First Entrance Post: From the world of Thra...

[i-aughra.livejournal.com]

A small, gnarled being enters Milliways. She is short, squat and dressed in a stained, wine-colored tunic. Curved, ram-like horns sweep out from the tangled grey hair hanging lankly from her head. One eye darts here an there. The other is gone. Only a burned out socket on that side of her head. She stops, puzzled. This is not where she is supposed to be. She had been about to enter her ruined home to see what she could salvage.

"What is this?" she asks in a gravely voice. "Where is this? This is not my home! Where has Aughra gotten to?"

Strange beings are scattered through the giant room. Not Gelfling. Not Podling. Not even Ur-Skek. She scowls as her eye looks over everything and is about to go back through the Door when...

...she catches sight of the viewing window.

"Dark moon of Thra!" she breathes as she gazes on the dying universe, more brilliant than a thousand Great Conjunctions. Almost in a trance, she walks to the window.

"This is something worth seeing!" Aughra says. "The End! The End of All!"

She chuckles. "Or the Beginning."

Comments

[i-aughra.livejournal.com]

Aughra frowns. "Hmmph. Is that it? Hello and you want to dreamfast already?"

She peers up at Sarah. "Are you are ready for that? Aughra has not dreamfasted in many Trine...many times many."

[iamnotstorm.livejournal.com]

Sarah blinked twice, then twice again, arching a brow and retracting her hand, "Er..." A head tilt then, "What's dreamfasting? Anything like a vision quest?"

[i-aughra.livejournal.com]

"Vision, yes," Aughra says. "Quest...well depends on who's doing it. Young to young, easy. Old to old, simple." Her eye seemed to look past Sarah into the long, long past. "Old to young...that be difficult. Too much, too fast...pfffft! Young mind dead. Or worse, broken. Young mind can only take so much old memory."

[iamnotstorm.livejournal.com]

Sarah just nodded slowly, mulling that over, "I see." Oddly enough, she wasn't thrown off at all by the woman's roundabout way of speaking, honestly Aughra reminded her of her great grandmother, who she'd only known for a short time when she was very young, "Well then." A slight smile, "Welcome to Milliways, the bar at the end of the universe, don't worry if you miss it, it'll start over again soon."

[i-aughra.livejournal.com]

Her eye blinks in suprise. "Start over?! How can the End start over?! End can be come Beginning and Beginning End, but start over?"

[iamnotstorm.livejournal.com]

Sarah smiled, "Well, it isn't the same end, so, perhaps a better phrase would have been 'it'll start again soon' instead of 'start over'"

[i-aughra.livejournal.com]

"Not the same End? Then where are all these End's coming from, eh? There's only one Universe..." Her voice trails off. "The Ur-skeks said that the Crystal existed in every world. But one thing can't be in two places at once. Maybe Aughra misunderstood..." She snorts. "Shouldn't be suprised. Twisted, curving thoughts they had."

[iamnotstorm.livejournal.com]

Sarah smiled once more, "I can imagine." Not that she had any idea what the Ur-skeks were of course, she'd been deprived of that particular story as a child, "From what I understand, the bar is at the juncture of multitudes of Universes, and they all end here."

[i-aughra.livejournal.com]

Aughra's eye glows with light of ecstacy. "All the Ends? All?"

She cocks her head up at Sarah with an almost mischievious gleam. "And what happens when all Universes end? Hmmm? What then?"

[iamnotstorm.livejournal.com]

Sarah smiled, shaking her head, "only the ones that convene here end here, there are hundreds of thousands more out there that don't meet up here."

A shrug, "At least, that's how I figure it."

[i-aughra.livejournal.com]

"So maybe we go pffft with the end of the Ends?" Aughra laughs. "Not bad. Not bad end for Aughra at all."

She tears her eye away from the panorama for a moment to look over the bar again. "So, Sararainmaker," she says, making the two names into one. "What are you? Tall like Ur-Skek, but not. Face like Gelfling and Podling crossbred but too tall for either. What are you?"

[iamnotstorm.livejournal.com]

Sarah blinked twice, most of that question whipping right over her head, "I'm human. General consensus is that we evolved from apes, if you've got those on your world."

[i-aughra.livejournal.com]

"Apes? Never heard of apes. Or humans. Gelfling, Podling, Nebrie, landstrider, croi, fezzgig..." She waves her hand. "No human."

[iamnotstorm.livejournal.com]

Sarah nodded slowly, trying to work out how to explain this, finally just giving up, "Just consider me an alien then, from another world."

[i-aughra.livejournal.com]

"Like Ur-skek, then. Nothing more alien than Ur-skeks." Aughra nods sharply then turns back to window. "Could sit here for Trine watching. The Anvil of Eternity smashing itself to bits!" Her stomach growls. "Fah! Belly have no respect for important things."

[iamnotstorm.livejournal.com]

She laughed softly, nodding, "True enough." She tilted her head, offering the plate of brownies, "I've got brownies that I'm more than willing to share, Bar always gives me a huge heap of them."

[i-aughra.livejournal.com]

"Brownies? What is that?"

Aughra sniffs deeply. Then she takes one of the brownies. But, before eating it, she pops her eye out with her free hand for a closer look.

[iamnotstorm.livejournal.com]

"There's chocolate, and these have dried cherries in them, they're quite good, sweet and tart all at the same time. Chocolate, if you have that where you come from."

Sarah was, suffice to say, quite fond of Bar's brownies.

[i-aughra.livejournal.com]

After examining the brown square from all sides, Aughra takes a bite.

"Good!" she says, replacing her eye. "Very good." She makes quick work of the brownie with the blackened stumps of her teeth.

[iamnotstorm.livejournal.com]

She laughed, nodding, "Bar can make you anything you want." A pause, "At least, I haven't ever heard of her being unable to come up with something." A shrug, "All you have to do is ask."

[i-aughra.livejournal.com]

"Anything," Aughra says with raised eyebrows. "I may never leave this place. The End to watch. Anything to eat...why leave?"

[iamnotstorm.livejournal.com]

Sarah smiled again, "It is a bar, you do have to pay, but from what I've seen Bar takes whatever currency a person uses at home."

A shrug, "if that's any help." Another smile then, "Though there's always someone willing and even happy to share a meal."

[i-aughra.livejournal.com]

"Thought it too good to be true," Aughra says with an amused satisfaction. "Maybe Aughra earn food with projections. What do dying stars say about the future?"

She cackles. "But that's easy. All say the same thing. 'Death comes to all'!"

[iamnotstorm.livejournal.com]

Sarah nodded, "That's the way of everything though isn't it? Everything dies, stars burn out, time itself will wind down eventually won't it?" A shrug, "They will get tired of playing Their game and we'll all fall down."

[i-aughra.livejournal.com]

Aughra shrugs. "Tree falls. Rots. More trees grow from rot. Rock crumbles. Goes to earth. Is spewed out as new lava. Even Aughra will return to the rocks when they no longer need an Eye."

That eye gleams eagerly. "I wonder what will grow from the rot of that?" she says, waving toward the window. "Would like to see."