Earterrin

Hugh had spent sleepless night when faced with this concern on Fianait. Ana. Memories were his and only one other who survived being in the center of their would, a planet that had once existed two parallel universes above Earth. He and Ailbhe. Neither had shared those days leaving them as forgotten dust collected pages of a time past. It was said that the past had a way of catching up even eons later and far too often repeated itself. It was the last that had him deciding to venture showing Fia, for her not adjusting to this new world, to a past locked away from her conscious. He was one of the keys. The others had not needed these memories. He drew in a deep breath as forefinger and thumb pinched the bridge of his nose to help clear his head. He could well be opening a Pandora's box for some of the memories may not be welcome even if all a part. 

He knew one in particular and why.  Something never resolved other than Fate resolving it by changes beyond the whole of humanity collected upon Earterrin. He stood in one of the spare relaxing rooms. Different ones were scattered in various parts of the Manor. These were rooms with a theme that one could go relax in instead of their own bedroom or more populated ones. Perfect for reading or enjoying a drink to collect one's thoughts. This one was a small solarium with the dome as the stars above outside on a clear warm night. The carpet of deep green made to emulate grass and U-shaped benches around a fountain. The soothing sound of water trickling added to the overall feel. A low fire burned in a rounded area like a campfire the opening in the roof where the heat would naturally rise to and be guided out. It was as nature without being outside. He was attired in buckskin pants topped off in boots and a soft cotton plaid shirt. Hair was left untied that had gown past his shoulders. With the beard he looked even more the mountain man. Dark eyes smoldered as he glanced above, the stars twinkling and planets a steady light. The arrangement was of the universe where Alteria once existed in. A note was left for Fia in her room to meet him here once she got in.

She was more likely to be found outside, stirring outside the manor than within it. Four walls, the closure of a ceiling they somehow made life difficult, breathing hard to accomplish. When she returned, with obvious that someone had entered and rather than send her mind along the vast network of Other minds, she closed it off and scented the room with nostrils flaring. A creature of night and forest catching the scent of a predator perhaps? Stiffening at the physical intrusion of the sparsely furnished room she noticed the hand written note and curiously looked at it a moment before she did in fact read it. Hugh. Sliding the midnight cloak from her shoulders she swept a hand through tousled hair and straightened her appearance for no other reason than through habit. Fiana wasn't particularly worried about her appearance to others, but the constant reminder that she should behave with polite civility kept her in the routine. An outer gown of sapphire was complimented by a chemise the same color as her cloak. The contrast in the darkness of the fabric and that of her complexion for some was arresting. To Fiana, it was flesh. Nothing more than bones and tissue and organs. Prowling the halls she made her way toward the small solarium with its fountain and grass like carpet, holding in the doorway like a ghost shimmering into view. He'd know she was there already, yet she hadn't orally announced her presence and given the volatility of her nature ... she wouldn't until she was sure the room was ... safe? Odd that such a thought would crop into her mind as she crossed within and stood with hands folded before her. "Hugh. You have asked of me, I am here." Obviously, but the humor of the words would no doubt be lost on her.

Or maybe it was something more in her taking that moment to fix herself up even if subconscious and quickly done. There had been no reason at all here in Genesis to see to such nor to be around one of her Kin, not those of this new world. He knew when she was outside with her conflicting emotions driving her. He watched her in his mind's eye as she went to her room and the note found instead of a mental connection. It was for a reason. This was to be for her, an experiment and he'd not draw all the Others into it. He'd been watching the long lost universe above him, emotions stirred, for once more in his life he was unsure, uncertain. It didn't stop his resolution to see this through. He was around as smoldering eyes held upon Fia as she entered the room, a hand lifting and outstretched in offer. The door would close behind her and when it did, it would close them off into a world only they would be in for the duration. The only one that could penetrate would be Ailbhe. "Ana.." A name none others had called her would become clear.

