ETTING   OME   O   LFANDRA

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Shyriath's Little Trip (alternate) part 3

Cira was lounging on a grassy spot in the village square admiring flowers and munching popovers and thinking about how wonderful the world was.  When Hespa very hurriedly and in obvious fright appeared near by.  But before he could even get a good handle on what was going on he felt himself being flung across the Universe.  To describe what went through his mind at that time would be very difficult, in fact it would be much easier to describe what he did not think about as every other though possible blew through his over charged mind.

He did not think that is was thick air.

It in fact definitely was *not* the lilac colored space Hespa has used in the past.  Whatever it was it's affect was ending and he was coming back out into 'normal' space once more.  It was at this instant that his thoughts solidified into one horrible realization. Where he was arriving.

It was dark, completely dark.  It was not space; no stars, no dust. There was just nothing.  He knew the place.  It was the place outside. Outside of all universes, where geometries have no meaning as space its self does not exist.  This is the Great Dark.  A place where light cannot exist because the space in which it would exist is not there. Even time has no meaning.  This is the ending place for entities which choose to forever rebel against the Gods.  It is an unmaking for entities which cannot be unmade.  Something that is sent here can simply never return.  It is as if the thing that was sent here never existed.  Beyond Hell, much worse than Hell.  He would have screamed but there is no air; no nothing.  Instead his mind cried out.  And rushing he knew what to do.  Using all his abilities he sampled the quickly fading fields of energy that had brought him here, and reversed them.  "It's a wild stab because I don't know which fields are the ones responsible." he thought.  Then realized, "But then there aren't any energy fields in this place."  What happened is that he was never fully in the Nothing of the Great Dark, instead he came perilously close.  Now he sprang back like a shot, which having landed firmly in a sling comes to a halt only momentarily before it is catapulted back in the direction it came from.

Now under his own power he hurls back again through the vastness of space.  But.  Due to the vastness of space and the 30 to 40 digits of significant difference needed to perform this sort of stunt.  (I'm a professional, don't try this at home.)  He is on a slightly different return course landing in Alfandra in a slightly 'different' location.

"IIiiiieeeeee!"  The wildly out of control dragon plummets towards the beach.  "Ugh, drat, I forgot there's a law against dragons falling out of control from the sky in Alfandra."

On the beach far below a large cake appears.

The falling dragon crashes in the cake sending icing in all directions splattering the amazed Sa'arunai'itai dragoness standing nearby, who looks in shock at the mound of cake on the beach and the strange dragon who has just crashed into it.  Cira stumbles out of the cake and staggers about looking more like a white ghost than a dragon. "I'm fine, just fine.  Any crash you can walk away from is a good crash.  Never mind me, I'm fine."  The dragoness pauses to wonder about all the weirdoes out on the beach this morning, but decides to take this dragon at his word as she continues back toward her village somewhat faster than before.  She has many things she's supposed to be doing and her parents are expecting her back.

The blue drak wobbly shakes himself a little cleaner of the frosting, but he is doing it more to clear the throbbing in his head.  It doesn't work though and he blacks out.

Hours later he comes to; hearing the comforting sound of the sea.  The scent of jungle, one strange to him, wafts out competing with the sea breezes.  His head is much clearer now.  He gets his bearings are realizes with relief that he is indeed on Alfandra. Though where exactly? he's not sure.  It certainly doesn't appear to be the Dominance proper.  Looking out to sea he cannot see other islands, but the tattle tail cloud trails caused in the atmosphere by island peaks are there so he assumes there are other relatively nearby islands, or perhaps the mainland just a short flight away.  "No problem, I'll be home before morning", he says to the rising moon.

He looks up and down the beach at the trees before taking off then looks back at the moon.  The full moon rising from the sea.  "Err? Wasn't it a new moon?"  He shrugs it off and runs two steps and goes to leap into the air when he hears a quiet cry, instead of halting he goes air borne and circles back to locate the source of the cry.  He feels a tingling sensation and knows that something is wrong. Realizing this is no time to fool around he goes enhanced.  Scanning the region of the source of the cry at the molecular level he finds two intelligent creatures.  The larger appears to have just attacked the smaller as the smaller has about 20% damages!  The smaller is a thin dragon that doesn't seem to have eaten well in months while the larger seems to be some kind of a cross between a Styracosaurs and a tank.  Neither one moved and Cira's mind teetered between not getting involved and defending the much smaller drak.  He has gotten himself into much trouble on previous occasions by embracing a side quickly, he also caused much death...  The debate goes on for what seems to be an eternity but in reality amounted to less than a second.  He will intervene.  With the decision made his resolve hardens rapidly and the distance narrowed.  Strong spines extended from his back but he repressed their bioluminescent set glow.

His target stands directly over the goal to defend.  Military data repressed from consciousness floods his brain.  Regurgitated from an internal computer known as a converter.  The converter continued to scan and provide data about his target, in parallel, remote molecular manipulation is executed, a process known as conversion for which the device is named.

Shyriath is the target of this action.  He feels much of the pain drop away as electrons cluster away from neural pain activators.  Then a strange wave-like sensation is felt as 10^27 particles are sorted around into their proper locations.  Particle by particle sand and microbes are removed from the wounds and microscopic splinters of bone are realigned.  Most of the repair data was computed from residual chemical gradients from when everything was in the right place. Layout conformation is received by DNA analysis.  Cira checks the repair models by hand for errors; there aren't any.  The converter acquires particles from all around Shyriath and moves them back to their proper places.  Torn cells are repaired and broken proteins are stretched and refolded, fluids steam back to where they belong.  Soon little or no pain remains as much of the damage has been repaired.

The Guardian has noticed all this and is not pleased that the damage he caused Shyriath seems to be disappearing.  It prepares to stomp on him with both its fore legs.  This time there will be no shrewd playing, it intends to crush Shyriath flat.

"EEAAAHH!"  Cira slams into the Guardian sliding somewhat beneath it and throwing the huge creature into the air.  Cira is actually larger than the Guardian by a slim margin but the Guardian has more than twice his bulk.  But he is by no means short on strength.  Additional engines inside Cira went active and have been pumping energy through the various networks which make up this complex organism.  The Guardian is quite nimble for all its bulk and twists like a cat nearly
righting its self even before it touches the earth once more.  Its eyes flame an bright angry red.  It would appear unharmed for its fall if it weren't for a few belly plates hanging down, torn by Cira's ridge spikes.  Cira's armor may not be as thick as the Guardian's but it is still plenty strong.  Cira leaps away from the thin drak moving the fight away from him.  Cira would prefer not to kill the Guardian, especially because he knows it is intelligent.  "What is this thing afraid of?"

Even in the middle of battle Cira continues to complete the repairs to Shyriath.  Cira is about to undo the affects of what appears to be years of malnourishment when the flag comes back indicating that it is a genetic defect which causes this malnourishment.  No problem, he thinks.  A couple of seconds later he has computed a minimum set of genetic changes to repair this defect and prepares to make them effective.

::no::

"What?"  The most subtle of all transmissions is received.  A mere whisper to the threads of his consciousness.

::no, he is the way he is for a purpose and that time is not yet for him to be healed.::

Not understanding completely he obeys just the same.  He has learned to heed these quite suggestions.

His slight pause to consider has given the Guardian an opportunity to take an offensive move...