Quite a conundrum, wouldn’t you say? It all started with… Nah. I think I’ll skip to the part when Iri and I met. Yeah, I like that part. She taught me so much that my folks did not. My youth is quite another story, one I will not get into here, but here is what happened in the end eventually.
I knocked the book down to the ground, and jumped on Marv. Gio already started the process of wiping the story by tearing openings in the space of the reality with his claws. I took the little blue pal and stuffed it down Marv’s throat. After a few seconds, his skin turned all blue and his eyes opened glowing white.
Rather than wait, I tackled the wizard out of a window and pile-drove him into the ground below. I think it was justified. I saw Gionn only once more before he reset me. It was back to my enormous umbrella again, and no memory of anything, but when I stumbled into Iri again, everything came flooding back, like the endless rain from above.
That’s it for the end. I did meet a whole bunch of people along the way, but I won’t get into that here. The last part will be about meeting Iri, and that’s it. Maybe more of my story will come up someday, but I doubt it. We live in mystery, like you, with stories untold. Gionn once said that to me. You can’t always have all the details. The world would be a very bland place if that was true. Without further ado, the last installment of my tale. I will also discuss why the bubble was such an annoyance at last.
The NthGoni were named “wipers” as they were these creatures who interfered with twists of stories. Gionn had a very royal name in his circles, using the same letters as his kind’s real name. He came to me at the start of my journey, trying to act all cool and mysterious, but I was not in the mood.
“I’m… important…” he managed while I sat on him. “Help…you…”
“I can’t hear you, weirdling,” I said.
“You… asked for it!” he said and vanished from underneath me. His yellow butt appeared in front of my face as he turned and wrapped his legs around my neck. With claws to my sides, I was immobilized.
“Geez, trust a guy, would ya?” he asked still holding the sharp nails to my neck. “My name is Gionn the Eighth and I’m here to help you fix what Marv messed up.”
“Last I trusted a guy, he put a sticky spell on me,” I replied. “You know how hard it is to drink anything with that thing? I had to construct a whole contraption just to drink water!” His claws retreated into the strange yellow hands.
“Which is why you need to reset your story,” he said.
“Reset?”
“Yeah,” Gio replied. “And I know how to do it, but we’ll need to find Marv for it. Ever since he put that spell on you it connected you two in a story, a description of events that these folks are reading and one sad sap is writing.”
“Huh?” I asked, but he just looked off into a random direction before returning to reality. “Then we have a similar goal, Gio.”
“It’s ‘Gionn’, actually,” he said running up as I exited the small room. “Don’t forget the n’s on the end.”
“I didn't forget,” I replied. “It’s a nickname. Friends use nicknames, but don’t start thinking we’re friends. What’s up with your eyes?”
“Huh?” he asked.
“Are they really gold?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said with a smile. “My kind cries molten gold.”
“Man, that’s gotta suck.”
“How so?”
“Well, I don’t know if gold is worth anything where you’re from,” I said. “But in this world it’s extremely common. Can’t give the stuff away.”
“Oh,” he said. “Then I won’t cry.” He did though, when Iri died, rivers of it flowed from his eyes. In the end, he did become my friend, and now, he’s somewhere out there, watching over this story without interfering. Or maybe he was punished for acting on his own moral code to change my story. I don’t really know. “By the way, do you know where the wizard is?”
“Not a clue,” I said. “But we’ll ask around in the next town over.” I reached for my giant umbrella, but paused.
“Old habits hardly fade,” Gio said witnessing my hesitant reach.
“Well, aren’t you just a scuzz-bucket of wisdom,” I said. “Come on, Gio. Let’s go find us an idiot-of-a-wizard.”
“Rodger Dodger.”
“Don’t- Don’t ever say that again.”
“Ok.”
