The Other Side of the Vveil
It was a well-known fact to all his friends that Eridan Ampora believed in magic. He was a reclusive fellow, even to his moirail, shutting himself for days, maybe weeks, inside his giant warship hive, studying the magical arts. The only times he ever came out was the occasional Lusus hunt for Feferi’s Lusus and the odd FLARP challenge from Vriska, but that became increasingly rare as the perigees passed. Other than that, he stayed in his hive, reading and hoping to somehow gain the ability to perform the magical arts.
At least, that’s what everyone else thought.
Six sweep old Eridan carefully pattered down the stairs of his hive, down to the depths that went beneath the ship itself and into the island it was beached on. The stone walls turned smooth as he descended, with only the white glow from the tip of Ahab’s Crosshairs to guide him. Soon enough strange markings in an alien language started covering the walls, and lanterns that burned without oil cast a strange green glow on the young troll as he pushed onwards. The stairs then leveled out and Eridan was met with a large chamber of some sort, lit by lanterns with grey flames instead. The chamber was completely empty, sans one thing that stood out.
A stone Archway with a tattered veil stood in the center of the large, echoing chamber. Words in the same alien language were etched in the grey stone of the Archway. While the arch’s presence in an underground cavern was strange enough, Eridan could also make out whispers from the other side, though he did not know what they were saying. While Eridan could walk around the Archway, the whispers would only come from one side. He had put his hand in from the front and realized that it did not go to the other side, but when he reached from the other way it did. But this didn’t bother the seadweller in the slightest. Instead, he uncapchalogged his husktop and began to type out more notes as he inspected it. Eridan had been doing this since he found it half a sweep ago, and was trying to learn what the inscriptions actually meant.
He could only translate the word ‘Magic’, which was written on the walls many times and the Archway only once. Though the aliens’ method of writing was peculiar, when he realized to pattern, as instead of the Alternian way of writing letter from right to left and from the bottom up, the alien inscriptions were written from right to left and top to bottom. Eridan just shook his head at these strange alien antics and continued typing. After a while he got up to stretch his cramped legs and headed to the back of the chamber.
Pushing in a brick, the violet blooded troll stood back as a portion of the wall swung open to reveal a secret room. This room was smaller, the size of a large respiteblock, but held a few chairs. Each chair was occupied by a skeleton, clothed in colored robes. Eridan had found them lying in the chamber, and decided to put them in the small room to study them. They were definitely aliens as although they were bipedal like trolls, their bones were much denser, but not as strong. Each hand contained four fingers and an opposable thumb, in comparison to a troll’s three fingers and thumb. Their teeth were square (and, unlike the seadwellers, had only one row), and their claws were thin and flimsy. The skulls were devoid of horns, which frightened Eridan a little, how were they to sense their surroundings with only five senses? Eridan had fun typing down these facts, and found even more interesting things in the robe pockets of these aliens.
Each alien had a wooden stick that could only be a wand, and the small troll relished in studying them, and in some pockets he even found alien scrawling on strange, thick paper that reminded him of Lusus hide. Glass phials of different shapes and sizes, holding strange liquids, and feathery quills of varying color and size were all gathered and put on the shelves that Eridan had put up to hold these items. During his inquisitive exploring, Eridan had also realized that some pockets were larger on the inside when he pulled out what looked like a stylized black cleaning branch that held alien letters and numbers. The cleaning branch actually floated, and the troll accidentally flew around the chamber when he was holding it. Eridan was also fond of the rings that he found in the robe pockets, which he took to wearing himself. Putting them on was interesting, as he felt the rings ‘bond’ to him (if that made any sense, which it really didn’t, thought Eridan) when he did so.
Then there was the stone with a few inscriptions that didn’t match the alien’s writing pattern. They looked to be troll identification symbols, and Eridan was a little spooked as he found the zig-zag lines of his own identification symbol. He didn’t really know what it did, so it sat on its own little shelf for further research. There was also a vial that Eridan knew immediately was blood, but it was strange. It was a lighter color of the rust bloods, almost scarlet, and surely not a color he’d ever seen as blood before, sans the legendary Sufferer. There was also the plethora of gold, silver, and bronze coins that were in small beast skin pouches. The troll had moved them, piled high, into his hive, but he was thinking of just capchalogging the lot because his free space was dwindling.
All these items pulsed with an energy Eridan could only think was Magic. It made his heart leap at the thought. He had tried to use the wands that he found, but he accidentally blew up a chair the first time he waved one and therefore decided that it was a bad idea. After that he tore a few of the wands apart, dissecting them and found that they all had strange objects in the middle. One had an orange, fiery feather, two had a silver hair and another had a heartstring. It was the heartstring that blew up on him, so he usually kept his distance on that one. So Eridan tried to make his own, using the woods from his home planet and whittling them to a similar likeness, trying the objects out in the hollow centers, but to no avail. All he ended up with was a pile of wands that didn’t work.
