Borealis Twenty Four - Dancer

     Bodies congealed. Then bodies revealed, and rainbows fantastic in abundance-- Bliss walked, bobbed eternal, but reality tripped, glowering infernal, robust with flattened, finite attitudes. On top, a music blared ins and outs-- its ways and wants from the speakers adjusted by the hands of the uncaring and the frivolous and quaint. Elsewhere, people slept far further down, downed until they waked, and harder workers worked harder down still with no future rewards in sight, just tedious delirium and sadness.
     Meanwhile, the hot sun had long since set itself once again, its glowing creeping deep below the dusty horizoned windowsill of the lone Borealis, a city looked awkwardly out from but not deservedly in, until now. And there, from a small screen in a dimly lit room, there displayed before the girls-- a monotonous dance of the aforementioned. Men at computers, scientists at imagining, and people, the real Business Types, the ones of whom lacked all business, strutted and bopping to a miserable beat whacked-pulsating with apathy and an adulterated love for the monotonous. Incessance.
     Aurora leaned forward, closer to the screen. "What are they doing?" she said.
     Ember coughed. "Dancing." Cleared her throat. "Looks dumb, huh?"
     Aurora scrunched her face. "A little." And she watched a little while longer.
     Everyone was touching and bumping into each other. And... everyone looked intoxicated, at least on some stretched out paramount level of obfuscation that lacked importance, perhaps something manufactured to replicate a sharp, loathsome pheromone traditionaly released deep within the depths of desperation.
     "Ember?"
     "Yeah?"
     "Is this part of 'Mirage' as well?"
     The girl scratched her head. "Probably," she answered. "Anything that can disorient is fair game within that thing, uh..." She thought for a moment. "Whatever it is..."
     Ember found it difficult to formulate her thoughts properly. The dance moves were sucking them in, too. The heat waves and the emotions contained within the moving pictures the girls watched... The substances involved... they moved them too, distracting them, but the girls felt something else, something different. They felt pity. They had both experienced the taste of the truths in their lives, and the girls had both had inklings of the greatnesses tickled into their big hearts and full brains, their soft souls and darker thoughts. It was the same warmth the girls had experienced atop the discovery of new things, whether through their two plates of cold eggs or some articulated, stale carbon cups of space age turquoise juice.
     Aurora felt gassy. The juice hadn't set very well with her. "Ember?"
     "Hm?"
     "Have you ever, um..." she trailed off, distracted again. "Have you ever asked Garnet about 'Mirage' before?"
     Fed up, Ember shut off the blurry, colored video screen they had both been looming over for far too long. "Not exactly," she yawned. "But I did hear it from him once."
     Curious, Aurora spurted out, "Oh yeah?"
     "Yeah, and get this. He's not fat or an outsider either. He's blonde and skinny."
     Aurora threw-up a splash of bluey space age goo. Her drink from before. "What?!"

