((J. Dac says: Well, I've got like, three parts left before I run out of "reserved story supply." The trouble I have with this fic is twofold: 1) I really want to write the ending because in my mind those scenes are much more vivid/interesting, but really don't want to write all the in-the-middle plot that's really just an excuse for character development; and 2) I feel like I'm accomplishing nothing when writing fan fiction. We'll see how much time I have this summer.))
Faced with few other options, I decided to follow Hoshiya's lead. We had landed on the absolute bottom level of Aisha City, where pedestrians swarmed the streets like a chaotic colony of ants, all directed by their own volition. Hoshiya conjured us up fresh robes to continue our stint as pseudo-Nyswans. We emerged from the alleyway where we landed and plunged into the fray. Our disguises seemed almost unnecessary—the high density of creatures granted almost anyone instantaneous anonymity. Due to our status as Nyswans, though, passerbys tended to give us more distance, Nyswans being a reverent and respected species.
It took a series of strange encounters with questionable bodega owners as well as dodging several toothless, reeking homeless crazies before we had even a shard of an idea of where we were headed. As it happened, a two-storied tour bus was nosing its way through traffic as we tried to cross a particular street. After scanning the side of the bus for Intergalactic text that explained what sites the bus stopped at, we hedged our hopes on that little bus, dodging fare by pretending we didn't understand any universal language.
With as much feigned inner peace as we could, we took seats at the back of the bus in opposite aisles, still pissed at one another. I pressed my right shoulder up against the window and pulled my feet up to the edge of the seat so I could rest my chin on my knees. I gazed out the window, watching a thousand different species mill about one another in a common churning, and I tried, desperately, to catch a glimpse of a familiar, uncomfortable Aisha face—or maybe even a Kougra again, already, sticking out like a sore thumb. Nothing.
It took the bus a few hours to finally swing towards the Sacred Cave. The route there took us outside of the city, the road congestion gradually easing up as the buildings declined in height. Actual grass began to sprout alongside the road, and modest dwellings nestled themselves amidst the greenery. Soon, even the humble abodes began dwindling until there was only stark countryside, which transitioned by measure into thick underbrush and dense coniferous forests. The road became less and less reliable, the ride becoming jolty and stomach-curdling, and the twisting paths we took disoriented me entirely. I couldn't even attempt to point north.
But suddenly the trees gave way to a clearing that led to a small accumulation of water, and behind that an unexpected, jagged canyon nearly half the height of the city structures. A natural staircase was carved into the side of the canyon from the front of the pond, leading to a disturbingly perfect circular entrance. The area was filled with tourists of all different species, all of them seemingly cinched at the waist with a fanny pack and shading their eyes with a visor cap. The flickering of disposable camera flashes occasionally lit up the interior of the dark entrance, but other than that, what was inside the cave was indistinguishable from its exterior.
The bus unloaded, and Hoshiya and I glided out, trying hard to maintain a sense of Nyswan poise. I kept my eyes trained for any familiar Aisha faces, but thanks to my minimal interaction with that species, all of their pinched eyes and petite mouths too new and similar to be differentiated.
Hoshiya and I joined the queue leading up the staircase, bypassing the tacky gift stand with maps and historical brochures. We kept together out of necessity, neither wanting to be alone in that strange place, but simultaneously despising one another. The sharp silence between us began to agitate me gradually, though—I'd become too accustomed to Gormos' spontaneous outbursts of completely irrelevant conversation to stand not speaking.
"So what're we looking for in this cave, again?" I whispered.
"A mirror, and potentially a crying lady," Hoshiya murmured back, her look of disinterest staying consistent.
"Alright, well, I'll keep an eye out for my own reflection, then," I mumbled. That effectively ended that thread of conversation. Craving more, I decided to antagonize her, if only to get her talking. "Maybe you could keep an eye out for a certain Green Aisha, huh?"
"Look, Frank, we'll find him, okay? But Gormos is not going to freaking die if you don't see him at every second and hey, get this, neither will you, now grow a pair!" Hoshiya hissed back.
