Author's Note

So, this is again a much shorter chapter, because I had some serious writing block whilst working on it, and I wanted to get an update out there before too long passed. I also conveniently reached a nice natural ending point.

Next chapter will be much longer, I promise. I also need to mention that everything that gets revealed here, and throughout this whole first story, is my own original idea. I had a couple of people ask—including my lovely beta readers netWARIOR and Layla, who helped me get through this chapter—whether the Above was from another fandom or something, so I figured I'd better clarify.

Enjoy!

Rowan

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Chapter 3 – Learning

"What are you doing here, how do you exist, and why do you not know what you are?"

"Oh. Right," Ashburn kneaded the ground with his paws.

"Yeah," I was more than ready for answers.

"Um…I don't really know where to start. I'm not sure you would understand where I…come from," he pulled a face, looking up at me.

"I'm guessing it has something to do with multiverse theory?"

"Yes! Yes, it does!" he brightened, earfins perked up. "That makes things a lot easier, I didn't know if your world had that yet…um okay."

He took a deep breath.

"Where I'm from, it's called The Above. We observe the whole multiverse, and we try to help each universe towards an ideal, utopian, peaceful state. Or at least…some of us do, but I'll get back to that," a pained expression crossed his face for a brief moment.

"The thing is, there's no physical space there. There's no width, depth or height—the only things we experience are thought and the passage of time. We're just minds in null space, with emotions and ideas," Ashburn began to pace back and forward as he talked. At this point, I had completely muted out the growls and burbles of dragon speech, and was totally enraptured by what he was telling me.

"We have Connections to each other, formed when we meet or are introduced. Through those Connections we create Networks of minds who can cooperate on working towards a common goal. The best thing though, is that any two entities with a Connection can read each other's thoughts, which means there's almost no conflict, because each entity already knows both sides from the others' thoughts, and there's no misunderstandings!" he turned to me with a grin and saw my half awed, half dumbstruck expression. "What?"

"…nothing, really, I just…" I blinked a few times, remembering to close my mouth. "I'm just absorbing the information that the multiverse is actually a thing, everything that could exist does, and you're from one of those places and…and…" I slowly began to laugh. Not the natural kind of laugh that bubbles up in your chest after a good joke, but the kind of stuttery, hiccupping and manic laugh that you're surprised is even able to come out of your mouth.

"You're…you're an alien! I made first contact with an alien!" I pulled my space cadet badge out of my pocket and gave it a triumphant stare. "HA! Suck it NASA!"

Ashburn was giving me a confused and slightly concerned look.

"What…are you doing?"

"Oh nothing, it's just that you've fulfilled one of my life goals, something that I thought was well beyond my reach for years," I couldn't stop the huge grin that stretched across my face.

"You're welcome, I guess?" he gave me a bemused smile in return. "Can I carry on now?"

"Yeah, don't mind me," I replied, still beaming.

"Right, um, so I mentioned not everyone wants to help the multiverse. There's basically three main Networks of entities in the Above; the Powers, who think they're above the rest of the multiverse—which is where that name came from—; the Chaotics, who are…just horrible. They kind of went insane, and they see the multiverse as some sort of entertainment, going out of their way to create conflict in it. Finally, there's the Utopians, which is the Network I'm a part of!" he gave a proud grin at this. "We try to help every universe solve conflicts, sometimes before they even happen, and try to keep the peace."

"So…you guys go out into the multiverse and…make a physical form I'm guessing? How does that work?"

"Yeah, we do kind of—well, I didn't—but the Utopians that are experienced Explorers usually take elements from that universe and change them around a little. I don't really know how it works; Tutor says he'll teach me when I'm ready."

"If you didn't make a physical form…how are you a Night Fury? Because that doesn't exist in this universe outside of fiction, and that seems like way too small of an 'element' to take from this universe."

"I don't know, I didn't really…think when I…came…here…" his voice trailed off embarrassedly, and he stared at the ground.

I slumped my shoulders, feeling confused and a little frustrated.

"Why did you come here?"

"I…just wanted to get out and see the multiverse for myself. Tutor would only let me be an Observer and even then, it was only for small amounts of time. I only managed to spot one potential conflict that the Explorers could go out and take a closer look at. I just felt like I could do more…so I came here."

