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 Seventeen - Egg City

     Ember poked the yolk of one of her eggs, cooked sunny side up, until one of the eggs popped. The warm, organgey yellow stuff inside oozed up and bled out as soon as she removed the prong of her fork from the puncture. Plump liquid slowly covered half of the plate. It was weird, so Ember popped the second egg to fill the rest of the plate.
     Aurora, who had asked for her eggs scrambled, leaned over and lightly scolded Ember, "Don't be wasteful. Your eggs will be cold soon. Eat." She shoveled the last of her scramble into her mouth, barely chewing and mostly inhaling.
     "Okay," Ember said. She hadn't ever seen eggs before, and although she should have had the same appetite as Aurora, given that it had been well over a day since either had eaten anything, the sight of such a peculiar food was particularly off putting to her. So, she just sat there, making faces at the eggs in between pokes.
     Food was much different inside the city. Everything solid came in cubes or spheres of rich blues, deep purples, and emerald greens, and the liquids often shown in glowy reds, yellows, and oranges. Everything was flavored. Everything was sterile and delicious. No one knew where it came from, but such simple food hardly begged much inquiry or thought.
     Ember turned to Garnet, who had just walked around from behind a nearby corner-- Some scouting had been in order after breakfast, he felt-- and said, "Garnet, are you sure this food's alright? It's all yellowy and gross. And, what the hell is this white stuff around the edges and all these black dots?"
     Smiling and trying hard to stifle a laugh, Garnet responded, "Yes, Ember. It's fine." He sat down next to her and pointed at the black dots on the eggs. "That's pepper and the white bits are mostly made of water and protein." Pointing next to the goop Ember had let all over the plate, he chuckled, "And that's the best part."
     "What is it?"
     "It's the yolk. It's the part of the egg that would have eventually fed the embryo of a baby chicken, had the egg been fertilized."
     Chickens... Ember had only ever read about chickens. "Where did you find a chicken?"
     Garnet smiled and stood up. "Don't you worry about that." As he walked away, presumably to continue scouting, he added, "You need to eat. Think of the eggs as the medium-small cyan spheres you're used to having."
     Although that didn't fully satisfy Ember's curiosity and half revulsion, it did give her the courage to at least try the eggs.
     They were even better than the spheres, and the texture was something phenomenal.
     She quickly wolfed them down, stopping occasionally to chew and really think about the flavors of the eggs. Meanwhile, Aurora stood a few feet away, staring out at the vast, duned desert before them. They were on the very edge of the city.

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 Fourteen - Nonsense, I'm Losing My Mind.

     Waves crashed onto the crushed diamond sand of the snow bleached beach, and snow flakes disintegrated with an ambiguous indifference that almost passed for normal weather. Erstwhile, the grass near the edge of the shore shown brightly with an effervescence of pearl and pleated globules, now gone dull, roundly unpleated, and purpley creme. Common perception defied itself, and Aurora sighed at the deep blue dome of weirdly blue sky above, glittered, though it was, with rubied bricks so far off as far could probably see.
     Oh, each step brought with it a silent cacophony ridiculous to the ears of those of whom no one used to hear. Aurora certainly didn't. She could not refrain, as though she was wont to do so oftenly so, from forcing her eyes to perceive the sky, how it encased her and bribed her soul into ignorant, puffy, and sandy solace. What was freedom but caged death in an open field, or, in this case, a closed beach?
     "What do you want from me?" Aurora asked, crying and laughing. "My body hurts. It bleeds internal, and I can't talk properly. Please, go say something! No one can hear me!"
     Five waves arched up and swirled at the beach. The water formed a tent tightly coned around Aurora's brain, and fire seeped out of its peaked mouth, the cone, not the brain. Although, Aurora's brain did burn as it ticked, clocking and quieting away at the bruises that surreality left at it. The girl felt drunk like a fog filled with shadows and pops, echoes and wants.
     Today was the day that the Lord had made. Quintessential, though it was, to imperfection that the day may exist. Aurora wanted gone. Pummels had pummeled her beach into submission, and water felt like falling in a desert, the winding so windy in the cold arches of city.
     "Girl hopes!" Aurora whisperdly yelled. "Girled hopes! Away, hold me! Blonde of hair hurt me! Protecting me? Hurt me!"
     The beach felt as though to be flying through the air, though nothing was different once the cone had come and gone. Waves crashed as they did before, and each color enhanced the calming ruby blue sky above. The grasses returned to its glows of jagged or flat globules. The world was calming down, and the beach was beginning to show the sky, the normal one. Sand became concrete, and bricks became buildings that stretched down from the heavens.
     A blonde girl bent over Aurora, face over face. "Good morning, my doll," she said. "At least, that's what my mother used to say."