You might question why I injected this meeting of Gio in here before getting to Iri, but I don’t care. It’s my story, and your choice to read it so big middle fingers crossed at wrists and thumbs. In case you don’t understand, that’s an offensive gesture on my world. But hey, you learned more about the NthGoni and those little devils are in charge of the “if and when” your story resets. That’s the true source of déjà vu. Anyway, let’s get back into it. A few towns over, we got our first solid lead, but that was where I met Iri. She was a slave to the master of this travelling freak show. More on that in a bit.
“Alright, so from what the folks in the recent town told us,” I said. “The council of wizardry is located in this town.”
“Welcome to Tanyr,” Gio said reading the sign. “Home of the best magic in the whole of existence. What a joke. They love the idea of themselves a bit too much if you ask me.”
“Nobody DID ask you,” Haedin said. Interestingly enough, he joined our journey near the start. He was a Trevit, escaped from this dimension called Secear. They populated my world considerably, but humans still dominated the amount with their ever-expanding population.The humans of this world got to my place by the use of this round bubbly thing that spun a ring to open a sort of portal. “You talk too much for a nothing.”
“Hae…” I said as a warning.
“What? That’s what his kind spells out,” he said. “The ‘NthGoni’ is just ‘Nothing’ rearranged. Embrace it, Gio.”
“It’s ‘Gionn’ to you, pygman,” Gio replied. The little Trev narrowed his blue eyes. Apparently, they were sensitive to the higher energy light. Trevits lived among the purple masses of Secear where all was a shade or tint of purple. They had no sense of time, nothing like my world. Even though it rained constantly here, there was still day and night.
“If you use that derogatory term invented by humans,” Haedin said. “Be prepared to be called a ‘nothing’.”
“Guys, shut up!” I said. They were always at odds with each other for some reason, but made up in the end, or at least before Headin went back to his dimension. “Went back” was putting it lightly. He fought it as hard as he could, but they took him back by force. Turned out he was a fugitive, but going into Secear to get him out again was a stretch. He was still around at the time I met Iri. “Let’s just go ask around where the council thing is. No calling names unless it’s nicknames. You’ll become friends in the end.” I felt a bit like a parent and was annoyed at the thought.
After finding the council, and having them inspect the sticky spell, they told me it was much too powerful to dispel by their means. They were the grandest of wizards and still had no answer, only referred me to waiting it out. When I asked about Marv, they told me how he was kicked out for breaking the rules of the council and retreated to this one place deep in the mountains. With that, I had his location, but what happened next, stopped me in my tracks.
“Ah, the NthGoni,” said an archmage from the council of elders. “The so-called ‘writers of fortune’. I wonder, what do you see of my story?” Gio fidgeted until I figured out that the old man was trying to charm him. I threw a broom at him to stop the spell.
“Bastard!” Gio said. “I can write you out of existence, and you try to make me a slave? Let’s go, Rid!”
“I see you also found yourself a Trevit friend,” another elder chimed in. “The three of you could make it big in the travelling freak show. They’ve already got one Inros, female, I believe. I’m sure curious how your kind procreates, seeing as you’re not really alive.”
“Don’t listen to him, Rid,” Hae said. “Let’s just go.”
“A female Inros?” I asked frozen in place. It had been so long since I’ve seen one of my kind and she was displayed like some sort of spectacle? I could not stand for it.
We left the council without another word. My finger-feet carried me to the center of town with the knowledge of a travelling circus that held another of my kind. I stood out in the crowds and the bubble of swirling air helped me clear a path, but when I got to the cages, Gio and Hae were not by my side. I pressed on by myself, seeking something in that room that looked like me. While some volunteered to be there, others were kept imprisoned. I hoped Iri was not there of her own free will. I saw her, and she saw me. When my mind caught up, Gio and Hae were beside me and she was being wheeled out onto the stage. She must have been talking, but I did not hear a sound until she was gone.
“Are you going to do it?” Hae asked. I was taken aback by such a lewd question, but it was only my mind thinking those things.
