and handed her back the chips. "I'm glad you came here, Miss Grace. It seems my dreams were real enough. I've had more nightmares of late, the dark of dreams are just too much sometimes." Grace nodded and took her drink. "Let's begin. You can just call me Tiberius, or Tib if you'd like. I've had dreams of fire and brimstone falling, a labyrinth of sliding doors undone. Armageddon, as soft safe ground flips overnight into an inferno. Continents sinking and the worlds collapsing into eternity. My dreams seldom come undone like this, and I dreamt you'd have an explanation. "

She sipped softly, petting the Sphinx. She didn't mind gambling if there were other consequences than just drink. "I do know a thing or two about dreams, they say you can't learn, no matter how long you meditate or how much you dream. I've no time for that, I need the world to slow down. Your last few dreams have had a purpose, and that's to stop a woman from going mad and causing an apocalypse. A woman.. foxy one, my dear friend from losing control. But to do that I need to find someone. I'm in a little trouble, I need you to make an appointment with the Space Witch for me, I can't do it myself." Grace held up many of the snakes coming from Ellie's mane.

"You want help for your cat? What has she to do with my dreams?" The sunken eyed lord asked. "Why would the Space witch even let you speak with her?"

"That cat is that friend. She's capable of many extraordinary things currently, but right now she's sick. She cannot stop changing form or becoming things she's not. I would hate for her to transform into something dangerous. Her latent power alone is causing entire floors and worlds to collapse and topple unintentionally. I need to head to the Sea of Despair at the bottom of the tower, only the Space Witch can take me there. But it is very hard to get a hold of her, so I need you to help me out."

Tib nodded, "All right, it doesn't take much to get me to make an appointment for you. I've had that witch's phone number in my head for months now, but I can only call her in my dreams. Give me a few drinks and I'll send you on your way. You'll know when you see her."

Tiberius sat down across from the beautiful woman. He ordered for both of them. Tiberius sat back in his chair, he had to keep an eye on the cat woman, Ellie. He was going to have to be very careful with her, her magic was out of control at times. She also didn't like anyone else but Grace touching her.

 

Grace watched the ghostly musicians play, their saxophone music making the bar quite lively. Her vision glistened with moisture, teary eyed as she tried to escape the day being pulled back upon her faintest recollection. Wasn't she in a similar bar like this once? She was too young to think about that, memories often blurring like a thick paste drenched in molasses. There were figures of an olden lore that brought warm, but unsettling images. Maid. And a girl she was traveling with, a loving memory of a love long lost. She didn't really remember a lot about her past or childhood honestly, or maybe some part of her didn't approve of her thinking deeply on it. The feeling was familiar, as if she had been there before, but it was still far too new to give any clues as to where it was she was from. She didn't like the feeling, a pother of commotion in her head from noise she'd long put behind and even she could seldom make sense of.

She tried to turn her gaze to the musician when the sphinx came into her vision. "Do not worry Mistress, we'll have you fixed very soon." Was it her imagination, or was there a touch of sadness upon her own voice? It could have just been the liquor in her system but it was still striking, somehow familiar.

After about thirsty minutes, Tiberius's head was faced down on the counter, his breath shallow yet deep. Grace came a little closer, seeing white droplets floating out of his scalp. They grew and lengthened, becoming pearly bubbles which accumulated with each one released, until they were puddled in the air into a foamy white bubble, like a soft cloud. A dream bubble, large enough to swirl overhead the dreaming lord. Soon the imagery of a woman on a broom appeared. The Space Witch, also known as White Nebula, Grace knew this woman. Her ivory-suited look couldn't be missed in the dull greys and earthy tones of the bar, the light shining the brightest on her shining suit and leaving no contour of her body reflected in its bath of photons. She pulled up her hat and raised her broom upright.

"Hello, Nebula." The librarian greeted her, bowing demurely at the powerful entity.

"Charmed dear. Wish I could say the same about this, wretched den of hooligans. You summoned me from Tiberius's dreams. How quaint! How far you going?"

"Yes, I did." She nodded. "I'm Grace, by the way. Me and, Ellie here need to get to the Sea of Despair. I suppose that's about as much as I'd need to tell you. How'd you find me?"

White Witch smiled, baring her teeth. "You're the dream he's always had. Planes of existence are of no consequence to me, even the realms of dreams I can lend fare to."

"That's a relief. I need to see the antiquarian. He's quite the reclusive type, lives in the sea of despair. You know where that is right?" The librarian took a brief glance at the woman, the witch's smile still as cold as ice. "Of course, the stinking mid-pit beneath the Heartwood. You want to visit the Tower's roots huh?" The witch leaned over, eyeing towards the Sphinx. "That's Ellie right now? Goodness.. And how did this happen? What are we going to do about this?" Grace smiled brightly at the sight of the cat, the smile looking rather sincere and genuine. She held out her hand to the sphinx, and the sphinx in turn extended her paw, rubbing a thumb over the top. Grace reached out and stroked the soft cat's fur.

She cleared her throat while Ellie hopped over her lap. "There are some books on, borrow. Indefinitely anyway. The Antiquarian is infamous for seldom returning them, very strong and influential books. With those books, he'll know what to do, how to fix her."

White Nebula folded her arms, rubber on rubber squeaking as her sleeves crinkled. "I see."

The librarian gently guided Ellie off of her. "So can you take me?"

The Witch scratched her head. "Several floors I've been visiting have kind of, broken like cookies split out the cookiejar into a jug of milk. I take it this has something to do with that?"

"Yes, Ellie's health and wellbeing is tied to the Tower. If her power isn't under control, her state of mind can do quite a bit of damage. The entire Tower might implode if we don't get her help soon."

"Tsk tsk." Nebula picked up Grace's cup and sipped the remainder. "Well I'll be. Suppose it cannot be helped then. We cannot let the ringleader of this whole big circus go mad..der.." The Sphinx roared, as if in agreement.

 

Tiberius slowly woke up, his scruffy face raising from the table. "Is that, who I think it is?" His attention pulled forward. "It is! White Nebula. So exciting, nothing ever happens up here. Can you take me to a luxury floor, maybe one with a beach resort?"

The White Witch's jaw hardened, her tone was a dangerous cold steel. "My dear boy, I don't make excuses for you for that, I have other business I'll be attending to, just as soon as I'm done with this." She grabbed her hat and broom, then turned towards the door. "Come along, Grace and cat Ellie."

"She's a sphinx." Grace corrected her in an astute, know-it-all manner.

"Whatever." With a wave of her broom and the green baubble embedded within, the space inbetween turned into a swirling pearly vortex of light. "Ride on." She positioned her broom as it started to float, leaving room for Grace and the Sphinx to fly with her. "Hang on tight! This will be a short trip." They latched onto her back as she led the three towards into the vortex and thru a grand, yet dark corridor outside of space-time. The abyss was covered in dark glowing rings, and rings of smoke that seemed to go nowhere. The air itself was thick and dank, creating a chill on the exposed skin of anyone who breathed deeply. A soft glow filled the dark from the baubble. After a short few minutes, they could make out a vast sea of purple and black mist sinking into a funnel-shaped cascade down into the depths of reality. "The Sea of Despair.. it's been a long time since I've been here. This place goes so deep, it's technically underneath the tower itself." The misty smog erupted up and down like a geyser.

She got as close to the geyser hole as possible and flew to the edge of the cavity. "This is as far as I can take you! The Baubble's transport and coordination abilities don't work, so great beyond this point. Kinda like driving a flat tire almost with a broken GPS. Magical density increases the deeper you go, so take your time and slow things down. You'll be where you need before lunch..." she stopped slowly to allow them to get off. "..assuming you're not made lunch. Scavengers down here don't play nice. Whahahah!" Her crackling echoed throughout space-time with a low-pitched reverb.

"Thank you, White Nebula." Grace bowed reverently. "I owe you my debt of gratitude."

The witch turned her broom around and prepared to blast off with a roar. "Pay it on my tab next time!" She sped off the other way.

Ellie purred nearby.

"Come Sphinx Ellie, let's see if we can make fuss on some old book returns."

And so she dared to tread deeper into the abyss. With a gentle hop onto the sphinx, Grace road Ellie into the deep dark tunnels of pure void below, a maelstrom of red lighting pulsing along the substance-less walls and surfaces, flashing and spreading in strange pathway currents like organic circuitry along the path. Eerie sounds of the unreal seemed to screech and cry out like a tempest, sometimes coming with a draft or cold wind that chilled their skin and left a hollow breeze in their wake. 

 

They traveled in silence, deep below the reality of the Tower, not for the sake of avoiding the sea of noise but because the utter silence was needed to concentrate on navigating ahead. Grace did however occasionally check the sphinx's eye, noticing a slight widening of the pupil with each moment, a cyan blue glow growing like a heart-shaped ring surrounding the eye. With that glow and her rainbow colored mane over a pale face, Grace knew atleast this creature was still distinctly Ellie.

She sat flipping thru the thin, frail book in front of them, a well-worn leather-bound tome. Grace noticed the title was in a rather old tongue, like the old-fashioned kind. She could translate it into modern. It said, "Book of Lost Time", like so much of the ancient literature. They flipped through the pages, the pages were filled with ink that looked like dust as dust. A few pages seemed to have a strange glow to them. It was the only thing that caught Grace's attention, and it made her feel nervous. She didn't feel that way often. She turned the pages until she was near the back of the book, looking at a familiar-looking illustration of a dark-haired man with a hood covering most of his face.

The antiquarian.

 Someone that was an even older resident of the Tower than herself.

