3 months ago
. Spread out before her was a tableau like none she had ever seen. Warm, golden light and sapphire sky presided over a bustling scene on a scale that defied her imagination. They stood in a broad entryway of colored stone. Behind them, the double doors led into a surprisingly small building of green and white. Another statue of an overturned jug, pouring water into a basin, stood to their right, gleaming wetly in gold and hanging over turquoise water. A pathway led down a small hill to what Ariadne could only describe as a boulevard of dreams.
A wide street paved in iridescent stone bustled with pedestrians and conveyances of strange and crazy types. They flew, floated, swam and rolled, walking and hopping along, on business of some sort. Buildings of every imaginable architecture lined the streets: squat and low, tall and sinuous, sprawling and ancient, gleaming and modern. The effect dizzied her. From their vantage point, Ariadne could see streets like this extending as far as her eyes could see, becoming indistinct and hazy in the distance. But that’s not what got her. What got her was the sky.
The sky was full and empty at the same time. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see nothing but blue sky and emptiness. But when she looked up and focused a bit, suddenly, buildings and islands floated before her, hanging defiantly in the air, daring her to make something of their blithe disregard of gravity. When she looked away, the buildings would fade, and new ones would appear. As she scanned the sky, rows of buildings and islands and castles appeared and disappeared, giving the effect of a giant flip book turning across the sky.
The structures appeared everywhere she looked if she squinted just right. If she let her gaze relax a bit, the buildings disappeared again. Where the buildings were visible, she swore she could see people walking in midair in front of them, strolling along as if unaware they hung hundreds of feet in the air. Gentle music tickled her ears, something orchestral, soft enough to be soothing, vague enough to avoid being cloying and annoying.
