Klyros Blue

[Aerig]

Lying quiet on the black leather, heavy jacket over me in an attempt to hold in the sleep that I wanted back, I stared up at the clouds through the glass door. Hasn\'t everyone done this sometime, stretched out on their back in some nowhere time watching the pattern of god\'s mind for lack of something better to do?

So I lie there, keeping distant company with you perhaps, as you watch what image these words paint for your mind\'s eye. Sometimes I drift, aware of but paying no attention to the world around me, gazing at the cloud shapes as, lacking the opposition of noisy thought, they become fantastic creatures upon imagination\'s canvas.

I stare through a gap into the landscape beyond, seeing first low hills then farmers working their land. As the steamy frame shifts into regular square formation, the scene become a courtyard which I look down upon from height.

At the farther edge a small house with neat pointed roof emerges all cleanly carved in tidy designs, scrolls of gilded wood in organically prominent from the well aligned boards of the ochre orange walls.

A small blue creature, all squat lizard power, exits the building and moves to stand at the nearest corner of the court as another, taller and more slender, clambers over a fence from the small field beside the home. The latter, it seems admires the smaller creatures shield and spear, making some comment, it would appear, on the ornately graven or fashion ornamentation on its face.

Another creature appears, this one indistinct of form, but a definite lightning blue, seeming midway between the heights and weight of the others. Finally, nearest, a last lizard seems to coalesce from the cloudscape, winged as the others were not, tall and slim as a stick with dragonfly wings in pastel shades of lavender and powder blue, its head held high in noble carriage.

The fascination of the scene takes hold, my belief, like iron filings to a magnet, realigning so that the world I am looking at becomes reality. I feel endearment and a sense of friendship for these strange creatures taking for within me. Somehow, with a physical vitality that is entirely of the imagination, I leap unhindered through the window and down into the court yard to stand, all clothed in mortal black before these friends for whom I have suddenly felt such intense affection.

After a fashion that would feel foolish, were it not for the entirely genuine honesty of feeling that has taken hold of me, I reach out and shake the claw of the squat lizard creature, introducing myself as though worldly tongue would suffice in this alien world. His clasp is clean and dry to the touch and very smooth like a limb of polished wood.

Each of the others I greet likewise, feeling somewhat like a publican greeting new and important guests at the door of an establishment much more humble than their status. Seeming to understand my arrival in their place as though it were an uncommon, but known occurrence, the four lizard-folk introduce themselves in turn.

The squat, powerful looking fellow is Glaur. As he speaks his name, I realise that, back in my living room, his name would have connotation of anger and turbulence. Here though the meaning of his name after the language of his own folk is plain. He is a creature of great and potent vitality, named as much for strength of spirit as for strength of arm.

The second, taller creature is Glomhna which I would have taken to mean sullen, but which is clearly the description of a graceful and intelligent female with a calm spirit. She bears a staff at the end of which a pallid blue crystal glows and she clearly has abilities that I would describe as magical.

The third creature of indistinct form and vivid hue, is called Shadhoe. At home, I suspect, I would have confused his name and personality with the word shadow and guessed it to describe a somewhat morbid and saturnine personality. The meaning conveyed though is of an extremely bright ad lively person who is naturally reserved and honoured for that.

The last creature is Eargh, Iurq and Aerch, the pronunciation of his name being difficult since it sounds the simultaneous speaking of all three variants. I would have taken his name to mean the pain of slow torture, a somewhat grating sound to hear and to speak but the sense of swiftness of motion, thought and pride was unequivocal so that I interpreted his name to mean grace of spirit instead. While this one clearly was not the warrior, mage or priest like personality of the others, he was equally clearly a being of both intense feeling and great authority, the fact that hue of his mottling is so subtly soft, only serving to accentuate how  paradoxical the expression of that sort of personality was in human terms. His name would be Eargh to me the GH of that being a slurred G that was the closest my human throat could approximate the lizard\'s pronunciation.

My former world seems distant, remote and unreal the vividness of the lizard folk a dynamic vitality like the dance of lightning in the clouds, my own, stark contrast in the black of the night sky, more distinct than ever seemed the case in the world of mortal affairs.



Strangely precipitant for my own nature, I ask the lizards what they are, why they are here, what they are doing in this place.

Glaur explains that this is his home. Built by his own hands he is a crafter and a smith his occupation being the fashioning of useful objects for those of his folk who live over the rise in the next valley. He was once a warrior of some skill.

