"Why are you here again?" A voice asked. You are still too weak for me to meet you.
"I know, I don't know how I know but I do," Derek answered.
"Get stronger! Your enemies are much... much stronger! the voice said and it suddenly went quiet.
Derek slowly opened his eyes. There were two big balls barely wrapped in anything before his eyes. That's not right? These balls were much bigger than usual. He subconsciously reached for them, when he heard an unfamiliar voice, "Master Derek I see you are now awake."
He lifted his head up in reflex only to see a cat smiling at him. He screamed and backed away in panic.
"Aww... that's no way to treat me. Not after the way you buried your head here," She pointed to her chest and gave a wink.
Derek backed away until he fell off the bed. "What... what are you?"
"WHAT AM I!? Now you are just trying to be rude. And I heard you went through a great deal of trouble just to find me," She came down the bed one step at a time and covered her body with a robe on the side. She walked one step at a time until she was before his face. Even with the robes on, her explosive figure still attracted his eyes but he was scared shitless to admire.
It was not his fault. He just woke up next to a woman that was not a woman. No, that did not describe her well. She was a woman but with a cat head. An actually cat head. With the ears, whiskers and all that. She looked like something he would only see in an anime and that freaked him out.
"I am the warrior goddess 'Bastet'. It's nice to see you again young master," she bowed slightly.
Derek was at a loss for what to say or do. He looked around him, it was a big room. At least it was the biggest he had seen so far. The centre of the room had a bed large enough to occupy ten people and that was a rough estimate in his mind. The sheets on them even from the angle he was looking at, glowed in faint gold light. the walls of the room were battered with hieroglyphics. The lighting in the room came from runes that swam in the air from one end to another like fish at sea. There were four statues at each corner of the room. All of them were in the exact image of the woman before him, except that there each held in their hands a different weapon.
"Where... where are my friends?" Derek asked still kissing the wall with his back.
"It's okay. They are alright, there is no need for you to be worried. In fact, you are the only one that was hurt." She walked to a part of the wall, a rune glowed on it and the outline of a door appeared, "You want to see your friends right? Come on then," She 'cat' walked out of the room and Derek although sceptically, followed.
[Author: Get it... "Cat walked"...LOL]
Out the door and into a very large and wide corridor. The entire structure before him was huge. There were pillars so wide it would take a little over eight men to fully wrap their hands around one leading very high up all over the place. The corridor branched at many points with 'different kinds of people moving about it. There looked to be at work as some carried scrolls and others busied themselves all around. There were also different animals. some were small, and others really big. Some looked strange. Derek had never seen or heard about them. Like that one that had the body of a leopard but the head of a snake. But mostly, the entire area was filled with cats. Cats of different species. No, seriously... An actual lion just walked past him.
Derek was very scared but Bastet kept comforting him that it was safe and he should follow her.
Anywhere there passed, the animals and people will turn and bow. Derek at first thought that there were bowing to her, but after observing for some time, he noticed it was to him.
"Why are they bowing?" He asked as they progressed forward.
"Well, it's to you. It's not every day a writer comes visiting."
"A writer?" Derek remembered that term. It was from the conversation with the voice in his head.
Bastet stopped before a large rune on the wall. She turned to him. "You do know what a writer is right?"
"I have heard the word before, but NO!" He shrugged his shoulders.
"WHAT!!!" She held her hands to her slender waist, "Oh! heavens, what has Maria been teaching you all these years? This is unacceptable. If you were left with me instead, this would not have happened!... ugh!!! I blame Lord Levinack for this. Oh! this is a disaster," She kept pacing the corridor back and forth. She was more lamenting about Maria's incompetence than she was actually angry.
"I have decided, I might not be a Writer but I'll definitely put most to shame with my knowledge. Come with me, there is much you must learn about your heritage." She touched the rune and the outline of a very huge door appeared and opened, leading to a library.
"Wait! What about my friends?"
"You'll see them later. This is more important. Follow me please." Her tone had an authoritativeness to it.
Derek followed her into the huge library
A quill pen and a notebook materialised out a rune that swarm towards him and he subconsciously caught them before there fell to the floor.
"You'll be needing that. Jotting some things down might help you later." She reached the centre of the library and a podium materialised from runes on the floor, "Take a seat please."
Derek looked around but there was no 'sit'.
Bastet looked at him and sighed at his ignorance. She waved her hands and a chair materialised from runes on the ground.
Derek sat down.
"Firstly, we will start from the beginning. As it is in any story. But this, young master Derek is the true origin." She coughed to clear her voice and continued. Derek had a feeling that it was going to be a long story.
"The world you see around you is all formed from rules. Rules on the formation and combination of matter. Rules on their thickness, weight and height in relation to other rules around them. Rules are the keepers of the world, there are what gives it meaning. In a sense, one can say rules are the origin of creation. Without rules, there is no order or chaos, therefore no substance. Without rules, there is only nothingness. There are..."
"Yes, master Derek. You don't need to raise your hand, we are the only ones here. You can ask questions freely."
Derek put down his hand in embarrassment, "Emm... You said 'without rules, there will be no order or chaos'. I don't understand, I thought chaos was the absence of rules."
"He is smart," She said in her head. "Chaos is more complicated than you think. You see, Chaos is not the absence of rules but the meeting of it. Chaos is the beginning stage of Order. In the state of chaos, Rules meet and break up over and over again until they find other rules they can accommodate, merge, compliment or stabilize with. Rules in their raw form is 'chaos'. The runes you see all around you are examples of rules. We will come back to runes, but firstly let's deviate a bit to your heritage.
Derek nodded his head in understanding.
"Since you understand that, I'll now explain what you are." She used a quill pen to draw two figures in the air. One of them held a rune in its hand and the other bowed on its knees to the one with the rune.
She turned to him, "What do you understand by destiny?"
Derek shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know, It is 'what is meant to be will be' i guess."
"Good... now listen properly, this is the really juicy part. Writers are what we call destiny controllers Or Destiny rulers. There are the authors of the lives of everything intelligent enough to have a name and build a society."