trans_9 | What dreams may come [Open, bendytimed to before GTFO plot]

The vision hits her—

Roxie lets out a soft sigh as she's overwhelmed by it, letting the expanse of knowledge pour through her. She doesn't try to analyze it, just lets herself soak it up intuitively...

It takes her long, long moments to recover from it, and she has nearly fallen, limp on her feet.

She bows again before she straightens, trying to firm herself.

One of her hands raises, and darkness cloaks around her, and to the sides. Not to hide away—no, to—

Dots of light form against the shroud of darkness, and expand, turning into webs of worlds against the darkness. And as Roxie sinks herself into the scene, it becomes more than just a projection—it starts to envelop her and the god, in sight and emotion and half-intuited thought—

Subtle presences weave themselves across the worlds. They are like gods—great and terrible ones, for each spans eternities unto itself, and fractal sub-gods all the way down. Some span every world, and some only some, but all are so vast as to be nearly incomprehensible.

The worlds stay alive in a rough but living cycle: for every world that dies, another is born with life, and the over-gods slowly move to and fro, moving like tides with the cycles of ages.

And then something happens: one of the worlds simply vanishes, pulled out of the cycle. And then another, and another—

To stop the spread of whatever is happening, the over-gods slice the entire region out of the continuum. Countless lives and thoughts are forever lost to the greater existence.

And then—

A passage is forced open from the inside, and another world is claimed.

One of the over-gods investigates: a young one, a thing of passion and hope and madness and individuality. He reports back what he finds, and is disbelieved.

The infection spreads to more worlds, and the dream-god despairs. What he has seen is a species—a thing—that would conquer all free thought.

In secret, he chips away parts of himself and crafts warriors.

A Protector of Life? And she is one of its chosen warriors?

It's—

The vision changes. Legions, plated in bone-white armor, moving in lockstep. They are alive—they are vigorously alive—but it is not the same kind of life anyone else understands. They move and think and act as one, and the closest any ever come to dissent against the whole are in ripples and eddies and temporary confusions in the local traceries of thought, until the consciousness of the great combined hyper-mind focuses enough to change that.

There is discontent. The living unliving, taking over life--this cannot be allowed to happen. Free will is life.

Defense of such things is dangerous, and those that do it are to be respected. The great spirit-being lifts her up slowly, and there is a gentle kiss pressed to the crown of her head, that prickles with starlight, from this creature of balance.

All life is precious, and she is life, therefore, she is precious, but she is also respected for what she protects.

Her eyes close as her head is kissed. Subtle energies churn within her at the touch.

It feels almost like...

Coming home, somehow. More comfortable than Shyama's chill depths or white-hot eyes.

For what feels like a long, long time, she soaks in the feeling.

The moment is ruined by the screeching of birds in the ether. The bird-thing is back, and it brought friends.

The spirit-being's brow furrows and a massive hand swats at the cloud of birds that swarms in, sending them scattering. The other hand clutches Roxie to its chest protectively.

Hooked talons swing in far too close, but then--then the birds scatter as quickly as they came.

The storm is coming, crawling towards them. Bright eyes widen and the great being turns its head towards her and opens its massive mouth, which glows like a open doorway with a light beyond it, holding the hand with her up to it. It pauses right at its mouth, giving her the choice to walk in, so that she's not afraid.

It's a way of escape. It's nothing to fear.

She'd prefer to fight, but—this isn't the place for her. If they were material, maybe she'd have a chance. (A little one.)

"Thank you," she says, and jumps forward into the glow of the god-thing's mouth.

The mouth closes, but a wisp of smoke gets in.

But hands pull her down. Hands attached to arms in all different colors of clothing, red and black, white and blue, yellow and orange, green and brown. They're pulling her away from the thing, helping her fall, and obscuring her from view. She'll see flashes of faces, like she was shown before, people forming and disappearing after helping her.

Eventually, she falls the last of the way, through the past lives and into the past of the present life, into a little courtyard, in a temple on the side of a mountain, but air cushions her fall. There is the bright mist of old, happy memory here, meant to keep the shadows at bay.

