16 enchantments

[iknowmore]

[A young Christopher is standing at the edge of a valley, dressed in pyjamas far too small for him. Besides the valley there are nothing but cliffs, dark and gloomy, wet and slippery with rain. He doesn't seem to mind though, looking right at home there, just hesitating as though not sure whether to walk down that particular valley or choose

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[obliviomancy]

[ And Roxas is scrambling down over rock, rather clumsily, along the cliffs. It's the first dream he's visited, and so he's frowning, not quite certain of what's going on. Christopher he doesn't spot quite yet, though they can't be more than ten feet away from each other by the time he makes it to somewhere moderately safe to stand and look around. ]

What... is this place?

[iknowmore]

[Christopher looks up at the sound of someone scrambling down the cliffs, waiting until the other boy was safely on the ground before talking. He knows how difficult those cliffs are to climb.]

It's the Place Between. I don't usually see so many other people around here - you've never seen it before?

[obliviomancy]

Huh? Whoa--!

[ At that, Roxas nearly falls! He's not expecting someone to be there, after all; it's been a very one-person show so far. ]

The Place Between? That's a strange name for a world.

[iknowmore]

Be careful. It's slippery. [Christopher should know, he broke his neck that way once.]

I don't think it's a world. It's...the worlds' edge? [At this age he hadn't learnt about it yet, but it's still there in his memory of course. He points down at the valley.] That's a world down there. There are hundreds of them around here.

[obliviomancy]

Right. So it's... somewhere between worlds?

[ It sounds like he's being a little repetitive, but Roxas wants to be sure, because this looks nothing like the place between worlds that he's used to. He peers down at the valley nonetheless, then cranes at another valley. ]

They look kind of the same from here.

[iknowmore]

Something like that, I guess. [he doesn't sound too sure himself. When he was that old he'd only ever thought they were dreams.]

They don't look anything alike! That one's the Goddess' Anywhere. It's really hot there and there's lots of people and snake charmers. I'm not sure about the other one.

[obliviomancy]

[ Well, that oddity gets his attention, at any rate. ]

The- what? "Goddess' Anywhere"? ... Is that its name?

[iknowmore]

Well, it's an Anywhere, and the Goddess lives there, so that's what I call it. I don't know if it's got another name.

Do you want to take a look?

[obliviomancy]

... Sure.

An Anywhere, huh? Is that different from a regular world?

[iknowmore]

[So many questions, Roxas. But Christopher is answering as best he can.]

Aren't they all different from each other? Mine seems regular to me but when I tell the Goddess about it she thinks it's really different.

[walking down that valley now]

[obliviomancy]

[ keeping in step with Christopher, though he reserves a last strange frown for those cliffs. ]

Huh? Well, yeah, but we call them worlds. They're not just Anywheres.

[iknowmore]

They can be both, can't they?

[a little bit miffed because he does like his name for all those places he visits. But then they arrive in the hot, busy city where the Goddess lives, filled with people bustling about in the marketplace, the scent of spices in the air, and not very far away, the walls to the Temple.]

That's where she lives, over there. The Temple of Asheth.

[obliviomancy]

I don't know. Maybe, if they're the same thing...

[ The miffery completely eludes him, and then they step into a different world and he's lost entirely. Roxas has seen a world like this before, though the one he remembers was much emptier and sand-blistered than this, crowded wth shadows instead of people. The temple gets a look before his mental connection between the definitions of 'goddess' and 'deity' flares to life. He's a little slow sometimes. ]

Wait- is she really a goddess? Like the ones in the City?

[iknowmore]

The City?

[He looks confused for a moment, but remembers it in a very vague, dreamlike way.]

No, not really. Well, she is the Living Asheth, but she's a normal girl too and has to take lessons just like I do. They don't let her out of the temple except on holy days, she doesn't like it very much. We should go visit her! If I'd known, I'd have brought her one of those books she likes.

[setting off towards the temple's walls with determination]