In the most general sense there is something personal in how we view the world around us. Even without a frame of reference, and looking beyond what we’ve come to accept as everyday; judging an occurrence outside of one’s parameters without the use of said parameters? Hard to do so, or even to describe And even if it doesn’t quite capture the picture of what lies ‘out there’, it’s enough of a reassurance to the eye of the beholder and the mind of the moulder. Bringing some otherwise incomprehensible thing into a field where it can at least start to feel familiar: it’s far from uncommon, even with the first look at a place that tries not to adhere to whatever measure of normality that played out around it.


Even ones purple by name, and painfully, plain purpling by nature to the less fortunate there.


For a, well, *plane* that existed beyond possibility of travel or even breach so far, said existence was markedly familiar in some ways to the theoretical observers outside. Environments, biomes, even the composition of entire astronomical objects, all recomposed, stripped down, moulded together not just regardless of cohesion but actively testing it. If, of course, a lack of cohesion didn’t wrap right back around into cohesion eventually.

Perception of the Plane as malevolent had dwindled over...whatever measure of time its people lived by. Seeing the sinuous space-timescape more and more as either operating on different moral fortitude than them or none whatsoever--despite the rampant clashing of its stolen constituents. It was far from a place of deliberate suffering. Just one that borrowed and borrowed from whatever dimensions it brushed past, winding the keys of some components and making mazes out of others. Reclining back on itself and watching the toys clatter.


Titanic spheres of earth and water intangible in the surfaces they were supposedly embedded within; glaciers that calved and melted without apparent end to the ice they were composed of; airborne landmasses shaped like skeletons of unidentifiable creatures...or perhaps actual skeletons, who could have said? Amusing and bemusing enough how the attempts at chaos (if, indeed, these could be classified as ‘attempts’ by some genius loci, to foster life, amuse itself, otherwise or both) could be seen to draw it into the realm of comprehension.

If, of course, the whimsies of life ever existed as a topic for its tenants to mull over. Which was often not the case, given how trying not to give in to existential dread often took precedence for them, sullying those conversational waters for good.


The melding--or more often, the mishmash--of different environments, climates, species and more gave way to what may as well have been its own weird world. Things building up into a familiar system, if anyone there had an idea of what ‘familiar’ was or could have been. A landscape twirling its absent way along as evolutionary lineages died in their infancy, genetic mutations came and went, and ever so many societies remained a glimmer in the eyes of hopeful leaders. It whirled and curled through cosmic casualty, heedless. Some believed the place itself was alive, and hoarding the mania that festered within and on it like some liminally-displaced dragon. In attempted incohesion, there it was, cohesive.


Drama was far from uncommon, and the scene that greeted one patchy stretch of forest in particular shouldn’t exactly have raised many eyebrows.

But that was called into question this time, by those on both sides of the equation.


Inklings of day-and-night cycles left the inhabitants of this place rising (but not so much shining) in shaky routines. Brooks would babble their endless song as pelts set and feathers ruffled. Would slink through piecemeal framing of darkness, boring into brains that fought off the pervading sound before trying to pin open the eyes they guided against another onslaught of sudden sunlight. They gave these otherwise aimless environs a feeling of vague familiarity, even as the idea of having lived anyplace else left them confused and wondering. The song of the time wasn’t sustained by any avian chorus or mammalian rut, however, but by the agitated stomping, flapping, screeching and fussing of a dozen or so supposed holders of this ground.


Not exactly in line with the place’s supposed natural ambience--it was far from a sight of majestic warfare. It held all the delicacy of bees boiling angrily over the remains of their hive right after a bear had clawed through all their craftsmanship in moments. Yet despite this--or because of it--it still held on to some dignity, even as its occupants seemed to possess no memory of the concept. The picture of esoteric, it was, and not within the understanding of the beings themselves. The picture of esoteric, either emphasised in its natural mystique or overcast by the humanoid figure draped among and over practically all of it.