Borealis Thirteen - I Got the Fuzzies

     Ember's chin was the first thing Aurora saw when she woke up. And, from what Aurora could tell, everything was slightly green and also very dark at the same time. It didn't make very much sense to her. Why was she waking up, again? It was starting to feel like the only thing she could do anymore was fall asleep and wake up.
     This time, consciousness brought with it an odd sensation that Aurora had never felt before, and it grew even more peculiar as the seconds passed. Aurora thought it was pain at first, but it didn't quite feel like pain. It almost tickled a little and made her body feel like mush. She wondered what would happen if she moved. She eventually tried, and when she did, her body shocked and tightened like a whip that had just been cracked. The tickling stopped, and a very high, shrill whisper then crawled from Aurora's lungs. Her body flinched involuntarily as well. She wanted to get her companion's attention, but no words wanted to come from her lips, and Ember remained oblivious to what was happening next to her.
     The fat man with the green eyes took a step forward and said, "Aurora!"
     "Aurora?" Ember said, confused. The girls had neglected to ever introduce themselves to one another. "Oh! Aurora!" She realized that the strange word was probably the girl's name. "Stay away from her. I know what you people do to each other out here!" Ember, aiming to guard her companion, slid over to what she thought was an empty spot in front of Aurora. However, it was actually the spot where Aurora's side was located.
     The hurried bump was not good for Aurora. In fact, it was incredibly excruciating. Her previous whisper of hurt left her, and an ear raking screech took its place, echoing up and down the city's walls.
     Ember jumped to her feet, startled now more than ever, screaming, "What?! I don't-- Aurora?!" She couldn't figure out how a little bump had garnered such a response from Aurora when entire buildings had elicited nothing from the girl.
     Suddenly, the fat man rushed over to the girls. The sight was threatening, to be sure, especially with the eerie green light the man carried with him, and had Ember been in her right mind after the screech, she might have stopped him, but it was better that she hadn't.
     "We need to get away from here. It's not safe," he said, his eyes focusing on Aurora, who was now frozen mid squirm, eyelids and teeth clenched tight. "The morning sun won't be waking up the denizens of Borealis today. They're already awake now, despite the gas." The man pulled up his sleeves and then reached into one of the pockets of his trench coat, retrieving from it a small sphere. "What I'm about to do will look very odd, but rest assured, Ember. I'm here to help Aurora."
     Ember, dumbfounded and full of panic, said, "Uh," again, wishing very much that her vocabulary and quick wit would stop abandoning her.
     The man turned his head toward Ember. "You're very unlike yourself today. You need more sleep or else this place is going to kill you." Then, he turned back to Aurora, knelt down, and squeezed the sphere over Aurora's head. "This will only take a second. As soon as it's done, and you'll know when it is, pick her up and follow me."
     "Okay," Ember said, brows furrowed.
     "Ready?" he said and dropped the sphere onto Aurora's forehead.
     The impact of the sphere produced no sound or any indication of an impact, really, and in a second, just as the man had said, the sphere had done its job. Ember didn't even see what happened since it had happened so quickly. One second, Aurora looked no different than she had before. The next, she was was covered in an ultra thin, transparent substance that encased her entire body. She no longer displayed signs of agony, either. Peace had overtaken her, and she was asleep again.
     Almost forgetting herself, Ember snapped to and grabbed up Aurora as the man had said. She was prepared to start running or jumping, but she noticed that the fat man with the green eyes wasn't moving like he was supposed to.
     The man grunted. "On second thought, just hold onto my shoulder. We don't want to risk harming her any further." And without waiting for Ember to do so on her own, the man plonked the girl's hand onto his shoulder.
     Had anyone been creeping nearby, they would have heard a snap. The green lit balcony switched back to darkness. A dark blue could be seen far above. The sun would soon rise above the horizon and illuminate the sky. The man and the girls had disappeared.

Borealis Twelve - Blinded by Fire

     "What do you want?" Ember asked the green eyes.
     The green eyes grew brighter in response, but the owner of the eyes said nothing. Green light, meanwhile, filled the balcony, cutting through the trace amounts of yellow smog that lingered in the dark morning air. More and more light flooded from the two eyes as Ember sat, making it easier for her to see who stood before her.
     A large, round belly covered in a tattered trench coat was the first notable feature the growing light revealed. Then came broad shoulders adorned with large, black feathers that stuck into the air. Last came a pair of extra long arms, most likely extended by the trench coat's length, and a pair of rather short legs that were dressed in baggy corduroy. The face, however, remained a mystery as the green eyes were now so bright that they masked any features hidden behind them.
     Ember shielded her eyes with the back of her hand. She couldn't take anymore of the light's intensity. "Well," she said. "What do you want to do besides that?"
     The lights immediately dimmed to a more bearable level. Ember brought down her hand and could see that the eyes were attached to a large gas mask. The figure continued to remain silent.
     Unamused, Ember sighed, "Is that all you can do? Turn your lights on and off and scare people?"
     The figure shifted its weight and coughed a very muffled cough.
     "Great."
     Then, what sounded like a chuckle from the inside of a full trash can escaped the figure. "Ember," it said in an equally canned, though obviously masculine voice.
     Completely baffled, Ember said the only thing she was capable of saying at that moment, "Uh." All other words left her brain. So, she sat there, staring at the fat man with the green eyes who knew her name. She didn't even notice that Aurora was beginning to wake up.

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 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.