Glomhna is a mellifluous delight, her tongue and speech so fluidly sibilant that I nearly miss her description of her profession as a healer and member of the local community\'s council. She is very beautiful in an entirely non human way and I sense that her easy acceptance of her skills makes them seem less than they are to those she describes them to.

Shadhoe it seems is an architect, here to help Glaur complete some project he has been working on for Eargh. his conveys the sense of a vast understatement and I sense that Shadhoe has great respect for Glaur in his ability to accomplish whatever this task is.

Eargh states that he is lord of the local community, being also of some repute in the other provinces of this world. Glaur\'s project is near completion and he blatantly happy and excited that the work has gone so rapidly and smoothly.



At this point  Glomhna intercedes. She explains that her calling leaves her with a good understanding of he circumstances ha have brought me to this place and explains that her understanding leaves her to believe that I must decide whether to make this place my own or to allow my awareness of it to lapse and return to my own world.

t appears that visitors from my world are infrequent, but not unknown, and that the protocol is clear. I will have one night of my time to decide whether to stay here or to return permanently to the world that I came from. If I stay I may still have some contact with the world I am used to, but that cannot be guaranteed and I may be stranded here forever. If I do I will have few opportunities to associate with my own kind and will have to make whatever life for myself that I can. On the other hand, I am different from the lizard folk and people such as myself often have skills and abilities that become highly sought after amongst them.



From myself, and for your benefit, I should mention that the strange stiltedness of my description reflects the strange state of awareness that I entered when I entered this world and that this has been gradually changing to a state of simultaneously heightened and jaded awareness brought about by the vividness of the world which I have stumbled upon.

My name is Aeflithan, which means Evening Song in my own tongue and I am not very fanciful or prone to strange imaginings. According to the lizards my name in their tongue would be Elbe and means the Powerful Time, connoting birth, death and magical transformations. In the rest of this journal I shall refer to myself by the name they have given me and attempt to write somewhat less stiltedly. For your ease, and the clarity of my own mind, I shall write as though looking from the outside.



The lizard folk Glaur, Glomhna, Shadhoe and Eargh invited Elbe to sleep with them in Glaur\'s house that night, making clear that the decision upon whether to remain or leave must be made by morning. In the meantime Elbe could do as Elbe liked, as long as Elbe did no damage Lish, the name they called themselves by, or Lish property.

Thinking matters over in a corner of the court as he watched the Lish busy themselves about helping Glaur in his work, Elbe began to become aware of that inner quietitude and clarity of mind that he eventually came to associate with the Land of the Lish.

He wondered how defined the stipulations of the Lish had been. Would he have no chance to ever return to his home, if he decided to stay for a while? Would he never have the opportunity to return to this place if he decided not to stay? There were no real answers sitting here in the soft white dust of the courtyard. He would just have to make some sort of decision and see what happened. In the meantime he struggled, unaccustomed to siting cross-legged, to his feet against the resistance of his stiff knees and went to talk to the Lish.



He clambered over the fence around the home\'s filed with a little more difficulty than Glomhna had and walked stiff legged over to ask her what she was working at. In the centre of the field there was a large beast, as he thought, that she seemed to be tending.

For lack of a better opening line he asked,

\"What does it eat?\"

\"Oh, this is not alive! This is Glaur\'s work. I am merely adjusting some of the more simple of its mechanisms so that it will function properly.\"

Her tone was delicately querent, as though mildly, but not particularly inviting further conversation.

[Aerig]

Letting out some rein on his curiosity Elbe asked what it was supposed to do then.

\"We Lish are not all flighted, like Eargh, but we all have at least some ability to travel without muscle power. For centuries though, people like Eargh and the rest of us have speculated on what it would be like if we could all travel with the same speed he does.\"

\"Many projects like this have been completed over the years, so that, when your people do see us, we seem to you to flit through the air half seen like the pattern of leaves upon the ground.\"

Eargh\'s project is the greatest and most complex yet and we hope that we will be able, if it works, all of us to travel to places we have never before seen. Even Eargh cannot yet go to the places that we hope this machine will take us to.\"

Elbe answered,

\"It\'s a spaceship then?\"

\"No. Not at all. Your people\'s conception of reality is so limited by what you are.\"

\"A spaceship would take you to another world. To a different ball of mud than the one you are used to. Glaur\'s machine will allow us to travel to completely different types of reality. To places that are as like to the Land of the Lish as your own world is to this. In that your folk are lucky. You can come here, but we cannot go to your world except through your experience of this one.\"

\"Aren\'t you happy here?\", Elbe asked.

