Umi reminded herself that step one was awareness.
"This can't kill me. This can't kill me. This can't kill me. This can't kill me," she chanted.
That, however, remained difficult to believe so long as her eyes drifting over the edge of the cobblestone path could reveal a vast blue expanse, as though she risked falling up into the sky.
Fortunately for her heart rate, she had nearly reached the floating island.
Umi opened the door to the student council room. It was after hours, and that was how she preferred it; only the president and vice-president would still be lingering.
It wasn't that she had a problem with Honoka, but after spending first year almost entirely with her lone childhood friend, it was refreshing to make some new ones. Plus, she couldn't deny that the girl's boundless energy, when combined with the frequent, "geez Umi, you look really tired," comments as of late were getting on her nerves a little.
"Goodness Umi, you look really tired."
Umi groaned, "Nozomi, please!"
"Is it so wrong to care about my adorable underclassman?" Nozomi inquired, with a playful smile and a quirked eyebrow.
The subject of her teasing was no stranger to the game being played. If years of kendo and archery had taught her one thing, it was to be cognizant of one's own weaknesses. Thus, she opted to say nothing, sit down, and pretend she wasn't flushed to the ears.
She wasn't a member of the student council, not yet, at least, but her responsible nature meant she often helped Nozomi and Eli with their duties regardless.
"Umi?" the latter asked.
"Hm?"
"Are you alright? You've been staring for a while now."
And indeed, she refocused to find herself holding an untouched form from one club or another. After a quick apology, she got to work, albeit more slowly than usual.
Approved.
Denied.
Approved.
Denied.
Her eyelids began to droop.
Denied.
Approved.
She was slumping in her seat.
Approved.
Denied-
"Umi?"
"Ah?" the blue haired girl jerked upright.
"We've done just about enough for the day; finish up that one and we'll pack up."
"R-right."
Denied.
The trio began to gather their things, Umi contemplating returning to her bed's sweet embrace all the while. Tempting as it would be to go back as soon as she got home, she decided against it, lest she actually succeed in sleeping and destroy her sleep cycle further in the process. Topically, Eli chose that moment to ask once again whether she was alright.
"It's as Nozomi said," she replied, "I'm just extremely tried right now."
The girl in question piped up at that, "And just why is that, Umi?"
How long had it been? A few weeks perhaps?
"It's just, well, whenever I should be going to sleep, I can't help but think that's there's some work, or studying, or something more productive that I'd be better off doing. I end up thinking I can just power though it and deal with a bit less sleep, but it adds up. I try to catch up on sleep when I can, but doing that messes up my cycle as well."
"So in other words, you need more motivation to drop everything and go to bed?"
"Yes, I suppose you could put it that way."
"Well then, I might just have some advice up my sleeve for you," Nozomi began with a flourish and a glint in her eye, "Tell me, does the term 'astral projection' mean anything to you?"
Humoring Nozomi had an odd tendency to bring both humiliation and help in equal measure, mostly because she genuinely meant well just below the teasing exterior. Eli clearly understood this, rolling her eyes, yet smiling slightly and letting her somewhat eccentric friend continue.
Umi made up her mind.
"Tell me more."
"The first step of anything you do regarding this will always be awareness. You need to be focused on the fact that you want to astral project when you sleep for it to actually happen."
With Nozomi's words ringing through her mind, and after a few nights of experimentation, Umi found herself standing over her own sleeping body.
"Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic-" she thought, "this is how she said it would be. Awareness."
She waited for her breathing to return to normal and-
Actually, did she even need to breathe?
...
Perhaps it was better not to fool around too much on her first time.
"Step two is to disconnect from your body entirely and enter the astral plane. This part is unique to each person; all I can really tell you is that you should find some sort of entrance as you move away from the body."
The first movements were an incredibly bizarre sensation; her form felt as weighty as her real one, yet her movements were utterly silent, and she didn't feel the friction of the carpet as she should have. A bit of conscious effort was needed to make herself walk normally once she was into the hall; the instinct to creep and avoid waking up her family was overpowering.
A crack in the doorway gave her pause.
The beds of her parents were empty and she, once again, was fighting rising nervousness.