"If you travelled here, can't you get back?"

"If I could, do you think I'd still be here?" he looked up at me sorrowfully. "I came here expecting it to be amazing, and beautiful, and it is, but I nearly died! When I arrived, everything hurt because I'd never had a physical form before, and then I scared you off and would have frozen to death if you hadn't come back for me! My body keeps doing things on its own, I have to remember to eat and drink or I'll die that way, I can't even get my own food, everything is so new and scary and I just…I just want to go home," he whimpered, earfins pinned against the back of his head and eyes squeezed shut.

"Just some of the fun parts of existing," I sighed and leaned back against the verge.

'Y'know, I don't think that's helping' my inner voice snarked.

"So…is there any way you can send up a signal or something, to tell the 'entities' where you are?" I asked hopefully.

"No…but Tutor will find me. I know he will," his expression slowly morphed to one of determination. "He can figure out what I did, and where I went."

"This…Tutor guy, is he actually named Tutor, or is he tutoring you, how does that work?" I queried, hoping to take his mind off things.

"We don't really use names in the Above, since we can recognize each other by our thoughts, but we do use titles. Tutor has been teaching me everything I know."

"Do you…mind if I give you a name? I came up with it when I was at work, and it's kind of stuck in my head now," I laughed awkwardly.

"Okay! What is it?" he perked back up inquisitively.

"Ashburn. It's both a human name and a dragon one, since— " I was cut off as he leapt forward and nuzzled my face and neck, his tail wagging like a dog's.

"Augh! Alright, alright, stop," I pushed him back, both weirded out at the sudden affection and internally relieved he was back to normal. Well, as normal as he could be anyway. He had begun jumping around the campsite happily, chanting his new name. It made me wonder, how old really was he? He'd told me they experience time in the Above, so there was a good chance they kept track of it like we did on Earth.

"Hey Ashburn," I called, drawing his attention.

"Yeah?" it seemed to take him a moment to remember that word meant him now, even though he'd just been repeating it to himself over and over.

"How old are you?"

"What do you mean?" he tilted his head in confusion.

"Like…here on Earth, we measure how old we are by years. It's been around a full day since we first met, seven days makes a week, fifty-two weeks makes a year," I explained. "So, do you know roughly how many years you've been alive for?"

"Um…we don't measure it in time like that. It depends on how much knowledge and experience your mind holds, and how much you've contributed to the Library. I think I'd be like…four weeks in your units? I'm not really sure, I've never thought of it before. I know I'm really young compared to most of the other entities though."

I sat there in shock for several seconds.

Four weeks?!

"Hey are you feeling alright?" he nudged my arm.

"…Yup. Just…absorbing…that…" I replied faintly, subconsciously rubbing his snout before I realized what I was doing and quickly withdrew my arm.

"So how old are you then?"

"…Almost nineteen years."

"Oh."

"That makes me…let's see, thirteen times nineteen…thirteen times twenty minus thirteen…almost two hundred and forty-seven times your age," I gave him a look.

"Oh."

We stood there in silence for a moment, until I suddenly remembered what he'd said earlier.

"Wait, what's this 'Library'?"

"It's a collection of all the knowledge we have on the multiverse," he answered promptly, clearly as relieved as I was to be past the subject of age. "Any time we're outside the Above, we're collecting information on the universe we're in, which gets related and linked to all sorts of other things, helping us all understand everything better. Like…I didn't know what those hard, flattened lines through the forest were, until I checked for similar references in the Library, and found they were called paths, trails or tracks. I realized really quickly when I first got here that this is a forest, and those are trees, because we already have records of them existing in several of the other universes that we've visited. But the multiverse is so vast and so different, more often than not we have no idea what most things in a universe are, and we need help identifying them. Like…what's that thing you use to go fast on the paths?" he pointed with a claw to my bike.

"That's a bicycle," I answered.

"Right, so now if any other entity is in a universe where those exist in some form, or there's something similar in nature, they'll be able to figure out what it is."

"Wow…that sounds really damn helpful. Like a hive-mind of dictionaries."

"Yeah, it is! We also have near perfect memory, so we can refer to any conversations or experiences we need to."

"Huh…so years from now you'll be able to remember every word of this?"

"Yep!"

