Deus ex Machina

I look into the room surrounding me. This is Hannah’s room. It’s ethereal, kind of. Nothing’s really in focus, but I can still see everything perfectly fine. I can’t interact with basically anything here unless special circumstances come up, but I can see everything. Hannah’s laid her blanket out on the ground, waiting for someone to share her blanket with her. The ways children go about their romance is amusing, adorable even.

I can feel the aether around me shift, bringing everything into focus. That happens every time a planeswalker arrives, every time an Entelan uses a tunnel to either enter or leave Volaria, or whenever they make a call across the planes. Especially lately, these moments of focus have been happening way more frequently. Mostly as the result of this romance that I started devoting all my infinite time to watching.

Karina planeswalked outside the door, ready to see her girlfriend. Hannah hasn’t gotten used to noticing it, but I certainly have. These moments are my windows to interact with the world in any way. Doing so around other elementals is much harder, but between these two? It’s much easier.

Karina knocks on the door, Hannah tells her to enter, and Karina opens the door to walk in. I can feel the large cut beneath her shirt. It’s already scarred over by now, but it’s there nonetheless. “How’d you get yourself injured like that?” I ask. She can hear me when I do that, even if she’s not sure where it came from. “Well, no reason to let Hannah see it.” I take my minutes of interacting with the world to heal the scar. Healing is all I do. I might as well make myself useful.

“Was someone just in here?” Karina asks Hannah. Right. She can’t see me, because I’m here and not there. Is there anything I can do to show myself? … Maybe. I might know someone that knows enough. The world defocuses again, and I stop being able to interact with it.

“Uh, who?” Hannah asks. Hannah, you should know this. “There’s just you and me here.”

“I heard a voice talking to me… and they said your name.” Hannah sits up to offer affection to Karina. These two are so cute, I’m glad I started watching them. It’s the most interesting romance to happen since Mister Fulmen and Miss Arina finally came back. The two girls end up sharing Hannah’s blanket like she suggested. They’re probably safe now, so I can come back later.

It doesn’t take much for me to find the person I was trying to find. There’s only 11 beings in this version of our world, where we’re separated from the main Volaria. Feeling for Lyr’s energy isn’t too difficult. He’s sitting around in one of the Entelan laboratories that isn’t being used. I suppose he’s[i] supposed[/i] to watch over these people, isn’t he?

Lyr glimmers a bright golden, almost like Entela’s master does. He’s got a simple outfit in that color, wears glasses, but is mostly boring otherwise. He’s probably the best suited to living alone for a million years. He can stare at grass growing for decades at a time and not even care.

“Hi Lyr,” I say. He’s not focused on me, or anything else in particular, but he nods his head to acknowledge I said something. “Could you teach me how to make an avatar projection?”

“What do you need one of those for?” He asks me. Yeah, I suppose an avatar doesn’t help me in this world normally, does it?

“Whenever a planeswalker appears, I can cast spells into Volaria for a short time. Same if they open a tunnel. I think I can use an avatar to talk to someone on Volaria.”

Lyr chuckles and flashes a smile. “Well, you know I’m always ready to teach.” Karina asked Master Sara about me. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t entirely expect it, especially as she explained my existence to her. The healer, the disembodied voice…

“That…” Master Sara starts. I suppose if someone would be able to guess it, it’d be her. “That sounds like it must be a Spirit. I guess if it’s like you say it is, it’d be Solari. But she shouldn’t still be alive.”

Yes, Master Sara. You’re exactly right. I shouldn’t be. But I am. Karina’s back. How long has it been since I last had to heal her? Months? Hannah’s standing around this time, waiting for her girlfriend to walk in. As Karina opens the door, I watch her. I guess I have my chance now.

“Do you mind making an interplanar contact with… I don’t know, Hannah?”

Karina perks up as she hears me. “There’s that voice again! Sol… Solari?”

I feel the world defocus. No matter what I say here, nothing’s getting through to them. Like this, I can only watch and hope. Hannah’s eyes widen, like she wasn’t expecting me. “I thought that was a thing the Therians made up!”

Sigh. Hannah, really, you come from a family that has our powers. Why are you the one that thinks we’re not real?