Borealis Twenty One - Perpendiculars in Parallel

     Ember smiled, "Yup, I was right behind you." She walked over to Aurora's side and looked out at the city along with her friend. "If it hadn't been for that champagne bottle of yours, I probably would have never noticed you."
     "You think so?" Aurora asked, somewhat rhetorically.
     "Yeah. I mean, you're lucky it wasn't more than just me and those guys--"
     "The Riser Dogs?"
     "Yeah, who noticed you. You know," Ember turned to face Aurora, but the city girl kept her face planted against the window. "You never did tell me where you got that bottle from."
     Sounding somewhat bored with Ember's question, the city girl responded, "Garnet."
     "What?"
     "Garnet. I got it from Garnet. He gave it to me. He gives me all sorts of things."
     Aurora watched the activity going on outside on the various visible roofs and buildings, partially glad that she wouldn't have to deal with the stresses of the outside for once, partially sad that she wasn't in between those stresses roaming the city with the wind in her hair. The air inside the city felt so stale. "Hey, Ember," she said.
     Ember was lost in thought.
     "Ember?"
     "Hm? Yeah?"
     "If you didn't know what eggs were until today, how did you know what champagne was when you saw me?"
     Ember walked away from the window to the back of the room. "We actually have that here."
     "You do? Why would you have that and not eggs?"
     "Eggs don't help you feel better."
     Aurora turned away from the window. "Feel better? How does champagne make you feel better. It just makes me sleepy."
     "That's just it. It makes you feel different. It numbs you and makes you forget about life for a little while. Isn't that why you drink it?"
     Bored again, the city girl turned back to her city, and said, "I suppose so. I've never really thought about it much. I just hate dreaming."
     The girls had been so excited a few moments ago. Now they both felt so tired, like they had used up all of their emotions in one go. It seemed boredom was the only thing that they could feel with any enthusiasm after going through everything that they had been through. They were thirsty too. So that was something outside of boredom that they could feel. Garnet hadn't had anything to drink on hand when they had eaten breakfast that morning, which was somewhat ironic, considering what had led them to be in his presence, at least in a round about way.
     Ember waved her hand in front of one of the white tiles on the wall perpendicular to the room's window. The tile pixelated away and revealed a cold, cloudy cubby that was self lit and glowing with a light pulse. Ember waved away another tile, the one directly below the cubby. Hidden there were a couple silver knobs and a dozen brass buttons on a black panel. There was a screen as well, black like the panel and filled with green, electronic lettering that changed with each button press. After a few minutes, Ember decided on a button combination and turned one of the knobs. A glass door slid over the front of the cubby, and the cubby slowly filled with white, puffy smoke. The smoke swirled around as it entered, pulling closer to the center of the machine as it spun. Within seconds, it congealed together and hardened, forming two glasses. Green and blue liquids then poured from the roof of the cubby, mixing together inside the two glasses to create a vibrant sort of glowing turquoise. Once the glasses were filled, the glass door slid away, Ember reached inside and grabbed the glasses, and then walked back over to her friend's side.
     "Thirsty?" she said.
     Her friend didn't respond, but there was an odd expression on her face, one that suggested dread and confusion.
     Ember moved closer to Aurora, "Are you okay?"
     The city girl swallowed nervously, "How are we here?"
     "What do you mean? We walked here. Garnet--"
     "No, I mean how are we here if the building I was sitting on, the one right there, is the second tallest building in Borealis?"
     Ember didn't understand. "Well, shouldn't this one be the tallest, then?" she asked.
     Aurora shook her head. "No. It shouldn't. Because that one is." She pointed at a building off in the distance that towered far above everything else in the city. "I was staring at it the night you saw me, and I certainly don't remember there ever being anything behind me that night. No building. Only sky."
     "Here." Ember tapped her foot on the floor twice, and a small, waist high cylinder emerged from the floor where she had tapped. She set down the glasses on the cylinder and turned her full attention to where her friend was pointing. "Well," she said. "That building does appear to be level with this one. Maybe it's one of those buildings. If it is, I can't believe I've never noticed it before."
     Placing her index fingers about two feet away from each other, both above and below Aurora's pointing finger, Ember drew a nearly perfect circle around Borealis' tallest building. The second the circle was finished, the entire window went black, with the exception of what was inside the circle. Aurora gasped and jumped back. Ember laughed and pinched the center of the remaining piece of visible window. Just like a camera, the window began to zoom in on the building off in the distance. In less than a minute, the girls could see the side of the city's tallest building as though it were only five feet in front of them.
     Ember looked over at her friend, who was now sweating, smirked and said, "Mirage." She turned back to the window and saw in it what she expected to find. Herself and her friend staring right back at her.

Borealis Twenty - Adroit Anomalies

     The long, metal hallway was purple and cold. Aurora didn't like it. It was too small and cramped. Where was the sky? Why was it so dark?
     Ember walked along in front, quiet and cautious. "You okay?" she said, looking back, a faint echo following her words.
     "I'm fine," Aurora lied. Her new clothes were too tight.
     "Loosen up, will ya?" Ember said with a slight smirk. "The goal is not to stick out." She thought for a moment. "Not that that's really achievable given that there are no records of you ever living here. Your name isn't on file. Your face--"
     "I thought you said you watched us somehow, even though you're in here. Doesn't that mean other people watch us too, people that know my face?" Aurora said as she tugged at her white shirt and pants with some futility, hoping that they would suddenly free up and stop clinging to her so snugly.
     "Yeah... I guess." Ember turned back around. "I just mean that you're not supposed to be in here, which is sort of 'duh,' right? People can't hide stuff like that with new clothes and a hair brush."
     That was of little comfort to Aurora. "Then what do we do?"
     Ember was silent. "Um," she started. "I never really thought that far ahead. I just wanted to meet you." Ember sighed. "And, it didn't help that Garnet practically forced us through that false wall. What was he thinking anyway?" She threw her hands in the air. "Oh no! A little boy's coming to get us! Oooo!"
     The girls walked on for a few minutes, mostly listening to each other breath. Their footsteps were largely muted by their rubber soled shoes. Aurora wasn't used to shoes either. She very well might have been better off as a new born, pigeon toed duckling. Her movement and posture was almost as awkward, and she wouldn't have looked so much like someone from the desert had she actually been a duckling. Aurora frowned.
     At the end of the hall was the only light the girls could see, and it was the one responsible for all the purple in the hallway. The closer the girls got, the more white the bulb and its light seemed to become. Next to the light, on the right, was a rusted metal door. Aurora didn't like the look of it. Perhaps it led to an even smaller and darker place. She shivered. The thought of it was absolutely dreadful to her.
     Ember, unaware of her friend's fear, started talking again. "Really," she said. "I thought you would have been left shivering on the floor by now."
     "Because it's cold?"
     "No. You have to be claustrophobic on some level, I'd imagine."
     She was. She didn't know the word, however, but she was. Had it not been in her nature to mask any weakness, even around those she trusted, she probably would have just collapsed into shivers upon entering the hallway. She was beginning to have some difficulty breathing as it was... Despite the look of the door and her concerns about it where it might lead, she just wanted something to open up this hallway and give her some more space.
     At the door, the girls stopped and looked at one another. Aurora gave Ember a sheepish smile, but Ember didn't see it in Aurora's silhouette. The silly Roof Rat was standing right in front of the now purplish white light. Ember, rolling her eyes and showing yet another halfway amused smirk, put her hands on the door's wheel handle and turned. It opened with little fuss or force and with almost no squinging or screeching to accompany it.
     "Huh. Wasn't expecting that, " Ember said drollfully.
     They both walked through the door, Ember first and Aurora second. The door closed lightly behind them.
     "Huh. Wasn't expecting that either."
     Before them stretched another hallway, this time well lit, nearly too well lit for the poor outside girl who had never seen artificial light before. The hall was wide, littered with closed doors and intersections, and the end of the hallway wasn't even visible. This was a new source of stress for Aurora.
     She looked over to her friend who had by now gone forward a few steps. "What do we do now?"
     Ember shook her head. "I don't believe it. I can't believe we're just right here."
     "What?" Aurora was confused and starting get a headache from all the fluorescent lighting.
     The fiery blonde whipped around, her grin toothy, straight, and ear to ear.
     "What?" Aurora asked again, this time nervous.
     "Haha!" Ember jumped up and down. "We're on the other side of the city!" She ran up and grabbed Aurora by the shoulders. "Garnet teleported us to the other side of the city! And look!" Aurora followed the girl's finger toward the way they had come. "That door's not even a door anymore! It's a wall! It's a freaking wall!"
     There were no words. The Roof Rat simply raised her eyebrows.
     Her friend ran over a few feet down the hall and then pointed at another wall. "This is my room!"
     "It's a wall."
     "And it's my room! It's hidden! Watch!" Ember ran her finger along the wall, drawing a large rectangle.
     The wall fuzzed briefly and then revealed a simple white door, much like the others that lined the hallway. The door opened. Inside was a room with three large white walls and one giant, wall-sized window that looked out onto a rooftop, the one where Aurora had been captured and the place she had slept after getting tipsy that night. The shards of glass and even a little blood, all of it was still there, glistening in the midday sun.
     Aurora rushed inside to the window, glad to see the outside again. She pressed her face against the window, much like Ember had done before. "I can't believe it," she said. "You were right behind me the entire time!"