The first thing that's visible from the angle she's landed at are boots. Brown boots, and as she looks up, she'll see a tiny, little bald boy, with bright, grey eyes, the one that cushioned her landing.

"Hi!" he says, crouching down next to her. "Do you wanna play hide n' seek?"

Roxie goes limp as she falls. She's been smacked around enough—pavements, walls, cars—to know that she's better off just letting herself go with the movement.

And the hands... her eyes stay open and her lips slide apart as she's pulled down, trying to match all the faces to ones burned into her memory. She doesn't really try to think about any of it—this isn't the time, and she's ready to react if she has to.

And then—

a fall—

and—

a boy?

It takes long, precious moments for her mind to slide back into a peace-time mode, leaving her looking at him only half-comprehendingly.

"... only if I get to hide," she finally says.

The boy reaches out a small hand, and helps her up.

"We always have to hide," he says, and there's uncertainty for a moment, as if this fact is new. He's sure it was different before. But it's only there for a moment, before the sun breaks through the clouds again.

"I'm really good at it! I know all the best places, but you have to squish yourself up to fit in them, and it's not good to get caught by the older monks because they get upset, I think because you can see the tops of all their heads and they don't have hair anymore..."

A shadow falls over them both, as dark clouds start to roil overhead and ash starts to drift down through the air.

"We have to go play right now," he says, looking up at the roiling clouds starting to block out the sun with widening eyes, sounding a bit more intense than someone with such an open face should sound, tugging her along.

Roxie slides up along the boy's help. It's almost disorienting to be getting up from a fall without her head ringing and spine and shoulders complaining. Her hood is fallen open, hair a bit mussed by the puff of air that cushioned her way down.

And his enthusiasm leaves her a little behind. She was never a very energetic child, never a social sort. And he seems to certainly be—

Oh.

"Lead on," she says, trying to keep up with him without losing grip on her acceleration.

He runs, and drags her along in his wake. The air has less resistance around them both, making it easier for them both to run faster. They reach a sort of walkway with an overhang and a lattice structure.

Aang hops up effortless to a ledge and reaches down to help Roxie up.

"Hurry! We have to hide really fast or we'll get tagged, and you don't want to get tagged."

Roxie ignores Aang's hand and grabs the ledge, pulling herself up fast enough that she has to scrabble almost on all fours a moment, still moving, to regain her footing.

"How fast can you go?" she says. There's an earthiness to her voice that wasn't there a moment ago, though—and she's changing, cloak rippling back along her as it melds into her. Still scrabbling in the half-hybrid form a moment, and then—

The red wolf (http://i38.tinypic.com/whze61.jpg) that bounds forward is young, but vigorous and healthy.

"Really fast!" Aang says, running along the ledge with sure feet, the wind carrying him along, looking back to make sure Roxie can keep up. The black clouds are following them, whipping in under the arch even though the winds are trying to blow them away.

"Hey, if we had more time to play, would you let me ride you?"

What? It's a very good question. Normally, he'd just jump right on, but he figures it's polite to ask when you can--

There's a small doorway at the end of the walkway, hidden in the branches of the trees laces through the temple roofs.

"Never mind! Through here! Through here!"

Roxie lets out a sharp 'hruf' at the question—mind on topic, kid! Normally she's damn fast for a human, and like this she's faster... even if she's a little worse on the fine control.

Door! Door! Good. She lets out a 'raff!' and barrels for it. At this speed, if Aang doesn't open it for her in time, she's probably going to go through it the hard way. Not that she's willing to let that slow her down.

It opens and light spills through, like sunlight through the leaves on a bright summer day. When she comes through, she'll nearly barrel into him.

He's older now, taller, in the same orange and yellow clothes, but taller, with blue arrow tattoos on his head and arms.

They're in some sort of stone temple. The air is hot here.

His expression is more serious.

"Hurry! This way!"