"I don't have to grow anything, I can just freaking steal them from you and sew them on myself!" I sneered back.
"At least I'm not a pansy boy with big pansy feathery wings that I can't even use properly," Hoshiya growled, narrowing her eyes.
"If I'm not mistaken, you couldn't get enough of those feathers while we were in transit," I shot back.
"Yeah, well, I'm gonna chalk that one up to not having enough oxygen in that little craphole."
"Thought-cha said you didn't need oxygen, Mrs. Oh-So-Special-Faerie."
"Oh, technicalities, Frank," she said with a roll of her eyes. "I was bored, and it annoyed you, so I did it. Besides, you should be comfortable with your own body, even if it is gawky and clumsy."
"Well thank you, Hoshiya. I hope you're comfortable with your personality, even if it is vapid and offensive," I retorted.
Our verbal scuffle continued, though we were conscious enough to keep our voices low so it seemed more like a shared, repetitious chant. The line was slowly inching in to the circular opening. Over the heads of those in front of us, I could glimpse a central chamber inside. Besides the transient flashes of photographs, I could sense a central location of light inside, though dim.
When we finally made our way in, I immediately saw the source of light. The inside of the cave was a perfect sphere, its immaculate construction eerie enough to suggest that it was a natural phenomenon rather than something manmade. The interior was enormous, about half the size of a grand ballroom, and able to accommodate enough tourists to ensure an unbroken current of white noise. In the middle of that giant cavern was a natural fountain, a bowl of stone sinking deep into the ground but raised along the perimeter, holding a quantity of sapphire-colored water. Despite the relative low light levels of the cave, I felt qualified to call the water sapphire, as a blue glow emanated from deep in the heart of the pool, swathing the interior in its warm light.
Most visitors hung back from the rim of the pool, enjoying the tranquil atmosphere that the lighting provided. A few more inquisitive tourists and a handful of youngsters, however, pulled closer to the lip of the fountain, staring at their wavering reflections hungrily or attempting to toss coins into the fountain before being accosted by the numerous armed Aisha guards.
"So what's so special about this place anyway?" Hoshiya said with a little sniff, our argument having fizzled out a few minutes earlier. "All the lame lighting of some chique bar and none of the alcohol."
Nonchalantly, we inched towards a tour group not far away, getting close enough to be within earshot of the tour guide. While the tour guide's Aishan accent was noticeable, his Intergalactic was nowhere near as pidgin as Jerry's had been, and we understood him with ease.
"The Great Fountain is the essential element of the Sacred Cave," the tour guide explained. He was a red Aisha with an unexpected collection of hair on his head, pressed down by a sloppy, mud-stained boonie cap. He didn't strike me as an intellectual, but he came off as a reliable source for this sort of folk wisdom. "In ancient times, Aisha priests would come here on religious holidays to pray to their one God. It was believed that on the winter equinox, the great Aisha God would descend to Earth and manifest Himself in these waters, from which the Aisha priests would drink and collect for future blessings. What's so remarkable about the fountain and this cave itself was that it was found with these perfect geometrical proportions, which led the ancients to believe it was the sign of divine work.
"However, not-so-godly things in history have transpired in this cave. Most notably, the death of Princess Shimalda during the Wenti era. It is said that Princess Shimalda loved a peasant Aisha, but because of her royal status was forbidden from wedding him. They decided to elope—he promised to meet her in the Sacred Cavern during the dead of summer. However, he never arrived; and the princess, heartbroken, stayed here in the cavern; not even the holy springs could spare her from starvation. The priests found her on the winter equinox, expired. A truly tragic story. It is said that her ghost still haunts this cavern, causing the walls to perspire spontaneously and a wailing sound to be heard.
"This opening over her is the chamber in which they found poor Princess Shimalda's wilted body. It is closed to visitors, for the place of a royal's death is considered sacred to Aishas," the tour guide explained, and gestured towards an opening in the wall that couldn't have been higher than my chest. I nudged Hoshiya, indicating the opening with a jerk of my head.
"You think the mirror could be in there, maybe? That's where the crying broad died."
"Maybe. We'll need to split up."