Offra would only see himself as overshadowing it, in more ways than one, and to be among the mismatched woodlands that should have served as a one-and-done footstep for him as an absolute insult. He couldn’t bring himself to blame the place itself, however--as sentient as this weaving world seemed to come across at times, feasting on disorder alongside the progression of life and growth--given how the true culprits were infesting it at the moment.


The squishy webbing between his splayed fingers wasn’t enough to block out the irritating black dots in his vision. A bother enough if they weren’t so undeniably *alive,* dancing from one haze of green-brown to another with buzzing that stung his ears. All these lessers to deal with, right when he was in the wrong mindset--and at this stage in his cycle, he couldn’t just warp this part of the Plane into a beautiful blue tempest to wash both his hands and his mind of them. He didn’t have the focus nor the draw to be done with this annoyance in seconds.

Yet.


Still enough to make him scowl. This wasn’t even a Roil, one of the more common ‘linchpins’ of the Plane trying to lure in the weaklings and layabouts that could be spirited away without notice. It could hardly be seen as a Rent, where destruction outwardly festered. Everyone here had decided to stay on this scale of the spatiotemporal serpent even as it wound and waved among others. They could have bowed away-and-back like grasses in the wind, amassing again in his absence to carry on as if no veritable spacial glacier had crashed through their minuscule hold on this land. Only existing in the corner of his eye. He may even have commended them for it. Internally.


Alas, no, as all he saw in this overturned nest was a framework of annoyance blinking in and out of his vision--which was narrowed of his own volition, of course--held high by a sad swarm of ironically gigantic glory hounds, following an ‘assault’ that had arguably done more damage to their own settlement than he had with one selectively-precise step. They weren’t a variable he’d considered, having traveled more with the temporary temporal palpability of the place in mind and not in regards to whatever was desperately clinging to it.


A simple destination, it was, the roost of a phoenixie-human and an ever-mutable array of his ‘friends’. The Plane had interlaced on two resonating levels: bringing two expanses of woodland together, and he’d seen the shortcut and jumped on it. Living in/on a world where seeing what lay directly in front of you still gave no guarantee it’d be where you ended up? He’d take this hodgepodge over the equivalent of rolling dice. So often the Plane would grant you a free, unwitting meal if you were born, or rather, *composed* with the capacity to snap it up--one thing that seemed to have survived from the many worlds it took from. Might made right, even when not currently being expressed.


Thoughts of home had driven him, both the comfort and distaste at its beckoning warmth at resigned impasse within, to barge right on through without paying the likelihood of illusions any heed. Seeing an opportunity like this without the strings attached. It was a mistake. He’d admit it. But only to himself. No-one else.


Rhythmic flares of huge nostrils caught the tang of ash and salt; fine lashes flickered across eyes which wandered and lidded. This indicator of others trying to catch his mental attention was a synaptic grapple which the phoenixie boy soon quashed, watching the insects below expend so much enraged effort on trying to bypass the obstacle of his shawl cloth. The signature was simple enough to reroute, Offra keeping his image clear and concise. No need getting the girls worked up over...what could scarcely be classified as a mistake.


Yes, the spots in varying hues of dull and dreary and dim and plain dismal weren’t to blame for his physical and mental trough. Tiny itching in the muted teal tresses cloaking the earth was all that noble effort could amount to. Or the next hurdle of his skin, to deliver whatever brand of disease they had cooking up inside of them. This set the often-gaudy waterfowl’s lip a degree more taut. A claw left furrows through the earth, uncertain of whether to bother spearing one through in the process of scratching two itches simultaneously. 


This illusion in particular brought out the myopia umpteenfold. With the surge of supposedly enormous feathers over their space, he helped disintegrate any flimsy image of harmony there. In all their self-righteous fervour they saw this as some form of assault on their carefully-cultivated sense of presence, importance, this time when an illusion left behind by some other Plane sailor left them drawn under the feet of someone who’d likely passed them by many times prior. The assault of a phoenixie boy on some backwoods nothing place he wouldn’t have even remembered in a moment’s time. And they thought of HIM as the self-righteous one…


As hypocritical as this may have appeared in regard to a man who quite often hijacked the bodies of his vassals for a literal new perspective on life. But he wouldn’t back down on this matter. Nibbling at him like lice wouldn’t reverse the damage done to their ‘home’, and nor would it remotely bolster their image in the view of any other ‘settlements’ out there. If he hadn’t been inconvenienced like this, would they have taken it upon themselves to chase him down, and continue their hunt for revenge *away* from impressionable fellows? Did they consider the thoughts of bacteria before they ran roughshod through the fields?