Nozomi hadn't mentioned that, but then again, Umi seemed to recall Nozomi living alone.
It was normal, she told herself, it had to be. It was only logical that-
No. It really wasn't. The whole situation was utterly mind boggling and to tell herself that it could all be explained logically was far too weak a lie to be effective.
"Now this ties back into step one. Remember: it isn't your physical body; nothing can really hurt you out there. You'll wake up if something too bad happens to you."
Right. She needn't be afraid with that as insurance, at least. Come to think of it, though, that "too bad" part was a tad worrying. It still seemed to allow for "bad". Hopefully that was nothing too excruciating.
Umi pinched herself. She was still standing in the hall.
Apparently "too bad" did have a bit of a pain tolerance, but that was probably for the best; nothing would ever get done if even the most marginal pain woke her.
She tried not to let the distant creaks and groans of the empty house bother her as she sped towards the front door. Eager as she was to leave, she couldn't help but think that she hadn't the slightest idea of what this "entrance" looked like, or even how to begin to find it. With her hand on the doorknob, she could only hope she wouldn't have to wander an empty city in search of it.
Blinding light flooded in.
Umi's weight carried her forward, sent her tumbling out into open air.
Hands groped futilely at nothing, hair whipped and she felt her entire body turn over in the air. For a second, she thought that would be her death, then for another, she thought it would be her awakening.
Then she opened her eyes to find her front door, and only the door itself, levitating above her head. As it swung shut again, she could glimpse her home on the other side, impossibly existing beyond the threshold, yet not physically behind where the door hovered.
After more than a few moments of no doubt undignified gawking, she slowly became aware of herself once more.
She had definitely not stuck the landing.
In fact, she hadn't stuck the landing so hard that she was actually sunken slightly into the sand she had fallen into. Yet, she didn't mind; it was amazingly fine and pleasantly warm. Coloured like brilliant gold, the sand somehow managed to be extremely clean, too, and for a moment, she simply marveled at the look and sensation of it running through her fingers.
Soon she could hardly even remember what she had been so worried about. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad.
"And finally step three. Explore! It's a world unlike anything you'll find on Earth, and it's not like you have something better to be doing when you're already asleep. The very worst that could happen to you is something waking you up. Oh, and remember: you're not the only one who knows about astral projection; you can even meet other people out there."
Umi sat up, relishing the feeling of the warm sand pouring off her, and looked around.
A narrow path plunged into the distance, where the dunes merged into a pale yellow sky, the colour of faint sunlight.
She stood, sand welling up between her toes and stumbled forward, still dazed. Cool clay introduced itself underfoot on the path, which also seemed to be permeated by the gold, though it remained dimmer than the sand.
And just off the side-
Was that there before?
Was she to believe her eyes?
The thing, a sign, she now saw, looked for all the world like it had been pencilled into reality. Its messy outline jittered like stop motion and housed a simple drawing of planet Neptune at waist-height. Perhaps it meant something; she didn't know the nature of this world. But she took it in stride and kept walking; what more could she do?
The sun didn't beat down, in fact, she couldn't even seem to locate it in the sky. A gentle, uniform light seemed to bleed through the entire sky, and the same was true of the heat.
Sand stretched for all directions, yet Umi still found herself enamored the landscape. The glimmer of gold refused to be ignored, and pulled her towards the crest of the enormous dune the path ascended.
A peculiar noise caught her notice.
A shifting sound was slowly growing; she was moving towards it, whatever it was. She waited for the apprehension, but it never came. Something about this place made her heart beat steadily.
And it remained steady as she neared the crest and the shifting of sand intensified to a near-roar.
She stood at the top and watched the crashing sand. Torrents of it poured out like liquid gold, down into-
"The sky?" she thought.
An airy blue expanse awaited off the edge of the desert. Actually, looking closer, a narrow path wound out into the sky from the desert, sand crashing over it.
There was only one way down.
And suddenly her heartbeat wasn't so steady. Umi swallowed hard.
"Even if I miss, I'll only wake up," she forcefully reminded herself.
She remained on the precipice for several minutes, battling her own instincts.
"Nothing too bad will happen. Take a chance for once in your life."