 

"Whacha reading?" Grace turned, and looked into dark, glowing crimson red eyes ahead. Those glaring sinister lights turned into a tranquil hazel, as a short girl with white shoulder-length hair, ram horns, a dark dress and pure white skin crawled out on all fours. Her colors had such high contrast that she looked practically like a printed silhouette at times. "Looks tasty 'ike a book. Hungry for knowledge, are we? We're all hungrees for somethin'..." Her voice was a soft, calm croak. 

"Oou shouldn't be down 'ere," she said. "Ta place 's terrible." Her pupils were dark horizontal streaks, like a goats.

She walked towards them, moving only her black lips.

"My name 's Yavon Sui-kway." She gave a soft, shy smile. "And yoos are?"

Grace's curiosity was peaked by the sight of this girl. She was beautiful to the eyes, a lovely young thing, yet the very air around her seemed to contain the chill of winter. Yavon Sui-kway stopped to pet the sphinx as she looked back at the young librarian.

"I'm Grace, a friend of Ellie's." Grace held up the thin old book.

"M'name ya can call Sway, 'n I like ya Grace,"

Sway sniffed the pocket book, huffing in the leathery musk and shuddering. A trickle of drool could be seen from her mouth, each of her teeth rounded molars. "But nay. Nary seen an ol book like that chap. But I do 'iink I've smelt somethin eyk it fer certs I have!" The classy librarian had to look away when Sway gnawed, seeing a trickle of drool leave the young girl's lips. A satyr's tail left the girl's rear out between her legs. She started to chew and taste on the jokebook.

 

It was cute to see, but Grace didn't approve of her licking her books.

"Nay laddies," Sway turned to Ellie, "Is it alright if I lookin at yer book?" Ellie, however, had her nose in the book and gave Sway a hard look.

"Nope." Grace told the girl. She was feeling a bit off and couldn't really explain why. But she decided to shut the book for a moment. 

"Grrrrawrce?" Ellie said, turning to her. Her body was starting to glow.

"Looks like your cat is going to explode." Sway said.

"She's not a cat, she's Ellie. Sphinx Ellie." Grace turned towards her. "Well.. maybe not for long."

A bright emission of rays rotated around Ellie in pastel colors, her entire body scrunching inwards and contorting, like melted plastic. She reached a density of magic bright enough to even light up the dark void, and then imploded with radiant light. When the brightness subsided, the sphinx was no more, and Ellie stood in black and white, with big cartoony white gloves, a canine muzzle and rubberhose limbs, her hind legs now those of an equine. She gaggled and chuckled, doing a series of backflips and hopping wildly.

Grace flipped in the book.

 

[Wuhh, more changes? Who could've seen that coming! Looks like 'Peanut' now has abit of a toony tenacity to her golly-gosh gallantry, she's a woofy hoofy goofball thru and thru so what can you do? You've got a ticking toon-bomb and a little feral hellraiser along for the ride, venture on this vernal chasm of thinks–beyond the surface land of apparition to stop a doozy reality-demolition derby. Keep the goatball close to keep destiny closer!]

 

She turned around to see Sway biting and nibbling on 'Peanut', their teeth unable to tear or do much to the goofy doghorse's rubbery texture more than get swung around.

Grace pulled her off and flung her off and gently put her down. "We need to set out now into the Sea of Despair. Miss Sui-kway. Do you know where we can find the Antiquarian?" She asked.

 

"Don't be daft!" Sway stood, her head bobbing up and down as she took deep breaths. "You go fer de big bad doodle-doodle of de big bad poodle!" She growled abit, Peanut merely giggling and stretching in place. "And yer ay can find 'em. Mean, dunno 'ere dat is but.." she sniffled the book again. "Gotta sense ol' smell like the breeze dat I do."

"Please, take us to them then. And don't eat my friend. "She's my best friend, so you'll have to take good care of her."

Sway smiled, grinning. "Sure 'bout dat? Like dis low down dog she was 'ours?"

Grace shrugged. "She wasn't a toon or a Sphinx before, she was Ellie."

 

Sway picked up Peanut by the muzzle, stretching her like a rubberduck and walking to a spot of darkness while dragging her along. Grace followed behind. Yavon stood up, brushing her hand through her white-blonde curls. She stared into the deep abyss, her pupils widening until they divided.

With four slits for eyes, she crawled down into the cavity ahead. Sway's body was changing once again, the soft form of a lovely young thing turning into a more animalistic animal form. She hopped down the dark alleyways of the void, her paws scuffing through raven-black dirt and gravel. Then she was suddenly out of the tunnel. She hopped up, still with Peanut flopping in her grasp. "This way!"

Grace tiptoed to the best of her ability, and started to climb down with them.

"Watch you feet, dey may be spiky-fruity!" Yavon warned them whilst chuckling.

"Ouch!" Grace said, rubbing her foot on the spikey roots of some plants. The plants were growing to the cavern ceiling, the roots jutting out at the very edge of it. The roots had sharp points, and some had sharp thorns that came out from their base. As she climbed down the librarian took an observation, the plants. They had huge red seeds and pods along their gigantic roots, it all seemed vaguely familiar to her. She recalled such organisms in one of her books, but it was a purely formal designation.

 

"Are those, Algae Mama?" She'd never seen one with glowing red pods like that, the silhouettes she couldn't quite makeout inside.

 

"Ay, so, you may call dey algae. Dat is wot dey are, or wot wun be. We can't be sure at's what dem will grow wun 'ere in." Sway giggled. "And they're tasty to boot!" She chuckled again, putting her paws on a sharp root.

After finding their footing, the trio continued along their way, avoiding the thorns and puddles of embryonic brine discharging from their reach. Sway soon returned her appearance to its prior stage, with two eyes, legs and arms each.

The scarlet flowers were caught in the hands of the little girl as Sway scooped through the ashen soil, to the dismay of Grace who had no time for longer delay. Her guide's expression whose countenance appeared to be in a perpetual state of wonder, picked up whole scoops like a bouquet with an expression of blank astonishment and without any preliminary words, handed them to Grace, who, without pausing, sheepishly walked away. She ignored the offer, as if in a sick excess of the sudden delight to the creepy young girl who had offered the flowers, and with great humility and affection expressed towards her gratitude for the gift, dismissed her.  The expression of Grace's displeasure was real, and unaffected. In spite of the repugnant aspects of her guide's character, she had not failed to move the Grace's sympathy. And when she looked into her eyes, Grace felt haunted by the dark hungers that appeared to wash over deep within. Sway swallowed the flowers whole, cleared her throat and hopped onto the toonified Ellie's back to lean towards Grace.

 

"So twat 's that book ya keep reading?"

Grace's carefully glided over a small mound. "Book of Lost Time, the parcel of Sorrow."

"Ey? Sorrow eh, seems 'ite quite ta lookah."

"Parcel of Sorrow.. as in, the Book of Sorrows." Grace corrected.

"The Book of Sorrows has every history of every subject within the Tower recognized and written, or rewritten as needed. It can even change reality or fate simply by rewriting inside it. But this book, only contains a few pages of the whole thing. It only prys eyes upon what it wishes, or what humours it."

Sway folded her arms. "So aye ya need da full book?"

"It will know how to fix Ellie by the pages of fate. Or atleast I hope, the beholder will."

The little girl didn't seem too convinced by this explanation. At the same time a faint, tender smile passed over Grace's rose-colored lips. This might be a test as to her rugged physical peculiarity but it was not a proper test as to the moral character of the book keeper. Her smile was of a kindness that Sway could not comprehend.

 

Suddenly, along their pathway they reached the bottom of a strange ravine, surrounded by cracks on all sides. These white cracks in the fabric of a pitch-dark reality wiggled and waggled, like quantum bands of string played as one plays a harp in the heavens of Olympus. From each crack, working hands came forth and new bodies emerged into the ravine in great numbers. Grace eyed them one by one, oh how many there were, some bipedal, many wearing colorful uniforms, feathered hats and jackets, wearing extravagant hairstyles from eras long past and some armed in the armor of centurions long past. One with a waist-coast and short bowl-cut hairstyle stepped forward out of the murky shadows and into the full visage, right besides a large mermaid with a whale-sized body and an upper half of a girl. When Grace laid eyes upon each of these figures the confusion multiplied in into an appetite of curiosity.

"eyy ya git a lotta relatives by 'ere don'cha?" Sway crawled around, gnawing at her leg gently.

"They're.. me?" Some of them looked abit different, but she could feel a familiar presence from no insignificant series of actions and impressions from the crowd.

Grace's was head full of thoughts, fears and concerns, for better or worse.

 

"8Identify8yourself8Grace8selves."A large floating head with digitized pixels obscuring their eyes said.

"Grace-Entity. Here in narrative-duplication. Accumulation-systema of momentum-torque algorithmic-self reification." Another, with a vulture's skull and trenchcoat stated while lighting a cigar.

"Hark, who goes there? Should the day of lux harrow upon our tassels we pray for August's query to sooth forthmore." A zombified Grace asked in rubber frocks with buttoned suspenders, standing at 10 feet 8.

"I can answer that question...", said the large merwhale woman with her rather thick and heavy body "...I'm a merwhale, Grace. I live in the Astral Ocean. Once I visited a stranger tower, one I suspect to be this one?" She looked around.

"A fox woman approached me at some point, and I ended up splashed in a great sea of sap. Nevertheless merself was quite drastically changed. The fox woman saved my mind, but freed me back into my own world... Magisteria. The world was not too fit for my new presents anymore so.. I swam to colder, wider currents beyond the realm itself."

The merwhale paced back and forth, shaking the dark land and throwing many of herselves into the air accidentally in the process.

