always and forever is forever young
your shadow on the pavement, the dark side of the sun
There was nothing out there. There was nothing beyond the darkness. How could there be? He could feel the cold, metal cuffs, smell the stale air, hear the dripping water echoing off the walls some distance away... this was real. What was reality if not something you could see, touch, feel, hear, and taste?

There was an obvious explanation too, once he forced himself to calm down by solving a mathematical equation and put his mind to it. People were not meant to live in darkness and solitude. However much he tried, he would never be able to keep himself fully sane down here. The castle on the magic planet where he had a family who were constantly involved in some kind of misadventure... it was fantasy. It had to be. He made it up in his head in order to pass the time in this cold, dead place. Now that he thought about it, the story of Shaman was just too ridiculous to be true. Aura had made a magic planet as a sanctuary for fairies threatened by humans? In what universe could fairies be threatened by humans? And the whole idea that Gwythr was trying to use this planet to produce a new generation of deities – preposterous. It wasn't real. It was just the product of an over-active imagination and far, far, far too much time.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

What now?

The darkness seemed to be pressing in on his chest. In the absence of something to logic apart, his mind flicked instantly back to the physical sensations: how cold it was. How dark it was. How hopelessly, bitterly endless it all was.

Panic started to sink in again. Mallos started to fight it off, but dark thoughts were beginning to seep into his mind. Why bother? He could panic if he wanted. He could cry, scream and kick. Why not? Nobody could see or hear him. Maybe nobody ever would again.

Mallos closed his eyes and wished, with every fibre of his being, that he was back in the fantasy castle with his fantasy children. He felt an odd tingling feeling and imagined for a moment that someone was holding his hand. 'Don't be silly,' the dark thoughts snickered, 'there's no one here.' He pushed the thought away and tried to recreate the sensations of the dream of the castle: the smells, the warm, the light coming in through the window...

The world shifted. This time he didn't see it, because his eyes were still closed, but he felt the world warp under his other senses as the stone floor became a bed, the wall behind him disintegrated into air, and the cuffs around his wrists melted away as though they'd never even existed. The assault on his memories was just as disorienting. Memories of endless, timeless waiting were replaced with fresh recollections of ducking under low, dripping ceilings in the caverns of Apeliotes Caves, pushing paper boredly around his desk, and throwing his grandson into the lake named after his late daughter. When he snapped his eyes open, the darkness gave way to the warm, light room enclosed in dull grey stone walls, blissfully water-free. Someone was holding his hand – Morgana was standing in front of him with his hand to her cheek, saying something he couldn't quite register.

In that moment, Mallos didn't care if this world was real or not. He'd take a giant sea demon and a magic-thieving ancient creature over the dark room any day. The feeling of relief at being somewhere else – anywhere else – even if it was only in his mind – was so intense that it washed away most other feelings. Mallos rarely reacted emotionally, and when he did it was usually in anger, not love. It was probably safe to say that these were rare circumstances. Without holding himself back or pausing to think anything through, he stood up, put his arms around her and hugged her tightly. All the negative feelings from the dark place – the bitterness, hopelessness, loneliness and fear – flipped into relief, hope, comfort and affection instead, and charged the embrace with emotion. For a long moment, he just held her.

Then something she'd said clicked and he pulled back, holding her at arm's length and studying her with an expression closer to the guarded one he usually wore. “What did you call me?” He asked, successfully keeping most but not all of the stunned feeling out of his voice.

Recollections of the things Arthur had been saying before he'd been transported across time and space to a different reality started to seep back. Therait – blew up – wake up... other memories started to be triggered. An image of the untainted ocean stretching as far as the horizon, the sun beating down on it – a roar as loud as a volcanic eruption behind him. He remembered the sea shooting by beneath him as he led the leviathan-dragon further and further away from the mainland where he could obliterate him without hurting anyone else.

He couldn't remember using the solar flare, but it's what he would have done in that situation. If he used the flare and disintegrated himself, and his magic was lost somewhere in the reforming process, and he hadn't healed properly... these vivid flashbacks were just a side-effect of his unhealed mind. That was feasible. Unfortunately, the first explanation he had come up with – that he was really still in the dark place, and this was just an imaginary world he had invented to pass the time – was just as feasible. The other realities could have been dreams.

Mallos released Morgana and looked across at Arthur, scrutinising him inwardly. Arthur was definitely a point towards the fantasy theory, because, well... come on. King Arthur, from English mythology? Even if he did exist, Mallos was fairly sure there was no realistic universe where they would ever be friends.

On the other hand, he did look real. If he was just a figment of Mallos' imagination, then Mallos had to credit himself with a damn good imagination.

“What just happened?” He asked, really hoping neither of them said you cried, screamed and kicked at basically nothing.


i can feel you in the silence saying, “let forever be,
love, and only love, will set you free.”