\"Why would you want to leave such a beautiful place?\"

\"To you our world is beautiful and calm. more so than your own world and those of you who come here usually stay. But for us this world is to us much as yours is to you.\"

\"It has dangers and limitations for us in the same way that yours does for you. Our life span is transitory, fleeting to us, in some way interlinked with the life of the people in your world, so that many of us often end before we are truly begun, his the result, unknowingly, of your peoples lack of awareness and knowledge of us.\"

\"Yet, when those of you who come here do, there is no way to send you back with more knowledge than those who leave can old. And most of you wish to stay. And you are welcomed because your being here seems to sustain us both, most of you living longer than you would otherwise do and more happily and extending the lives of the Lish also. It is a queer thing.\"

\"However, some of us sometimes stumble upon worlds as strange to us as ours is too you. Some of them also return, bearing tales of strange and wonderful places where sometimes we are welcome, sometimes not, but most often find more interesting.\"

\"Also our world has its own dangers to us. The Often is a malady which afflicts us, killing many and unassailable, since it originates in your world. Many of those of you who return live in parallel with those they meet here, gaining strength from them and unthinkingly feeding it back. But others of your people also have relationship with those of ours and, when yours expire, our people are afflicted with the Often. Sometimes our people can find another of your more numerous population, recovering from the malady, but more often we die for the lack of one of you whom both of us can benefit by.\"

\"Another slightly more direct danger to us are the Dryon. These are sometimes born of your people, what you call science, but deprived of all art and inspiration. These creatures meander our land catching unwary Lish and binding them in a bondage that leaches at their life, increasing the knowledge, and decreasing also the life of that one amongst your people who originated it.\"

\"These Dryon are insidious and perspicacious to both, yielding neither any real vitality only the semblance of it, so that we also would have our own scientists, were it not for the fact that the Dryon entrap those of our people that are caught by them. Your people call this relationship a Dragon, a beautiful but fiercesome beast which is loveless, if not animostic, toward you.\"

\"Very few of yours or ours have ever learned the secret of conquering the Dryon, though Eargh is one of ours who has, learning that one must not be enchained by its allure but must use that to strengthen the connection between your world and ours, your people and ours.\"

\"In being captured, and learning about and winning the secret of the Dryon, he has been able to explain to Glaur what the machine must be like and how it must function in order to carry us safely hence to thence. Thus you thought the machine a beast and wondered what it ate, It being very close to a Dryon in form and function.\"

As Elbe looked at the machine, he now saw why he had thought it animate, bulbous like a bee, with slender projections that resembled wings and four stolid feet that seemed to adjust like shock absorbers to some motion internal to it. A long mobile projection at the front, organic and much like a snout gave the  whole beast a look much like a blue, winged pig. For a moment he humorously pondered whether the atmosphere of this world might have a high content of alcohol, or some similarly narcotic substance.

Elbe thanked Glomhna for her extensive explanation of the machine and then asked if there were something he might eat. She suggested he ask Glaur and Elbe strolled into the Lish home.



Inside, Glaur\'s home was all fashioned of some material like wood, but softer and more malleable. Every wall was decorated with scenes of Lish life. Lizard like folk twined around each other in social coitus for one corner to the next and many scenes depicted Glaur, his  wife and, Elbe assumed, their community, at work about their daily business.

Elbe found Glaur working on some piece of insectoid Dryonic, as Elbe thought of it, Draconic, mechanism at a small bench in a back room of the home. The steel-like blue material glinted in the light of a bright white, petalled crystal that was set into the ceiling.

Elbe pointed at the flower like quartz asking,

\"What\'s that made of?\"

Glaur, concentrating intently on his work mumbled something along the lines of,

\"Suilcathrite.\"

Then,

\"It grows naturally in some parts of Lish Land, but we cultivate it mostly, since it\'s much more malleable when we cross culture the different wild varieties.\"

\"It\'s not a stone then?\"

\"Oh no. It\'s a plant that grows all over the Land of Lish. Even uncultivated we Lish use it for light when it gets dark.\"

[Aerig]

Elbe looked back down at the blue piece that Glaur was working on.