"I was asked questions once myself by this fox woman in the Astral Ocean if I'd encountered many, what did she ask? Deer yes that's it, she asked about deer in the oceanic cosmos where I swam. Antler Knights or some silly question. At first I ignored her questions because they were unanswerable. But that's not how it always works. There are people out there who understand things where I'm from that I don't. A lot of things I don't. I wasn't a god or anything like many would consider the entities there, but some did ask me about a person I knew in my previous life, about Bermuda."

"Who?" Grace said. The name sounded familiar, but she'd long since forgotten where she'd heard it.

The librarian listened to many of the others, although it was difficult with the number speaking over each other and the litany of voices riding on their chorus of nonsense being heard. One of the girls shared her exact face, as many did, but she was two-dimensional and with stick limbs. "You did not tell me anything about your previous life... I am curious though. Why have so many of me gathered?"

"That is the question of the hour, yes." Grace concurred.

Her mind was awash in questions, all unanswered questions.

"₠ ₡ ₢ ₣ ₤ ₥ ₦ ₧ ₨ ₪ ₫ € ₭ ₮ ₯ ℀ ℁ ℂ ℄ ℅ ℆ ℇ ℈ ℉ ℊ ℋ ℌ ℍ ℎ ℏ ℐ ℑ ℒ ℓ ℔

№ ℗ ℘ ℙ ℚ ℛ ℜ ℝ ℞ ℟ ℡ ™ ℣ ℤ ℥ Ω ℧ ℨ ℩ K Å ℬ ℭ ℮ ℯ ℰ ℱ Ⅎ ℳ ℴ ℵ ℶ ℷ ℸ ℺" One of the Graces, her body steel and clothes rubber announced to the rabble.

"You speak in jest, are we sure you're not just a fool? Perhaps we shall dual for the truth!" The version next to her in medieval knight armor boasted thru their helmet.

"That is, however, what the people want. The us need answers." The frocked Grace asked while hopping on a crystallized owl version of herself.

Another version of her stepped forth, dressed for modern times. Her clothing showed a pink hoodie, sneakers and blue skinny jeans.

She waved to Grace. "I'm Grey Cerise, of Ohio. Pronouns are they/them, anyway nice to meet you! I was as shocked as you to end up here and encounter so many of me." Grey had light blond hair instead of brown and a shorter, gentler persuasion. Less severe for sure.

"To enter where?" Grace asked with a particular eye for context.

"This, whole bizarre labyrinth? The Tower thingy? Goodness I worked at a shoe store before I ended up here. I've run some rough miles since.." she pulled her hoodie up a little showing scales along her waist and feathers growing out her arm. "I think I might be slowly turning into some.. Merbird? It's been months. But anyway what's your story?" She asked, several eyes turning upon the bookkeeper.

"I am Grace."

"Well obviously." One beefy, amazon variant with a loincloth standing 12 feet 8 coughed.

"And I just came here to find a way to cure my friend." She continued.

While a version of her in the back carried a baby, another in a black and white dress plus a tophat looked at each other in back of the crowd. They both carried umbrellas. "Each of us had a story of being transformed when we arrived here, before we had to move forward. How did you bypass the Tower's traps? What was your story?" they shouted.

Grey Cerise scratched her head. "Who were you before you were Grace?" They asked curiously.

 

The book keeper replied simply "a friend".

"Friend? As in a person close to another? A friend of who?"

"I don't remember. Just a friend with an important purpose."

 

Ms. Cerise pouted. "Well that's pretty enigmatic. Don't you remember your own self? Who were you before?"

"I.."

A version of her as a black clad knight like a berserker, sporting a scimitar, stepped out. "Answer her. I'm not like you. I kill whoever I want." The words were meant as a threat and they had a cold chill to them.

Grace was unsure what to say.

The bookkeeper just stood there. Shaking her head in utter frustration. She was starting to get a massive headache from all of this boorish commotion.

Grey Cerise continued to question. "Come on dude. There's not much point in playing this game. I have to get back. I miss Netflix and chill okay? We all have to get back."

The knight in the armor continued to stare her down. "Answer her, we need you to. You're the only us that we cannot account for. And if we cannot account for you, we have no use for you."

Grace felt her mind ready to split. "You already have me. And I don't know who I was before. I don't know. I don't remember. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know."

 

Sway jumped on Grace's shoulder and brandished the toony Ellie as if they were a weapon. "Dun make me oose the Premier as if dey gonna spank yur arses! I'll do et ye ah well!" The others looked on in suspicion.

"Wait, premier?"

One version of Grace that was a rubbery green armymen pushed forward.

"She has her Ellie still! I repeat, she has an ELLIE! Get her, siege her! All units on alert! You hear that private?" She said to a cybernetic soldier in a mech, Grace's hairbun forming a blue flame of jet-fuel out their metal chassis.

"Affirmative."

"Hey, leave her alone darlin! Harmin' fellahs ain't gonna make nothin better, ya here sugah?" Another version of her dressed as a southern belle jumped to her defense, along with several others. "You mightah brute like you oughta know bettah than to use physicality, the idiocy of some fellahs."

"We're all trapped here, we cannot leave! She's pretty suspicious. Step aside!" A gingerbread her said, pointing a candycane sword.

 A Grace dressed like a prostitute and another like a shark-gangster dressed from the prohibition era picked a side in the conflict and seemed to defend her with Tommy Guns, the two mobsters standing in front of her with crowds of Graces, standing against those who found Grace less well received. "Run, don't let these fookas mess with you. We'll fend'em off." While their arguments filled the air, Sway snuck behind and started to drag Grace away carefully from the crowd.

Several however noticed and did start to give chase. Sway growled at them, swiping with newly extended claws to defend Grace as she held the book in her hands. "Hands off me meal ya dinguses!" Sway yelled.

At that, a version of her clothed in the medieval garb and brandishing a rapier, approached. The woman wore a blue and yellow scarved top and hijab. She looked vaguely Middle-Eastern, but her features were still recognizable as Grace. She was riding a second Grace that was a dragon. "We're not gonna hurt you. Get on!" The dragon said. Sway and Gray quickly hopped next to her and held on tight. The dragon took off. Ellie, still a squeaky rubber toon waved like a floppy flag in Sway's grip while they flew far away.

 

"Thank you for your assistance." Grace told the two. "Why did you decide to help us out?"

Maryam placed their rapier down. "Your fate is your own, as is your past. They've no right to unveiling your experiences nor questioning you. You answer to no one but providence."

Sway rolled her eyes. "Yeah yah moor destiny mumbo jumbo."

The magnificent dragon slowed down once the large mob was completely of sight in the horizon. "The repetition and accessibility of timelines could cause a severe cognitive overload to those exposed to a large number of them. You are to be very, very careful with how much you know and where you go. The future is an impenetrable labyrinth." That was of all things she'd heard today, the most straightforward sentence somehow. Simple trivia knowledge. The Dragon, Graciar continued.

"We were on our way to the center of the maze within the final ring of the Tower. We were running into trouble, the thing that'd transformed us was growing out of control. We were looking for Ellie to ask for her help but then.. cracks in the timelines started to appear, and once Mama came after us, Mother didn't approve of the shattering of reality like this. She started devouring our timeline's Ellies, absorbing them and storing them. Each of us were forced to hop through these cracks, ending up in your timeline." Dragon  Grace explained.

Maryam nodded in agreement. "There are certain places in the center that are like a wandering eye. Things can see you, things can follow you. They can be aware of you, or they can be oblivious of you. You are in one of those places, Grace. Within the Sea of Despair, the Algae Mama has omniscience. It's only content if things stay the same, but recently it has not been in control. They are normally the one  that will protect us, keep us safe, and can cleanse entities within the Tower, from their roots to their farthest branches. They keep the number of traps, threats and instability down low.. but something has upset her. I believe it has something to do with you, but you must discover that for yourself." She said, her wisdom catching both Sway and Grace's glares as they flew towards a massive tree miles wide, its roots large enough to form a small isle shelf in the dark sea ahead.

 

"Ey, 'ook! Dats ta Sea of Despair!" Sway pointed, scratching her sharp nails against Gracier's scales.

The group gasped as an entity slowly appeared on the oily surface, and with a deep groan, massive eyes appeared from the sea below.

"Who are you?" The entity said, its eyes black as the depths below. It held up a gloved series of chains to block the Dragon Grace's view, ready to cage and immobilize her as needed.

"We seek help," Dragon Grace said.

Grace recognized that voice from the dark ocean, although it'd been ages since she'd heard it. "You're.. the Antiquarian!"

 

The masculine voice echoed. "Yes. The Algae Mama says we can trust you. She does not like any of her children here to be outside of her jurisdiction. She's afraid of the outside, the chaos, and has asked that you assist with any and all threats to this place. There are folks with you however, that they consider dangerous and ravenous. Best leave the beast behind. Do not let their claws step foot on this isle."

Dragon Grace looked at Grace and Maryam, the two alternatives of herself understood aswell. "Guess she's not fond of fire breathers. Don't suppose a tic tack would help?" She joked. "I'm kidding, we'll just have to turn around. Anyway you, Ellie and the little girl can make it there on your own?"

Suddenly Ellie began spiraling, the toony hoofwoofed goddess contorting her facial expression as if holding in gas. She exploded into light, and once it faded she was an alligator about half the size of Graciar, abit made of pure translucent rubber with a grinning dummy expression.

"We shall manage." Grace said, hopping onto the rubber Alligator and helping pull Sway on. "Thank you so much for all your help! Tell the others we'll try our best to put this right." They were lowered onto the oily surface, and riding Ellie like a float, began to use Maryam's rapier to row their way towards the isle far way.