Borealis Nineteen - Bad Dog, No Biscuit

     A small burst of sand popped into view behind a nearby sand dune, raining and mixing granules of yellow and beige over and beyond the summit of the guilty desert bulge that covered the explosion's origin. Howl darted behind an empty platform of concrete that sheltered itself beneath a semi-transparent red tarp. He peeked over. Saw nothing. But heard the sound of shifting sand and scooping hands. Five minutes passed, and the sound stopped. Footsteps, boots digging into sand, climbing, replaced the previous sound. Howl waited. The footsteps stopped. Still no sight of the noise maker, the sand blower. Howl crept backward into an alleyway that stretched out behind him, using the shadows it cast as cover. A few seconds passed.
     Suddenly, a black figure, pitch in the desert sun, its shape bulbous and clothes dilapidated, mounted the crest of the dune and dusted itself off. It was a man, and he wore a mask. He would have been spectacular in sight for no one had Howl not been there to see him.
     "Garnet," Howl whispered, sliding deeper into the shadows. "I knew it was you, you filthy Bird."
     Garnet rubbed the lenses of his goggles for a while and then continued his march across the large dune. Toward the bottom, he finally settled down into a trot and began to make his way toward the city's first buildings. Howl glared at the masked man. What was he up to? The boy's mouth began to twitch as he glared. The Grounder Bird slowed his pace even more. Howl bit his lip. Garnet stopped. The Bird was only a few yards away from the young Dog, but the Bird was looking at a different alleyway.
     Silent and slow, a small pocket of air left the world and disappeared into Howl's lungs. It stayed there for a while. Everything was still. Garnet turned and looked right at the boy.
     "Oh! Hello, Killer," the Bird said happily. "The goggles in my mask brighten up dark places for me, you know."
     The boy exhaled violently. He wasn't used to being spotted.
     Garnet tilted his head slightly. "Goodbye for now." A roar of thunder crackled from the Bird. The space around him went black. And he, with the black, vanished.
     Half an hour passed before Howl moved again. During that time he listened for the Bird, sure that the man would reappear somewhere in the city... But he never did. No snap. No thunder. No pop. Garnet was gone. Howl cursed and made a dash for the sand dune, conscious that at any moment Garnet could reappear and thus prevent him from reaching whatever secret rest at the foot of the desert.
     Clouds drew closer as Howl ran up the face of the dune, and the desert threatened to swallow the boy whole as he slid down the other side. Sand went everywhere, strewn about in Howl's haste, erasing most of the tracks and traces Garnet had left behind. Howl didn't care. He just started digging as soon as he stopped sliding. And, after many furious scoops and much more cursing, the boy found something.
     Garnet stepped out from beneath the shadows that had hidden Howl earlier. "Silly boy," he chuckled to himself. "And you thought you weren't supposed to find that."

