chemical kids & mechanical brides

R I X E N "I'll bet." I replied, returning Kiada's smile with ever so slightly upturned lips. Then I was quiet so that the mare could speak. One ear was pointed in her direction, listening closely, and the other swiveled toward the stalks of bamboo directly ahead, alert for any signs of danger. We continued to walk through the labyrinth at a leisurely pace. I couldn't have walked much faster even if I'd wanted to. Given how misty it was, it was nearly impossible to see more than a few meters ahead.  Kiada spoke of Helovia. Several horses I had met thus far during my time in the Rift had come from that place. As I talked to each one of them, the story of how Kisamoa brought them here was revealed to me bit by bit. From what I knew, it wasn't anything like the way I ended up here. I certainly didn't have such a compelling story to tell.  She went on to list a number of lands that I had never heard of before, save for this one. According to the gold and black hued mare, the Green Labyrinth, the Blood Falls, the Riptide Isles, and the Halcyon Falls had all been Rift lands brought to Helovia. Kiada was not wrong when she said the story was interesting. In fact, I found the idea that lands could be moved from world to world fascinating. How was such a thing possible? Before arriving in the Rift, I never could have dreamed of such an event. The Rift was full of magic and seemingly every creature living here possessed it in some form. Here, magic flowed rampant and wild, intertwined within the sights, sounds and smells of the world. It was so unlike the land where I was born. There, such power had long been dammed up and caged, so deeply hidden away that its existence was no more than a legend. But in the Rift magic was in symbiosis with reality. As Kiada spoke, I began to think that surely this ripping of land from world to world had something to do with magic. That was the only possible explanation I could think of. While this might have always been the obvious conclusion to most horses, to me it was a foreign concept, and like so many concepts, one that I wanted to better understand.  The story unfolded with the Riftian gods returning to Helovia to reclaim their lands, followed by the possible birth of Kisamoa, whose name I had actually heard once before. Although Kiada did not clarify, I suspected that the Riftian gods' ripping of their lands back to the Rift had something to do with how all of these Helovian horses had ended up here. Their arrival at the same time seemed to be no coincidence. Talk of gods got me thinking. The Rift had gods. Helovia, from what Kiada told me, also had gods. But I did not come from a religious herd and had never thought much about the idea of gods. Nor had I seen a god before. I wondered what one might look like. Was a god a great and powerful being, one that I would be able to recognize? Or an ordinary one, which could be easily mistaken for a normal horse? Perhaps a god was an invisible entity not meant to be seen. When the mare finished speaking, seemed to be offering me an opportunity to inquire further. Rather than ask another question just yet, I took the opportunity to speak what was on my mind. "I have never encountered a god before..." I spoke softly, thoughtfully, almost to myself. Having taken my turn to comment, that left one more question to be answered. Kiada flashed a mischievous grin followed by a wink in my direction as she spoke of her encounter with the Magnus Metus and her apparent escape. I hadn't seen one myself, but it was safe to assume that the Metus was probably as frightening as any other Riftian creature I'd encountered, if not more so. "What exactly is your task? And may I offer you my assistance in completing it? I'm happy to accompany you next time you face the Metus, if you'll allow me. Not that I think you're incapable or anything... but it is said that light is the task where two share the toil.." With dancing green eyes, I shot Kiada a playful wink back.  "Talk." they heard me singing and they told me to stop quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock

image credits || coding credits