Grace felt odd flashbacks, but her mind couldn't pierce the pieces together. Everything that caught her eye greeted her at once. She finally got close enough to the isle that it all that smell was just like she remembers. The latex, the rubber, so welcoming. A sharp scent softened by all the good memories. This was where, Ellie first took her that day. But it all blurs and flashes too much to remember coherently.         

"Sooo dis 'ere et all started, huh? One beeg tree 'n ta sea." Sway said. "Oi, time ta go and fix dis."

 

Grace watched the water beneath her, Ellie's tail beating rapidly against the water. She remembered the time she was pulled beneath an oily rubber puddle, next to a huge tree. But not one this large. She couldn't remember if she'd said she was afraid of drowning, but she recalled waking up and being pulled out, different. Serene. Calm. The memories fight her. The war rages in her head. This isn’t what she signed up for. She signed up for being in control, for wanting to keep her emotions sterile and pocketed, for handling any situation with ease. Not full of confusion and fear. She didn’t know what to think anymore. She'd wanted to live a normal life. She wanted to help others. To be something. This was not who she was.

But who was she then? The recollection of before she fell into the slick sticky puddle was a complete blank.

Soon the Elligator reached the isle, and Sway did a backflip onto the obsidian sands. Grace gently stepped off with her, watching as Ellie once again contorted and transformed, this time into a black cat with bright green irises.

The Cat jumped onto Grace and curled herself on Grace's shoulder, resting her nose gently against her nose. Her breath was a comforting warmth. Her fur was as soft as her eyes, and so the bookkeeper looked down to study her. "We're going to fix you my friend!" Grace said. "She's a cat. She was a cat before. The two of us can be a team. Let's get going."

 

 

They continued to walk for another half-hour. The Cat Ellie purred with the sound of a waterfall and followed Grace to the base of the tree, she seemed very interested in a huge crystal that lay just beneath the branches. She leaped onto a stone pedestal and dug her claws into it. Grace and Sway quickly took their seats next to the crystal. The crystal seemed to glow, and the great tree began to rattle, causing the three of them to jump in fear. It was a violent shaking, but the tree stopped immediately and all was eerily silent. Sway leaped up and began to poke the tree's bark in the middle, listening carefully for what it would say, but could hear nothing. She licked the surface, unable to stop her mouth from salivating.

The tree creaked and groaned. "Welcome to the heartwood." A voice said, as a huge black disc appeared projected from the crystal, two figures stepping out. The voice Grace recognize, approaching the tall cloaked man and his lanky pale limbs, his completely bandaged face, his frail spindly hair, and the chains around his arms rattling against the ground like a shadow of sorrow over the surface. Connected to him was a feminine figure lurching 18 feet tall with a cobalt hood, a mermaid's tail and a painted on face, like a porcelain doll's. Their chains kept them together, Grace recognizing Aegnus as she pulled herself further out of the murky darkness of the ground.

 

"Why 'dere two'em?" Sway asked.

"Negatrois, my dear." Grace told them in a hushed whispered. "The Antiquarian was an ancient and powerful entity within the Tower that agreed to become the guardian of the Book of Sorrows, since Ellie didn't trust herself with it. But nor did they in their old life, so they asked their soul to be split in two. Aegnus is the manifestation of their clarity and vision, their shadow and dark myth given form. They read the book to them acting as their eyes, as the Antiquarian themself is blind." She folded her hands neatly for the duo's arrival. "No one else can read the Book of Sorrows but them."

"Huh.. buuuh buncha crock if ya ask mee." Sway was still fascinated by the tree that stood before them, despite the two strange entities, and she slowly inched closer to the dark trunk.

 

"Rather poignant day for visitation, isn't it Librarian?"

"Hello my dear Antiquarian. You have some overdue books, I thought I'd make a trip." Grace smiled.

The Antiquarian lifted their bandages from their face, revealing four blue eyes. Not a single one of them could see. Aegus marched over and started leaning their hands down, feeling around Grace's face and form. The Antiquarian's eyes lit up as she did so.

Aegus looked at the cat. "She's here..?"

Grace nodded. "Ellie.. hasn't been feeling like herself lately." She got up and took Cat Ellie from the pedestal. The cat's gaze moved over her body, and she purred for the most part. She pulled her into her arms.

"A month ago she started transforming at random, her abilities going wild. One day she's a maid cleaning the whole house, the next she's a parrot quoting Shakespeare. I'm afraid these transfigurations are getting out of control, and they seem to indicate certain destruction for the tower."

 

She pulled Ellie in her arms and hugged her before looking at the Antiquarian. "She needs help."

Aegnus nodded. "We're here."

The Antiquarian took a closer look at Cat Ellie. "She'll be fine. Let's keep her company while we work." They took out a small red gem which created numerous laser's pointed across the ground. Ellie started chasing them, and they let the gem float away rotating slowly. Grace and the duo headed abit further into the dark disk, heading into dwelling within. Inside was a marble room with more pedestals, a tea table and antiques. Aegnus started to brew tea as the Antiquarian bandaged their face back up, and showed Grace to a large thick black tomb in the back.

"The Book of Sorrow... all destinies converge and collide within.  I am the shadow. The darkness. The Book of Sorrows is written for me. It is all in me. Without my dark presence, there would be no illumination."

Cold blood flowed through Grace's heart as the Antiquarian put their hand on her shoulder, skin like ice, pasty and pale, scalped like parched paper ready to crack and tear. "Hand me the Book of Lost Time."

Grace, with a certain weariness took out the tiny thin leather tomb with the jokebook. She handed them the book, and the Antiquarian ripped out the pages swiftly before flipping through the Book of Sorrows and placing them back in it. When the pages were properly joined it lit with a purple glow, sparking bright like a thunder storm. The Antiquarian flipped through the Book of Sorrows.

 

"We've been missing a page. It was lost after the tower was destroyed. We cannot go back. We cannot look back. We have lost. But I believe, it will be found."

These statements weighed on Grace's mind, she was reverent towards the entity's acumen but needed to process each statement still.

"The Tower was.. d-destroyed? How is that possible? When?"

"Not here. There. Another Where. Another when."

"Another timeline." Aegnus said, slowly passing a cup of tea to grace. "The temporal strata of everything in the Tower are usually kept tidy. Even an incident involving the Tower's complete and utter destruction would be regarded in its infinite recordings. But this one.. does not fit. The Tower's recordings of this event are missing."

"What happened?"

The cat, arriving into the room hopped up the pedestal and started pawing at the book.

"The only one who can rip out pages is me, but I've no recollection of doing so." The Antiquarian said. "It must've been me from another timeline. The book ripped or affected in one, repeats the effect in all versions of event, a universal shift. But the consequences would be severe... to alter reality by rewriting the book's pages, or ripping some out without the proper ritual or permissions would be catastrophic."

Grace gave pause, absorbing all this information in. "Why would, you rip out a page? Or another you?"

"The only reason I can imagine, is by request of the kaleidoscope premier." They sat, moving their chains connecting them from their other half aside.

"A year ago, there was a strange event that occurred. It was the most violent and destructive event to occur since the Tower's construction. As many of you remember, countless worlds nearly ended. It was when the Algae Mama grew out of control and its roots swiped away at floors like a cancer. The reality within the structure was ravaged with destruction, and the Tower was the first to take the brunt of it. But we were able to use what we could salvage and reconstruct it by rewriting the pages."

Grace nodded. "That was around the time.. I began to receive strange headaches and flashbacks."

 

The Antiquarian took another sip of their tea. "There are other known universes that overlap within the tower. Each one containing a different timeline of our time. You are a prime example. For each iteration of this universe the timelines would be different. But your existence, seems to owe no narrative within it. This is impossible, but me and Aegnus speculate that.." The two looked at each other, chains rested across their chairs. "It's possible your history was within the missing pages. The pages that Ellie asked us to rip out, in other timelines. Do you understand Librarian?"

 

The girl watched Ellie scratch at the pages, her fur beginning to glow again slightly, bubble and contort.

"But I'm very much here. And the other versions of myself I encountered earlier-"

"Are all accounted for." Aegnus said. "Of all the Grace's that exist within the Book of Sorrow, only you aren't mentioned."

 

"But-"

Aegnus stood up. "It has been some time since the torn pages occurred, but it's still recorded. In her own memory. And your own existence should be within yours. If I may be so humble to ask, where did you come from Grace?"

Grace listened and looked down at her cup. "It was a long time ago. I remember waking up from a puddle, I felt a terrible headache, and.. nothing else. Nothing else happened. No memories, I recall nothing before that day."

"I'm sure Ellie recalls." Aegnus said. "It's all in her memories. But we can't access them right now."

"I would ask for what happened, but I don't think she's at liberty to remember." Grace's eyes dropped to Ellie. She still purred. "She's just being a cat right now.." The light from Cat Ellie got brighter and burst her form away.

 

"'ere we go again." Sway said.

 

In the pulse overcrowding the room, she re-materialized as a form similar to Ellie herself, but with blond and cyan hair, humongous breasts and a blue plastic bikini strap. The obscene makeup on her face painted a picture of a woman reared for pleasure.

“I’m pretty.” Her voice was higher pitched than normal and she giggled before clapping a hand over her mouth.

Sway played drums with her rubbery breasts. "'hat kind oove stupidity be that?"

She arched her back with her hands behind her back, trying to look all cute and flirty at once. “OMG, your horns are SO cute! You don’t think I’m pretty?” The bimbo said to Sway. "And I look amazing! And I feel amazing! And we're gonna have so much fun! Can we like, go shopping now?”

"Won't you try to help her?" Grace said, as if pleading.