Borealis Eighteen - Lefts of Passage

     Howl frowned at the dunes sprawling out in front of him. There seemed no end to them, but he knew that there probably was an end, an end that he would never get to see. He had tried his best to see the end of the desert once, but even the tip of the tallest skyscraper in Borealis had not been high enough to look beyond the horizon. It frustrated him. He knew that if his eyes were unable to make the journey, then surely the rest of his body would fair far worse, and his body was already capable of so much at such a young age. Howl could leap, duck, zig and zag with the best of the Unfortunate Ones of the city, rough up anyone he came across, and track even the faintest of trails so long as the sun shone and the wind was kind. Nothing really intimidated or challenged the boy's presence in the least, save his father, but here stood the desert, mocking the boy's very existence. It more than frustrated him. It made him angry.
     Howl spat at the ground. He had intended for his saliva to serve as his direct challenge to the desert's vastness, an assertion of his superiority over the sand and the heat. But, the childishness of his gesture did little more than to exacerbate Howl's feelings of futility and insignificance in the midst of such grainy eternity.
     "I hate you," Howl said to no one.
     The wind blew up from behind him as if to hug and comfort him as though a mother might do, but he shrugged it off as though he were a son embarrassed at his mother's ignorance of her child's approaching maturity. Another breeze soon came by, this time indifferent to the boy's woes. A single strand of it caught itself upon Howl's clothes, curving all along the air pockets of his posture as it made its way up his body. The strand carried with it a note of burnt air and the smell of cooking. The boy's nose pricked and tickled at the scent, reminding him that he had more to do than lament his preadolescent humanity.
     "Eggs," Howl muttered to himself as he walked over to the building from which the scent seemed to originate. "Only you, Garnet."

Borealis Fifteen - Born to Smile

     A large, red, semi-transparent, stained tarp-sized cloth greeted Aurora's weak consciousness as she awoke. Along the cloth's edges, and even through the cloth itself, she could make out the blue and lightly clouded sky... Peace. It had been long in coming, and the cloth above rippled ever so gently at the touch of a breeze, almost as if to say that everything was going to be alright for a while.
     It was. The world was quiet but not too much so. A masked face leaned over Aurora and asked her how she was doing. For all that she felt, Aurora displayed a simple grin that spread from cheek to cheek. Her one friend, Garnet. Then, a blonde headed face leaned over as well. A new friend. That made two. It was a good day, for sure.
     "Good morning, Garnet," Aurora whispered and half mumbled through her still yet to fill, conscious lips.
     Garnet must have smiled. His mask wiggled a bit. "Well, good morning to you too, Little Mouse," he chuckled. "Don't strain yourself. Ember and I are taking good care of you." Garnet adjusted a knob and a few switches on the table bed Aurora rested on. "You should be back to full strength here in an hour or so." More smiles.
     Ember, Aurora thought. What an interesting name.
     The effect of Garnet's twiddling and adjustments kicked in just then. Sky and cloth disappeared as a glowing green took over Aurora's vision. Warmth encased her. It was good and only lasted for a minute. Then it was over. Sky and cloth came back, as did Ember's face. Garnet, however, had moved aside, probably to check on something else that needed his attention.
     Ember smirked. "What? No good morning for me? I only said it to you half an hour ago, and I've been waiting here this whole time thinking you were never gonna say it." Another smirk. "Aurora."
     Aurora couldn't remember.
     "I mean, you looked right at me for crying out loud. You'd been squirming, too. I thought you were in pain, but Garnet, here, said you were just having a nightmare. As, um..." she trailed off.
     "A reaction to the drug I had to administer, or rather," he continued, "Ember had to administer before we teleported you here."
     "Yeah," Ember giggled. "I didn't even know it was a drug."
     Aurora grinned. How fortunate am I, she thought. It had been such a long time since she had felt so happy and sure. Life had gotten so boring and tedious. Day in and day out it had been that she would wake up, sneak around the factions, the Unfortunate Ones, even her own Roof Rats, make her way down to Garnet, a Grounder Bird himself, and see what loot he had procured for her. Then, she would sneak off to one of her many hiding places to stash the loot, unless a few Sun Cats spotted her, in which case she would have to run from them for the next two hours until she lost them. The rest of the day after that was spent competing with the Rats for anything interesting that had been left behind in the wake of the Riser Dogs' morning patrol. It was tiring, and sleep, rest, and peace, sadly, always came last and never in between.
     Aurora must have been frowning while she was thinking. Ember stood over her with a concerned look on her face.
     "I'm okay," Aurora managed to say, this time with a full on smile.