\"What\'s that for?\"

Glaur looked up at the human and answered that understanding would be like trying to follow the river when one barely knew the stream. Elbe expected him to follow the archetype of the gruff smith, but instead he looked up and grinned a toothy smile, asking if he could help with anything.

Elbe smiled back and admitted his hunger, adding that he could do with something to eat. Glaur put down his the small hammer he had been tapping the Dryon mechanism into shape with and suggested Elbe follow him to the kitchen.

There were several barrels, spigots sticking out toward the centre of the room lined up against the far wall.

\"Take your pick\", was Graul\'s easy suggestion, though I think your people prefer the one furthest left.

\"All liquid?\" Elbe asked, slightly disappointed at the lack of a more substantial filling.

\"They\'re various consistencies\", Glaur replied, amending that the one on the left was most viscous.

Elbe grabbed himself a bowl like container from a shelf along the left hand wall and turned the spigot until the bowl was full of the thick cream like syrup that issued from the tap. Glaur stated that Elbe should have as much as he wanted and left him to eat, presumably to go back to his workshop.

The thick pasty fluid that had filled his bowl was much like a yoghourt sauce Elbe had once had in an Indian restaurant. Minty in taste, it was smooth o the palate and quite filling. Nevertheless, he had another two bowls after his first before he felt full.



He left the kitchen and sauntered out into the hallway again, feeling full and more content that since he\'d arrived in Lish Land. While he was looking around he hall for interesting doors, Eargh stooped under the lintel of one, his wings ruffling back into place at his back.

\"Elbe! Settling in?\"

The unexpected ring of finality implied in Eargh\'s question snagged Elbe\'s focus, and he realised that he had never actually considered leaving.

\"Actually. Yes. There\'s something about this place calms me and makes me feel at home.\"

Eargh nodded, all anticipated, though unconceited, expectation of result.

\"I thought as much. Most of the folk of your world become comfortable here very quickly. Has Glaur seen to your needs? or one of the others?\"

It was obvious that was not Eargh\'s role. And equally obvious that making sure that someone else had was.\"

\"Thanks, Eargh, yes.\"

Elbe didn\'t know what formal title might be required and simply minded his manners. He found out later that the Lish were a well stratified but informal people to whom the idea of titles and honorifics was foreign.

\"Can you tell me any more about what I can expect if I stay here?\"



Eargh paused as he sought out the words for an appropriate reply, tucking his wings more tightly in against his shoulders as he did so.

\"You will find your life here different. In you own world your actions are mundane, banal. Here, you may be a simple peasant or a hero. But we are fewer. Less numerous, each of our actions has greater import, more impact on the world around us.\"

\"A the same time, there are even fewer of your own folk here. You may find the lack of company depresses you and leaves you wanting for the companionship of your own kind when that is simply not available.\"

\"Many of your people have come here and become heroes and heroines simple because they could not face the boredom that that lack of companionship represents to them. Lacking your normal stimuli, many of the people from your world that have come here have sought death in the guise of the internal excitement you gain from conflict.\"

\"Already beyond the par of your own worlds standard\'s, your species often become our heroes. Yet, for many of you there is often little happiness for you in our world. You seem to travel here as the result of some inability to be content in your own world, and that then persists in this.\"

\"Many more of you find the situation much the same but this place then fills a void that your own world could not. Those of you are just as often the heroes and heroines of our world, but out of a sense of devotion and determination to protect what they have found.\"

\"Some of you come and leave, unable to bear the thought of the stultification I described first.\"

Eargh paused.

\"I think you will like it here. From what I know and have seen of your folk.\"

Not the most pleasant array of prospects that Elbe had ever had described as future options and the food was only barely palatable. Still. Eargh and his people drew him. As perhaps their whole world had done. The idea of being heroic did not particularly appeal, but there was no denying that the former word seemed somewhat jaded.

It was hard to avoid the inwardly smiling, self depreciative shrug that, at once self depressing and self acknowledging, recognised the staleness and stagnation of the living room life that had led here.

Somewhat abashedly thanking Eargh, in the light of the lizard\'s lopsided insight into the state of Elbe\'s life, Elbe tread the corridor back to Glaur\'s workshop.

As he passed through the door and faced the quizzical look on the smith\'s face, half feeling\'s of shame and unsettlement passed through Elbe.