She took a step forward, then retreated, then another forward, and retreated once more. Finally, gathering her courage, she threw herself forward and ran to where the grains began to flow. Her balance failed her, but she didn't care. All she could focus on was the astounding concoction of terror and excitement of racing down the river of sand. Perhaps she was screaming; she couldn't tell over the roar of the sand.
Through the tears in her eyes she could barely make out the path rushing up to greet her and-
It took several minutes to regain her bearings. Umi, now with an extremely sore backside, had skidded past the landing point of the sand and come to a rest face up, staring at the point where the sky's gold melded with watercolour blue. She looked back to find that cobblestone path connected to bedrock beneath the sand, and below that...nothing.
The desert drifted through the sky. Looking down also failed to reveal an Earth to descend to.
Umi didn't consider herself acrophobic, but she certainly wasn't prepared for this, and was thus repeatedly forced to remind herself that she wasn't in real danger. Topically, it was fortunate that she had come in at a shallow enough angle to avoid injury, she noted, as she shakily stood.
Turning the other way revealed another floating island in the distance.
High winds pulled at her at she noted that, yes, the path was, in fact, far too narrow for comfort. But it wasn't like she had any other options, or anything to lose.
Umi swallowed her fear and tentatively began moving forward.
"This can't kill me. This can't kill me. This can't kill me. This can't kill me."
She almost wanted to fall to the ground and kiss it when she finally reached the floating landmass.
It seemed that this was a more temperate biome; emerald grass sprung up underfoot and sprawled out into a field with a handful of deciduous trees dotting it.
Stepping in slowly soothed her pounding heart and renewed her desire to explore.
The whole landscape was possessed of a vibrance unseen in the waking world; saturated colours which seemed to have leapt directly from a painter's palette nearly overwhelmed her as she took it all in. The trees, the grass, even the ground and very air all seemed somehow clean and fresh, in keeping with the sand's standard. It felt like an idealized version of the real world.
Still, maybe that was to be expected of the dream world-
Or "astral plane" she reminded herself. Supposedly this was a real, spiritual world, as was Nozomi's forte. Umi couldn't remember having any dreams like this before, but then again, there were few dreams she remembered long after waking. Actually meeting other people in a regular dream should have been impossible, at the very least.
Which was a fact she reminded herself of when she first heard the singing.
The trees at the edge of the field collected into a thicket, muffling the sweet, high-pitched voice bleeding through. Slowly, she found herself drawn between the trees, chasing snippets of melody.
She took her place behind a tree at the edge of the clearing the voice echoed from. Peering around, she drank in every detail of the girl sitting on the stump in the center. Long ashen locks framed delicate porcelain skin, etched with a lovely, innocent smile. Beautiful, in short. Her eyes were closed in contentment as her voice rang out like a silver bell.
"Sleep is a curse. Do you remember the moment the music led our dying minds to heaven?"
Unable to resist, Umi drew a little closer.
"The promises of-"
A loud crack jolted both parties to attention; the observer looked down to find a branch broken cleanly beneath her foot, then looked up to find the singer staring back at her.
"U-um," Umi stuttered, feeling much like her childhood self meeting Honoka for the first time. She urged herself to do it, to force though. What had she to fear from meeting someone new when she had already managed the dive into this nonsensical world?
"H-hello. I heard your singing and just sort of, uh, followed it here. Because...your singing - it was really, uh, really nice. Oh, and I'm Umi Sonoda, by the way."
"Smooth," she immediately thought to herself before contemplating running all the way back to bury her head in the sand. But it seemed her ordeal had paid off, as the girl simply began to laugh. It, too, was a sweet, high ringing that carried through the air like birdsong and set Umi at ease once more.
Wiping a tear from the eye, and struggling to contain a second burst of laughter, the girl replied, "I'm Kotori Minami." A brief, awkward silence passed before she patted the stump beside her and said, "Don't be a stranger, now!"
Thus, Umi found herself sitting next to a girl she had never met before on a flying island in an alternate dimension. The trunk was actually titanic, now that she was looking at it up close, larger than any Earthly tree ought to grow.
Umi couldn't help but notice that, in spite of that, they were sitting extremely close.
And a small part of her didn't mind that at all.
Okay, perhaps more than just a small part.
