Terminal Velocity

"Time and again, speak into
Silences that go on and on
Whisper on a streak of everything

And nothing at all.
Nothing heard from the deeps

Everything said from the heights
Call back to me, my anchors

And the impossible, I touch."







Silvertime undulated and swirled around him.

Through him. It was part of him and not.

Things were heard, felt, touched, smelled, learned. Known. He kept with it, tumbling through something that wasn't a place, wasn't a state, wasn't....just wasn't. And was. He and it hurtled through themselves as echoes in the empty and not.
Here was a thing too large, too small, too much and nothing. He cried out again like a desperate man cries to gods that may or may not hear him. Paths, concepts, existences pulled him under. Renne couldn't give up, he knew that. To give up lay entropy. He fought and flowed with the silverdark currents. He glimpsed pasts and futures he'd never know.

The most frightening thing came when the storms threw him at something. Or the something at him.

He knew it and didn't know it. It felt and smelled and sounded and split like the branch of a tree with its limbs. Except this was no tree and he knew it. Trees didn't move like this, sound like this. Trees didn't ebb or flow or change or waver.
The silvertime threw the things around one another, wrapped them and tangled them. He didn't want to touch this place-time-thing-path. It was too...
Human.

Renne didn't want to reach out, found himself reaching. It wasn't his hands, his solidity; it was down further. Beyond and below touch or sense. Nothing stopped moving. Nothing was quiet and all was silent as he reached for it. Called to it, called it. Pounding thunder, shrieking silence. It was all here and the silvery thing in front of, behind, around, wrapping itself into him was a stranger.
And not.
He reared back, didn't want to touch this thing. Didn't want to but touched it. Heard it, listened to it.

Renne hated falling.

Help me.

He and the silvery thing he didn't want to touch fell, spiralling downward. Renne came closer to it, touched it and heard it. It was....amazing. Terrifying. Beautiful.

And something wasn't right with it.

If he could think it and such a process in this existence be called thinking, Renne thought that yes, he was glad for the anchors. Anchors he'd set and anchors that just became what they were. The thought, such as it was, didn't remain with him for long as once again, silvertime waves crested and crashed. Throwing him outward and inward and forward and back. He and this thing he didn't want to touch became closer, twining and dancing some twisted, deadly not-rhythm.

For a split second, he and it touched.

They drew back and circled like two predators sizing the other up. It asked. He asked. Didn't know what was asked or spoken, for words were beyond here. Here was beyond words. Here, stars were born and they died in a matter of seconds. Seconds took an eternity to pass. He and it drew close again and touched. Touched and drew back.
Not right.
They touched again and this time, Renne let it happen without trying to struggle back. Careful, reverent, terrified of shattering something. Ebb and flow and crash and fall, he did all of that and none of it. Paths collided, converged and he felt two flawless tempests meet in the middle of nowhere.

Terminal Velocity
Cliffs Under the Lee

"Men have died in calmer seas than this
I have heard a time too many

Life, duty and it all calls back
Without a star above, my anchor gone
My duty clear

Course, I cannot say."







The storm kept on going even as it seemed to go eerily quiet.

Within and without, he danced with the silvertime, the thing that branched off and came back on itself. It was beautiful, so beautiful and hideously terrible, this silvertime thing. It pulled him close, then pushed him back. Push. Pull. Push back. Pull together. Time flowed and undulated, folding in and falling out. Renne didn't fight the storm, just went with it but that thing he guarded, he guarded it with a vengeance.
Strange, to keep watch over a locked something.

It was still something.

It was his duty whether anyone but he knew it or not. It was his duty and he'd be damned to run now.

He danced, moved, fell and went nowhere with the silvertime, the hot/cold thing. It was lovely, disgusting, terrifying and glorious. The music was somewhere aeons away and right within himself, flowing like water and slick like oil. He couldn't hold onto it and couldn't let go either. Formless but anchored, Renne kept on moving. Out of breath -- did he need to breathe here? -- formless and not. Concepts, coloursounds, impressions and fleeting things.
Stars shimmered. The one that winked out was a black mass of nothing. He still wept, guarding the dead and alive and the in-between. Renne was no light unto himself, no heroic paladin but he didn't run this time.
Still here

Something gave.

Something snapped and one of the anchors broke.

A voice cried out at it, protesting, defying and lamenting but not. Calm down. Still have three anchors left. Three anchors. Hold on, hold on, keep dancing, keep moving.
Back off. Back off.

He didn't know what or who came too close. He just knew it wasn't part of his charge. It wasn't and it came too close. It was something but not something under his guard. He wanted it gone. Growled at it, warned it. Commanded it. When it left, he felt a measure of relief. The dance kept on, drumbeats somewhere far and not thundering, pounding in himself.

Another anchor snapped.

He grew apart from that which he was standing watch.

Duty. Stay. Keep moving, stay, keep going, hold on, anchor. Stay!

The storm intensified again, undulating, then hurtling through countless ages and pasts and sensations. Concepts, futures, colours, scents, life and death and not came together. Parted again. It was an abstract thing made concrete, not supposed to be concrete. He cried defiance at whatever looked at him and said he shouldn't be.
He and it fell again, rose to insane heights, spinning and he knew he no longer had control. No control, nothing. It took him where and whenever and to whatever. The silver met blue and gold and red and hot/cold. Renne's voice was lost in this thing of not-things.

Somewhere, thunder crashed.

Another anchor snapped in two.