Aegnus sighed. "Rewriting Ellie in the Book of Sorrows isn't an easy task. It will take too much time, rituals and all, the price too great. But we cannot let her leave like this.. let me use a temporary solution." she pulled her cloak open abit and reached into leather straps, yanking them open until a mouth with razor-sharp teeth gave a shrill screech. Aegus reached in deep into the mouth, into her stomach until she pulled out a gooey green organ. Although her body and spine began to crunch, she went over to Ellie. Carefully, she shoved the veiny sphere into the ditz's mouth. "Chew, and then swallow." She instructed.

 

In a bubbly haze, Ellie swallowed, then began to recover some lucidity. A small fragment of her powers returned to her control, abit with her feeling sore, queasy and unstable. Aegnus's sacrifice cost her much mass, and her body finished compressing. Where the tall mammoth of an entity stood before, now a girl in a tiny dress who looked like a miniature version of Aegnus now stood. Sway burst into laughter.

"PFWHAHAHAHA! Oo'ya all lolita now. Like a teeny m'iny doll." She chorted, being 8-9 inches taller than the mystical book seer now.

Grace gave Sway a look, then she turned to Ellie. She nodded and held her hands out. "Come. Do you feel better, Mistress?"

"Do I? I... I'd like to go again?" Ellie said. Her snapped her fingers. Her form began to stretch, she grew a scarlet dress and a pair of red high heels, followed by a fur coat. It wasn't perfect, but it would do. "I'm not 100% yet, maybe not even 1%. But I'm like.. kinda me. Just a lil." She turned to Aegnus. "OMG, AGNI! You look sooooooooooo qwuuuuuuute!" With a rush, she peached the girl's rosy cheeks and swirled her around, her hands turning the entity's hair blond like a petite doll's and her blue dress a pastel pink with extra frills.

"Stwoop eett!" She pouted, realizing the Premier's magic was effecting by contact. She was becoming like a doll, makeup appearing on her face. Her mind  began to feel all fuzzy-wuzzy. Ellie's eyes widened as she saw what she assumed was Aegnus, but who was now dressed like a little princess. She also felt a wave of nausea, like from before, and puked up pink bubbles. Ellie was giggling again, the doll Aegnus's dress was now a pink and purple tutu. The girl wanted to whimper, but childlike thoughts of doll houses and cookies ran through her head by the time she was put down.

"Oops! Sorry, don't quite totes have control yet." Ellie shrugged, before admiring the pink nail polish and diamond ring on her hands. She poked Doll Aegnus's head, and the girly dollhouse thoughts were pushed out of the way a little.

"We'll have to try anyway and take your word on it." Grace pulled a seat for her Mistress to sit across from. "Ellie.. we need to talk. Why are you shapeshifting out of control like this?"

 

Ellie pouted. Perhaps her ditzed out brain made honesty a little easier for the time being. "Like.. okaie. But.. just don't tell anyone.. it's a big secret. Ok?"

 

"I won't." Grace said.

"Promise?" Ellie said.

Grace and Aegnus nodded.

"Promise." They both said.

Ellie shivered. Her eyes went to the book of Sorrows.

She giggled uncontrollably, trying to remember the her other big-girl smarty words. Her head was beginning to hurt, it was a dizzy mess. She remembered most of it. 'You were a Librarian. And you could change the shape of the books." She tried to concentrate.

Grace tilted her head. "What does this mean? Change the shape of the books?"

"It means.. the Algae Mama. Every book in the library comes from its own material, its magic and matter. It's like.. uhh let me like, start from the beginning. Mmkay Gracey-lacey?" She sneezed and the room filled with colorful flowers.

 

"Bless wuu." Aegnus said, squeaking her rubber tutu and hopping onto Grace's lap.

"Grace, the Algae Mama, she's like a.. like a big boss tree monster. It's like it made this book and other books so that she could change them and make them look like, whatever a tree wants I guess. She did this to you.. I mean she did this to the Tower, and now, it's doing this to me."

"Why is she doing this to you?" Grace asked.

"Because she's sick! It's like.. uhh let me like, start from the beginning." Ellie took a cup of tea and tried to concentrate and clear her head as much as possible. "A long time ago I realized the Tower was.. unstable. It like, had its own ecosystem? Eco-sissydom? An internal.. thingy, and external stuff. Sure lots changes and transforWowies are expected, but the health, you gotta watch out for its health! It could get somethin kinda like germs and sometimes somethin like invaders."

"Invaders?"

Aegnus cleared her throat. "She means Extra-instellation. Worlds, powerful entities and forces gravitating from beyond the Tower itself. It can- achu!" She sneezed adorably. "Sowwy.. It can handle some of it, but not 'all.' And Intra-Instellation.." Grace understood. "Phenomenon within can threaten stability. The damage to reality can cause.. Immense pain. Does that mean the Algae Mama was such an invader?"

Grace nodded. "Yes!" but leaned her head back. "Wait- like, no. Well maybe? Uhh it's compli-cuted! You see like.."

She scratched her head, big gigantic pigtails growing out. "The Algae Mama wasn't native to the Tower. It's an entity that feeds off magic, and seeds itself on worlds to drain them. But it's usually not harmful! Okaaaay it can be, tricky to individuals. BUT! That's a good thing! Because it can transform entities that get out of control or other magical threats. SO that makes it good and bad! It's like, germs in your gut or something. Or algae.. too much algae in a pond uh, makes dead fishy. Maybe idunno." She snapped her fingers and created bright pink lipgloss, applying it to her lips excessively.

 

"But the Algae Mama can be good! When kept under control. There's also.. the knight. I had to have missy lizard lady beat'em up and um, some friends sew them back together."

"Knight?" Grace watched her pucker her juicy lips out.

"Psst.. he's kinda like my dad! My raven daddy. Almost. Not really, but I've thought of'em that way. Anyway I ultimately turned daddy into kinda a satellite or thingy to guard outside the tower. And like, he worked! If other worlds arrived, if big menacing baddies or gods or, gay horny aliens tried to come into the Tower en masse, I'd know."

"Right. The Satellite array systemata, I read the manuals and schematics." Grace replied, tho she didn't really know where the lancing drone came from.

 

"Yep! Gotta keep the tower healthy with Mama, gotta keep the outside monitored and protected with daddy. But there was this time we didn't.. that was when I first met you Gracie-poo!" She sighed. "I'm not, like, supposed to tell you this part.. cuz I promised I wouldn't... but I kinda have to, cause the Tower is shakey-shakey, my head is all tee-hee and fate of everything is at stake. I like, guess? Bummer." She turned and picked up the Book of Sorrows, sprinkling some pink motes of light into it until its pages projected vast imagery in real time.

 

Grace's eyebrows furrowed, as her Mistress started to explain the first time they met. When Luma was running away from marauders and ran into Ellie's abode, she ended up helping her retrieving the Algae Mama's seed. The incident lead to the first transfiguration of Luma, creating Grace. She watched events that followed with the baton twirling girl and how she assimilated Ellie. "This next part is why when I came to my senses I needed to eh, well I like kinda called Antiquarian and had them.. hit the reset button. I had them rewrite the book."

Grace witnessed the projection, as the bandmates had soon spread to every floor, creating a marching parade that went on for continents, shelf to shelf, world to world. Whole kingdoms were swept up into more identical band members. "The performance grew so loud.. and our band so big, that eventually daddy appeared and told me we were waking, those coming from outside. We were too loud, they were following the sound of our giant performance! We were totally in danger! And I also didn't want to wake.." As the projection turned to the blurred visage of the girl sealed in a star, displaying Sandra at top the tower. "Well idun wanna talk bout that so I won't. But I was really scared of what might happen, if invaders came, if that person awoke, it'd all be bad so..... I had Antiqubutt rewrite some pages and make it so this never happened." She shrugged.

 

"But then well uuuuuuhh.. guess what? It kinda, happened again? I met Luma-Wuma, and next time she was a pretty princess and I her handsome horse! We started to take over other floors and, the same thing happened y'know? It got too big. Too loud, too worrisome. Had to have that timeline rewritten and shelved." She laid back in the chair abit, Sway could be heard biting and making a loud scene in the other room. "Long story short, it happened over and over and over. Endless times. The Algae Mama would appear, me and Luma would get sucked in and changed, absorbed, the tower would be at risk so, I'd need to kinda make a timeline an Ex-timeline every time. Like that one where everything was a superfun beach! Or a big 20's jazzy city! So much fun... so many times. Only there was a bad problem.." Her eyes darted around the room, glossy lips pouting with a sigh.

 

"See Algae Mama and their seeds are.. multidimensional? Their roots actually go beyond space-timey-stuff. So like, every time we rewrote out the pages of the Boob of Sorrow and tried to reset everything in the tower, it modified the organis-org-tree thing. The Algae hot-mama got more powerful, got bigger and grew with every reset, it actually feasted in timelines we abandoned, like composting dead cows y'know? Time-cows? Anyway the Tree thing got big, waaay too beeg!"

 

She made an exaggerated, long gulp, raising her eyes to the ceiling. "It's like, a whole universe in there now. Inside the Algae Mama. Almost like an Algae Queen lmao. So we like, had to stop all these left behind timelines or the Algae Mama would take over ours and not even the rippy dippy with the book could stop it."

 

"Which brings us to this timeline.. to you." She sighed, looking at the projection of a young Luma and Grace standing outside the sea of sorrow, staring at the gigantic tree rooted at the base of the tower. "I got sucked into the book, which of course led to the tree, that's when I went on a quest to find a way to stop the Algae Mama. It was a long and hard journey, and a lot of lives were lost along the way. Eventually I ran into you again, that's right, you Grace. Or, the old you. I offered her a chance to back out, to go home.. she saw in the book her destiny, where her and, a friend she traveled with were married. That hero, her old friend back in her world, they saved the land from a demon and this hero became king, whereas she became queen. She could've been their bride, could've ruled over Magisteria beside him. But they saw this future... and decided it wasn't where she wanted to be. It was a fate she just didn't like.. want. I let it be, y'know? And she realized what that meant. That she'd be transformed too like every time before, she'd be assimilated by the Tower and accepted it.."

