[Finally, a chance to get out of here. One long empty road stretching on toward the horizon, interrupted by nothing. Oh, the occasional low bridge over a river, and the occasional abandoned semi-truck to skirt around, but really, it's just vast emptiness. An abandoned landscape of grass and oak trees and empty buildings. It's perfect.
Chrissy gets him howling right along with her, and he snickers and reaches back to pat her leg.]
I dunno, maybe. Gimme a minute, I wanna see if I can get in the groove.
[That headspace, that sensation, whatever it is - feeling it in the place the Ender sent them to means at least he knows what it's supposed to feel like now, when everything is right and everything fits and every little piece of the universe trembles as part of one whole. The universe is chaos, and yet everything relates to everything else. All he has to do is pick at the right string, get those atoms strumming some different chord next to this one.
It does help to think of it as music. The rumble of pavement and the bike engine sets a constant drone that is nothing like a bass line or drums, but it's its own background - one that can override everything else so that he sees and hears nothing at all. His mind swims in void. And it's not a comfortable place to be at all, because it so quickly brings back nightmares of unending darkness, of a wide stretch of space and time, where those who know how to look can see past the curtain to the things that move between the stars.
He refuses to panic, but he needs out. He grasps at the first thing he can, pulling them from one place to anywhere else, and at the same time becomes conscious of the world again, conscious of how they're flying at high speed toward another rusty, jagged old piece of railing with Chrissy yelling at him to try and avoid it. And as he steers away at the last second, the landscape around them changes abruptly.
It still looks abandoned, to his eyes. Still grass and oak trees. But the bike hits the hard packed ground of a well-worn trail, rather than concrete road, and he has to fight for control against the sudden change, swerving until he brings them to a stop and stares around them at the landscape.]
Holy shit. I did it.
[Who cares if it's a good change or not, he feels like this time, for the first time, he made it happen himself.]
no subject
Chrissy gets him howling right along with her, and he snickers and reaches back to pat her leg.]
I dunno, maybe. Gimme a minute, I wanna see if I can get in the groove.
[That headspace, that sensation, whatever it is - feeling it in the place the Ender sent them to means at least he knows what it's supposed to feel like now, when everything is right and everything fits and every little piece of the universe trembles as part of one whole. The universe is chaos, and yet everything relates to everything else. All he has to do is pick at the right string, get those atoms strumming some different chord next to this one.
It does help to think of it as music. The rumble of pavement and the bike engine sets a constant drone that is nothing like a bass line or drums, but it's its own background - one that can override everything else so that he sees and hears nothing at all. His mind swims in void. And it's not a comfortable place to be at all, because it so quickly brings back nightmares of unending darkness, of a wide stretch of space and time, where those who know how to look can see past the curtain to the things that move between the stars.
He refuses to panic, but he needs out. He grasps at the first thing he can, pulling them from one place to anywhere else, and at the same time becomes conscious of the world again, conscious of how they're flying at high speed toward another rusty, jagged old piece of railing with Chrissy yelling at him to try and avoid it. And as he steers away at the last second, the landscape around them changes abruptly.
It still looks abandoned, to his eyes. Still grass and oak trees. But the bike hits the hard packed ground of a well-worn trail, rather than concrete road, and he has to fight for control against the sudden change, swerving until he brings them to a stop and stares around them at the landscape.]
Holy shit. I did it.
[Who cares if it's a good change or not, he feels like this time, for the first time, he made it happen himself.]