The room was warm, somehow his presence seemed to draw the flames of the fire in an enticing way that ate at their fuel slowly while still allowing for the brightest glow. It was a given talent of his, fire. With an almost timid glance of eyes over the room she approached with a cautious eye cast toward the door once it closed behind her. Sealing off the world, holding her inside. It caused only a moment's distress as questions blossomed and she approached Hugh with face tilted upward. Ana. He called her by the name of another, yet it was her name. It flared, the recognition of the name even if she didn't realize it in eyes that were as quiet as a cat stalking the boundaries of a very small, very lethal cage. Her temper had been a tenuous thing, and with the coming of winter and the white world it created she had found herself discovering painfully what this new world was like while clinging to the nebulous, blurred memory of her former world.

"We can stand or we can sit. I feel we should sit for what might be not only seen but felt may take your breath away." Taking her hands in his as he guided her those few steps to the small U shaped bench. Lowering to sit as he kept her hands encompassed. Knees touched as he situated them both there and leaned in enough she could see the flames in the depths of his eyes, unmasked and fully visible. "You must be certain to take this risk of knowing a past to be remembered that is gone and a past even before those times that have been shadowed for all except those within the core of Earterrin before it became Alteria." The name might be the first hint, that slight nudge at memories lost to the conscious. "Remember at all times, as my hands hold yours in a link to the now, that what you see and feel is of the past and not of the present." Their heightened abilities would give them a near live experience.

Something moved behind her eyes at the name, another brief flare of a mind reaching out to remember and coming to grasp nothing frustratingly. He led her to the bench and they sat, almost companionably facing with knees brushing through fabric and buckskin. Hands held, she listened with an almost intense study of the movement behind Hugh's eyes. "I will remember your words, and hold fast to you, Hugh." She nodded with a slow measure of apprehension while at the same time, being overly curious that she would regard him so closely. "I would ask that you show me, please." There were times, when she could remember her manners.

A slow nod was coupled with the touch of a smile tucked within the thick beard. She would survive, she was brave and persistent enough. A gentle squeeze of her hands as eyes locked to draw her into those flames. Mesmerizing dance had everything fade around them to go black as they went into the fire. Ones that didn't burn and the brightness flashed peeling away the black to expose Alteria from an aerial view. Misty hazes were in light smoky blues that surrounded their world like a globe. Walls of white-gold shimmered under light that was not as strong as the sun here yet far brighter than the moon. A bird soared on high cawing out to echo against the backdrop of majestic mountains. The terrain surrounding a patchwork of agriculture and the rivers ran clear like diamond studded blue waters. A dazzling white bridge expanded across the water to the city beyond. She could feel the conscious thoughts of all their People as she had known it. Those here, those now gone and those trapped in infinite rips in time. Beauty on all levels from the mental to the physical was harmonized. The temperature perfect, the crops lush. The people wore clothing of silks or robe, some none at all. It did not matter for there was no physical draw to couple. Utopia had no need for propagation when the species had defeated disease and aging. There was love, caring and total sharing of thoughts. There were no lies, no injustices. No devastating emotional swings. There were things easier for her to remember.

She watched it all, her mind keenly aware that this was a memory of what was and that what was of Alteria did not exist any longer. It caught in her throat, the sudden assault of all those minds all at once. It was a cacophony of happily buzzing chatter that both enthralled her and scared her at once. She saw the sheer majesty of the mountains, the basin of the land as it cleared away into lush field, and streaming river and nestled amidst all this natural glory was City of White. She had seen this picture before, a brief flash of it that had been fleeting and petrifying. It was almost too beautiful to behold and she was struck speechless by it.

All that beauty and harmony combined was lost as the parallel universes' corrupt fibers infiltrated theirs. First came the shaking of a kind deeper than the planet they were on. Areas cracked open of pitch voids until one third of their world split away and the screams of their Kin echoed in their minds collectively as death was once more experienced. A death most had forgotten about of the physical. Their perfect world was dying and had it not been for Ailbhe's foresight and finding a link to move them two parallel worlds down, they would have all perished in the death of their universe. Their race gone completely. None would have never known they had existed and all they had accomplished lost. Fianait would remember this in how they came to Heathfield on a planet called Earth that was as the same needed to sustain their life forms. This was a death in change she remembered. The link kept through that memory of how it was necessary to come here and the opportunity for their race to continue. Hands held steadfast for the next part he was bringing her to, something similar to those scenes as they were rolled away while giving her a moment to adjust for the next.