 

Grace closed her eyes. She didn't really think she'd ever have to deal with anything like this again.

 

She pointed her fingers and held them down over her heart. "So she needs you to like, totes stop the Hot Mama. Then the tower won't be in danger. She's sick, and if you don't stop her she's gonna have a seizure and she won't be able to do her thing. We need to help her so she can go.. uh, anywhere she wants."

 

Aegnus could feel her chains rattling from the other room. They briefly looked at the Antiquarian who had been knocked out, as Sway started to escape.

She turned back to Ellie. "Wait my lord, what happened to you exactly? I don't see the relation."

Ellie started to blow pink bubbles, popping them into gum around her fingers. "Oh that? Nothin' too much really.." She faced both of them. "Now I know why I've been feeling like, all woozy lately. When other stuff happens to the other mes, I get.. weird. Hiccups or maybe a cold maybe. I realized I'd get a stomach ache or something silly when the Algae Mama was transforming and suckling on me in some pocket of reality, so like, imagine my condition when they're nomming on a candystore worth of me? It made the tree sick... and, lotsa captive mes make me super-sick, ya dig!"

She flicked hair. "My brain tends to overheat, and my fever, still hasn't gone down. See this form here?" She bounced her huge breasts like bouncy balls. "That means this happened somewhere else along the timeline.. and the Algae Mama was responsible. Each time, it swipes that Ellie's magic and grows stronger too. The forms you saw me take.. they were actually a form that an Ellie got transformed into by the Algae Mama, somewhere and sometime else."

Grace gave pause. "...oh. OH." How could she not have realized it before? "When I came down to travel the Sea of Despair, I came across some of it's roots with thousands of red pods. They must've been.." The room went silent.

"Like.. Yeah." Ellie folded her arms. "RIP Bimbo beach-babe Ellie."

Aegnus cleared her throat. "Than the solution seems rather simple, we just have to find a way to sedate and deal with the Algae Mama right? Then all your transfigurations will stop."

 

"See! That's just it. We already have a way to seduce it.." Ellie announced. "We've always had a way. What's shocking is just, why it doesn't work right now." The room went silent. Ellie, sheepishly looked at the librarian.

 

"Please. Don't tell me.."

With a regretful turn, Ellie flicked the book's pages and the projection continued.

 

⎯⎯ ୨ ୧ ⎯⎯

 

"And what should I do?" Luma asked, her hands on her hips, the Algae Mama roaring from its roots to its magic absorbing bark.

 

Ellie gave the girl a stern glare to show she wasn't going to let anything like this happen again.

Luma stared up. "What if we use the books magic to sedate it? We'll sedate it all the way down and the Algae Mama will lose interest. When it comes out of hibernation, it'll be too weak and we can put it away."

"No.. Magic. Magic doesn't work on it. It feeds on magic, there isn't a single spellbook that can uproot it without making it stronger. I thought that the Book of Sorrows could rewrite it but, that hasn't worked. Attacking it, brutality will make it worse. Even rewriting reality won't.." Ellie said.

"It's all useless? Then what do we do?"

 

"When I was a small kid and I got scared or angry or, out of control, I remember my sister used to sing to me. She'd clean up after my messes and tell me to stay calm. Made me swallow my medicine, which I'm pretty sure was just a placebo, but I drank it and she threw blankets with chicken soup and pacified me constantly." Ellie gave a deep breath. "And the way to stop the Algae Mama.. all we need to do is find someone that can sing to the oak."

 

"Sing to the oak?" Luma asked. "How?"

"You can sing to anything you like, if you know what you're doing." Ellie added.

 

She held out a hand to the foxgirl. "Let's do it."

"It's.. not that easy. You'd have to become someone the tree trusts, that can catalogue its magic, its emotions and knowledge every night. Because if it's not happy, if it's mad, it'll suck that person's magic and power. But if it is happy.. that person can keep it under control."

Luma thought for a moment. She closed her eyes and the image of the tree got bigger in her mind. The girl walked forward for a few minutes and then placed her hand against the base of the tree. She concentrated, flowing herself in and out of it, everything that the Tree was and watched and felt sucking back into Luma. "It's sad... this Algae Mama is actually only a baby, or it was when it arrived here. It's gotten too big and this Tower is the only place able to holding it. So if it wants to live, it needs to be sedated. What can I do? I want to help, if I can."

Ellie stepped forward, scooping some of the goop from its puddles. "Once upon a time I would've been barely tickled by this stuff.. but it's gotten a lot more powerful. "You're the only one who can make it calm." She said. She flicked on her finger and a spray of pinkish blue sparkles flew from the tip.

"Do you remember who you became when you first fell victim here? Do you remember.. being Grace." She gave a melancholic smile, reluctant to recruit her. "The Algae Mama... seemed to like her."

 

Luma gasped. She took a step back and grabbed Ellie's shirt, her eyes wide. Her hand pointed to herself. "Grace... is.. in here?" She whispered.

Ellie nodded.

And the tree.. wants Grace.

Ellie again, nodded.

"I promise, I'll keep the tree happy and healthy! But promise me one thing yourself. If I have to become, Grace.. don't tell her who she used to be. I want her to focus on, well living for herself. I don't want her to have any memories of me okay? My life, maybe I lack confidence but, she'd be better not knowing that. Even if you have to keep the truth from her, or rip out the pages of the book so she won't remember or know me... please keep my existence from her alright?"

Ellie hesitated, she didn't like the idea of keeping anything hidden but, it was seemingly this girl's final wish. After a deep sigh, she nodded.

"Alright, I promise. I won't tell you.. or her, I guess, anything about herself." 

"Thank you."

Luma turned back around, giving a minute full of silence while the lightbeams fell against her face from the massive branches above. The imagery began to flicker out.

 

⎯⎯ ୨ ୧ ⎯⎯

 

 

The two stared at the projection of the tower and the tree. Grace couldn't help but feel something she hadn't felt for a long time. It was sadness. The austere operator of facts and logic, of trivia and information wasn't supposed to have emotions. "How? I don't remember.. singing." She said.

"We sacrificed Luma's soul... your soul. I know this isn't the reunion you and the tree planned, but unconsciously, you've been taking care of that tree. Every book in your library comes from it, and you do love and care for your books right? You've cured it, you succeeded. Atleast, for awhile."

"That's, impossible." Grace held herself, collapsing into her own lap.

"The tree absorbed Luma, and you were spat back out as Grace. I don't know whose behind all this, but I suspect you have the power to calm the tree, Grace. It's grown sick from a zillion Ellie gumballs, it's grown beyond control and is sick. But you can keep it pacified, that's what you were created for. You have to keep your promise."

Grace was indignant. "It wasn't MY promise!" She lowered her voice, not liking the emotional bursts coming out of her. "Forgive me mistress. But I'm not... her. I'm not Luma. I'm Grace. I don't even remember being her."

Ellie eyes flickered, she couldn't hold back the laughter. "You're not her.. you're not HER, not Luma, not Grace.. I cannot do it, I'm not the other one. it's so funny, that's exactly the kind of self-doubting talk that Luma would say." Her emotions were tied to the trees, just as Ellie's soul was tied to the Tower. Ellie was trying to convince her, to try and keep her calm and peaceful.

"Your, memory is gone, and only you and the tree know it. But I know what you are... Grace." Ellie went on, trying to reason with Grace. "You're a kind soul. You're someone who can be in control, you know how to keep it in check. "

"But-"

"No butts! This is the most, Luma-like I've ever seen you Grace. That's how I know you can do this."

Grace was quiet. Ellie could tell the girl wasn't fully convinced.

The sound of an explosion caught all three offguard.

 

"What the?" Aegnus turned around and ran outside. Grace and Ellie, caught offguard, closed the tomb and ran out with her.

Aegnus's chains rattled and stretched, their other half unconscious in the living room floor inside the dwelling. The trio ran outside and looked up to see a huge smoky inferno around the Algae Mama, large frozen branches covered in ice, and massive chunks tore out of it. Crawling out it and stuffing the soot, burned debris and detritus directly into her mouth, was Sway. They saw her blowtorch whole pieces with fire out of her mouth, before devouring them whole.

"Sway? What ever are you doing?!" Grace said.

"Sway! Stop it!" Ellie said.

Before anyone could even think of stopping it, Sway blew off a big chunk of the tree's outer later. It flew straight for the trio, covering them in dust and dirt. Once the chunk slammed onto the ground, Grace fell back with fear of being hurt. Instead of being crushed, it only slid away and melted into the soil, leaving no sign of impact.

Sway giggled with an evil laugh. "Dun 'ook, dis is a ery spesh part." She said as she blew it to bits and chewed it down like a termite.

"O, danks fer the ride by the way, Gracious. Stoopid bookgirl."

Grace stood up. "You lied to me? All this time, you used me so you could feed on the tree? SWAY!"

Sway hissed, her eyes glowing pure red with no pupils. Something started to bulge out of the sides of her waist.

"Oi shut it, I 'ought that's what ya wanted. Git rid of da tree makin yer girly sick right? You shoulda taken a wittle more time out of yer worthless life ta git to know me a little." She licked her lips. "Sides, am only doin' what ye already doin' to these poor dew."

 

"What I'm already doing? What does that m.."