“I talked to Master Sara and that’s what she told me.”  Karina recognizes it as true, whether or not she actually knows who I am. I expect she doesn’t.

“What’d she say?”

“Oh, uh… she wanted me to contact you? Interplanar contact? Would that even work?”

“Uh… maybe?” I suppose maybe I should’ve been clearer why. “I don’t really know how these things work. Should we listen?” Please? I need to actually talk to someone that isn’t a Spirit. I suppose if not, I can just keep watching them. Interesting and cute things always happen around these two. Karina looks up at Hannah and types her interplanar communications commands. As soon as they come, I start channeling a spell to cast once Hannah accepts. It’s only a few seconds before Hannah’s transceiver beeps, and she questions, “Connect?”

I let go of my spell and send a ghostly form of my body into Hannah’s room. It looks like me, but it’s only partially there, not fully there. I can feel it. It feels… weird. Like I’m not even there, but instead I’m in a heavy suit that’s there. It doesn’t feel like life. “Really, Hannah,” I say as my avatar arrives. “Your family should know the most about us, given you have three of our scripts.”

Hannah considers what to say. I suppose nowadays, seeing any Spirit is a special occasion. It was far different when we were still part of Volaria.

“Um…” Karina says. “Hi?”

“Your transceiver is going to run out of energy pretty quickly, you’ll need to charge it, uh… Master Sara was right.” I hold my arms out in greeting. “Hiya, I’m Solari. … Or, uh… an apparition that I’m trying to use to talk to you. I wish coming back here was that simple.”

“Okay, uh… why?” Karina asks. Fair enough.

“Severa said that if I was going to be meddling in your life as much as I am, I should at least tell you about it.” I cross my arms and stare at Hannah. It’s just life-giving like I always do. Is that so bad? Hannah is in awe. She’s lived her whole life thinking we were fake. She’s going through a lot. “I’ve been trying to make sure you don’t die on each other, whenever I get the chance.”

Karina and Hannah both say nothing for a moment. Hannah is the first one to speak. “Were you… You were the one that saved Karina when she was stabbed?”

I smile at her. Of course. That’s what I do. “Yep! I tried to cast a spell and it worked. So I started doing that.”

Hannah walked over to me and hugged my apparition. I wish I could really feel this. It’s been so long… Karina looks at me. “Whoa. Thank you.” She’s not completely certain, it seems, but at least she knows I want to protect them now. “Have you been doing… anything else?”

I shake my head and smile. “Just healing you. It’s most of what I do.” I take a moment of pause, then wink as I continue. “I am the best on Volaria. Though I suppose I’ve also been watching how adorable you two are.”

Both Karina and Hannah have red faces now. Hannah responds faster. “I know,” she says with a bright grin, “Isn’t Karina so adorable?”

Karina blushes further. “Mostly because of Hannah.”

I grin at the two. “So, I’ll be doing what I can to make sure you don’t die on each other.” Uh…  “If… if that’s okay, of course.”  I don’t want to do this if they want me to stop. Even if I think they’re the cutest ever.

“I… I guess?” Karina suggests. Hannah shrugs.

Karina’s transceiver is running out. I don’t have much time. “It seems like I can only cast spells when either Entela breaks the world with a tunnel or a planeswalker comes or goes. So if you really need to talk to me… I need you to do one of those.”

“Okay, we’ll remember that,” Karina agrees.

I look up at Karina. Now I’m just sad. I want to be here for far longer. “You’re going to run out of energy. Maybe the next time we meet like this, I’ll have a real body, but until then… good luck.” Karina waves at me as I return to the land of the shadows, where I can’t interact with anything but can see everything.

Hannah hugs Karina and awaits the certain response. “I’m not sure what to think about that,” Karina decides. “I guess it’s good someone’s watching out for us.

“If she’s going to stop you from dying, I’m okay with it.” Don’t worry, Hannah. I’ll make sure of it, as much as I can.

Karina looks up at Hannah. I’ll have to go do something else soon, while they go about whatever business Hannah had planned for them. “If you’re okay with it, then I’m okay with it.” As Hannah relaxes into another hug with Karina, I leave them be and set off. Maybe I can one day meet up with Master Sara.

Characters

 * Solari
 * Hannah Delcarlo-Nisita


 * Sara Ylerne