\"I feel I want to stay here. I talked to Eargh. But my reasons are selfish. I miss where I was already but hate it as much as I always did. And. I am simply scared of this place that is not where I was, and  of not being who I was,  and of not knowing how things work or what to do.\"

Glaur\'s glance up form the work table was what Elbe might have thought of as empathy, had the lizard man had tear ducts or Elbe been more used to the Lish.

\"Sometimes I wonder if that is how I will feel when my machine finally works and we Lish travel where we want to go. But, we must make so much effort in comparison to your people, Elbe.\"

\"I resent your people, who bring so much good and so much bad to us. But will we be any different where we go? Will I feel any different from you when that happens? It is so easy for you humans to stumble on our world, tripping inadvertently into what, for you, seems a paradise? Yet for you this is still paradise, and I think that with every tap of this hammer, with every piece that I join to the creature machine outside.\"

\"Forgive me, Elbe, but you are where you wanted to be, and I still strive to be where we want to be.\"

Glaur turned back to the intricate piece on the table, a tiny file in his clawed hand, working, a jeweller on some delicate ornament.

[Aerig]

Often  
 

The little Often sat in the Often\'s public house feeling quiet shy and inoffensive. But inside his mind, little Often was feeling anything but shy and inoffensive.

\'These Lish\', he thought, \'they think they rule the world, that we are the scum of their land. What have we ever done except want to live, to be alive, to be as much as they are themselves?\'

\"Have we ever outright molested them or otherwise sought to harm them? Have we ever done other than praise them or exalt their greatness? All we ever wanted was to be with them and adulate their beauty.\"

\"Yet they shun us and push us away. They neglect the value of our admiration, the light of our appreciation that helps them to shine.  It is so unfair. I will find myself a good Lish and show it the value of my concern.\"

The Often broke off its line of thought as one of the Lish passed, and then forgot to resume it as three other Often entered the room.

One was a tall Often, kind as usual, but angry compared with other Often, much inclined to self augmentation and very defensive of non-Lish, even defensive of Often.

One of the others was a skinny, elderly male with close shaved, white hair. He was overly inclined to consuming alcohol and known for his insidious and dependant behaviour. He was high amongst the Often and esteemed for the frequency of his masturbation.

The last was a fat, ugly female, notorious for the excellence of her nasty and spiteful behaviour, lacking only in her inability to evade her recent, Neanderthal heritage.

The little Often shook his head despairingly at them and mentally communed their incompetence to himself, unable to avoid the conviction and allure of believing himself a telepath.

\"You tall, limp geek,\" he thought, \"I have been in control of you all of your life and have been using your penis to feed myself with.

\"You wasted old brown eyed, freak. You fondle your head as a spider strokes its cranium before biting and your foreskin is worn thin from the same.\"

\"You gross old harridan, your fist is too small for you and the grey in your hair is matched only by the lack of it inside your skull.\"

His didactic effluent, the little Often attempted to moan to the closest Lish about the worms he had in his belly.

\"All my life they have been there now, monstrously long, slimy white things that eat my food before I can have it myself! And I cook them, I mean it, so delicately too!\"

\"I am an excellent cook you know. Spaghetti is my favourite, with a nice bay leaf or two. Some gristly fat and a bag of chips. I love it. I know you don\'t care, Mr. Lish. Or know how good I am for you, but I will keep trying. Right up until you can see what a wonderful Often I am.\"

\"I am so glad I found you, Mr. Lish. You could not have a better Often. Slim and seductive, my cock is so large that I will lure all the best female Lish to you. And then give them to you for your pleasure.\"

\"Oh, Mr. Lish, how lucky you are!\"

The little Often failed to notice that he was a fat, ugly little bastard, with a big nose, whose sole redeeming feature was that, in incompetent pursuit of his own selfish ends, he occasionally stumbled across a way to actually cause someone else happiness. Forgetting, or unaware the whole time, that his desperation for acknowledgement made it impossible for those he brought happiness to to reward him for that occasional but genuinely appreciated fluke of behaviour.

Poor little Often.

Seldom walked from the room the other three Often had passed in, and wondered if the janitor\'s post was sill open. He hadn\'t slept in a nice cock for ages and the room smelled of piss.

[Aerig]

Lost  

Elbe stood for a moment looking at Glaur, watching his hands work at the tiny mechanism. He didn\'t know what to do here and that left him with the urge to talk to the crafter. But he was obviously too busy and to much occupied with the work he was doing to distract with conversation, so he wandered back out into the hall vaguely interested in exploring.