 

"Ooo really don't git et do ya? If yer mind wasn't so busy... growin or sum 'hhhit, that girl inside ya would've 'sang' forever and you could be a dumb e'motionless husk. You grew complex.. 'emoriez comin back. Luma growin' inside you, returnin slowly. It was only a matta time before you could s'g no more pretty tunes. All I 'ad ta do was wait it out! See y'oo made da tree sicc as a dawg wit' yoos complex emotions n souly shittt." Her body grew chitin and she was gnashing like a wild animal.

Sway's face had a look of evil to it, the kind of sinister glare that relished in eating the weak. 3 additional sets of arms finally burst out of her sides and her body elongated, stretching like a centipedes. Her ram horns grew several sizes, then multiplied down her backside like horned spikes. Her feet expanded and extended, they had razor sharp nails just like those on her 8 hands, her arms growing extra joints and becoming hideously frail. Her skin started to grow a crimson carapace with green tribal swirls and tattoos. The little girl's face turned absolutely monstrous, long and deformed beyond measure.

 

She opened her mouth and screamed at the trio. "G-GRAAAAHHHH!! Ya dipsticks know how long ah've wanted ta eat dis tree? To taste it, now ah 'ave it RIGHT 'HERE I WANT ET! You wanna play treehugger, pooie, gross gross gross. B-BUT I SAAAY, I ONLY WANNA EEEEEAT IT!"

That's when Grace recalled back to when she was flying on the Dragon. The warning.. Best leave the beast behind. Do not let their claws step foot on this isle. "It was you.. The Tree was scared of you!"

Instead she ran at them in a blur of speed. Her arms swung, catching Grace's shoulder in her jaws. "AGHHH!!"

 

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZWTTT

Ellie blew the smoke from her finger.

"Yavon Sui-kway... When I worried about outsiders entering the tower, it was vermin like you."

Sway hissed.

A bright blue bolt shot from Ellie's fingertip at the creature just barely saving Grace, Sway dashing in a blur away before the strike could land. It's long lower-midsection swiped at the group creating a thunderous wave. The trio were flung back and into the air, landing with a thud into the dirt, and a blur later Sway was already uptop the tree.

The Book of Sorrow back in the dwelling flipped, landing its pages anew.

 

[Zes-Lethiska, a distant relative of the basilisk. Lethiskas are carnivorous bottom-feeders that crave both meat and plant matter, but are especially nourished by magic. Skilled shapeshifters, they multiply in massive quantities and overwhelm worlds, feeding on all vegetation until the last patch of grass is left to wasteland.  Once they exhaust all vegetation, they feast on the meat of starving surviving inhabitants. However, they never quite reached the point of saturation, leaving them to wander endlessly. They have no natural predators, which has left them in an unopposed position. Because of their lack of a natural enemies, Lethiska are rarely destroyed. Their predatory nature marks them as duplicitous devourers of worlds, considered deadly fire-breathing parasites and scavengers of the worst kind. They are considered by the majority of people to be evil beings, but some believe that it is merely their nature to consume as they please. An adult Queen Lethiska lays her eggs on astroids and within interdimensional pocket spaces, after having grown the size of nearly a planetoid-moon roughly. Even pupil Lethiskas are extremely clever. Lethiskas can be extremely intelligent, and many have been known to speak and reason, pretending to be a human child. Their true intent, however, is to consume the life of others, especially magical entities.]

 

Sway stood tall, its multiple sets of eyes burning deep crimson. "Yee haw!! Now I eat 'em up, I'll make it nice, I'll make it nice, I'll make it good." It laughed, a loud hooting laugh that echoed. Sway then pulled out some type of blade from its body.  The top was a long triangle with a wide sharp edge which jiggled, made of chains. It swiftly threw the blade at speeds the three could barely react to, causing cuts in their legs, Aegnus's dolly joints rattling somewhat.

"Aegnus!" Grace yelled.

"Stay still!" Ellie kept jolting her finger, shooting blast after blast at the Lethiska's blurry form. It dodged just out of reach. The headache and sickness that Ellie felt kept throwing off her aim, and she couldn't access any higher power without the knots in her stomach threatening to make her kneel over.

"Alright, baby brat playtime is over!" Ellie clapped her hands intending to end it, when her body was blown by a spark from her own self and exploded. She was sent flying back into the dirt. "Ugh... shit. Still sick. Eat.. meteors!" She attempted to snap her fingers, the fabric of reality bending but not reaching where she needed it to be. A series of rubbery beachballs fell on Sway's head, and she popped them trivially. "Cannot quite utilize my tricks yet.." Ellie muttered.

 

She made a feeble attempt to wave her fingers and throw a gush of wind at her, but they still didn't reach the blur. Sway reached right above Ellie. "Come git in my lap. I'll eat your friggin' heart."

"Get off her!" Grace ran to charge at the creature, but milliseconds later it blurred from the surface back to the the circumference of the tree, reaching a tall branch a second later. "Slick mother.." Ellie raised her hand up again, firing a few bolts that missed the speedy predator. Sway started to inhale for a moment. Her's flaming breath turned an icy blue and she shot down over Ellie. The premier was encased in a cold layer of frost, petrifying upwards slowly on the spot from the feet up.

"Aegnus! The book!" Ellie yelled, feeling her arms shiver and go stiff.

Aegnus started to hop rapidly back into the dwelling and run towards the Book of Sorrow.

The Lethiska sped down and dashed behind them "Idi-oot. 'ike ah wouldn't see 'at comin'."

The doll clasped their hands and shot several bolts of energy at the menace, who only seemed to flicker and dance at blinding speed avoiding each strike.

They opened their massive maw and an arctic flash of white coalesced over the book seer, until only a cold statue stood in the freezing mist.

When they stepped out, only Grace was left.

 

Sway crawled close to them, their pincers coming out of their chest in multitude as their carapace gleamed in the dark reflections down in the abyss. The Sea of Sorrow would see one more librarian meet a grim cold fate, had Sway not smelled something off in the air.

"No!" Ellie yelled, trying to yank her body free, but finding it held her down like an anchor.

Sway looked upwards. Something was coming, flying with wings and scales. A trio dropped off from the magnificent dragon and landed nearby.

Grace was astounded. "Maryam? Tiberius?"

She turned her head to a third drop-in from the dragon above.

"White Nebula.."

"Long story. I had a bit of a funny dream. Let's leave it at that." Tiberius said, the dreamlord giving a thumbs up to Grace.

Sway hissed. "Twat do oo idi-oots 'ink yer doing? You cannot stop me!" She yelled, before something grabbed her leg- a single root, wrapping around and merging to her midsection.

"No." White Nebula smiled. "But they can."

Suddenly, the dragon flew closer, followed by the sights of other flying figures behind them, enough to blot out the sky.

 

"Grace! All of them!" Ellie cheered, the visage of a multidimensional spectrum of variations of that name soon raining down into the Sea of Despair and arriving like a storming army. She opened up a spray of icy fire ahead, but the arriving dragon blew back a powerful rage of flames countering it in turn.

 

"H-How did you get back here?" Ellie said, her face falling into utter shock.

Graciar flew down beside her. "M-Maryam... Asked the tree. The tree sent Tiberius some wild dreams. Soon him and the Space Witch went down and gathered as many Graces as they could find. Look!" 

 

Like stars, they fell. Nothing more or less than thousands of Graces soon arrived on shore and stormed ahead, versions of her that were different beasts, that were pirates and lawyers and insectoid queens. Versions of her from timelines where she'd become a powerful mages and knights, futuristic outcomes in meches and past versions from antiquity on horseback chasing after the devourer. Sway was overwhelmed and sped up the tree's height. The higher they climbed up the Algae Mama, the more the roots tied to them and started to yank them back to the surface, and soon they were dragged into a massive crowd of Grace, a mob they couldn't escape. They were clawing at and fighting every single body unloading at them at once. In furious anger, Sway opened an arctic beam charged towards every direction trying to freeze the swarm.

Grace ran over to Ellie. "Mistress!"

Dragon Grace breathed in deep and blew out, her flames blasting over her. The ice melted by the wayside, and Ellie cracked her neck out of the frost.

"Think that little chilly encounter relaxed me quite a bit. I'm back baby! Well, just enough." Multicolored sparks flowed around her hands and she started to march towards the dogpiled Sway. "Grace, go attend to the Algae Mama. I'll take care of our little bug problem here."

 

The Lethiska shrieked. She turned to see Grace running towards the tree. "DATS MY MEAL! GIT AWARRRRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYY!!!"

 

An endless sea of icy fire began to encroach on the Algae Mama, swept up the ground and over it, then over the rest of the beach in a massive wave of white. Graciar flew to protect Grace, the dragon's scales glinting like white diamonds under the light. She was soon encased in a layer of ice, like a glacial fortress that plummeted. 

Grace reached the tree, pressing her hands to it while the golden hour of dusk grew the long shadows over her. She concentrated, and the Algae Mama's magic synced once again with the Librarian. She was transported into a white realm, like a dream, dreaming about someone else's life. It was all so fuzzy, memories from a previous life, her subconscious in the multiverse linked deeply into the Algae Mama and she finally recovered her amnesia. Everything for her faded to white.

 

⎯⎯ ୨ ୧ ⎯⎯

 

Within the white mental void, Grace sat down.

 

Another figure sat beside her. Had always been sitting, waiting.

She looked at the figure, it was someone she had never met before, yet felt she had known all along.

"Grace." a warm voice spoke out, a voice she longed to hear for ages. "Do you remember me?"

The librarian turned to her, her blond locks, her white dress and purple collar, the gauntlets made for a mechanic.

