A loud crack echoed across the fathoms of protuberant earth, as the ball of black miasma quickly vanished from my vision into the wild blue yonder; as if it had never truly existed in the first place—the calamitous roar of disconsolate inertia reminding me of how impossible the dream actually was—I should have been deafened by the crash, or the ensuing explosion, yet such consequence eluded me.
My eyes widened, and I marveled aloud at the impertinent display of overwhelming force; as the spray of pebbles, and fractured stone slowly showered down around me. The column overhead had been lanced with a circular object, which crashed into its surface with such force that the minerals had fused together, in parts, and others seemed to have become another material entirely.
The air stank of carbonized sediment, and a cloud of thick, billowing dust washed over us; so thick as to blind ourselves from the rhapsody of our company, even an arm's length apart, until I remembered to command that the particles disperse. A broad grin spread across my cheeks, and I laughed with unrepentant glee; to witness this unbelievable show of force.
"By the goddess herself..! What is this unfathomable power?! I have never heard of such a potent show of force in all my decades, and centuries of life."
By the stance alone, it seemed fit for Thrall to lightly shift in mood—seeing his work so openly lauded was an event that he must be woefully unaccustomed to(a fact that I will take great joy in weaponizing against him, at my own inclination!)... Were his face availed for my eyes to find purchase, I would not be surprised to find that his smile was bright, and his cheeks emblazoned; with ruddied mirth! He paused before speaking, as if to gather his composure; "It is just as I told you. Telekinesis is a word that means 'to hold from a distance.' I have demonstrated that by compacting the shadows around me, until they became corporeal. Then, I simply had to release that pressure on the antipodal side of the intended velocity, and—"
"Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop!" I screeched into the open air. Elektra forbid I try to endear myself to another creature without exposing myself to the debilitating scale of their idiosyncrasies. "I only understand two or three of your words, at a time. I was just asking if this could, indeed, be replicated; or if it were a figment of your imagination, only applicable to the world of the dream!"
Thrall tittered, as if I had finally exposed just how clueless I truly was. "Believe it, or not, but this is the lightest application of my power possible. Not only is this power possible in the waking world, but I have access to even more power than this. We are asleep, and I am beholden to powers that do not exist in the real world. All my magicks are dulled by the influences of powers beyond your ken."
I could not believe what I was hearing. "H—You, what?!" I shouted, unconsciously; then turned to look at the smoldering aftermath of the procession that he had released upon my mindscape. "This is a fraction of your power?!"
He nodded. "I could perform wonders dozens, or hundreds, or even thousands of times greater than this; if we were to meet in flesh. By the act of existing within another's dream, I must be separated from my own understanding, by definition. Even if I were to be in my own dream, I could display the same powers in a tenth of the time; as there I would have no need to collect shadows to follow my command. I could simply order the air, itself, to believe it was a solid mass."
My mind lit up at that statement; and I began to flap my arms excitedly. Something about that phrasing finally broke through his dense, arcane, angel-speak; and I finally understood a little bit of how his power functioned. "Oh! By the goddesses! Say that again!"
Thrall was nonplussed by the whole liturgy of emotion crashing over me. He narrowed his strikingly blue eyes, and confusingly repeated, "By definition, I must be separated from my own understanding?"
"No, not that part!" I chided. "You know of which I am referring!"
"I really don't."
"Oh, for honor and for glory, Thrall..! The last thing you said!" I bristled with frustration. How was he, simultaneously, the most brilliant individual I have ever met—yet still, so unbelievably dense—that no manner of distinct explanation could ever escape from his pulchritudinous, prepossessing, pleasantly polished, perfectly plumped, pursed, labial portals?!
"I-" He paused, almost as if he couldn't remember; but it occurs to me that he genuinely did neither know, nor understand what the significance of the phrase was to me. Then, he shrugged his shoulders and repeated, to humor me. "I could simply order the air, itself, to believe it was a solid mass..?"
"Ah!" I exclaimed. "That's it! Teach me how to order the air, Thrall! You called it simple, did you not?!"
"Oh, now I see," he nodded. "You know, I had no idea where you were going with that..."
"It would behoove you to explain it sooner, rather than later, Thrall!" I reminded, impatiently. He, simply, beamed with compassion at the zeal I had suddenly expressed for learning. My heartbeat quickened under his paternal gaze. "Wh-what? What did I say?"
"Nothing, particularly. I am simply just appreciating the passion you have. Your curiosity—it's quite charming, indeed."
I blushed at his undeserved praise. Then, I drew up a mask of propriety, and replied "That it should be enough for you to recognize my worth as Elektra's brightest star; you had been better off believing me, when I first contested it to be, so! Now, order my steps in your words; that I might reflect your glory in this motion—post-haste!"
"Alright, alright. I hear you!" He chuckled, waving away my repeated calls for action with a languid arc of his forearm. Still, the intense, amatory focus in his eyes persisted; which did little to assuage the flush in my cheeks.
As we worked through the basics of ideological abstraction—from non-objective fragmentation, to deconstruction, to dimensional reduction, to nonfigurativeness—I noticed the delicate care in his touch; whenever he had to hold my shoulders, or support me by my waist to facilitate the right form. I registered the patient furling of his words as he repeatedly phrased the same notion a dozen times with different wordings; in hope that just one specific phrasing might hold fast within my mind, and cement this hypothetical nonentity into my understanding. I cataloged every word, every sound, every breath of his intrigue—as he, in turn, studied me—to learn what it is that makes my mind connect with the arcane, and blasphemous knowledge from beyond the edges of my paradigm; and to reassemble his entire philosophy into a form that resembles my own, that I might accept it into the folds, and expand my own understanding of the true nature of the world, outside of the world.
The concept of infinity—The void—The blankness of space, between the stars; all concepts that have no worth in my purview. For us, they were mere decorations on the tapestry of the sky, but what is a sky? Where does it end? How can you feel the push of an invisible wind, if it doesn't have weight; have mass; have density? Why can't this weight be used for our purposes? If air can move, can it also stand still?
I pondered these concepts, as his fingertips traced down the edges of my metacarpal feathers; in an effort to trigger an innate understanding my wings have determined, to contrive this weight. I nodded, resolutely, with my eyes shut fast, and I focused on a disk of air; no larger than a dinner plate. I pictured it in my mind's eye, so viscerally, that I feared a plate of glass might apparate instead—it wouldn't be the first time.
Sweat beaded up on my brow, and I noticed that his right hand left from the surface of my feathers. My flesh burned for him to resume his contact, but all thoughts of that vanished from my reckoning, as soon as a distinctive hollow clink was heard in front of me; inches from my face, precisely where I had imagined the disk to be.
I threw my eyes open to see the plate I had created yet again, but when I studied the space before me, there was nothing there. My heart leapt for joy, but so many failures had dashed my childish hope. I cautiously swallowed my words before asking; "D-did I do it? Is it really there?!"
Thrall's voice swelled with pride as he congratulated me; "You have completed the first step of manipulating matter, with your mind."
I leaped for recompense, and victory; as exhaustion and delirium worked over me, in equal measure. I could do anything.