Borealis Eleven - Look at Me

     Fatigue soon overcame Ember, leaving her helpless to the tugs of sleep.
     Yellow closed her eyes, and yellow opened her dreams. Swirls flew everywhere. Swirls flew everywhere, and she fell, curving and banking against artificial lines of purple and beige. Tunnels ripped open from the nothing-- and she slid away from the somethings she feared. Light blinded and darkness caressed. Colors shouted their anger while Ember lit out her fire. All was burned, yet all did not. And pillars were not friends to no one but themselves. Even so, tears ran down the cheek of the girl who emitted fantasy. No safes could fail, and no danger could when...
     Ember suddenly woke up with a headache. The yellow smog that had surrounded her before appeared to have gone away, replaced by black. She could tell it was still there, however, as it was still hard to breath, and her eyes were stinging more than they had been before she had fallen asleep. From what she could tell, the city's lights had switched off, which probably meant that sunrise was not far off, she figured. Feeling around the darkness, Ember found Aurora, fast asleep as ever.
     "That doesn't do me any good," Ember said to herself. She massaged her forehead some, hoping it would help her headache. "At least I could see a little when the lights were on."
     Ember was starting to regret ever leaving the safety of her secret room. All of this could have been avoided if she had just stayed put. She was a foreigner in this world, and she had no idea how she was ever going to escape it at this rate. And, really, her plan had been simple: Go outside. Find the girl. Find out where the girl had found the champagne. Take the girl inside and see what she could do there. It was simple. How had it gotten so complex, she wondered.
     Ember rested her head in her hands. "I should have thought this through more," she said. "I can't even see my arms."
     Nothing responded to the girl's complaints except silence. There was something wrong with that, Ember realized. As far as she could remember, the city had been filled with constant noise ever since she had first set foot outside. Now, it was so quiet that she felt like she was back inside the city's walls.
     Silence. Then a click.
     Ember looked up. In the distance, she could see two green lights. There was another click, and the lights disappeared. Before she could stand up, the green lights came back on, this time without a click. They were closer. They looked like eyes. Then, off they went again. Aurora stirred in her sleep. Ember jumped and turned toward the unexpected sound beside her.
     Silence.
     A footstep.
     Ember snapped her head in the direction of the newest sound. Again, she saw green eyes, perfect circles. This time only a few feet away from her.

Borealis Ten - Funtastic Gymnastics

     Ember's eyes watered, and she strained to see what was ahead of her. She could just barely make out Aurora's frame as it catapulted from unseen ledge to unseen ledge, and she had to hope that when she landed after a jump that it was on the same exact spot Aurora had just left behind. The polluted, yellow air further down into the city's depths was next to ridiculous, Ember thought. And, if it wasn't bothering her eyes, then it was certainly giving her lungs a fit. Ember didn't know what she was going to do if she fell down or lost track of Aurora. The girl she had only just met really had no reason whatsoever to find her if she ever lost her. Aurora was only doing Ember a favor out of sheer curiosity. Then again, sheer curiosity was also the only reason why Ember had sought out the Roof Rat in the first place. Life was funny that way, she figured.
     "Hey!" Ember called out. "Think we could slow down a bit? I can barely see you!"
     Suddenly, life wasn't very funny anymore as Ember watched Aurora smack her shoulder against a large pipe and flop awkwardly away from the destination she had been soaring to. The next thing Ember knew, she was chasing after Aurora's limp, descending body.
     "No! I'm the one who's supposed to fall," Ember screamed at Aurora. It had been tough enough following someone who knew where they were going. It was something else entirely to follow someone who didn't seem to know that they were going anywhere at all. "Dammit! Why aren't you doing anything? Jump! Do something! Grab onto a ledge!" Ember was desperate, struggling as she barely managed to follow her own advice. "You live out here for crying out loud! Don't you know how to fall properly?"
     Aurora's body was fading from sight and would soon be lost to Ember forever. Fortunately, a pipe twice the size of the one from before jumped out of the thick yellow air and caught the majority of Aurora's body. Unfortunately, the girl stopped moving for no more than a second before she slid off the pipe, falling once more.
     At least I'm closer to her now, Ember thought. But, how the hell do I know the pipe didn't kill her?
     The answer to that question didn't seem to matter much to reality. Aurora's body continued to collide with the various odds and ends that jutted out of the buildings she fell between, and each successive hit sent her twirling in one direction or another. Ember wondered if this was God's cruel way of being helpful. After what seemed like much longer than thirty seconds, Ember finally managed to close the gap between her and Aurora and grabbed a hold of Aurora's arm with one hand, thankfully, right as she latched onto a gnarled ladder with the other. The abrupt stop jolted Ember and made her feel as though she had been ripped in two. She groaned and winced and looked around for a place to set down the girl she had just rescued. Next to her, she could just make out a large balcony that looked inviting enough. So she swung Aurora's body as best she could amidst the pain and flung the girl toward the balcony. Aurora crashed onto the surface of the balcony's floor and rolled to a stop, her face down to the ground. Ember soon followed, landing with much more grace than her companion had.
     Sore and exhausted, Ember walked over to Aurora and turned her over onto her back, hoping to find an unconscious girl who was still breathing, at least somewhat. But that wasn't exactly what she found. The Roof Rat was still breathing, sure, but she was doing something much more interesting than that. She was snoring, and doing so with the most peaceful looking face Ember had ever seen.