Something about Liss seemed to be sapping him of energy, even as the mood it introduced in him seemed to be motivating him in ways that were foreign to his normal state of mind.

He considered the idea of going to look for Eargh but something, possibly only Eargh\'s own perception of him as a noble, put him off going to find the Liss. Instead, he went out and sat in the whitish dust of the home\'s front court.

He sat there, thinking, it felt, almost nothing for many minutes, before he started to wonder if the strange somnolence of mind that he felt was the result of his own knowledge that lizards generally slept during the day. Also a result, perhaps, of some feeling of his own that the slow lidded serpent folk seemed sleepy.

Perhaps this strangely taut lethargy was a byproduct of both that perception of the environment and a present but unfathomed internal reaction to his entry to this place. Could the unusualness of it all be vying with his admittedly unexpected calm acceptance of it be draining him on some emotional level that he found difficult to recognise simply because he had never experienced it before?

Could some subtle quirk of his own mind be trying to tell him, in some twisted subconscious way, that, deep within himself, he really wanted to stay here? Had he deliberately adopted a lethargic mood, a perceived lizard-like state because he was trying to tell himself that he had already made his decision about staying here?

Was he trying to tell himself that he wanted to stay here, that he wanted to belong here, by attempting subconsciously, in the only way that he currently could, to fit into his new surroundings as one of its people in the only way that his former understanding of that knew how? By emulating what he thought they should be like in the face of blatant, but extremely difficult to believe, evidence to the contrary.

At that, the reality of what he had been doing, of what had been happening around him, of the nature of the creatures he had been dealing with suddenly seized him with a viciousness and forcefulness of shock that Elbe was totally unprepared for.

He hunched over himself, cross legged in the dust, and pulled his torso toward his feet as an intense quaking began in the pit of his stomach. He felt as though his body was another body shaking inside himself, suffocating the form he was used to as its shuddering compressed his lungs from the inside as though the part of himself that was inside was some vast caterpillar like creature trying to break out of the cocoon that was the body he was used to.

He felt dizzy and nauseous at the same time as he suddenly realised that he had been, all along, terrified of this strange environment and its stranger inhabitants, that he had spontaneously and unthinkingly thrown himself into, and now found to large for his comprehension, emotionally at least, to encompass.

Part of himself felt like standing upon and rushing over to where Glomhna worked by the Dryon machine and demanding of her that she tell him what, or who, she really was and how and why she had played such and unbearably cruel trick on him, how she had managed to so confuse his senses that he had believed himself in another world and reality.

Even overwhelmed with shock as he was, however, the analytic state of mind in which he had begun thinking still held him in its grip so that he retained enough self control, just, that he recognised the urge as an upwelling of the sort of childish fear and attitude that demanded an immediate confrontation with the source of that fear, rather than a steadier and more likely successful, calm and rational approach.

The intensity of that realisation, striking at him simultaneously on both mental and emotional levels, and the difficulty he had had in maintaining his control over himself, suddenly dissipated and he became aware of the ache of inwardly knotted muscle and gut that he had held unconsciously clenched for the last several minutes.

Relaxing as much as he felt able, Elbe straightened up again, but not without noticing that the distinct sensation of his body having a second within itself was still there, even though the two now seemed to be fusing, like a muscle composed of separate and opposing parts but which work cooperatively together, into a single form.

It occurred to Elbe that perhaps this second body was not really there at all and only the emotional stress of this whole situation had caused him to imagine it to be there, unable to associate with the depth and strength of the onset of an emotional reaction so unlike his normal self that he imagined it as being a second form of himself within himself.

Even so, a part of himself suddenly liked the idea of there being two of himself within himself, whether that was a physical reality or an emotional analogy of resources that were part of who he was and had never tapped. Admittedly, a second him who could provoke such a strong reaction might not seem too beneficial, but the instinctive emotional interpretation of the two bodies fusing to become a single body clearly implied that in some way he had gained from the experience, assimilating it in a way that was compatible with his overriding personality rather than being disrupted by it.

That realisation, and a humourous twinkle that seemed to originate from the depths of his mind, restored his strength and quelled the shaking of his limbs so that he now rose smoothly to his feet as he headed toward Graul\'s Dryon device and more level headed chat with Glomhna than he would earlier have been capable of.