"Yes. I forgot for a long time now. How have you been, Luma?" She said, as if greeting an old friend.

Luma looked the other way. "We're still in each others lives now." She held Grace's hand. "I can feel it."

"You are in my heart, and I am in yours. You were meant to be there. All this time."

Grace hugged the figure. "I've missed you." She said.

"I've always been here." she holds Grace, runs her fingers through her hair. “No emotion is bad, emotion without logic is bad. You need both, Grace. Just having one will hurt you every single time. But it was only a part of our bond that I did with the tree. It took our emotions, all of me to sooth the Tree, I'm sorry there was none left for you.” She lifts her head. “That’s why it took so long to get here. The tree got a little sick because we're growing out of our roles a bit.. You're starting to remember what it was like to have emotions, to have desires of your own. And I'm learning more what it's like to be you.”

Grace nods, unable to stop thinking about how she arrived at this point. “You were there the whole time.”

"Yes.." Luma scratches her head. "The Seedling needed a little more care and attention than I thought, so I don't remember a lot of your adventures... But you're me, so I'll remember them all someday."

They went silent in the void for a little bit, Grace lying back.

"Luma, why did the Tree get sick? Wasn't it dependent on you?"

"Us.' Luma corrected, laying on the surface with her while turning her head. "The Algae Mama depended on us. When we were separate, when our focus came programmed and souls apart.. it was easy. "

"Could this mean.. "

"We're slowly coming together again." Luma pressed her boobs to Grace's.

"Will we end up becoming me, or you?" Grace asks apprehensive.

“Both.” Luma whispers.

“Okay.” Grace murmurs.

“I’ll stay here as long as you need. You … you know that right?” Luma threw her arms around Grace.

"I'm slowly beginning to realize what's going on.."

"Our memories of the switch will be a little hazy at first but, side by side... they'll come together eventually."

"Luma, I know that you will be a great librarian. I'm proud of you." She patted her other halves body. "I think it's time we head home." Grace said, her voice like music in Luma's ears. “And it's time for me to get all my memories back. I want to know who I am, what I did, who I met... Are you okay with that?"

"It'd mean our union.. I'm not ready to join our souls just yet. But, how about in the hereafter, we start to get to know the other half of ourselves."

Grace looked out into the void, a gigantic tree fading into their inner world. "We'd need to leave behind the Algae Mama then. You cannot stay in her keeping Mama happy forever."

 

"I know. She's a big girl.. I need to do that one myself." Luma gave a smile.

Luma and Grace looked at each other, a silent recognition.

 

Grace watched Luma get up, and walk over to the tree. From a distance she could see, with the faintest glint in the glittering shade, what almost looked like singing. A song of green, echoing into the distance. Grace's mind mellowed, she felt glimpses of Luma's past, but let them slide by inside, like taking slow sips rather than overwhelming herself with them.

As Grace watched the sunset on their world with an airy breeze, she saw Luma's hand on the trunk. The girl lifted her own palm and placed it against the tree, embracing the feeling of connection. It didn't take long for the wild breeze to slow down, the connection finally sedating the fear, the chaos and uncertainty the Algae Mama had spun into before.

Grace walked over and stood beside Luma, a gentle smile on her face. "You did good, Luma." She said, embracing her, Luma returning her hug.

She simply put her head on Luma's shoulder. The wind stirred in her hair, as if it was feeling exactly what she was feeling. "Thank you for everything, Luma. For being here. For making me feel safe again. For sharing so much of yourself."

Grace spoke as a whisper, her voice fading away into a million fragments.

"You're welcome, Grace." Luma whispered back, the smallest tear falling from the corner of her eye.

"We'll both be back soon, I know it.."

 

⎯⎯ ୨ ୧ ⎯⎯

 

 

The red sun lowered beneath the horizon, shifting to a glimmer of blue in the dark sky. The darkness embraced the world within the deep of the Sea of Despair.

Grace woke up, atleast she thought she was still Grace. She looked down and felt her hands, less heavy and stuffy than before. When she looked over, she saw Dragon Grace and a few dozen other versions of her celebrating. The dream lord and Space Witch were sipping wine together. Aegnus, now defrosted and a sliver closer to her usual height, abit still looking like a blond plastic barbiedoll, hung with The Antiquarian in recovery.

Dragon Grace slowly looked down and her hands were at her sides.

"You've finally recovered..?" Dragon Grace asked.

"Yeah, it feels different than before. I'm glad that's over." Grace said. "What happened to the fiend?"

Graciar nudged their head towards the tree's bulk. Ellie standing was standing with her hands on her hips, staring up at a huge shapely blister in the three. When Grace paced near enough, she could see Zes-Lethiska encased in the trunk, her face twisted into wood and body connected to the vines. She was immobile, seemingly merged and unconscious.

 

"I sealed her for now." Ellie turned around. "How are you feeling?"

Grace rubbed her head. "I'm, much better. Shouldn't you be the one we're worried about?"

"It seems the Algae Mama spit the versions of us back out and returned them to their original timelines, atleast those that wanted to. That was the Tree's doing. It was happy to release you back into the multiverse. Without so many of me assembled or connected, my sickness let up." She looked back to the Algae Mama.

"Still, I don't think we can just let this keep growing throughout the Tower like this. As extremely~fun as it makes things, it's gotten too big, and with our pesky little invader here strapped to it, carries a big risk."

 

Ellie followed. "I'll put Aegnus in charge of stopping it from growing any further."

"He won't be able to fight a Tree." Grace added. "You can stop it. I've been with you for too long not to know this."

"Grace.. it's not my favorite option, so..." A look of irritation creasing her face.

"I trust you, Ellie. You need to trust your own. We cannot keep singing to this thing.. its time for it to grow up."

"Fine." Ellie threw up her arms in concession. "It cannot be helped I guess. By the way... both of you are my treasures. Hope you know that!"

Grace chuckled.

 

The kaleidoscope Premier marched towards the tree with swagger, licking her palms and rubbing them together. She gave a small wave to the tree and started to tip-tap her toes together. A rainbow aura started to spread throughout her body while she powered up, reaching the brightness of a star.

"Hello? You there? What is your name? My name is Ellie! I want to make a deal. I'll be honest with you, I'm a terrible negotiator but I'm still a professional swindler." Her tone brightened, to a more cheerful degree. "Do you have something you want? You're standing here in the middle of the Tower, so.." She put her ear to it's wood. "Oh, oh really? Okay, got it. Somewhere nice, a vacation? Yeah hear ya! It could work, sure let's do it!" The crescent waves around her palms began surging, creating waves of energy that wrapped around and spread to the tree. Ellie's bright aura soon spread up to the entire tree, the Tower itself shaking on every last floor.

Ellie held up a hand and started to chant something inaudible, focusing all of her energy into a green beam. This small song had a tune to it that was like a nursery rhyme one might sing to a young girl on the eve of their birthday.

 

"I have a plan and a job for you to do!

You be the best you can be!

You be the brightest you can be!

You be the strongest you can be!

Go go go goooo away TREE!"

 

With a single swipe of her palm, reality was consumed in a burst of blinding, pulsating streaks that thrummed like a rhapsody of brilliance.

The Algae Mama was gone.

 

Ellie was still there, looking back up.

Grace ran over, patting Ellie firmly. She looked around, as the last bits of her spell scattered in a shower of sparks and rainbow light.

As the last of the rainbow light dimmed, so too did any trace of the tree.

 

"If it's within my placement to ask, where did you send it?"

Ellie stuck out her tongue. "Who knows?" She squinted at Grace, knocking on her forehead. "I'm sorry.. who are you?"

"Mistress?"

"'Within my placement to ask...'" She poked the librarian's forehead. "Grace never asks for permission like that."

Ellie shrugged. "Well, I'm just teasing, it's good to see you again. Whoever you are."

"Mistress.. the reason you didn't tell me about, myself. My past.. was it because of the promise you made to Luma?"

She scratched her head and slapped Grace's boobs. "Probably. Idunno, might not have made a big deal of it even without that. Hopefully no hurt feelings?"

Grace held her head up high. "If I'd be so lucky to have feelings."

Ellie snickered. "Of course you have feelings, you dork." She blew a rasberry in the girl's face. "Let's go back to the party, shall we?" She offered a hand to the librarian. They began walking back, a massive hollow cavity where the Algae Mama now was left an eerie emptiness across the isle.

Dragon Grace was roasting smores with her flames. The rest of the groups were celebrating, each of their own forms, laughing and cheering. Aegnus and the Antiquarian gave each other a cheek kiss, but no one noticed as Grace went over. 

 

"May I ask you two something?" She said, more confident and forward than usual.

"O-oh, Grace! sure." Aegnus said, her voice still like a squeaky little girls speaking through a voicebox.

"When you two separated into separate beings, well... do you remember what it was like when you were together? Which one of you were whom, if you even were either of you before? Did you want to become one again? You'll have to explain it to me." She had a bit of a glint in her eyes and an eager curiosity in her smile.

The two looked at one another. "I think you already know the answer to that." Aegnus said, as if her eyes were gazing into the past.

"If it really was for the right reasons, that's what it comes down to, right? That what came out of us, was better for it ultimately." Aegnus replied, patting Grace's shoulder as both walked past her. She stared up at the huge hollow cavity where the tree was. It's shadow right around this time would've been cast directly overhead, over her heavy shoulders and body in a dark umber shade from the monolith of oche above. But not anymore.

 

She looked back to Aegnus, the librarian grinning to the book seer.

"Thank you."

"The pleasure was mine. I hope it will be the last time we are put in situations like this one."

Grace gazed up into the void above them and for the first time ever, her lips began to sing.

 

End