Eyes and Ears

Time exists here, but time rarely progressed.  Creatures were born and died, but they knew not disease or old age.  They simply were.  Not at peace, but at balance.

The spark of something different happened once.  A creature unlike the others, but like those that came long ago, back when time could progress, when terrain changes and structures rise and were torn down.

This creature came to the small village where a group lived in their eternal balance, and brought with it during the night the monsters.  The monsters were part of the balance too, but it had been a very long time since they had seen these, and felt the need to run from them else they become monsters too.

The light drove the monsters away, as well as the iron guardians that roamed the village.  It would be okay.

The one without eternity left the village and raised a structure at the top of the hill that overlooked the village.  And with that building, a new type of eternal creature appeared.  They knew things about the world, much more than the others.  They remembered the oldest secrets and paved the way to parts unknown.

I am the eyes.  My name is Carta.

My partner is the ears.  His name is Doc Richard.

We arrived into this world without knowing ourselves, but the taste of the golden apple changed us into something different.

Doc listened and learned from the creature who could not experience eternity.  I watched and learned the things that they did, explored and remembered things I should not have remembered.

Doc listened to the words.  I read the books.  We found out there were many magics in this world, yet undiscovered by our kind.  But maybe we were new?  Maybe there would not be others like us.

We found out about gender, although we did not understand it, this creature was "she".  She brought back all sorts of new books and magics, items of mystery and amazing tools and weapons and creatures.

She wasn't the only one of her kind.  There were other places where others existed.  Some were her, and some were "other" and she wasn't surprised by this.  But she wasn't eternal, and when she died, I and Doc mourned her death.  We couldn't bring another into the world like her, but we had watched what she did and brought the actual her back with the old magics.

But what would happen if she went too far away from us?  Would she disappear forever?

Doc suggested we never let her out of my sight for long, he wanted to listen and learn more of the others, and so even though we sent her on small trips, ultimately it was the others that we convinced to go in her stead on dangerous missions.

I thought maybe they were expendable.  But one by one they all died and we couldn't bring them back.  They didn't have us.  There were only a few left now, so they had to be cautious.  Keep her close.

I played dumb, but Doc felt guilty and I felt sorrow for what we had done by opening the door to give her a place to roam.  

The one that hit us the hardest was the flower child.  She fell to a curse, but survived.  Her friends brought her back.  Doc and I had no hand in it, so when the next curse hit a new world, we sent her, thinking full well she would survive as she had before.

But we messed up.  We sent her too early.

I think about it as I pack my bags to go to this new world with her.  Doc worries about the monsters, and so do I.  I tell him to pack his bags and stay close.  And when the letter came we left the only home we knew.

I didn't feel myself change, I saw it.  Doc would have heard the moans but I lost track of him.  Should I have lead him here?  What did I do?

I'm not sure how long I forgot.

But as I sat in the room with her looking down on me asking about Doc, I came to understand I'd messed up.  My partner was gone and for the first time since we met, I didn't know where he was and I was crushed.

I spent a long time up in my room mourning this.  Alone.  Barely speaking, trying to figure out where he could have gone, how did we get separated?

I hesitated suggesting she go find him, but I was becoming desperate.

She said she would make the arrangements to go.

And now I wait to know what will happen.