Borealis Nine - Talking Hands

     "So, where is it that you come from?" Aurora asked Ember as they leapt from rooftop to rooftop. Nighttime had finally arrived, and the sky was filled with pollution curated neon, the same as any night.
     "Are you serious?" said Ember.
     Embarrassed, Aurora looked over at the new "friend" next to her who was sailing across the same huge gap as she was with the same fearlessness she had. Granted, Ember was trailing Aurora ever so slightly, but it was apparent that the girl was rather tired.
     Ember hadn't noticed Aurora's look. Still, she responded, Aurora thought, as though she had. "Come on. I'm from the inside. I mean, have you ever even seen anyone else like me out here before?"
     They landed on the next building, hard. So it took Aurora a moment to gather her breath. "Not exactly," she said, breathing heavily. "But you certainly move like someone who lives out here. It's just that... I've never seen someone from the inside before. So, I wasn't sure. Granted, my first instinct was--"
    "The instinct you should have gone with?" Ember said with a smirk. "Listen, I can tell you're a pretty savvy girl. Otherwise, you wouldn't have made it out here for as long as you have. Trust me. I watch you guys a lot."
     "Really?"
     "Yeah, and I'm surprised those guys hadn't killed you by the time I got to them."
     "I can certainly agree with you there."
     Aurora remembered how she had failed to escape the Riser Dogs that morning. She then remembered how a bunch of glass and a puddle of champagne had prevented her escape. Suddenly, the palm of her left hand began to throb. Aurora had somehow managed to not notice or even remember the wound up until now. Of course, she hadn't really needed her hands for anything since she and Ember had been doing little more than running and jumping ever since they had met, but she would need the use of her hands again soon, as they were closing in on the place where they needed head down into the city, to the streets below. Aurora winced. That was not going to be a pleasant process. At least she had been through worse before. So, it wasn't going to be terrible.
     "Are we there yet?" Ember said, snapping Aurora back to reality.
     "What? Are we there yet?" Aurora laughed, trying to distract herself from the pain. It wasn't working. "We only just started. However, we won't be up here much longer."
     "Going down I take it?"
     "Yes. See that tall building we're approaching?" A building ahead of them stood slightly taller than any of the other buildings the two girls had traversed so far. "Once we're over that, we're going to start going straight down, keeping between the tall building and the one in front of it."
     Ember nodded. "Sounds good to me."
     "One thing, though. You need to fall back behind me a little more once we clear that building. There won't be enough room for two people on some of the things we'll have to jump on."
     "Fun."
     No, Aurora thought, it wasn't going to be fun. Her hand was hurting more and more by the second. And as they made their way up the tall building, Aurora had to bite her lip so as not to give away that she was hurting as badly as she was. An obvious Roof Rat was a dead Roof Rat, as far as she was concerned, even at night.
     Ember, however, had a knack for noticing things that she wasn't supposed to notice. "Are you gonna be alright?" She asked. "That hand of yours is looking pretty nasty."
     "I'm fine!" Aurora said, surprisingly abrupt in her tone. "Now stay behind me."
     They had reached the top of the building they needed to climb over. Quiet for once, Ember did as she was told, and the girls soon began their descent down into the bottom of the city. As she followed Aurora, Ember wondered what she had said to upset the outsider. It took a mysterious girl to smile at unnecessary sarcasm and scowl at legitimate concern. Then again, Ember wasn't exactly accustomed to the ways of the outsiders.

Borealis Eight - Coy Crossings

     "Show me where you found that bottle of champagne," Ember said to Aurora as she lifted the girl back onto the rooftop. "You're not supposed to have that. No one's supposed to have that, but, yet, you have it. Or, rather, you had it."
     Aurora noted a slight flicker in Ember's eyes that denoted interest and glee over the curt, half angry tone the girl was using to address her. When Aurora first found the bottle of champagne the day before, she had known that it was going to draw her some unwanted attention, nothing she couldn't have handled, she'd thought, but certainly not this much attention.
     Sitting on the roof now, Aurora made herself comfortable and rested her hands in her lap. "Well," she said thoughtfully. "I suppose I could show you."
     "Good," Ember said. "Then, let's go."
     "But..." Aurora stood up. "As you suggested, I know not of who you are, nor do I know where you come from." She began to slowly walk a circle around the strange blonde girl. "You have an odd way of conducting yourself, and none of your motives are apparent to me. Do you even know why you threatened to drop me off the side of the building?"
     No response, only a stare that followed Aurora without blinking.
     Aurora stopped. "You are odd."
     "And you're a healthy looking girl that's never seen an ounce of trouble in her life." Ember smirked, breaking from her serious tone. "And you're as dumb as a rock."
     A smile worked its way onto Aurora's face. She liked this girl. She was not boring at all. What a breath of fresh air. Aurora was so used to the way the people of the four factions always dealt with her, directly and obviously. Ember liked Aurora, too. It had been quite a while since she had come across anyone who was even remotely intelligent. She just hadn't expected Aurora to sound so smart. There were no schools, let alone teachers and books, on the city's outside, after all. Flummoxed, both girls stood in amazement of one another, wondering what the other was going to say or do next.
     Meanwhile, the sun had almost completely disappeared from the sky by this point, and the city's lights were beginning to flicker on. Below, factories were growling their way into animation and the streets were gorging themselves with the pollution that would later float its way into the night sky. It wouldn't be long now before the factions rested their dirty heads on the concrete of Borealis and took their leave of the day, and the Business Types would soon begin lifting their heads from their criminally soft pillows only to drone their way into their night's day. How funny it was, then, that Ember suddenly had to stifle a yawn as Aurora simultaneously widened her eyes in response to the energy rising up inside of her.
     The irony of the situation was not lost on the girls. So, Ember cocked her head to one side and said, "Friends?"