Kotori took her turn to break the ice, "So, how many times have you projected?"
"This is actually my first."
"Oh?" Kotori said, eyes (which Umi now saw were an amber as lovely as the rest of her) lighting up, "Then let's try to make it a great first experience for you! There's a lot I can show you before we get separated."
"When we wake up, right?"
"Yes, but I meant more that there's a chance we won't see each other again after tonight. You've definitely seen the floating islands on your way here."
"Right."
"They're constantly on the move. Any two islands won't be near each other for that long, and I find that I always start out on the same one."
"Oh, I see."
It seemed obvious to Umi now that it had been pointed out, but it was a bit of an intimidating concept. She would never truly settle in and know this place well, save for perhaps her little patch of desert. On the other hand, that itself was part of the allure: to be able to explore, even adventure, dare she say it, each night.
Still, she definitely wouldn't mind seeing this 'Kotori' girl again.
"Well, let's do it, then!" The ashen haired girl said, clasping her hands together and standing. Umi did the same, only for the girl to pause and look her over with a giggle before adding, "Oh, and cute PJ's, Miss So-No-Da."
Umi looked down to find that she was, indeed, still wearing her oversized, checked blue button-ups.
"D-does this really have any bearing on what we're about to do?"
Kotori, with a finger to her lip, turned and began to exit the clearing, prompting the flustered girl to follow.
"Hm...well it seems that you're stuck with whatever you went to sleep in. Your family might find you weird for it, but wearing your shoes to bed couldn't hurt."
Would it be strange, Umi wondered, to reply that she actually enjoyed the feeling of the sand between her toes where she arrived? Probably. So she simply allowed Kotori to continue as they wove through the trees.
"I actually like designing and making clothes in my spare time, so if I 'accidentally' fall asleep in an outfit," she said, twirling her skirt, seemingly delighted by her minor mischief, "my parents don't think it's that weird. Anyway, you should be fine like this; this world seems to be, I don't know, gentle? I wouldn't go walking barefoot around a forest normally, but it seems fine here."
Finally calm enough to articulate her thoughts again, Umi replied, "I noticed that as well. I arrived into a desert, but it was actually quite pleasant. No shade, yet it wasn't overly hot; the sand was soft and fine as well."
"Ah! Here we are," the cheerful girl exclaimed.
The trees abruptly ended and left hardly a meter of space before the edge of the island, where it brushed with the edge of another. They stepped across into the yellow prairie of the latter as Kotori began to lay out her plan.
"The island I emerged on is more-or-less straight across here. I was exploring towards your desert, but I also saw another route out there," she said, pointing westward.
"So we'll have to head that way, then?"
"For now. But new paths will open soon enough."
A comfortable silence fell over the two as the tall grasses tickled their legs. The faintest hint of petrichor twirled past in the breeze, and Umi couldn't help but think that never in her life had she been so comfortable with someone who was nearly a stranger to her. The girl leading her seemed nearly a part of the dreamy world, embodying at once the mystery, and the gentle nature.
"Umi?"
"...Hm?"
"Enjoying the view?" Kotori asked with a tiny, sly smile.
And here Umi was thinking that she wasn't one to stare.
"W-well," she said, trying her damnedest to ignore the heat spreading over her cheeks, "I was just...thinking of something nice."
Which wasn't entirely a lie.
The ground abruptly fell away beneath them. Umi stood in confusion for a moment before following Kotori's gaze to the massive shape hovering below.
Flowing water spiderwebbed over the landscape and parceled it into countless little islands in shades ranging from grassland to forest.
The mother off all weeping willows dragged itself upward to the meet them, and they exchanged a look. "Please tell me we don't have to climb," said Umi's. As rapidly as she was growing used to this place, it was hard not get vertigo from the height alone.
"There's only one way down," Kotori murmured.
Umi stepped back from the edge. Her hands shook. Could she really do this? Continuing meant bare-hand climbing all the way down and she-
And she felt the feather-soft touch of another hand over hers. Kotori was smiling gently at her.
"Umi, this is the place to take a chance. Nothing here is permanent."
Then she braced and sprang from the cliff. The blue haired girl could only watch, stunned, as her partner arced down to where to the leaves began, grabbing fistfuls of the oversized tendrils. Her momentum carried her down, flensing the leaves off beneath her hands until she finally came to a hanging stop.