Now, Eridan patted one of the skulls, and traced his finger on one of the shelves. He wrapped his scarf (deep blue and light blue/silver, it actually was in one of the alien’s pockets, he treasured it dearly) a little tighter around himself. Taking one of the wands that were still left intact, he cautiously waved it a little. One of the skeleton’s chairs lost another leg and Eridan groaned. Sighing, he placed it back on the shelf, dejected. He walked out of the room, closing the wall and recapchalogged his husktop. Picking up Ahab’s Crosshairs, Eridan made his way back to his hive, vowing to come back tomorrow. Once he got back to his respiteblock, Eridan capchalogged Ahab’s Crosshairs, and curled up in a violet plush chair with a good military history textbook.
That was, until a pinging noise disrupted him. Rolling his eyes, Eridan took out his husktop and opened Trollian.
--- arachnidsGrip [AG] began trolling caligulasAquarium [CA] ---
AG: Hey Fishf8ce! Peixes tells me you’ve 8een at your hive all day playing wizard!
CA: an you wwould care wwhy?
AG: 8ecause wizards and magic are stupid! Come ON, Ampora, don’t tell me you actually 8elieve all that crap!
CA: wwhether i do or wwhether i don’t shouldn’t bother you. dare i say that you should be doin other, far more productivve thins than pesterin me about wwhatevver the glub you were going to do.
AG: Ampora, I THOUGHT we were in cahoooooooots! Don’t YOU have a genocide machine to 8uild? I thought so. Your last one didn’t even start up. Stop playing with stuff that doesn’t exist and live in the real world for once!!!!!!!!
CA: ugh, for your information vvris i’vve been studyin for our next FLARP duel, so unless you wwant to cancel that lay off a botherin me with your falsely grandiose shenanigans.
AG: Fiiiiiiiine! >::::::::( Smell ya later fish8oy!
--- arachnidsGrip [AG] ceased trolling caligulasAquarium [CA] ---
Oh did that Serket get on his nerves. He hated her, and he was starting to see that it wasn’t the ‘waxing black’ he thought it was. No, Eridan was starting to understand that the hate that gripped his heart was just annoyance at such a self-centered, self-absorbed troll who bothered people for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Seahorsedad seemed to pick up on his charge’s displeasure, and nuzzled his custodian. Eridan gave his lusus a sigh and patted the floating white seahorse on the head, scratching behind the fins to placate him.
Attempting to do something productive, the violet blooded seadweller started to sort his respiteblock out. Books went back onto the shelves, clothes were folded and put away, and maps were rolled up and placed back where they belonged. There was still, however, no room. Eridan growled at the piles of coins, and decided that if he was going to keep them around, might as well be in the smallest space possible. So, he took the bottomless hide pouch from his desk drawer and started to fill the bag with the offending currency. Soon enough the bag still felt as light as before and his room had a ton of extra space. Eridan grinned to himself as his lusus just sighed and shook his head. Shaking the bag, Eridan frowned. He reached into the bag and it felt empty. Thinking to himself about getting the coins out, he suddenly felt the presence of the coins around his fingers. His eyes narrowed, and thought of only three coins, one of each metal. He pulled his hand back and lo and behold, that’s what he had in his hand.
A maniacal grin spread across Eridan’s face as he practically flew down the stairs back to the room behind the chamber, which he had dubbed ‘the Lab’, with his exasperated lusus trailing behind.
Meanwhile, on the true ‘other side’ of the archway, a battle was being fought. This was in a place that didn’t even share the same universe, never mind the same galaxy. No, this battle was taking place in a spiral galaxy, on a small blue and green planet the inhabitants called Earth. Specifically, it was taking place in a continent called Europe, in a country called England, underneath the place the magical population of Britain called the Ministry of Magic, inside the Department of Mysteries.
Curses were flying from every which way as the Death Eaters fought the Order of the Phoenix, which had been tipped off by Severus Snape. Harry Potter was clutching a sphere with mist inside, trying to defend himself from Lucius Malfoy. The long haired blond pureblood was knocked off his feet by a well-placed Stunner by Sirius Black, whom had once again jumped in just in time. Harry grinned at his godfather, and together they flung Stunners and jinxes that were trying to compete with Cruciatus and Killing curses. What they didn’t see happening was that Bellatrix Lestrange had herded the dog animagus in front of the Veil, so when Harry tried to yell out to Sirius, it was too late. All they could do was watch Sirius fall through the Veil, with Bellatrix cackling as she thought her cousin was now dead.
