Hello again audience... Well, the few that actually read this story...
Just here to say that I do not own Journey (Although I wish I did), and the views that I have about the game are purely my opinions, if you have had different experiences then you can have them, everyone has different experiences playing...
^ That disclaimer applies to all chapters...
Read on!
The Eternal Peak
First Confluence
That whiteness, it had returned.
And it was everywhere.
The instant that the presence had appeared properly had been the instant that the new world had disappeared. One moment, Fluttershy had been standing on the top of the ruined building, wondering how to open the giant gate, the next she had been dragged into the glowing white circle, and now? White.
It had come in a wave, accompanied by a peaceful ‘whoosh!’ from the wind, blocking out anything and preventing any chance of a possible escape. But Fluttershy got the odd feeling that this was natural, that this whiteness was just a normal occurrence in this new world, a thing that had to be experienced to truly move on.
But what of the Presence?
There was nothing to see in this light. The animal lover didn’t even know how long she had been sitting there, isolated in her own thoughts, almost drifting in the quiet atmosphere.
But how long would this all last for? She had no way of knowing just what the point of this was.
Was she… dead?
But she couldn’t be, she could feel her body, scrunched up beneath her, sitting on the hard white surface. She just couldn’t be dead.
She couldn’t…
But when would something happen…
There! Something in the white! An object perhaps? Something that she hadn’t seen in her thoughtful state?
It was very big…
But it was moving, ever so slightly, so it wasn’t an object. It was alive.
But what was it?
The Presence...
An uneasy feeling started to spread throughout the timid Pegasus, freezing her to the spot. That would have made a difference if she could have moved in the first place, but as it happened she was stuck in place, unable to move at all.
She was at this thing’s mercy…
But it wasn’t moving; it was just standing there, watching her. Fluttershy was unable to make out much, but she could see the faintest outline of it. It was giving a familiar feeling. This must be the Presence that she had felt earlier.
From what she could see, the Presence was made from the white, blending in almost perfectly. Its shape was conical, and it almost looked to be wearing a clock, much in the same fashion that she was wearing, but this one was perfectly white, with brilliant gold patterns threaded into the cloth, spreading around the hem and reaching up towards the top. They almost seemed to depict something, but what? The cowl of the cloak only gave a view of a completely bone white face, gold lines running along it. Was it wearing a mask?
This thing was just standing there, on the verge of invisibility, as if it wanted to observe and not be seen, as if it was judging her silently. But what did it want her to do? It looked to be twice her size at the very least from its place a few body lengths in front of her, so there was no way that she could overpower it. Maybe it was suspicious of her, was she different? Did it think that she was dangerous? That she would attack?
But would she even want to attack it? This Presence was not moving, and didn’t give the feeling of hostility. No, it was just the opposite. It gave a feeling of mystery, a curiosity that demanded to be fulfilled.
But what could she do?
Fluttershy sat there, completely immobile, in front of the Presence, for an unknown amount of time. It was standing there, hidden by the white and its cloak. The cloak fell perfectly to the ground, sealing away any possibility of viewing underneath.
And then it called. Or at least, it seemed to.
An unimaginably perfect, beautiful sound emanated from the Presence, clearing away any thoughts from her head, filling her with its purity. There was only a slight movement as it did so, as if it took minimal effort, and little caring. Did it not feel much about that action?
But an image was appearing as well. As the sound pierced the whiteness, it fell away, blowing the whiteness, and the Presence, away on the nonexistent wind. Leaving only the story.
The mountain appeared in the new whiteness that overtook the old. It only showed a slight outline of it, the beam from the top somehow being even whiter than the surroundings.
And then that went away too, but not entirely, but enough for her to realize that something about it had changed, leaving a wall surrounding her instead of the whiteness. It had markings all along it telling some sort of story, but the entire meaning was hidden. Fluttershy tried to move her head to look further around the wall, but was unable to move at all, still held in place by some force.
Did it not want her to see these things? Or maybe, the time just wasn’t right…
Fluttershy looked properly at the markings in front of her. It lay exactly where the outline of the Mountain had been, and it was a perfect copy, the only difference being that it was made out of the curious drawings that sat on the way, a surrealistic depiction of it.
