(Rose)
Our boat is slowly reaching the sea. We're leaving Egypt behind.
We'll head north-east. We want to take a look at what the Ottoman empire has become. So we'll head toward what is on our maps referred to as Turkey or Türkiye.
We have some history with this land. Our father lived there for a while, along with the first blue rose that marked our family history. So trying to follow on their footsteps is acknowledging some of our past.
Anyway, there's a fair chance we won't find anything we would expect to, but we don't mind.
We like the idea of just going there to have an innocent look.
We're increasing the speed as we sail across the eastern part of the mediterranean sea.
Bleue is happy. I have lost a friend and previous lover, but I share her joy. We're grinning as we go.
My body has aged a little. Wrinkles are blossoming on my leather. I don't mind.
In the middle of my eyes, all I see are yours.
It feels like forever already. It's just life. And time. Time keeping the same usual pace, and us going through it and feeling its illusory variations.
The world keeps surprising us at every opportunity.
We see a whale jump out of the water and splashing us gloriously. It flew for a second right next to us.
Bleue turns cheerfully childish at this, yelling and running around to see it again.
The whale jumped again a few more times, in what seemed like a childish play for her too.
Another day over the ultramarine sea, we saw an inverted whirlpool. The water heading into the skies in this shining pillar of water, becoming thinner than a thread rapidly as it went up.
After maybe twenty metres above the surface, water was reduced to a small rain dripping upward. Some fishes jumped through it and flew away into the sky.
That makes me smile differently as it reminds me of one of my very first whimsical encounters of the new world. One of the new species I though afterward.
Maybe it's something else even. I don't understand everything I see. Not yet.
Then for days we see naught but an empty and silent world. The contrast is beautiful in both.
R - Where are we going again?
B - Who cares?
It's been our repetitive joke lately, and we still laugh at it.
We have nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing.
And we're more happy than we ever were.
Because this freedom that would crush a lonely soul is far more enjoyable as we are together.
We could look for answers about the way the world changed. We probably won't.
For now, we just want to see Turkey a little. So that's where we're going.
The world is so wide. So wide. Immense, almost infinite, for just us two.
Imagine... If the world was not a globe, which locks its size, but a flat roll of paper, or cloth.
Imagine this world, stretching and appearing as far as you go, endlessly.
Imagine that tapestry being painted endlessly as time goes on, the world growing further, endlessly.
Discovering the world feels like going through the decimals of π.
There's an endless grow of mysteries and oddities to see.
The world never felt as wide and limitless as it did these days, on that boat, with you by my side.
I'm not Rose... You're not Blue...
Yet your smile, as your eyes are burning mine...
My heart feels larger, and the blood in my veins sweeter.
Humans. Monsters. Daiûas. Flowers.
As I hold your hand now, I don't really care about what or who we really are. Nor why.
I'm happy, in this world that never ceased to amaze me.
~
We explored a few islands on our way. Some with oddities, some just empty and barren rocks.
Isolated environments can give the weirdest results of evolution and transformation. Great Britain is practically overrun with winter snakes it seems.
And some of the most unique beings-like-her I've met were on islands as well.
Here, we found floating trees over the sea.
Without visible roots. They grew in perfectly spherical shapes, hovering around there or tied up by unnoticeable strings. Just there, above the water.
Not far behind, we found the island were they grew and spread.
We kept a small one, tied to a string of our making. It's like a balloon of leaves.
The biggest floating trees are maybe fifteen metres wide, like sculptures.
It's a little fun and whimsical, to take a nap in the grass below such a tree.
Or to climb in one.
I jumped in a small one below us, over a cliff with the sea below. The tree lost altitude at first under my weight, but progressively restored its balance, compensating, and returning to hover still as if it still weighed nothing.
When I climbed down and jumped out, it reacted in the opposite way with buoyancy, first bouncing and flying upward rapidly, and then lowering back its altitude.
Each of them as its own set altitude to float, which can change sometimes surely, but isn't the same for all currently.
The landscape around and over this island is littered with balloon trees of various sizes and altitude.
B - Should we build a flying machine with them?
R - It's not a bad idea... Let's keep a little more along the little one, and see what we can do.
We found the dead trees lost their magical attribute, but we will work something out with the living one.
We marked this island on the map we currently have; and also marked its coordinates in a small notebook. Because I know we tend to lose maps as we do weapons during fights.
The small flying tree can't sustain our weight yet, but it can carry a backpack. It's fun to see.
We could have stayed for a while on this island.
As we're sailing away, having spent only half a day there, we're both feeling the same. It feels a little like a shame really.
Oh well...
Bleue agrees. There's no reason to rush ahead.
We turn back and return there to have more fun.
~