"Uh, ok. It's not like there's much area to explore anyway."
"Shut up. You look in the fountain, and I'll covering this opening, all right?"
"Deal."
We moved in opposite directions, she closer to the tour group (who were now taking turns gaping at the arched opening) and I in the other direction, towards a knot of kid creatures around the fountain. Careful to retreat my head substantially into my hood to avoid shedding light on my distinctly non-Nyswanian face, I peered over the edge of the fountain. The water was placid to the point of being glass-like, the shadow of my hood thrown back in my face without a single shiver of liquid-like properties disturbing it. I focused my eyes for below the surface, searching for any sign of something mirror like beyond the very water itself. I looked closely—squinted. Beneath an alarming amount of water, I could almost make out the distorted image of something, if indistinctly.
My focus was disturbed by a sudden commotion behind me. I spun around, yanking at my hood to secure it around my face. A large, luminescent beast seemed to be sprouting from the entrance to Princess Shimalda's resting place, feline and bearing its formidable fangs. The two guards standing at either side of the door were shooting at it with their laser weapons with apparently no success. Tourists and tour guides alike fled in scattered directions, trying to make their way out of the cave as quickly as possible.
I was not as easily fooled by the hallucinations of faerie magic. Although the beast was remarkably realistic, its slight translucency told of its true nature: nothing but a projection of Hoshiya's talent in a roaring, foaming form. I trained my eyes just beside the tiger-like beast, and sure enough, I looked just in time to see Hoshiya's dark-robed form slipping behind her obnoxious distraction into the arched passageway.
I had half the mind to follow her, but at that moment I felt a sharp tugging at the bottom of my robe. Startled, I spun around, all my muscles clenching in preparation of defending myself, or fleeing. At eye-level, I couldn't see anyone close enough to touch me—tipping my chin downwards, I was confronted with a very familiar, very elated Aisha.
"Frank! Frank, is that you? Good God I hope you're not a real Nyswan, or else this is going to be super awkward." The lack of Aishan accent immediately gave away the creature's identity—to which I had to suppress the overwhelming and somewhat girlish urge to gather that little sucker up in my arms and embrace him in relief.
"Gormos! Oh thank betty … I thought we lost you to that psycho forever! And Hoshiya is a gigantic twat, so she wouldn't let me search for you," I explained in low tones. I started to bend down to get on eye-level with Gormos (it was strange enough having to look down at him) but then I remembered my Nyswan masquerade, and a proper Nyswan wouldn't be caught dead bending their pious spines.
"Yeah, well, I managed to con that Jerry character into bringing me to the cave. Said I was meeting some relatives here, that I've been out of town so long I was more comfortable talking in Intergalactic," Gormos explained, a stupid, simple grin plastered across his face. (I imagined mine looked similar.) "She dropped me off here with good tidings. I didn't expect you guys to make it here so quick, though!"
"Yeah, no thanks to the directionally challenged citizens of Aisha City," I grumbled. "But here we are, safe and sound. That commotion, you may have surmised, is care of our favorite faerie."
"Speaking of Hoshi, did she maybe tell you how long this potion works for? I mean, as much as I love staring at the butts of every passerby that isn't an Aisha, I don't think this species arrangement is going to work out," Gormos said, a pinch of whining in the back of his tone.
"Nah, not a clue. Maybe you've got to will yourself back to being a Kougra?" I suggested with a shrug.
"Psst!"
The interjection of a third voice into our reunion shocked both of us, causing us to lurch in the direction of the sound. Gormos' fur, short though it was, visibly bristled, and I could feel my muscles getting tight all over again. The voice seemed to originate from the pool behind us. Most visitors had fled from the cave at this point due to the ruckus Hoshiya had set up at the back of the cave, and none took the time to dawdle around the perimeter of the fountain. Even with this momentary privacy at the pool, I was still alarmed and anxious (not to mention completely taken aback) by seeing Hoshiya's head poke up from the skin of the water, her mouth submerged to keep herself low, mouth only breeching to speak softly.
I looked either way for safety's sake before leaning over the fountain's rim to stare at her. "What the heck, faerie? I could've sworn I just saw you enter that little room over there."
