//------------------------------// // Supplemental Chapter: Travel // Story: Same World, Different Realities // by Mocha Star //------------------------------// Shaman of our Tribe was our inspiration through the journey on the leaves through the mountain. The leaves had space inside them for us to sleep, eat, and enjoy the delights of our masters. The Divine Mistress Platinum chose us for a reason and my family will honor the herd who all honor the Mistress. The warriors took off their armor while inside the leaf with us all, it’s humbling to know that even those blessed from birth by the Divine are the same as us grounders. Even the chosen’s grounders seemed to be in the best of health which was a boon to the herd’s morale. We ate modestly at first, but there was flavor, smells, aromas… we’d never experienced such manna and with approval from the noble unihorns we feasted as though it were the Month of Nobility where the lowest grounder to the highest grounder treats each other like nobility. Feasting on the finest grasses, the cleanest waters, telling tales of great grounders that earned the privilege of serving those who served the Mistress and the one who saw her. It was always fun to laugh at his silly tale of how she was different, but that wasn’t the point of the celebration or of our feast. We were one of the enlightened; cleansed of our past and given new life. We traveled on the wind for two days before we saw the first cities below us. We’d learned that it was not possible to fall off the leaf and looked over the edge often at the lands controlled by the Mistress. Most of them were going to be harrowing to till and make into farmlands, covered in snow and rocks or some of the ugliest grounders I’d ever seen. The third day we all watched as we passed over the City of the Divine Mistress. It was frozen and shone like sunlight in the moving waters with a spire of ice yet the warmth of her light kept us warm as well. We prayed for hours as we approached and passed beside her royal throne offering our very souls to her as loyal servants. It was saddening when we had to pass it and continue our journey. It was not our meaning to serve in her Royal City of Ice, where rainbows were made from her palace itself and her most adored subjects were so blessed they shone like the worthy they are. We gathered in the meeting halls inside our leaf and I know the others did as well on their leaves. We sang songs, danced, made merry, and we were told to use an inside hut to mate. The rooms were with beds that were softer than I’d ever imagined and deviced I couldn’t imagine the use of. We’d managed to fit four couples at a time and rotated mating during the celebration, giving in to the glory we were now a part of. The food, the music, the merriment. It was like spring heat like we’d never known for hours until we’d finally grown tired and began to sleep, laying upon each other as a happy herd, unknowing of awaited us but expecting the best.