It was nothing personal. It was just convenient.


But none of that detracted from his superiority. Even with his body free of adornments, with no glitter of jewelry or dye, he exuded an aura that outshone them. It sent their little hearts racing, their feeble little feelings of even *being* flittering away like shadows before sunlight. A presence not necessarily to kowtow toward--as appreciated as that would be, in concept alone, given the capacity of these specks to scrape even further along the ground in his name, or the lack thereof. But a cleansing tide regardless.


The bluish-hued, breathing mountain remained. The tiniest, partially-translucent feather in his plumage was an affront to their lowly leyline, ruffled in the breeze as he lay in absent thought.


He was beyond reproach. Beyond consequence. Their latest mistake among so many was thinking of this as a consequence for *him.*


Offra’s lips parted with a deep, absent sigh, sending the little figures sprawling and chittering below. A cloud of what only an idiot would call feathers seemed to only exist in the saccades of his stare, just another array of dots in an absent phoenixie glare. This was supposed to have been a freeing walk, away from the self-reflection and justification that kept its rays focused on his comforting clouds.


A taloned toe waved over a tickling feeling where it blended with his flesh, driving away an attempt by another one to...ha. To even insinuate that it could have a chance in hell at hurting him was the most amusing idea so far. As the gale of displaced air removed the little ‘itch’, set in motion by toes that could have reduced the silly thing to natural foot dye in the blink of an absent eye, the instigator mulled over the consequences of bringing that ‘death’ to ‘life’. He hadn’t had any intention of giving them any chance of climbing to recognition in his mind...would that finalise their lowly role, or only challenge it by their addition to his literal standing?


And their energy signatures still rippled around him, tiny flashes of tangibility among the manic mental rush. Where an unenlightened eye may have seen an admirable feat in this, the fortitude of some supposedly stolid souls still having a hold on the slick rocks of this temporal timestream, Offra only saw the truth. Wasted potential. With no room to flourish.


Honestly, they were lucky that the people who tried to tap in earlier weren’t the ones who decided their fate at present. That dragongirl had such an obvious presence even in her slightest of actions--maybe it was just a dragon thing--and, well. There would be a different scene unfolding here, if Offra ever decided to pass over the reins. One unfolding upon redder-hued wings; adorning one who would have likely reduced these wretches and all they stood both for and upon to ash and smoke, scattered away on the astral wind. Such effort to expend, really. An act with all the necessity of bringing annihilation down upon an anthill, where only one ant had even tried to bite you. 

But there was a world of difference between just consuming your food and really *savouring* it, and fiery little Crissa had learned that soon enough. And as indignant as she often carried on, he knew better than anyone how firm the lesson had lodged. Just the thought alone could set one’s mouth frothing and gut churning.


Apt. Perhaps one lazy swallow, one clash of moist, pulsing inner muscle, followed by several hours of agonising rebirth through digestion would be the journey to recognition these wretches sought. Salvation in a simple, everyday manoeuvre, Offra being fuelled by those more widespread necessities of life about as much as anyone smaller or less ‘formed’ in this often formless realm. And as painful, suffocating and pulverising as that rush of enzymatic conveyance would be, at least it would end for them cast in beauty. Integrated with him to at least some extent. Cradled in shimmering feathers and sculpted flesh. But was it a fate he felt like granting them? Did they moralise this way over every lower being they consumed?


A milky eye fell on the tiny figure that stood away from the others.


Acknowledgement of that tiny shifting canvas reminded Offra all over again of how risking this descension may have wound up worth it in part. Watching either a lesson sink in or come back to the awareness of its student. This little one had an expression of such palpable unease compared to the exaggerated rage swirling in the air around him; his mind had hinted at what potential horror literally lay before them. All this with neither a faux war cry nor a fruitless tug at a giant feather.