She heard them, all the screams of the dying and those who were forever lost to her. A memory that had been shattered slowly being repaired from each anguishing moment. It was the courage of Ailbhe, of Hugh and those who did not make it to this plain, this Earth and Heathfield that drew the slow cocoon around her mind away, slipping into it and leaving it bare to feel to actually know what it was that these emotions were used for. Lungs heaving slowly, they rasped breath between her lips as she swallowed convulsively. All he was showing her, and yet there was more. A sense of foreboding stole over her and she braced for whatever it was he would show her next.

It was to accept that their dying wish was that some would continue to live on and not all lost. In that they lived on within that consciousness. Then their deaths had only been of the physical and not of existence of their race. The stage before them overlaid upon this other to emerge in clarity. Gone were the white golden buildings and crystal waterfalls that flowed to form their lakes and streams. Gone was the haze that kept a temperate world in that total harmony. Buildings loomed up made of wood, stone and brick much like she saw here but designs were different, more stacked. Millions more in people filled streets, shops and the like all over their planet. They would seem different at first but then so very familiar as the lock to her memories were opened. Her mind would probably focus in on herself there amongst the populous. Hurrying to work or time shared with her own family. Her apartment amongst the tall buildings that reached to a smoggy sky. The scent would be repugnant but knowing at the time it was not noticed. There was more but Hugh didn't hurry her through her own memories, leaving her to explore them as was needed to understand the whole picture of what was to come. Odd shaped clear balls held groups of people brought around to various parts of the city, lifting them up to float to their destination while others were on foot below. There were strange silvery streaks across the sky that every so often a oval pearly looking object would streak by. There was no Collective Mind during this time.

Herself and yet different. Gone, torn away was the City of White and the Fields of Green. No longer could she detect amongst the chattering of that one mind, the minds of the many others who she could so easily, so readily tap. Her eyes widened and marveled at the congestion she saw. It rankled across her nose, and she had a hard time dissecting the separate scents that assaulted her, not all of them good. When she turned away from the balcony that looked out onto the world of men, she felt a pang that seemed to spear right through her heart. Her family. She had a family, of her own flesh and blood with minds that were their own and emotions that ran strong, deep through their veins. Where had this come from? This past life, where she was Fianait and yet, someone else. Ana. He had called her Ana, and she remembered with a dawning clarity a life she shared once in that endlessly finished past of another, with hands that stroked to soothe and arouse, a laugh that brought out her own and the happiness that had once eclipsed everything else in her mind and heart. It was startling, that revelation of a life that was so long gone and yet now so easily remembered.

He could feel her remembering, those locked away secrets of a life before not all that unlike the one they were once more in. There was a memory they had shared together and he took her there. Fianait needed to remember those emotions, those passions to deal with them again. To accept them. The overall scene opened up to a cozy room where a fire in a hearth burned low. The furnishings a haze in the background to what became prominent. A man and a woman coupling on the furs laid out in front of the hearth. Sounds reached the inner ear of fire crackling and low murmurs of lovers, their sensual words shared. A low growl of the male as his body moved in rhythm with hers, the purr of the woman as he filled her with the escalating emotions to a plateau of fulfillment. Her voice would be recognized, her body remembering and although she could see more of herself for the angle, a past life of her, the man's face was not readily seen being on top except for the naked muscular masculine form in motion. It would be the voice and her name upon his lips, Ana, she would recognize as Hugh and the only one that had called her by that nickname. The scene melted away back to the whole of their world. It had been easier to let the ones above that survived on the surface of their planet to forget when the new world was created. It was in a day's time after that scene of them together that their world had become infected. Those fibers that wove their universe together had an ooze seeping through thousands of planets, suns and lifeless meteors alike on a microscopic level then mushroomed out. All was unknown to their world at the moment she was seeing. An imperfect and struggling one as it was.

It was an awaking of senses, of the whys and hows and what fors. It brought a staggering realization of who the two joined bodies were. The coupling, the fierceness of the emotion that seemed to tidal wave from one to the other was as breathtaking as it was frightening. She saw it as if she lived it again and couldn't tear her mind from it. It was like a labyrinth that she couldn't pull herself out. It brought tears to her eyes, the beauty of it, the sheer simplicity of that joining that spiraled out into something complex with jagged, eager teeth. They sank into her mind, throwing the door open further to the pinnacle of emotion and she cried out almost in unison with that woman, limbs tangled with flesh damp.

