I'm happy so many of you are still here despite the ridiculously long delay between chapters! This... is an update of sorts, but not really the next chapter you're waiting for. That one will be a bit longer in coming given how massive it's probably going to end up being.

Anyway, once again, thanks to all of you who've stuck around and to all the newcomers. :)

Another Moment

New York. It was the city where he'd spent the second half of his childhood. It was lively: loud with voices, music and traffic, full of people and vibrant with colours, cultures and languages. It was the city that had taken his parents from him and sentenced him to a world of concrete instead of sand.

It all felt distant now. Not a dream, but no longer important. He remembered the emotions he's associated with those memories, but they were mere echoes of themselves, too linked to corporeal existence. Inconsequential.

So, yes, he remembered New York vividly, how he'd left the city after graduating early from high school and never returned. However, he didn't remember this New York.

This New York of hidden alleyways and marketplaces: invisible buildings, districts tucked away between the boundaries of what could be seen with the naked eye. He'd had gotten better at spotting them after curiosity had taken him from London to Paris and then Rome. Little pockets of magic scattered throughout the cities of Europe attracted his attention and drew him in like the flame to his proverbial moth. He went beyond Europe and found more.

Egypt, in particular had lit up with an inner glow, though different than what he'd seen in Europe, older, the waves radiating out into the world were slower, but their was breadth wider. He touched the pyramids with his incorporeal hands and they sang to him, every wave leisurely lapping away at the particles around it like an ocean eroding a rocky shore. It was clear to his sight – though he didn't 'see' so much as 'understand' – where the waves had steadily affected the earth in their vicinity and altered it ever-so-slightly.

Of all the wonders he'd expected to discover, all the revelations he'd anticipated ascension to bring him, the knowledge that magic was real, was far from one of them. Even after all his explorations, it still amazed him and excited him. It was a part of the world he'd never realized existed. No, a part whose existence he could no longer deny as he was now, stripped of all constraints of his former life.

Here, in New York, a city he'd thought he'd known, he saw a society living within the shadows of another, its place meticulously carved into spaces already occupied. He saw the lines created from the waves of powerful magic, the world cleaved apart and then put back together unseen in order to make it fit.

"All the universe to explore, and yet here you are still wandering around your planet of origin," a voice interrupted his musings.

It wasn't that he hadn't seen him approach – there was no room for stealth in an existence where everything was known and felt – but he hadn't expected the other being to actively engage him.

"I have all of existence to explore the universe," Daniel answered as he turned to face the newcomer. "So why not start here? It turns out there is still much for me to see and learn."

The man he now faced was tall and thin, his hair a slightly wavy brown and his face carrying lines that seemed to be formed into an expression of perpetual amusement, matching the twinkle in his eyes and the sly grin on his lips.

"Daniel, the universe is full of such things, things that would've been quite beyond your former imagination, or understanding."

Daniel rolled his eyes. "I am aware of that, Janus. And I'll get to them in time. Something which I now, apparently, have in no limited quantity."

Janus shrugged, an oddly human gesture for a member from such a stoic, solemn race. "Suit yourself. I suppose it's true that while you might have an infinite amount of time, they certainly don't."

Daniel turned away from the Alteran – the former Atlantian (Atlantis, with its long elegant towers and smooth lines, was beautiful) – and looked back to New York. He looked to this secret, hidden city... and to its people. Within their cells he could see their past, the path evolution had taken to form their precise strands of DNA – it wasn't the sort of story bards composed ballads about, but a long and intricate one nonetheless. He could also see their future, the potential for future evolution and the many different paths it could take them as members of the human race.

But, most importantly, within those delicate, precise strands, he saw their demise.

He turned back to Janus with a desire to disperse the sudden weight on his heart. "So, do you have any suggestions about where to start this wider exploration of the universe?" he asked him.

Janus' face split into a grin, the light in his eyes twinkling even brighter than before. "I might have a thing or two in mind."