He runs ahead, disappearing around a corner, then before Roxie will even have a chance to catch up, comes back so fast he skids as he swings back around the corner. Fire Nation soldiers are following him, but there's only darkness behind their face-plates.

"Never mind! Not that way! The other way!"

Roxie skids like a skidding thing, trying to work against sudden built-up speed that her current body wasn't really built for. For just a moment she's skidded past Aang, in fact, before she's slowed enough that she can try and turn around without losing control. But those soldiers—

A growling noise builds in her throat, and suddenly white-hot flame erupts from her throat, as bone-white traceries flare through her fur from her jaws, wrapping around her head.

That'll show 'em!

...Or not.

The Firebenders simply bend the fire out of the way, and then move to return the blast and incinerate Roxie where she stands.

"Aaah!" Aang has to run forward and deflect it with a great gust of Airbending from his staff, that knocks them all against the wall.

"Uh, thaaaat won't work on them. Come on, run run run!"

Roxie lets out a sharp whine, the bone-white splatters of fur across her head slowly shrinking. Her head twists, one eye cataract-white, and she scrabbles forward after Aang, trying to build up against the speed she's lost.

Okay. Message gotten. No fire against those—whovers they are.

"Through here!" He races through a doorway and by the time she reaches the other side, which opens to another temple, on the underside of a cliff, he'll be changed again. Older, but only subtly so, wearing bright-orange robes.

He's also significantly more confident and less afraid.

Kicking the ground causes a huge rock to bounce into the air and he slams it into the entrance they came from.

"I need you to take human form again!"

There's a flutter of red--and Roxie is human again, cloak flaring behind her, and she skids halfway on all fours for a long moment, nearly losing her balance. But then she's on two legs again, dashing at full speed, faster than a normal human, let alone a girl of her age, should be able to manage.

"Roger!" she calls in acknowledgement, ignoring the nasty-looking bony whorls across the bottom of her face.

"Put your arms around my neck and hold on!" he says, grabbing her arm to pull it around his neck, and when she has a tight grip, he starts running again. She might want to wrap her legs around his waist too, with how fast he's running.

...Towards the edge of the temple grounds and the drop into nothing.

The fall itself doesn't worry her. Against a flat surface, with time to arrange herself, she'd probably bounce--and it would hurt like hell, but she's been whipcracked into asphalt before and gotten up again, so it couldn't be much worse than that. But, it's what she can't see that leaves her uncertain. If the terrain is uncooperative, she could get hurt much worse...

Though all the hairs on the back of her neck disagree, she clings on Aang. She's light--as light as she looks, undergrown for her age, and maybe even a little lighter. But she has a grip like a steel clamp.

"This probably isn't going to fun! Just so you know!"

He runs, he jumps...and they fall.

At least at first. Then he starts twirling his staff over his head and miraculously, it's enough to give them some lift, so they fall much slower. But they can hear the explosion as the rock he planted in the way of the entrance bursts away and an explosion blasts out over the edge of the cliff above them.

There's a loud clanking noise, and then a man is standing there at the edge, looking down at them. If they wondered where the shadow went, the nothing behind his eyes makes it clear.

"Oh no," Aang intones, taking them down lower, trying to balance between diving and, well, losing control and freefalling. "It haaad to be the guy that could explode things with his mind. He can't just use Zhao. Or even Azula. Nope, Combustion Man."

Combustion Man takes a deep breath and Aang stops helicoptering and drops, as a blast of ... something shoots from the mark on his head, and scorches past them. They can eventually hear it hit and explode some rock in the canyon beyond rather magnificently.

Aang starts helicoptering around but it's difficult to get it started again. And that's when Combustion Man jumps off the cliff too, before they're out of sight.

"Yep, crazy blowing-things-up-with-his-mind man. Haaaaad to be him."

Roxie's grip with one hand grows a little more intense—Aang might have to worry about a little neck-and-shoulder bruising later—as her other swings out, a brass ring flickering into existence on it.

"I can handle this one!" she hisses at Aang. "Just get us down safe!"

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