what are you telling me to do?
there's a window to reality
is grasping the truth the only thing it can do?
i haven't lived through half my life yet
oppose it, embrace it
endless experiences are unconsciously carved into me
when i was put on the edge you held onto my trembling hands
and for the first time i was able to see where i belonged
above the vast towers
or through the imprisoning depths
i head for a world with no lies
i want to know about myself
-Hemisphere, RahXephon OP
***
The sunlight splashed against the bedroom wall, coloring the pale wallpaper the warm red-orange of the sunset. The color attracted Harry's attention and for a few moments he gazed at it idly, before jerking himself out of reverie and closing his eyes again. The Aeons had given him some rather peculiar instructions the night before.
*Think of us.*
"What?!" Harry had to admit, he was expecting something more like 'Do a thousand push-ups and then swim across the Channel'. Or, if it had to be mental exercises, 'Reach for the Eye of the Tiger!'
*You've been watching too many martial arts movies,* Shiva observed.
"Actually, Oliver told us that once. Except for the swim across the Channel – he just wanted the lake," Harry corrected automatically. "But…what do you mean, think of you?"
*Think of us very hard.*
And then he'd woken up.
He'd spent the morning painting the fence – again - and then the afternoon mowing the lawn. Puzzled over his strange instructions, Harry nonetheless tried, as per directions, to think of the Aeons. Thinking of them was not actually a difficult proposition, seeing as how their images remained as firmly lodged in his memory as the first time he'd seen them, but his chores were sufficiently tiring to make him keep breaking off his concentration. By the end of the day, Harry was tired, had a headache, and was still confused.
Hoping he'd have better luck in his bedroom, where it would be quieter and less distracting, Harry had taken a quick shower (Petunia screeching about the water he was wasting when she passed by) and then locked himself in. But even though he was no longer engaged in physical labor, he was finding himself distracted by the most inane of things. He hadn't known how hard it was to think of only one thing (aside from getting the Snitch in a Quidditch game) and one thing only, until he tried it.
***
*Why isn't he contacting us?*
*Well, Quetz, we weren't exactly clear in our instructions. Harry's not like the others, he's never had any experience with such as we before.*
***
He gave up just when the sunset light dimmed into the purple of dusk, and took a 'break' from his mental exercises to have dinner. The Dursleys wouldn't be eating until eight – there was a special show Dudley wanted to see without having to be distracted by a meal – and so he gobbled down some leftovers before setting the table, preparing the meat, washing and chopping the vegetables and readying the ingredients for a pot of soup. Later, Petunia would stick the seasoned meat into the oven Harry had preheated for her, look at the pot he left bubbling, placed the tossed salad into a bowl, and then proclaim how she had worked and slaved over a stove for her two men, so did they like the food?
But Harry had more important things on his mind. He'd contact them later, he thought, when he was asleep, and get a better idea of what they wanted him to do – really, 'think of us' was alright as a greeting-card text but much too vague to be an actual instruction. So before he went to bed, he'd do some of his homework – his Potions assignment still needed to be done, and he'd promised himself that he'd revise his Charms.
His plans for the evening set, he began to climb the stairs. As he made his way up to his room, however, Dudley came thundering down the stairs, roughly shoving his cousin to the side.
Harry slammed against the wall, his right arm taking the brunt of the shock. With all the weight Dudley could bring to bear, the impact had been a hard one, and Harry was sure he'd have a whopper of a bruise there tomorrow. Cursing Dudley under his breath, and promising himself to use some of Fred and George's inventions on his fat whale of a cousin very soon, Harry made his way back to his room. Absently, his left hand came up to rub at his right arm.
He could hear nothing else but thunder and the steady percussion of rain, his eyes periodically dazzled by lightning. In the midst of the storm, the gray eagle soared on wings whose wingbeats created winds stronger than the storm's. The dark eyes met his…
With a startled blink, Harry came back to himself. He stood very still for a moment before suddenly bolting into his room. He sat in the middle of the floor, cross-legged, as he had earlier. He rolled up his shirt-sleeves, but the shirt was so loose on his thin frame that the sleeves kept sliding back down. In frustration, he shucked the shirt off completely, tossing it to one side before pressing his finger-tips against one of the runic characters tattooed on his skin.
As the storm-image filled his mind, Harry grit his teeth and focused all his thoughts on Quetzalcoatl. He thought. He thought very hard.
***
*Finally!*
***
Harry felt his mind catch. 'Catch' was such a strange term for it, but it was the closest thing to the strange sensation of feeling everything suddenly fall into place, a line of communication opening up between two consciousnesses.
*At last!* Quetzalcoatl exulted in his head.
Harry should have been surprised at the sudden appearance of another psyche within his own, but he couldn't spare the concentration. Or perhaps his experiences in the dreams had inured him to the strangeness of the sending. In any case, as soon as he felt his mind 'catch' on Quetzalcoatl, he slid his fingers slightly downwards, pressing them against the runic insignia for Shiva.
Snow blurred her outline, flurrying around the Lady of the Ice like a white tornado. Blizzard-winds howled like strange wolves, with harmonics like the shuddering tones of broken crystal laced through. She stretched out a graceful arm, beckoning to him…
Harry opened his eyes and grinned. The runes on his arm glowed for a moment, as if lit from behind, but, too busy with his new-found rapport with the Aeons, he did not notice.