Allie's War Episodes 1-4(168)

It doesn’t matter. The hovering shadows are little more than sentries, left behind as the real work screams above.
I barely feel this...then it is gone.
I am the real work.
I streak through a star-filled night sky, running for my life. I try to make myself invisible but can’t, so I jerk and jump, reappear and am hit, slammed, run over...all lines leading to my body snarled and confused, broken and dead-ending. Prisons appear around me, mirages that look like hard walls, bright lights, even distant stars. They pull at me, tempt me with inviting vibrations, darting closer before I manage to twist away from their hard fire.
I am not sure how I came to be here.
I remember Revik. I remember us kissing, his hands pulling me tighter against his body, the feel of his light, him asking me...
But now everywhere I turn, silver eyes glow at me, chasing me through an endless-feeling night. They appear all around me as I try to move faster. They are looking for a way in, even as I look for a way out. I try desperately to get ahead of them, looking for any door or passage or tornado-like tunnel that might lead me out of this place. I try to feel Vash...Revik...even Maygar and Chandre...but the more I call to them, the more silver bodies converge around me.
I am too late. They are closing.
All around me rustle glimpses of presence and chiseled light.
Eyes and hands appear and disappear...they belong to more beings than I can count. Precise, lifeless, they slam into me, knocking me further off-balance. I turn, change course, change the vibration of my light, disappear...reappear. I look for resonance with something beautiful, something not-them, but more appear all the time, until I feel...
ALLIE!
Relief floods my light. He comes at me so quickly it shocks me. His light collides, then coils into mine, and briefly, we are alone.
Allie!
I feel him...all around me.
Shield! Disappear!
He hands me imprints, keys to lead me out through this winding tunnel or that one. I feel his intention...
No! I twine my light deeper into his. No! I’m not leaving you here!
They don’t know your light! You haven’t spent enough time with them...
They know yours!
Allie, I have ways to evade them on my own. You need to listen—
No! My anger flares. Don’t leave me like you left Elise!
Laughter echoes around us.
I hit a wall, one I did not see, and come to a painful stop. Before I can reverse, I lose him. He is pulled away from me so fast it is like mist evaporating from my fingers. Then I am inside a blank room with four walls. I can’t feel Revik, but I hear him, for one last—
Allie! Don’t wait for me!
I throw myself in the direction of his voice, but another wall separates us. I crash into that one, too, end up bathed in stinging threads. Red eyes surround me, shimmering hands and torsos. Dozens of them hook into my light, but Galaith’s is the only presence I feel.
Let us go! Please!
I know how futile my words sound, how meaningless. There is nothing else to say.
Please, please…let him go! Please!
Galaith’s face appears, alone. The silver bodies and red eyes recede.
I focus on him as the grayish space around me grows silent. Galaith’s features flicker like candlelight. His dark eyes meet mine, without precise color or form, yet I see hints of teeth, stretched lips and facial creases.
He is smiling.
Hello, Liego, he says.






 
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30
GALAITH

 
Galaith waits patiently as I stand there, studying his silver-white form.
I stall for time in a timeless space, looking for a way out of this featureless box. In the Barrier’s shifting dark, Galaith doesn’t look like a seer...but he looks even less alike to the blurred, sheep-like lights with which I now associate humans.
Watching currents move through his hands, face, neck and legs, I don’t know if I feel fear, calm, anxiety, anger. Coloring it all, an odd feeling of familiarity lives in our stares back and forth. I know I am being influenced by the silver light in this...but it is different than when Ivy had me. Here the influence is easy instead of fascinating.
The normality of him, of being here, is almost cloying. Calm seeps in, the desire to entwine with the silver strands...or, rather, the lack of desire to fight them. The landscape looks different to me too, almost serene. I know I am being influenced, but I can’t seem to—
You worry yourself needlessly, he says to me.
He waves a fluid hand, breathing out that same soft indifference.
Every construct carries its own flavor, Liego.
I feel the part of me that slides down that path with him. I try to come at it logically and fail.
What do you want? I say finally.
His light body changes from pure aleimi to the semblance of matter. In a heartbeat he stands at perfect ease, a faceless, tailored blue suit, elegant on a muscular form—middle-aged, from the shape of his torso, and in very good shape. Dark hair grows on hands with manicured nails, interspersed with a few strands of gray. He wears a ring bearing an iron cross.