He brought himself up short, however, as his surroundings also began to impinge once more on his awareness and he realised that he must have been sitting in the dirt for some few hours, the air having turned chill and night beginning to fall.

He continued walking toward the corral beside the house, automatically resuming his original intention, before he realised that, unless the Liss had noocturnal vision, Glomhna would hardly still be working by the device. In fact, he could see no sign of her or light to work by, so he turned his steps back toward Glaur\'s home and passed in across the porch, closing the door quietly behind him.

[Aerig]

Conversation  

Inside the house, glowing Suilcathrite the hall and Glaur\'s carvings with a pristine white light that had a crystalline quality that made the very air seem to sparkle.

In spite of a burgeoning sense of triumph, Elbe felt somewhat timid at the thought of meeting the Liss right at that moment, the prospect of meeting all of them at once somewhat intimidating. So instead of heading for Glaur\'s workshop, where he expected them to be, he moved toward the kitchen, the idea of the strange Liss food unappetising, but the appeal of the quiet kitchen strong.

He stopped shot at its door thought, finding out hen that all four Liss were sitting around a hinged flap that they had raised from the wall to serve as a table. Each had a bowl of the gruel like substance on the table before them. Elbe fetched himself a bowl and drew himself off its measure from the same barrel spigot as before.

He looked around the room and, spotting a line of stools where they nestled under a shelf along the wall by the door, drew one over to the table flap and sat at an unoccupied space between Eargh and Shadhoe.


Eargh spoke almost immediately, perhaps intending to allay any discomfiture that Elbe might be feeling and definitely doing so. His large golden amber eyes focussed on Elbe with what Elbe thought might be an expression of kindness, as he asked,

\"Are you alright, Elbe. You seemed to sit outside very still for a long time and we thought that perhaps we had erred in our belief that you would like being here. If that is the case, you should not worry as you will return to your world before morning.\"

Elbe thought deeply, considering all he had thought and felt since leaping through his living room window into this world, especially the  thoughts he had had sitting outside.

Unexpectedly, even to himself he asked in response,

\"What will happen to my body if I stay here? I\'m not really here physically am I?\"

Eargh paused seeming to start to think about the issue, then looked in appeal at Shadhoe, who said,

\"I am not best equipped amongst the Liss to deal with your kind directly, but I have spent some time studying these matters, so Eargh asks me to answer your question.\"

\"The answer is no and yes. Your body as such is not presently here. From what we know of the way these things happen, you are still where you are, having what seems to other a deep dreaming sleep from which they cannot wake you.\"

\"Should you decide to return they will put that down to exhaustion or any other plausible reason you may give for that.\"

\"However, the answer is also yes because if you stay, that is what the case will be.\"

\"Sometimes, we have heard, those who stay here live still in there own world, their bodies and minds living out the spiritless type of existence that often seems to provoke their unexpected entry to Liss. To all around them, much as they were.\"

\"Sometimes though, your people disappear from your world entirely, no longer there physically, but completely here.\"

\"If you choose to stay here, it will make little difference to you excepting that, if your body remains in your world also, you will occasionally dream of your former world, aware of its events and happenings almost as though you had actually returned there.\"

Elbe listened quietly and said,

\"I asked out of curiosity and on the spur of the moment. I have already decided that, if you can help me to understand this world, how it works and how I might fit in here, then I will stay.\"

\"I think I would stay even if you could not. Something about Liss is very beautiful and holds a strong appeal to me and you Liss yourselves are very different and interesting.\"

Glomhna softly interjected,

\"We were worried. Sometimes your people arrive here and are very strange to start with. Other times they become strange soon after they arrive. Yet other times they become very strange after they have lived here for a while.\"

\"We always welcome you for the same difference and richness that you feel about us, but times your folk also become hostile when they become strange, accusing us of doing something to them for reasons that make no sense.\"

\"For that reason we always make clear that, while we welcome people from you world when they want to stay here, we will not allow you to harm our folk or property.\"

\"I think that when you sat in the yard you fought this strangeness. And now I think you have overcome it. You have the light in your eyes that many of your people do not find until they have been here some time, often years.\"

\"We are glad of that, because those of your people whose eyes shine with that light never become strange in that way and our people get on better with them for that, more able to help them find a place for themselves in Liss.\"