“Do what? Did you hear what she was saying?” I asked.
“Poor bastard,” Hae said at Gio. “He’s already fallen for her. I mourn your passing, my friend.” Gio punched his arm.
“She wanted you to save her,” Gio said. “But you looked out of it. As far as I know, it cannot be legal to hold her against her will, so you have free reign to break her out.”
“That’s wonderful news,” I said before jumping out onto the stage. To make a short story shorter, I got her out of there. When we got far enough away, she realized that the constant rain no longer fell on her when she was close to me and my bubble. The joy in those black eyes was ever bright. Then she came up and nuzzled the fur on my neck. A memory of my mother told me that was an Inros was of saying “thank you”, but when I tried it, she pulled away. It had to mean something else when the male did it.
“Hi,” I said at last. We sort of danced in proximity within the bubble. “I’m Rid. What’s your name?”
“I’m Irinya,” she said. Her horns were wavy rather than just curved back straight. A part of me was very attracted to this fact. “I thought all Inros were gone from this world. This rain is torture that follows you everywhere.”
“My family and few others decided to burrow into the ground, as deep as they could to find some heat,” I said. “I stayed behind. Then this stupid wizard named Marv cast a sticky spell on me, this bubble. It would be great if only I could drink stuff without enormous effort. So I’m looking for him to remove the bubble.”
“Small price to pay for immunity from the rain, I’d say,” she said. “But I understand. Inros still need to consume water, even if it hurts our skin. Speaking of…” She stepped closer and put her hand on the soft dark skin of my belly that had no fur. The sensation made me sigh and reach out to reciprocate. I’ve always thought the middle was a weakness, but it had to be where most of the nerves existed. When she let go, I wanted her to touch it again, but the moment passed.
“Join us,” I said. “I mean, if you’d like. I need to find Marv and get the bubble removed. Then we could find a place we could live together.” She smiled and nuzzled the fur on my neck.
“I’d like nothing more,” she said.
That’s all you get. We went, she got killed, Marv retreated further into the mountains, and I took my revenge. On the wipe, I continued my sorry little life until the travelling freak show stopped at the city I lived next to. I saw her from underneath my big umbrella. On a strange impulse I needed to speak with her and broke her out that night. When she nuzzled my neck on the second go-round, all of the previous story came flooding into my mind. You can have your theories of love having certain power to cross the layers of the universe, but I think that’s a load of bull. It was more likely Gionn gave me the last present he could.
I put my hand to her bare stomach as she sighed pleasantly. Could that have something to do with breeding of Inros? She knew much more about our kind and why everyone said we did not exist like other creatures. When her hand touched my stomach in return, I felt the same sensation as in the memory that never was. The reason for our non-existence was the fact that Inros were said to arrive from a dimension called Dranit, the first of dimensions, or so she said.
What happened after I found Iri again, you don’t need to know. I told you the end of the story already. Marv died, story was rewritten. The end. When the stupid wizard suggested to put that spell on me a few years later, I shouted at him that he killed her, making HIM remember everything. Off he scurried, without another word. In the way of the reset, I lost two friends. Maybe I went to find them again, to Secear, to the "nowhere" where Gio existed. If so, that’s a whole another story, one not found here. Maybe I became old friends with Marv and took care of him in the last years of his life, if that book ever let him age.
Maybe I took up that magic tome and became a wizard like him, but smart enough to stop the spell of endless rain. Is that an end you’re looking for? If so, then it must be true. I’m no Nth Goni. I won’t write fortune for you, but maybe you’ll meet the Nth Goni one day, and they will give you a chance at a re-write. I don’t know what made me so special to warrant a wipe, but I am forever grateful to you, Gionn the Eighth, wherever you are.
As for my story, “Rid the Rainless” sounds like a knack title. Don’t blame the person writing this, it’s never really their story to tell. They are more like conduits. Then again, I choose when to unplug. So, bye.
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