And then she had the audacity to let go with one hand, and offer an innocent smile and wave to the gobsmacked Umi above.
Like it was nothing, she disappeared into the canopy; her voiced carried back up a moment later, "It's ok, come on down!"
Come on down? Just "come on down", like it was that simple? Instantly, Umi's perception of Kotori shifted from "cute and helpful literal dream girl" to "Amazonian warrior goddess".
So she stood on the precipice until that chiming voice called her name questioningly from below.
"This can't kill me. This can't kill me. This can't-"
With a shrill hybrid battle/terror cry, Umi threw herself forward and plummeted into the foliage. The wind tore at her and watery sap covered her hands as she took hold of the tendrils and slid down. Her white-knuckled grip managed to halt her a considerable distance down. Slowly, she loosened up, yelping as she dropped another short distance before stopping again.
It was going to be a long trip down.
Breaking through the canopy revealed Kotori, and spurred Umi onward.
Once she was finally down, she collapsed to her knees, trembling from head to toe from fear and exertion. Her vision was tunneling so badly that she hardly noticed Kotori's hand rubbing her back, or the gentle voice saying, "See? I knew you could do it."
Once she was no longer a quivering mess, she stood, blushing from ear to ear, looked Kotori in the eye...and pretended nothing happened.
"It wasn't s-so b-bad."
And they continued on their way.
Small streams and rivers split the woods around them, where the smaller of the weeping willows gathered. They, and the waters, were drawn forward by the incline of the land. Shimmering sunlight and distant flickers lit the woods, and the growing glow from ahead told them that they were approaching the edge.
A stream moved in parallel to them as Umi took the first step beyond the woods and blinked in the light.
The terrain at once presented itself and took her breath away as her eyes adjusted.
The earth sloped steeply before plateauing below them, carrying the stream down into a confluence of glistening, saturated blue. Willows bowed around it, glows like embers flitting between their leaves. Somehow, someone, or something had constructed a tiny, quaint cabin looking out onto the water.
Then the barest hint of sweet scent introduced itself from the field of yellow asphodel stretching behind the cabin.
Neither knew what to say, so Kotori took the other girl's hand and began bringing them down the hill.
"I've never seen anything like this before..." the gray haired girl muttered.
"Did someone build it from scratch and leave it, or do things like this crop up naturally?"
"That's what I'm wondering."
The cabin was certainly rough hewn, a little haphazard looking, yet, it was inviting and had a certain heartfulness characteristic of an amateur builder about it. They rounded the structure and made for the door, a thin, rickety looking thing that seemed like it might snap off from being opened.
Inside, the cabin's lone room possessed the same charm. Flooding light from the doorway revealed equally rough furnishings. The mattress was stuffed with sand, the table seemed to be a slice of trunk, and the floor was raw earth.
"Homely."
Umi simply admired it while Kotori searched around.
"I can't find anything left behind by the last person..."
"Assuming there was one," Umi added.
"Yeah...Well I guess there isn't really anywhere to hide stuff in a place like this, so I'm done."
The pair exited, face to face with the river. It was an even more splendid sight up close; bright blue captured the ambient light like a prism and shattered it into glimmering shards below the surface. Umi watched two leaves tumble in from one of the weeping willows, dancing in delicate steps before being carried apart.
And before she knew it, the ashen haired girl was leading her off again. Around the cabin they went, out to the field.
Her hand slipped from Umi's grasp as they rounded the corner. Struck by the sight, Kotori ran ahead, relishing the feeling of the asphodel caressing her as she passed.
Umi could only watch in awe as the light hit the horizon. Her partner turned back in the field of yellow stars, herself the brightest one in their night sky.
"Umi, what are you waiting for?" she asked with a brilliant smile.
"Oh, nothing," Umi said, as she thought, "If this was the last thing I ever saw, I wouldn't mind that."
A/N: Here it is, the story I've been talking about in the A/N's of my last couple fics. If you like nature, overlong passages of description, Kotori, and Umi, you've come to the right place. This is going to be a longer, relaxed one with lots of pretty landscapes. I hope you enjoy it!