Chronicles of the Flying Dolphin

Chapter Seven: Trees

I never really knew what they were called, or even that they truly existed on a real world, but I've dreamed of them for as long as I can reach back through time in my mind," the Privateer told the Princess. The peyote was kicking in.

"The place I always knew as Home seemed alien somehow. And, now this world I've never known fits into me - and I into it - as though some fragile, priceless treasure had been shattered for immeasurable time and then fitted together again after the pieces had been worn individually. That the two are part of one is plain to see. Yet gaps remain where once there was certainly a single, smooth surface.

"I recognize the threads, and the pattern of the weave... The name of the design escapes me, though...

"The pretty talking birds, the furry orange men that live up high in the trees, and the sleek silver wise ones whose laughter fills the seas - I have known them all before, when I could not have, lying by a fire in the dreamtime..."

At some point Fractal had stopped speaking to Kristal and had begun explaining aloud to himself each new understanding as it came to him. Their exploration of this world seemed almost intuitive, he realized - or imagined that he realized. Some of his words followed the logic of his thoughts. Others seemed to come of their own volition, from the spirit world, leading his conciosness about as though it were a lizard on a leash - darting this way and that as the firm yet yielding constraints of his thought processes allowed.

Kristal was both amazed and bored. The wonderment in her lover's voice was that of a child marveling at some magical toy. For his great store of wisdom, was it indeed possible that he was as yet unaware of his own imortality, or his own hand in the creation of this world?