Hugh heaved a breath to release as he kept hold of her hands through all of this. There had been an argument the next morning as he was called by Ailbhe and Alteria to come immediately and couldn't spend the day as planned with Ana. Worse, he could not tell her why for he was sworn in secret at that point until all was open up to the others. The invasion had not been foreseen until it came. His eyes were the window to a past found in those flames of life that had been lost for her. Things were changing and changing fast as the disease hit their world with a devastating aftermath, consuming all in detonation and life turning to dust blown away in the severe winds that racked their world. The disease unknown to all except three. There were three individuals who had started a new era in a consciousness of mind. First it was Ailbhe with his wife Alteria; she teaching him and eventually Hugh, a good friend of theirs who had been brought into the training. It was a process that took time for the way their universe was but Alteria was finding out far more in this continual learning of the inner self, the inner world of each individual life. She was born for a mission even she was not aware of until that day of reckoning. Ailbhe, Alteria and Hugh met and she explained what needed to be done.

The three together were to infiltrate the very fibers of their universe, not just the planet they were on, through the conscious mind to defeat it. They went into that trance that faded even their physical to the electrode fibers of an inner world. On the surface of the planet, huge craters opened up to flare fires that would instantly dissolve anything it its path. Buildings started to crumble falling into these holes like a hungry mouth consuming all. The world screamed in combined deaths that would have all life gone in another two days time. What was left of their world would be as crumbs to float in the universe in lifeless meteors. The disease would continue onto the next world, life or not, to consume. Hugh was the one to sacrifice his life in getting Alteria there so the two would emerge to rescue what was left of their world and lead them. When they went in they fought through masses of darkness and at times faltering as those same fires tried to consume them in this other form. Ailbhe and Alteria ended up separated from Hugh and at the point, the very center where Hugh was supposed to connect in mental conscious, he was wrapped up into those flames and Alteria connected instead. What none knew at that time, it had to be her for her genetic blueprint. Hugh was only saved from the flames for in that moment all changed and the flames became part of him instead.

It frightened her, the whole experience of it as she watched the three of them lead their people. The ultimate sacrifice of flesh and heart, of body but not mind. And she was bereft of his leaving, his presence that had filled up her whole life even for that brief flash she was being shown. What they had shared, it ran so deeply into her that it cut like a knife and for a brief moment she got caught up in that tumult that once he had left she was lost on a sea, like a void. Loss, she had felt loss, those of her own family, parents and siblings, uncles and aunts. A unit that shared a heart, if not a mind. It choked her, that crippling knowledge that although she could see it, it was past and she was now alone again. Alone, and yet not. Eyes of earth searched those embedded with flame as they filled, painfully wrought with emotion.

The timing so critical that Alteria was absorbed into those very fibers to cure the disease. Hugh was left naked and hairless for the brief singe of the flames before becoming part. Ailbhe mourned deeply his loss. But the need of the many outweighed the need of the individual. There was a silence like none every experienced before. Their world at first seemed to hold its breath before the brilliance of light split through those very abysses that had been made and all changed. Each left living was drawn into the collective consciousness as Ailbhe reached out, becoming their leader. Utopia was formed and a world destroyed was not built by machine but by the collective mind. These were their new gifts as Ailbhe brought back Hugh to help continue the changes and learning they all shared in. No more disease, aging, discrimination, violence and such drastic emotional states, all minds were balanced together as one, healthy and whole. The sacrifices for this new world was there was no longer the need to propagate, the need to be totally individual and cut off, secrets not to be shared. None were an island onto themselves. The reasons had been eliminated. There was a love of all, beauty of mind and body, an immunity to elevated emotions. Music, poetry, sculpture, painting, writing, all the arts of the creative mind accelerated as the conscious mind took care of what was needed for the physical equally. The truth of their past once unfolded would fold back over and tuck away as Hugh's eyes closed to break the contact and bring her back. Closed then opened to just the smoldering she knew. On this level he searched to see if this had made a difference for her. A world they were in was not all that unlike one they once knew before  Alteria, hence the new world named in her honor and they spared another thousand years before it was doomed to be destroyed. This time enough of them escaped once more to continue their race.

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