"I did," she sputtered, spitting some water out of her mouth. "There's a pool in there too, deeper. It leads through a tunnel to this fountain. There's a waterfall in that little room, too, so that explains where all this water is coming from."
"I could care less about scientific explanations of this cave's natural phenomenon. Did you find anything resembling a mirror?" I asked impatiently.
"How about you help me out of this pool first?" She extended a hand above water to be grasped. I grabbed her and helped boost her out of the water she had been treading. She seemed to have lost her robe in the process, and was dressed only in her normal clothes, her natural, legally-"wanted" face agonizingly visible. Her wings gave a little shudder, expelling any residue water clinging to them. Paranoid, I moved closer to her, hoping my body would provide an adequate shield for any suspicious eyes in at least one direction. "Could you not stand so close, Frank?" she snapped irritably when I edged closer.
"Sorry, sweetheart, I just had this crazy idea that we wouldn't want your face conspicuously out in the open when you're a wanted fugitive," I replied dryly.
"Forget that, everyone's too concerned with saving their own tails right now," she said, gesturing towards her still-functioning magical illusion of a roaring tiger. Aisha guards continued to fire round after round at the mirage to no avail, only doing damage to the smooth roof of the cave.
"Hey, Hoshiya, I find it interesting how you have to use a fake tiger to distract everyone when we could have a real one right here," I said, motioning towards Gormos on the ground. This cued Gormos to chime in, his high voice even higher with his annoyance.
"Yeah, you think you could maybe turn me back into a Kougra now?" he asked pointedly. "I mean, especially if you've got everybody distracted, it shouldn't matter, right?"
Hoshiya's tough, careless countenance fell upon seeing Gormos, and she scrambled to reconstruct it to the same level of nonchalance. "Good to see you, Gormos. Now maybe Frank'll stop getting his panties in such a twist about you being all alone and unable to fend for yourself," Hoshiya said, looking more at me than at Gormos.
"What was that?" Gormos demanded, his accusatory stare shifting to me.
"Oh no you don't, don't you dare go redirecting his rage at me, faerie, you didn't even properly answer his question," I snapped, glaring at Hoshiya. Hoshiya raised an eyebrow at me, and then shrugged heavily, as if attempting to pretend that it didn't matter either way to her.
"Transmogrification potions are tricky. They're a self-contained potion, which means they're a self-contained spell—as in self-running. That means I can't stop it; it just has to run its course."
"And how long, exactly, is this course going to be?" Gormos asked, looking a little bit too hopeful for his own good.
"Depends," was her single-word answered, delivered with a shrug.
"Wait, let me get this straight. You let Gormos drink this Transmogrifiwhatever potion … with no idea of how long it's going to last?" I said incredulously, hoping she couldn't possibly have actually been that careless.
Hoshiya shrugged again. "It seemed like the only option at the time."
"Versus what!?" I cried in exasperation.
"Look, you two can fret all you want about how long it's going to take Gormos to turn back—truth of the matter is he will, but in good time," Hoshiya said, obviously aggravated by the doubt we were shedding on her spells. "For the time being, let's worry about something relevant, okay? Like the fact I couldn't find any frickin' mirror in that room, or in the fountain for that matter, and heck, there wasn't even any weeping Aisha chick to lead the way."
Reluctantly, I shifted my internal thoughts from verbally berating Hoshiya to focusing on the task at hand. "Maybe 'mirror' wasn't referring to something so literally. Maybe 'mirror' is just referring to some reflective surface—like water."
"Yeah, so maybe we're supposed to take a sample of this water right here," Gormos suggested, motioning towards the fountain.
Without further deliberation, Hoshiya conjured a small vial in the palm of her hand. Unstopping it, she dipped it slightly under the surface of the water, recorking it three-fourths filled with water. She handed it over to me, and I slipped it inside of my robe. With that task so easily accomplished, we all had a moment of standing around in a loose triangle, staring at each other purposelessly.
"Well, that was easy," Gormos commented flatly. "Now how 'bout we skedaddle?"