How could they have come to...whatever conclusion that gave them such pause? A hazard at the might of a phoenix alone, part nixie aside, in this realm whose inhabitants feared those who thrive on revival and genuflected before those who reflected them? Or the pieces coming together in the mind of someone who’d seen him before--revitalised or otherwise? The look of someone who’d realised a little too late what had stumbled upon them and only now ran the gamut from on-the-spot submission to making immediate tracks? Now *that* he would have conceded to, if not really cared to reflect upon, had the side of him that longed to carry out a touch of deforestation not been growing in intensity by the second.


Did they see through to his true position, obvious as it should have seemed? Were they merely reacting to the attention of a huge, potential threat in the way a fish would before returning to the shoal, moments before the seal’s shadow returned to set them off again in a loop of idiotic immediacy?


Either way, soon whatever kind of ‘circadian’ rhythm drove him would tick right around to  hour...chest lazily rising and falling on what they’d call storms as easy as any other breaths he’d taken; skin as beautifully soft as pillowy clouds and yet corrosive to any lowly tongue or hand that dared try to worship it; lofty, glowing eyes searing away this blight on his composure with the white-hot power he possessed in part. Too many minutes of turning the same internal wheels. All this stupid, unnecessary self-affirmation soon reduced to an amusing little anecdote to reflect on when his paths crossed more pleasantly or while refining his makeup with the girls. Renée might find some different-looking chunks of grit while her delicate fingers combed his mane.


More substantial than the earth that surrounded him came the memory of previous pre-revival moments, with one time spent in another avian man’s company. On a Roil, riding the simple mental kick the place provided, showing off the ‘artist’s touch’ that had ended another small encounter. Flashing a spangle of gore across his sculpted soles, crowned by lazily flexing digits, and the part-pigeon, admirably comfortable in his lowly position on the Plane, had went off on that laughable tangent of his: when the same illusion (*a lot of similarities for a purported realm of chaos,* Offra had mused) had caught up to Vradland’s victims for one bloody climax to his hunt. His talons ensnaring the horizon for them, their very existence, voice snapping something along the lines of letting them know they were *immortalised.* They were *captured.* *Framed.*


What had he said…

Oh, yes.

*Watch the birdie.*


Just the mere THOUGHT of it seemed to set his transformation in wondrous motion, slipping on the comforting image of his ‘other self’ like a second skin. Fettered by his own ebbing and flowing brainwaves no longer. His presence rising from imposing to downright absolute, warping the fragile minds below and shelving them into simple categories of flight, submission or death. Not in the sense of revenge, as that would imply they’d have been able to slight him to begin with, which wasn’t possible of course. The Plane a straight path before him. Momentarily.


Oh, it was playing out before his eyes so clearly, shrouding them paradoxically in that lofty haze he’d broken since that misstep here. His ‘true’ self not so much unveiled as reintroduced. When the clouds coalesced around and he shook off these nonexistent shackles to stand tall in all his ever-present splendour, rising again over those reignited expressions of terror, sending them underground or underfoot. Whichever came first. It was so petty of him to even consider, to even imagine.


Wouldn’t it hurt his own ‘moralising’ of earlier, to go all rampage-of-revenge over these dust mites on the astral wind? To demonstrate how quickly his relentless river could overturn their supposedly stone-still standings? It would be a small comfort in the moment, this raw brand of foot dye in all its lumpy, fragmented splatter across his soles. Worked down to a sheen in one step, as a message written in the sole-sky toward these nothing-creatures below--how whether they were scattered beneath his tread directly or otherwise, they’d only help spread the message of subtle surrender, cast in every idle spread of pristine phoenixie toes.

It was so, SO very petty. It would be such a tiny boon in the grand scheme of...whatever this all was, playing out around him. One little instance of not so much restoring balance as demonstrating that it had always prevailed.

But, deep down…it would feel so *delicious...*