Alnya's Garden
I found myself somewhere I shouldn't have been again. Anlyth, after having been proven wrong, would surly be having his patience tested by me, I knew I shouldn't keep testing it. Yet... That strange room, in the back of the Cathedral, the one they always told me was locked, hadn't been. I was told by the Celestial Guards that roamed the Cathedral, that the upper levels of the building were the home to the Queen, that very few of the Children were ever invited into that domain.
The home of a goddess. Strange thing. I had seen her in ways that very few had ever been given the opportunity, even her own Champion, Taneth The Navigator, was surprised in the conversations I have had with him. It would seem that even his own creator was a mystery to him, Eons later and familiarity, she was an enigma to many. I had seen her in her real form in the Tower, I didn't understand then, still did not understand now. Yet, she kept allowing herself to be seen in increasingly, for lack of better words, intimate ways.
She always appeared before the Children as a Fae, silver lace crown to adorn her head and pointed ears, eyes ever closed. She had allowed herself to be examined while she did the same to me when I first set foot in the Elsewhere, it was the only reason I found that she meant me no harm, her followers and Children however, well they remained to be seen. These stairs seemed to descend past where I knew the bottom the floating Isles ended, nearly an hour I had been walking down them and I had yet to see the bottom.
I wondered, if I had not made a grave mistake. Remembering back to when she showed me kindness in the heat of adversity to the other Children. Me, so far removed from the source of it all, and yet she embraced me as her own. Did I now notice the stairs had given way to a carpet of soft moss, the air had grown thick with humidity. The smell of earth just before the rain filled my nose, as curtains of lichens and hanging peat sprouted from the walls. This was vastly different to the world above, the Elsewhere had been built to serve the Children, to allow their civilization thrive and expand. A haven to rebuild their strength, so this wyld place, seemed in stark contrast.
Small lights had appeared in the dark well below me, still this stairway continued. My descent only brought me eye level to a swarm of fireflies that continued on as if they mimicked skies of alien worlds. A strange sense of melancholy filled the space, no. Melancholy was the wrong word, nostalgia. An odd sense of timelessness, filled it all.
I didn't notice when the stairway ended, even longer when it dawned on me that the numerous, seemingly endless small hills were covered in cobblestone walls like a back country farmland, yet again, the moss clung to everything. Mists thick in the black sky above me, though my mind told me it was night, it was bright as a noonday sun. Shifting in the liminal space were more of these fireflies, it was quiet. Not a sound, no crickets, no birds, not even the sound of the wind grazing it's way through the rocky walls.
"A goddess of law and order, is what they told me she was. The one to bring balance to the other three." I wondered out loud.
"Ah, Gjorn, I didn't realize you were here." Her all too familiar voice filled the space, echoing endlessly in this... well I didn't understand what this place was.
"Alnya? Where are you?" My voice echoed out, yet seemed to die only a few feet beyond me.
"I am here, everywhere, nowhere. I suppose you could consider me the mists at the moment. But, not quite." Her voice was soft, almost embarrassed.
"What is wrong? I know I shouldn't have come down here, I was merely curious."
"Ah, this place is my creation. I didn't want the Children, nor you to see how limited only a single member of The Quartet is. This place has no influence of Kyln, nor Syn, nor Villy. Only me, a pure expression of myself. This place doesn't experience time, tis a simple realm. No sun, no stars, rules are simple. No sound, no variance. A realm of black of white." She spoke as she materialized beside me, slipping her fingers through mine, looking like a Dwarf rather than a Fae. "You are the first person to see my Garden, would you like to see more?"
Geography
Beyond the moss ridden staircase is a vast and endless sea of mossy covered hills. Small walls that create terraces for the moss to continue even more, staircases that lead to nowhere. Only to wonder at the emptiness of this mist strewn abyss, bright and dark all the same. As far as the eye can see, is only the same landscape seen in any direction, no sense of direction, no sense of time, no bed rock, no landmarks, no identifying characteristics to guide someone along. As if one had landed into the mind of lost and listless fog, dreaming of the lake it once hung above.
Ecosystem
There is nothing, only the endless pathless flight of fireliflys that the Queen finds enchanting. Only the stagnant growth of the still moss that can never spread, the shifting mists that keep the moss healthy and hale. This place is quite literally timeless, in a way that mortals find extremely unsettling. Should one realize it, they will find out they do not breath here.
Tourism
Should one find themselves here and Alnya is fine with you being there, they would find this place an excellent place to meditate. Nothing to distract, nothing to steal the attention away, nothing to do except face inward. Though, only one with a formidable mental fortitude should venture here, this place taxes every sense not for its intensity, but lack thereof.
Alternative Name(s)
The Silent Garden
Type
Abyss
Location under
Owner/Ruler
Owning Organization
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