I didn't share his cheerful attitude about that fact, it was slightly disturbing to my mind. Then again, at least I'd be able to make a lasting impression on a race of alien creatures without much difficulty. Then, for the second time that day, I realized what he'd said only seconds earlier.

"There's forests and trees in lots of other universes? Like, enough that you recognized them?"

"Well, yeah. A universe is created whenever anyone so much as thinks of a possible reality, that's why it's so vast. So, it makes sense that there's some common elements spread across them."

"I'm sorry, what?!" I nearly shouted in surprise.

"I…thought you said you knew about the multiverse?" he seemed a little apprehensive at my reaction.

"I…thought I did…" I stared up at the sky with wide eyes, imagining the possibilities. And then realized that in doing so, I was creating a universe. "Oh my god, nope, nope, that's just too weird," I tried desperately to keep my mind blank.

This proved almost immediately impossible.

"How did humans think the multiverse worked then?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"We uh…we just thought it was infinite. Like, every possible variant of every possible thing already existed, somewhere out there. Not…this."

"Well I suppose it might end up that way eventually. I know there's probably multiple universes that just happen to be exactly the same, but at some point, everything has to be thought of. And there's a load of void universes as well, where almost nothing was created. Oh, that's one of the things the Powers are trying to figure out—if universes are created by thought, then there must be a prime universe where all thought began, before there were any others," Ashburn continued to ramble on to himself as I sat there, trying to wrap my head around…any of it. This had escalated far too quickly for my brain to cope—I'd gone from discovering aliens, to discovering the nature of the entire multiverse in a matter of minutes.

I rubbed my face with my hands, trying to get my brain away from all of it. I would go insane trying to wrap my head around this, so it was best to just move on to more pressing matters.

"Ugh…alright, look, I'm thinking we should move further away from Keswick—the town where I live—so nobody else sees you and reports it to the police or something," I regretted saying this instantly as I saw his face drop from excitement to sadness. "I'm sorry, it's just…I have no idea what they'll do, and…I don't want you to get hurt."

Finding out he was essentially an infant put a new, quite worrying spin on things. He'd already seemed quite vulnerable from his lack of knowledge on this world and experience in using a physical body, but now…

"It's okay, I get it," he made an effort to put on a neutral expression, but I could still see the pain in his eyes. "This form isn't from your world is it?"

"No, well, kind of. It's from a piece of fiction, but the chances of someone coming along who recognizes it are…well not that low I guess, since I did, but…they're pretty slim. Especially if they happened to see you as aggressive."

"Would you…have come back and saved me if you hadn't…recognized this form?" Ashburn asked carefully, staring me down with large, emotional eyes.

"I…" my throat tightened. "Maybe. I don't know."

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds, and I fidgeted with the buttons on my jumper before slinging my rucksack over my shoulders once more and climbing back up the grassy verge to my bike.

"Look," I said eventually, breaking the tension. "The place we're headed has a large lake, so you'll be able to learn how to swim and fish there. I'm also thinking that at some point you're going to want to learn how to fly, and I figure knowing how to use your wings and tail in the water first is a good place to start."

"Fly?" his earfins stood to attention again, and he looked back at his wings as if he'd forgotten they were there. "Oh! I want to show you something, wait here!"

He bounced up to the path and along it for a stretch, turning back around when he was around fifty metres away. He then began sprinting back down it, towards me and the river's edge. He was nearly on top of me in seconds. I could see how much force he had behind those legs as he rocketed past, and I ducked instinctively.

I realized what he was going to do only half a second before he did it.

I took in a sharp breath and resisted the urge to shout out, knowing it might make him stumble if I did.

He launched from the shore, spreading his wings and gliding wobblily across the river before nearly crash-landing on the other side, stumbling a couple of times but keeping upright. He then turned to me with a massive grin on his face.

"Well that's…new" I said faintly. For a moment, I had genuinely thought he was going to end up drowning himself, and I'd almost panicked. My voice barely carried over the sound of flowing water, but his sensitive ears picked it up anyway.

"It's awesome! Does flying always feel like that?"

"I wouldn't know, humans don't exactly have wings," I called back. "Don't do that again though, you might hurt yourself, or fall in the river!"

He had the decency to look at least a little sheepish.

"Just…meet me downriver by the bridge, and then we'll head to the lake from there."