Borealis Seven - Curiousity Hangs

     Evening crept in, as did the oranges, yellows, and purples it often carried with it, pulling away the clear blue of the daytime's sky to make room for the night's dark. Aurora dangled from the side of a tall building. A hand held her left ankle. It was the only thing that prevented her from meeting the filthy streets below. Aurora stared down at these streets. They were about as boring as her day had been, at least in her opinion. She had slept through most of the day, after all, and the parts that had been punctuated by consciousness had been far too violent and haphazard for her liking.
     Aurora looked up, bored with the view below, and saw Ember, a short, blonde headed girl who had clean, white clothes on, not to mention a clean face with a clean head of hair. Now, that was something interesting, indeed. What faction could she possibly belong to? She was short enough to be a Roof Rat, tough enough to be a Riser Dog, quiet enough to be a Sun Cat, and clever enough to be a Grounder Bird. Aurora didn't know quite what to make of the girl.
     "You're probably wondering what or who the hell I am," Ember said, glaring down at Aurora with a slight smirk. "Well, I'm obviously not going to tell you anything out here..." She glanced behind her at the fleeing Riser Dogs she had just beaten away. "Too many ears..."
     Out here? What did she mean by "out here," Aurora wondered. She couldn't think of a single "in here" that they could even go to on the rooftops of Borealis. Of course, it was entirely possible that this girl was a Business Type, which would explain her cleanliness, but there had never been a known instance of a Business Type emerging from within the city walls to explore the outside of the city ever. Then again, Aurora thought, how on earth could any of the four factions on the outside know that any sort of people existed on the inside if no one had ever seen someone from the inside before? It didn't add up.

Borealis Six - Bad Zephyrs

     Wind. Wind lashed and howled itself around Aurora's face, pulling and tugging, waking her up as it curved around her body and tattered her hair. All vision was blurred as though in a blended, mixed up, drunken stupor that was still spinning. Smells darted this way and that way and all the way up into Aurora's olfactory, reminding her that she had fallen to the Riser Dog's wrangle. She had lived... But how she had lived, she knew not! And, were it not for the speed that she traveled in the arms of the Dogs, she could have sussed out the answers she asked of calamity.
     Oh, and buildings and buildings were going up and plummeting down. The Riser Dogs bounded from roof top to roof top, never maintaining a straight line for fear that the other factions of the city would notice their rare live catch. If the Dogs thought Aurora special, then certainly she was. Certainly, she could be learned from. And, certainly, she could be toyed with. Hence, the Riser Dogs needed to deliver their catch as soon as possible. They needed to know what their leader, Sheer Wolf, might discern from this Roof Rat's exploits. They needed to know if her information could help them find a way into the buildings that caged their clan in the open air.
     Sadly, what they needed and what they wanted were two entirely different things. From Ember's perspective, the four leaping figures she saw didn't need Aurora at all. They just wanted her. Yes, it was really Ember who needed the girl, and she aimed to take her. So, down she went onto the Riser Dog pack. And, down Aurora went from the Riser Dogs' hands. A fight then ensued, and Aurora was won.

Borealis Five - Yester's Eve

     Ember pressed her face against the window and stared at the girl who was sleeping outside. She noticed that the girl had a giant champagne bottle lying next to her. "Where did she get that?" Ember wondered. The Unfortunate Ones had no access to such items. The Business Types had made sure of that fact. Every room inside Borealis' buildings was airtight. Every window was one way, allowing the Business Types to keep constant watch over the Unfortunate Ones. And every door and every gateway on the outside of the buildings opened up to nothing more than a metal wall. All of the real doors were hidden, and the Unfortunate Ones had no knowledge of this cruel truth thanks to the robots the Business Types had built to guard the false doors and gateways.
     "Maybe we can be friends," Ember said to herself as she watched Aurora sleep. "I had no idea there was anyone out there like me." She removed her face from the window, brushed her short, blonde hair behind her ears, and walked over to the door of the small, empty room she was in. "Time to get busy."
     Without a sound, Ember slipped out of the small room and shut the door. She then traced her finger along the lines of the door's frame, activating a hologram that made the door appear as though it were just another part of the wall. Once she was content that no one had seen what she had done, she made her way down the hallway and disappeared.

