Push it.
(Speed, 14+
2d6/2 vs Impossible, 20. 14+(4/2) = 16 v 20), Failure.
(Dream, d20 -> 20)
You bound through a few more paces, reaching for the sky, trying to force more power out of your legs, as you launch yourself in greater and greater leaps. The air streams behind you, it feeling like the flow of water, but you can't hear its song; Like, but not alike. Three.. four.. five.. and six, off a massive boulder the size of a small house, winglets lifting your arms, then your legs, then your body as you dash upwards, chasing the blue.
You blink.. and in a moment, all is different.
Words tumble into your head from the nameless power that lies within you. Vectors. Dynamics. Lamellar flow. Turbulence. Angle of Attack. V sub Y, all turning into a chaotic tornado that flows past you, like the fluid around you. What you can do is see, and in glorious technicolour.
The sky is a wonderful field of orange and yellow, with updrafts and breezes of nice happy yellow, chased with still air in brilliant orange. Clouds are darker now, all red and orange, with the occasional sparkle of a golden drop, some falling and some dissolving back into red and orange. The sky itself has the occasional brilliant flash of a performer, a spec of gold or blue, a momentary standout among the happy yellow of the air.
The ground is a hazardous, threatening black, with the trees tall pillars of brown lines, far below. All is lines too, there is no form, no shape, simply the beautiful, immaculate colours, as you dive and bank among the yellow, aiming to feel the caress of the green areas as you roll and lean and taste the air with your limbs.
Only the sun remains untouched, an island of bright yellow where all else is so different. You wonder why that is, and then take a brief look behind you, remarking at the wonderful brilliant white you are, and the remarkable fringes of the wave around you, fringes and auras of blue and white and brilliant green.
With some effort, you reach your arm out and make the colours shift. Now you can see the air properly, and remark at how this twitch and that twitch change the brilliant lines that flow out beyond it, marvelling at the gift you've been given. This is wonderful, and for the first time in your life you feel truly free.
But just as that thought runs through you, your eyes shift again. Now you can see a violet? A purple? A gray? Some odd colour overlies everything, with the sky being just that bit lighter and the ground being that bit darker, and you see it all over you, and on everything. Like all the brilliant colours could be so much more, but this.. thing.. pulls on it, adds to it, and wrecks it, like a streak of vandal's paint on a masterpiece. No, this isn't right at all. You're hardly free with all this on you, and you vow to set yourself aside from it, pulling with your powers.
..But it doesn't work. Whatever this is, your powers have no effect on it. This isn't what you can handle, and it's going to wreck everything! A flash of anger runs through you, where before there was the happy resolution of one who knows she can handle a problem. Now, there's the anger caused from active dislike. At this, your mind finally wakes up from the reverie of the glorious colours of the sky.
"It's gravity," your mind says. "And it's not evil."
The rest of you can't really understand that. But it's everywhere! And it holds you down! And there's just so much you could do if it wasn't there!
"No." "It's energy." "You can use it, and it can make things brilliant in itself." "Look around! Everywhere things go with it, it makes them more bright. Fighting it is only making you dim. Work with it, and look at yourself."
You do so. Where things were once brilliant white with a rainbow halo of diffraction, things are now a bright, rich violet purple. But it's only a fraction of what it was before. Fighting it was a mistake!
At that, you lean into it, trying to reach for gravity with your arms tight, trying to pull it in towards yourself. And you feel yourself growing brighter and brighter, approaching the brilliant colours that you should be. Feeling the euphoria come upon you again, the joy and happiness that is your desire, as you try to pull energy from the dark mass of gravity. This time, with it, not against it.
But then you're interrupted once more. The ground. It's dark, dark like nothing else. Your brain tells you that this is the time to give up your colours, to slow down, to hit it safely, so you can use it as a platform for your next leap. But you don't quite know how. Your arms aren't quite right, and the colours are just a bit too bright. A moment before impact, you close your eyes..
(Next update, with options, in a few days.)
Author
Topic: Ascent. [SG] <On Hiatus> (Read 5250 times)