The area was fully cast in shadows, and not even Otholla, the planet she’d mistaken for a moon, could be seen through the thick canopy above. She didn’t know why, but she had this overwhelming sense that everything around her was ancient.
Even before Jabez removed his hand from her forearm, new, interesting, and strange scents flittered around her.
When her gaze dropped from the scenery above, it landed on glowing mushrooms. Those on the ground had a white glow to them, and she noticed they looked like fish tailfins, although round rather than forked. The blue ones clinging to trees looked gooey, and she watched a droplet fall from one to splatter against the ground.
“Be careful about touching any mushrooms that appear red,” Jabez told her just as she reached out to touch at the goo coming from a tree one. “Red polleshrooms and their spores can be quite nasty if they get into your bloodstream.”
“What about these ones?” Zylah asked, tilting her head at the blue ones that looked entirely like some kind of semi-transparent jelly.
He muffled a soft chuckle behind his closed lips. “Those are harmless.” He came to her side while rolling up his sleeves and reached out to take two in his hands, each the size of one of his palms. He squished them in his fists with a wet squelch. “The Elysians used them in the past for dances.”
Then, as if to demonstrate, he smeared the goop all over his hands until they both glowed brightly with a translucent whitish blue. He lifted one to her nose hole, and she sniffed it to find it had a sweetness underneath its bitter musk.
“Watch.”
The slime on his skin began to change colour, just as she felt subtle pulses of magic coming from his fingertips. Then the mushroom residue exploded off him like fire made of glowing red before twinkling into nothingness, leaving his skin clean once more.
“Why did the Elysians do this?” she asked, touching the side of her forefinger pad against the last remaining mushroom to take some of its goop. She smeared it over her fingers to play with its slippery consistency.
“It really depended on the dance. Some were just for entertainment, and others were on the day of a bonding ceremony. They even danced at funerals, utilising their magic in a profound way to celebrate anything, even if it was something such as death.” Any warmth that had been in his gaze slowly died, and he looked off to the side as he said, “I’ll be honest, I don’t have any recollection of these dances in my childhood –I only read about them. I don’t know if doing them is common anymore, as I was never invited to any such gatherings, or if it’s due to the inability to get them – or anything – from outside the city’s walls. The city has underground greenhouses, though, so I’m sure they somehow kept such an important tradition alive.”
As she watched his features fall into his usual indifferent mask, a coldness dripped into her chest.
That’s... really sad.He didn’t know something so simple due to not having gone to any events, as if he was an outcast.
“We should start moving,” he said, changing the subject of the conversation as he walked in a certain direction through the overgrown foliage. “The village is only a few minutes’ walk from here. I didn’t want to bring us too close in case we stumbled into a group of scouts.”
When Zylah drew level with him, he looked at her from the corner of his eye.
“Be mindful that the Demons in Nyl’theria are wary of all. They have been warring among themselves for a long time, so they often see everyone new as a threat or potential food.”
“How do you know that?” Zylah asked, looking around at all the different kinds of plants.
Most had a teal or pink tinge to them and appeared to consist of large leaves that made up the entirety of the plant, rather than small leafy shrubs. Nothing here appeared to be small except for the mushrooms they saw, and even they had been the size of one of her palms.
“I came to Nyl’theria often. I returned at least once a year so I could remain informed, as well as scout for potential ways to get through the city’s defences, on the chance they had started to weaken. I’ve watched this world fall deeper and deeper into despair over the last few centuries, but it was already in full chaos before I was born. The Demons were here long before theyarrived on Earth, and there are no Elysians left outside the city’s protective dome.”
“Do you know how long it’s been?” she asked, hoping to keep him talking while he was so willing to share.
He didn’t often talk of himself, and he was actually a very quiet person, so hearing him speak felt like a blessing and a reward. She didn’t care if it was over something as unimportant as this foreign world and its past, not when she could hear the silky bass of his masculine voice, or watch his expression change as he spoke about it.
She could tell, in some way, he adored this place. Despite how his ears twitched constantly in alertness, there was less tension in his shoulders, as if he found the environment more comfortable to be in.
She never expected the deep laugh that came from him next.
“It’s really hard to explain it, as the time differences are vast.” His lips curled then, and he turned his face to her. “Zylah, to this world, I have only been gone twenty-one years. The Demons have been here for over a hundred Nyl’therian years, which equates to over a millennium and a half on Earth, if not two millennia. I doubt there are any elders left who witnessed the beginning, but their offspring were born into a world of fleeing and tragedy. How long ago it was that those who were unable to reach the city died is unknown to the Elysians, and to me.”
“You have lived a long time, I know that,” Zylah commented, lifting her gaze when something different began to glow up ahead. It was easy to see with the darkness, since the only light came from the muted shine above, their footsteps they left behind, and the mushrooms she saw. “Does the passage of time feel different when you’re here?”
She hadn’t noticed anything different, but she thought that could be because of what she was used to. Then again, she’d never watched time tick like she’d read about from thingssuch as clocks or watches, so it didn’t feel tangible or truly understandable in her mind.
“If I’m being honest, it’ll feel more natural for me. Life speeds past on Earth. The sun always rose when I was never ready for it to, and it went down in the blink of an eye. Here, it all moves slower, but it matches the speed of my age, my growth, my sleep. It will be a long time before the three suns rise here, not that it matters due to the density of the forest.”
Was that why he was so desperate to return here? To return to a place that felt more familiar, rather than racing past in a way he couldn’t seem to grasp?
Would it feel the same for her being here now? Would everything appear to be moving too slowly, or would Zylah be able to adapt?
Isn’t my grandparent a demigod of this world?she thought, and paused her steps when the bright glow from earlier came into view.Does that mean I could adapt to it?