Borealis Three - Neo Crow

     Silence. The deafening sound that permeates the morningscape of each and every day in Borealis. It pricks the ears of the Unfortunate Ones, whispering, "The Sun has gone up to sleep in the sky, and the Moon has gone down to work in the earth below. What say you to a day of jamboree?" And each of the four walks of the city arise from their slumber to honor the silence, noting the absence of the nighttime factories' hum by saying nothing. Orange, meanwhile, bathes everyone and everything, the Sun's light the true instigator of consciousness.
     A Grounder Bird cries out from Balderdash Alley, sharing the good news that silence needn't hold the morning captive any longer. "Pray," he says. "Pray for the jubilant jamboree!" On the next level up, the stomps of the Riser Dogs clang out and echo, ensuring that no other soul dare lie in dreams, lest they suffer the bite of a Riser Dog wrangle. And, from all corners of the city, Sun Cats sing at the shadows cast from the sunrise's ascent. Their song proclaiming the city's approaching warmth:

"O, Shadows shallow on your fallowed gallows,

travel o'er the graveled graces, sing to me your addled places.

Leave me from, the eaves they come, death to all, to all the dumb!"

     Quickly, the Roof Rats scurry to their hiding places. Their squeaks of fear drawing the routine of Borealis' dawn to a close. Pure daylight then covers the city in warmth, the warmth warned of by the Sun Cats' song. For sunlight often calls out to those who wish to cause harm. No soul is safe out from under the shadows' blanket.
     It would not be a good day for Aurora, in that case. Too much champagne had gone into her system the night before. So, she lay there, that day, asleep as the shadows retreated from her body. Had she any luck, the stomps of the approaching Riser Dogs would rouse her in time enough.

Borealis Two - Holy Dichotomy

  
     Harsh realities are not unlike ice cubes in the desert melting from the evaporate cloven rays of the uncaring sun. Such realities cause perception to lose its shape, to flood whatever surface rests beneath it, permeating the consciousness as though the consciousness were the surface below the ice cube, a surface made of sea sponge, rich with bitter salt. Welcome to the mindset of Aurora's day life, far removed from the melancholy bliss of her alcohol soaked night life in the sky. Nothing is real in the same moment that it truly is, a world of violence and heat.
     And no other mindset exists under the sun of Borealis. First light in the city awakens not only Aurora but thousands like her. Roof Rats and Riser Dogs, Sun Cats and Grounder Birds. They are the Unfortunate Ones, the people with no building to call home, no family to bond them. Once the moon rises, Borealis comes alive with joy and prosperity for the Business Types, those who built the city. For the Unfortunate Ones, the moon only brings nightmare infested sleep after a brief, evening calm. Most dream in amplifications of the horrors their day saw: attempting to survive while the rich and prosperous slept below, their gates and their walls and their robots keeping the Unfortunate Ones out of the safe all Business Types dream in. Aurora often wondered how such calm could rest its head without conviction under the frantic feet of the mania above it.
     The answer? Where conviction is absent, thought is likewise. So, it is true, then, that no other mindset exists under the sun of Borealis. The Business Types could almost be dead at their lack of thought if it were not for their potential to ignorantly verb themselves into being at night. They have no mindset, which makes their reality the unmelted ice cube. It is alone, cold, and contained. It never changes, and it never spreads itself thin enough to become something different. However, the Unfortunate Ones will become something different. As their reality melts into the sponge below, their chaos will unify and become something manageable. The salt in the sponge will preserve them and give them identity, and from pain, there will be growth.

Borealis One - Kaleidoscope Sweets

     

     Aurora looked up into the neon night sky of Borealis, an aging city of shadows and blacks, these darks the horrible nothings that encased the vibrant, yet deathly lit, electronic colored advertisements decorating the city's metal and glass clothing. Stars abounded the heavens, and every drop of the rainbow was represented in their ancient star shine. Although breathtaking to behold, the beauty of the sight was little more than a grand lie spawned from the ceaseless pollution that sweated up from the streets and factories below. Aurora breathed it all in with a sigh. This wretched city of Borealis was her home. It was her comfort and the place she loved.

     In her hands Aurora held a large bottle of the sweetest champagne a Roof Rat like herself could come by on a night like that night. Which is to say, it was a night unspecial to any other. It was normal, and, thus, all she had managed to obtain was an average bottle of champagne containing only the minimum required amount of sweet a person ever really needs in a drink. But to Aurora, the near potable, alcoholic substance she grasped was unique, as was the night before her. It had been an arduous day, and of course it was the difficult things that Aurora often found boring. So, how pleasant an idea it was to sit on the edge of the second tallest building in the city and gaze up upon the celestial, studded, neon crown painted above Borealis' most absurd building. After a swig from her bounty, Aurora felt the hug of peace embrace her. All was right in her world.

     Soon, the warmth of slumber and the chaos of dreams covered Aurora's eyes and lulled her consciousness into the next day, yet another rough day that would make the mundane of her night feel like the grandest treasure God had to offer.