But it had a story to tell.
The call of the Presence was only just starting to fade away; the ringing still lay in the ‘air’. Reverberating. The Mountain seemed to hear this, and the wall changed.
From the very top of the Mountain a small ball of light appeared, drifting from the split and moving along. The wall started to move around silently as this happened, ghostly quiet.
This white ball was drifting along in the sky, and in an instant, the stars grew from the blackness, filling the void with a beautiful tapestry of lights.
The stars kept appearing, getting closer and closer to the ground. And then the growth stopped. Fluttershy felt slightly sad after this, but the sadness went away as she saw the effects. Birds appeared in the air, impressionist drawings with clear meanings.
But they looked strange, they had glowing symbols contained in the spot where their chests would be. Were they really there in the real world?
Plants appeared soon after, growing from the ground, but they too had symbols, these ones hidden where their roots would be.
And then the ponies appeared. But were they really ponies? No, they looked like something else. They looked like the Presence. But there were more of them, at least four.
However, they were unmistakably the same as the Presence, the distinctive white cloak and shape. They never wore anything else. Was it a position? Were they called White Cloaks?
But these beings were no exception to the rule, and those glyphs appeared in their chests, right where one might imagine the heart would reside. Did these glyphs represent life? And they came from that first glyph that shot out from the Mountain.
Did the Mountain create all of these things? The stars? The birds? The plants?
The inhabitants?
Did it create life?
But what was that last shape? It grew from the ground, in between where the four white cloaks stood. It snaked out of the ground, high up into the empty space on the wall, a glyph appearing in its base. A cloud of things that looked to be cloths were flying around its top in a random formation.
Wait, was that a ribbon? And if it was, why did it have a glyph? Surely it couldn’t be alive…
A memory flooded Fluttershy’s mind. It had her, standing on top of the sunken building, a newly formed cloak fitted on her body, a stubby scarf draped on her back.
Cloths, flying around her and darting to touch her scarf.
Her standing in the sunken pit…
The ribbon, begging her to touch it and release its children, the cloths.
Were all of those things alive? Was there life in the endless desert?
Was she not alone?
The story looked to have reached its end for the moment; the wall had stopped revolving, even though there was still a lot more to see. But alas, this was all that she would see for now.
The wall disappeared. Suddenly all that was left was the sound, the faintest traces still hanging in the white void, bouncing against the hard floor, reaching to Fluttershy in her sitting position.
And then that too was gone, fading away, and it dragged the whiteness along with it. The desert almost mourned its disappearance, a sad whistling rushing by her.
And then she was back, sitting in the white circle, surrounded by the glowing stone markers and the sculpture of what she now knew to be a white cloak. Without knowing it, the statue had actually started glowing, lighting up to be a pure white. But as she watched that luminosity drained away like water down a drain, vanishing, leaving the statue as the cold lifeless lump of rock that it had been before.
It was sad; it had almost seemed alive while it had been alight…
Before Fluttershy could properly think this over there was a clunk, and a scrape, and then the gate was opening, as if it had known that she had seen the wall, the story, the possible explanation of all life’s beginning. It was splitting down the centre, the two halves of the massive structure moving apart to reveal a passageway through the sand, an incredibly tall corridor, and a tall roof supported by columns, leaving a path through the centre.
There was nothing that lay for her in the rear, and everything in the future. This passage would lead the way to the Mountain.
Fluttershy stood, almost not realising that she was able to move again. The white circle had vanished long ago along with the statue and the stone markers as well. It was almost as if life was fading away in this area, giving her a taste of what lay ahead.
With that thought in mind, the excited Pegasus set off towards the gate, the corridor, and the unlimited possibilities afterwards.
As she took her first proper step on her long journey, she had no idea of what experiences and hardships she would encounter, but she knew she had to get to the Mountain, in it lay the answers to everything.
What she was really thinking about was how her friends must be feeling, and how long it would take her to return, those were the thoughts on her mind as she strode along the corridor through the sand.
For a moment she almost thought she saw something moving at the end of the corridor, about her size. But that was ridiculous. There was no other creature in the desert with her, no company…