\"Eargh has suggested that, as the Liss most able to relate to your people and help you settle here, that if that was your choice you should spend most time with me.\"

\"Under current circumstances that is also the most practical arrangement for us. But you should not feel that there is any reason to avoid the others of us, Glaur having said that your conversation was brief and unobtrusive.\"

\"Because of that he has said that if you would like to sit and watch as he works, asking occasional questions about his work or anything else about Lish that he might be able to answer, he will not find you distracting.\"

\"Shadhoe and Eargh both have many responsibilities and duties and while they do not mind spending some time helping you adjust to living in our world, they cannot devote much time to that specifically.\"

\"But. I, Shadhoe and Eargh are going to the local community tomorrow and Shadhoe suggested that, if you are still here, you might like to come along and see how other Liss live, thinking that perhaps that might yield you some ideas as to what you yourself might occupy yourself with.\"

\"Unfortunately their are none of your folk living in our closest community so you will not be able to ask any of those who live amongst us for advice or help.\"

Elbe shook his head vigourously at that,

\"I\'m not all that bothered about that. To start with, I learn better by watching what goes on around me and, also, I think I will probably learn to accept being here and understand your folk better if I do not have other people of my own kind to rely on.\"

Glomhna\'s eyes flickered in, what Elbe took for disturbance, as he spoke the word accept. Half seeming to refer to her previous knowledge and half wondering if her interpretation was correct, she asked,

\"I have noticed that your folk sometimes seem not to have accepted something even while they have accepted the same thing. In this you sometimes seem very strange to us. Is my understanding correct when I think that you have decided to stay here, but that when you say you still have things to accept about that, that you really mean you desire to have a greater understanding of all the small things that that involves? That without experience and understanding of the fact of that, that you somehow feel that you have not accepted things fully?\"

Elbe looked into the surface of the table flap for a moment, brows drawn together as he realised that the Liss perspective would raise many issues that he had often taken for granted about his own manner of existence.

\"Some of that is accurate, maybe more accurate than I would normally think. But, as well as that, I think people often make a decision that is not completely wholehearted, though very much so, but limited by the extent to which they feel their understanding of situations is.\"

Glomhna smiled at that, a strange flicking of her reptilian tongue that Elbe had learned to understand as satisfaction and rose from the table.

\"Follow me and I\'ll show you your room. You needn\'t sleep yet if you coose not to, but it will save you asking later.\"

She led Elbe through a door beside Glaur\'s workroom and along a short corridor at the furter end of which a tight, fairly steep ramp led up to the upper floor of the buuilding. As she tread the ramp the elegant lizard lady explained,

\"We all sleep upramp, so if you need anything during the night just knock one of the other doors. Some of the rroms are empty, but one of us will most likely here you anyway.\"

As she talked, Glomhna opened a room door and let Elbe precede her as they walked inside. Elbe galnced around the room and immediately noticed the difference from a human sleeping space.

The bed was at floor level, surrounded by a smoothly curved wooden ring about six inches high. Inside the ring the floor was covered by a thin padded, burgundy mat of some rubbery material similar to that of the mats he would expect to find in a gym. Several
Sturdy cushions occupied the space. Elbe assumed these paralleled rocks that a lizard might huddle against for warmth and were a psychological aspect of a Liss sleeping space there for emotional comfort rather than out of necessity, several wool-like blankets giving more substantial source of warnth.

As he reached out for a closer inspection he was surprised to find that the material was not at all like wool and would have hold very little heat. As he frowned at this, Glomna indicated a cage-like structure on one side of te sleeping pit.

\"The creatures in the box have an affinity for Liss, cleaning our scales and warming us as we sleep. They don\'t find the same occupation with humans, but they seem to like something about your people and provide warmth. If you are cold, open the box and they will sleep over you keeping you warm in the same way as they do ourselves.\"

Elbe looked closely into the box and saw several furry, puppy-sized creatures that creatures that resembled squirrels in the bushiness of their tales but had squarish boxlike bodies, like small cows. Their multifaceted eyes lent them a spiderish aspect and they moved quickly, close to the ground in a way that was also spiderish, or perhaps more similar to the low bellied slink of a hunting fox. They had small cone shaped, beak like mouths with longish tongues similar to those of anteaters, though possibly more delicate.
Elbe looked round at Glomhna,

\"I think I might as well turn in now. To be honest, its been a longer day than I expected at the start of it.\"