I was so interminably bored last night. I just had to do something; I cannot simply sit in place and expect the world to change around me to my benefit. That does not make sense!
So, I decided to go exploring.
The hollow emptiness pervading every echoing footstep would not stay my hand from uncovering the impossible peculiarities of this land. I was given wings in order to fly, and so I shall!
At least, this was my intention when I started. Every flap of my broad wings carried me higher, and higher, into the sky.
I expected the winds to carry me upward as they do in our world, but no matter what I tried, I could not feel my goddess's blessing beneath me!
It was a brutal, and exhaustive affair. I had to rely on the strength of my arms and chest alone to grant me such height as to regard the entire form of my emotional prison. What I saw was even more puzzling than I had imagined!
From the spires of rock and earth, you would be quite fair to assume that the mountainous crags and boulder-clad cliff sides were also worn by the salty splashes of ocean mist and sharp coastline winds of which I am familiar from my home, but no matter how high I soared, and no matter how far my sharp vision peered, I found no evidence of a single body of water.
There was nothing beneath their summits but the crisscrossing pattern of perpendicular lines that only warped and fused about where these great pillars exacted themselves; like an infinite plane of precisely machined stone to form an endless grid of masonry... but what obsessive talent could have crafted this many flawless stone cuts to fill the interlocking pattern?
How long would it take to fill just one acre of bricks like so?!
Wherever I look, the ground is unchanged, and the skyline is swallowed by the tall pillars of granite, pumice, sandstone, and marble. For miles and miles around—as far as the very horizon!—nothing can be found except these mineral protuberances; like skeletal phalanges reaching towards the sky.
It doesn't resemble any mountain range I have ever seen described in any texts; though I will admit to not being the most well-read of my race.
What need have the songbirds of literature? What great dearth of inherent value must I fill with plundered knowledge from other races, to improve my standing upon my brood?
Should a cloud aspire to be more than the vehicle of Zeus's great mercy towards the plants and the beasts who sustain themselves upon them?
A rain cloud has but one natural purpose; to deliver rain. It would be a form of blasphemy to aspire for a creature to hope for anything more than this! For what could be better than our very purpose achieving complete fulfillment?
At any length, I continued my exploration with much trepidation and stress.
From fingertip to fingertip, I flew ever in the direction of the lilting sun.
I'm not sure what exactly drew me to this direction in particular, but I am most certainly glad that I did! For, it was in this direction that I happened upon a most perplexing creature.
"You!" cried out a voice from the shadow of a limestone tower; dripping with tortured malice.
I sped my way so quickly, that I almost missed the opportunity for genuine communion in my haste!
I turned back in time to just barely catch a glance at him before his form forever disappeared into the sea of identical monoliths, as he continued his reproach. "I knew it could not have been my imagination! What have you done to me?!"
I raked my wings hard in the air to immediately halt my forward momentum. "What?! Who-" Despite his accusations, I could not help but brandish a broad white smile across my features.
Finally! Another life, in this world!
I tell you now, that I would have burst into tears if I had found another of my kind to commune with, but at this point, I didn't care what race my new associate was. Gorgon, Dryad, Echidna, even a Cyclops for Elektra's sake, I didn't care! I just needed to speak to someone! Anyone!
"Where are you?!" my voice came out hoarse and congested from extended periods of disuse; but even this wasn't enough to contain my complete and utter, overwhelming, transcendent elation at this final, eventual change in the land of unconscious.
"Do not play such games with me, cherubim. I will not be made a mockery! Explain yourself at once, or-" he continued to admonish me for reasons I do not now fully comprehend, but his voice allowed me to pinpoint his location, at length.
He stopped talking shortly after I came into view completely, and so he was fully visible to me. What sat before me was no form of creature I have ever seen!
I landed on the roughly hewn tiles outside of the spires shadow, and folded my wings across my back as I slowly approached him.
He seemed to me a pitiful thing, halfway between chimera and aeternae, but neither of those titles actually fit him entirely. Here were the horns of the kobaloi, and there behind were wings just like mine; yet somehow smaller, and more frail—They hardly looked like they could support his full weight!—Though, his visage kept shifting under my focus.
I couldn't hold the details in my mind as soon as I looked away to another aspect of his being. All minutia seemed to swim and disappear into the swirling violet haze at the center of his essence.
Every specificity vanished upon recollection. It was at the same time magnificent, terrible, and irksome!
I struggle to even describe it but in broad terms. I suppose that will have to suffice. He was no larger than a human being, for sure. His skin was Golden—No, pitch black!—it only wanted you to believe it was gold. Wiry tendrils of smoke lashed at his silhouette, so it was always shifting. It was enough to make you nauseous if you stared at it for long enough!
What ever possible purpose did such an abominable creature fulfill? I believe they could only be the product of some fit of madness by Khaos herself in the time before the pantheon!
Their prowess seemed remarkably infinite, nevertheless. I felt tiny before his probing gaze; as if he could obliterate me from the face of Gaea with but a wave of his hands.
Could this be the Enceladus of lore, here to do war with me as I come across his path? I suddenly feared for my life.
His brow furrowed as he drew his gaze across my entire form in similar marvel. "You're not a cherub..."
The shadows grabbed and danced with the edges of his features.
The pounding of my heart was not due to the exhaustive flight that I had just completed, but I chose to believe it was so.
Swallowing those instincts, I felt suddenly overcome with renewed joy to speak with a new piece of the god's creation! Goddess above, I knew not where the strength came from, but I welcomed it with open arms.
Perhaps my curiosity won over, as that name repeated in my memory.
'Cherub, Cherub...'
I had to understand him better to become his friend, after all!
I tilted my head and looked at him quizzically. "What is ...cherub?" it was a word I have never heard before. I took a step forward, to be sure that he was actually there.
"Don't touch me!" He violently recoiled, shrinking further into the darkness afforded by the slender steeple; the wiry strands of murky miasma wrapped further about him like a shroud, increasing the strength of his figure.
Tendrils of solidified darkness flowed endlessly into him, and he finally grew to a size that rivaled a Giant or Hecatonchire.
The very air seemed to grow sharper around him. "You will not deceive me again, you vile wretch! Tell me now, what you have done to my mind!"
I trilled in shock, and my feathers ruffled quite literally at this exchange.
What ever could I have done to such a being?! "I-I didn't—I haven't!"
His body lurched and burgeoned with intense strain under all the excess weight as it settled into one key frame, of hulking mass and brute strength.
I fought my every urge to run away, for where would I go? Before me stood the goal of countless weeks of fervent searching.
He stretched out his hand as if to crush my hollow bones under his thumb. "Goddess, please!" I prayed, fruitlessly; with eyes clenched shut.
I know that it was only for the humans that such favors were to be granted. Sometimes, I just could not help myself.
What happened next, I could not tell you; for when my eyes again opened, I had simply woken up.