Digging deep to unearth this particular thread.
It's one of my favorites and I'm hoping it helps me deal with Things.

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Royals: A DiVerse Alpha Chronicle
by Felix

07

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As Euclid's pronouncement echoed in the starry void, Jack felt a shiver run through his body; almost as if he had blacked out briefly and awoken with a start.  And perhaps he had, from the way his heart was suddenly hammering against his chest.

Whatever the case, the golden power - as Euclid had called it - was already at work, the many glowing tendrils spiraling around him, then underneath. Gathering for a moment, then suddenly - they arose!  Like a great fountain they
thrust him up, up, up!  So high, so fast, the little Prince's breath wheezed out
from the force of it!

But the moment he feared he might be shot into space like a meteor - the very moment, it seemed - the rapid ascent slowed, and then stopped; and Jack came to his feet, a little shakily, atop a nicely solid circle of purest gleaming gold. In front of him loomed Euclid's head, the dragon's cross-pupiled gaze fixed keenly upon him.

"What should I do now, Guardian?" Jack asked, still catching his breath from the
sudden move.  "I'd like to avoid upsetting things, if I can."

"I daresay you're upsetting them already," Euclid returned with just a slight huff, though the faint spark of amusement in his eyes told the Prince not to take his words too close to heart.  "But you may do as you like - so long as you
stay within that circle until I am finished with the adjustments."  Slowly, one
massive eye closed - the other shining even more fiercely, the rest of the dragon's form starting to fade from sight.  "You will know when that is, I assure you."

Jack looked down at his sandaled feet, as the Guardian's eye grew a little too bright for comfort, and watched as soot-black designs began appearing in the gold.  Tiny droplets spotted the surface as if falling from an invisible raincloud, becoming denser and denser, forming arcane sigils, spirals, lines, angles...

With eyes squinted in concentration, the little Prince laid a finger upon his chin.  Curious - and curiously familiar, too.  But where had he seen these shapes before?  He tried hard to remember, as the sable tracery continued painting over the gold beneath his feet.

"It's almost like something I saw Mother use once, but not quite the same," Jack
murmured to himself.  "This is much... busier, I think.  What was she doing... a
travel spell of some sort?"

"Teleportation, I presume," rumbled Euclid, the tracery and even the golden platform itself blurring and wavering for a moment in quite a disorienting manner before becoming solid once more.  "This is related - but very different indeed."

The Prince steadied himself, his heart spiking nervously once more at the sudden
momentary feeling of groundlessness, and resolved to not be a distraction.  If he could help it, anyway.  But if it wasn't teleportation, what manner of spell
/was/ he standing on?

As it so often does, the answer came through first-hand experience.

The arcane tracery ignited in an instant, each individual dot turning from black
to searing aetherpink in an instant.  Jack hissed his surprise through a jaw clenched shut, fingers spasming half-curled as raw, wild magic coursed through his body in waves, setting his skin prickling and burning as arcs of crackling energy danced across him.

In an instant the Prince's mind flooded with cool, detached awareness: this process was necessary, even as uncomfortable - painful! - as it was.  How he came to this conclusion, he had no idea - but it was a truth as certain as any other he'd ever accepted.

As the cool sensation overcame the searing, twisting, needling heat in the rest of his body, Jack felt a gentle tug on the back of his neck, an unfamiliar hand that reached /in/, and pulled- him- out?!

And then, suddenly, the Prince was floating in the void, looking at... himself. Watching from /outside/, and seeing himself - his body, at least - frozen in the grip of that sparkling rush of magic.  And yet... even though he'd never done such a thing before, it all felt so... familiar.  He wasn't scared; he wasn't even /surprised/, in fact.  As if this had all happened before... but, when...?

Euclid's eye faded, the near-blinding orb dimming and disappearing from sight, a
cross shape hanging in the void for a moment before that too vanished.  And as the light disappeared, leaving Jack alone with... himself, he began to see new details.  Tiny, glittering threads, colored the same aetherpink as the wild energy still swirling and crackling around his body, looped around his wrists and ankles, trailing off and up into the deep void.  Ah - another came into view, wrapped across his chest and extending straight up, up to... he couldn't quite see.

It seemed as though he was a puppet of some sort, the Prince mused in his bodiless state.  But who was the puppeteer?  And to what end?  He tried to ask
these questions aloud, but nothing happened; he wasn't sure anyone was there to listen, even if he /could/ speak.

And so he moved - floated, shifted - around himself, spiraling his way up the curious threads to see where they led.  Perhaps he'd find an answer or two.  But
would he manage before Euclid's spell was complete?  Or was this - all of this strangely familiar experience - simply a result of the spell?  Or a necessary step in it?  Or...

His mind brimming with exciting new possibilities, Jack's spirit rose higher and
higher, shooting up next to the pink threads like a little comet.  His tiny silver soulspark pulsed rapidly, then gleamed gold as desire and curiosity fueled a sudden evolution.  The climbing spark blossomed into a regal form: humanoid, haloed with a ring of stars, wrapped in a flowing gown.  A staff - no,
a scepter, it was shorter - grew from a sparkle in his hand (ah, he had hands again, that was much better!), like the Queenstaff but smaller.

"What a mysterious place," the Prince finally said aloud, as he rocketed up into
the darkness; mostly to ensure his voice still worked.  And it did, though he sounded a /little/ different... perhaps.  It was hard to be entirely sure.

And then it wasn't darkness he was heading into, suddenly; as though a curtain had been pulled back, in front of him appeared the unmistakable sight of the Helix.  And not only the massive mirrored gears, but also - a crowd?!  A veritable host of glowing figures, all standing solemnly - well, floating - in rows on the opposite side of the threads.

And Jack heaved a sigh of relief as he saw in the front and center of the crowd a familiar face, shining like a diamond, clad in armor that could only ever be described as 'rad':

His sister, Princess Vanessa.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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