My full name is Vol'Taris Windwalker Soulfire of the Guildhall Ward, second scion of Duke Kal'Taris Emberhand Soulfire of the Guildhall Ward and Sha'lani Shadowmane Windwalker the Even-Bladed of the Hive Ward. Even if you're familiar with tiefling naming traditions, that ridiculous mouthful is probably not going to make any sense to you; and that's entirely okay. Here in Sigil, everyone's culture is a tangled multi-planar parody of a motley melting pot of an insane mess.

I don't know which gods decided this place would work this way, but I'm convinced those gods must be crazy. Straight barmy, in fact.

In any case, the universe has contrived to make my imperiously-horned father the Prime Treasurer of a relatively minor mage guild. There are only a few dozen members, and quite honestly they're rather lax in what they consider to be a “mage.” My father is a warlock, the High Lord is a sorcerer, the Grand Advisor is a wizard, and the Chief Negotiator is a bloody bard, for Acheron's sake. I haven't met the rest of them except in passing, but suffice to say that they're a typical ragtag collection of self-important, argumentative, gold-grubbing arcanophiles and would-be finger-wigglers who happen to have some experience in the successful trade of mystical artifacts from across the multiverse.

So, I suppose with such a wide and potentially dangerous field of expertise, I should in fairness give them some amount of credit. With the amassed collective brainpower amongst them, you'd think they'd see the merits of harmonious collaboration. But no – they seem to thrive on constant squabbling, which has over time firmly disenchanted me with the family business.

Not that it was always the family business, mind you. My mother was a member of a thieves' guild for the longest time, specializing in snatch-and-run jobs. Like my father and I, she too is a tiefling. However, whereas my father is the “large horns, tail, and hellfire for blood” type… my mother is the “ebon skin, bat wings, and wicked claws” variety. Apparently the two of them met when my mother attempted to rob my father of some bag of mystic tokens he had “inherited” from a fallen rival. His usual response to such things is to turn the would-be thief into cinders, but as we are a non-flammable lot, evidently they had ample time to negotiate a mutually-beneficial arrangement. Some time later, that arrangement evolved into a marriage and two sons.

Yes, let's talk about my older brother for a moment. His name and title, if you're ready for it, are: Lord Zul'taris Ironfist Soulfire, Pyromancer of the White Flame, Thrice-Sanctioned Wizard of the Guildhall Ward. He has served with a few different factions and been awarded some number of merits, citations, blessings, and whatnot over the years. He also currently works in my father's guild and is a font of pride for both my parents.

I, meanwhile, am no such font.

Your keen eye may have noticed that while I bear a cumbersome tiefling family name, I possess no title nor station. That is, frankly, because I eschew such things with great enthusiasm. I am happily a free man, which of course alarms my parents greatly and results in more than a little disappointment.

My brother – whom I simply call Zultar for short – has always been the overachiever. He's as smart as a whip and as learned as a sage. Like my father, he possesses a fondness for elemental fire and his magical workings reflect that. Unlike my father, however, Zultar made no infernal pact with a higher power; he studied and earned his mystical might through sheer determination. He is, according to my family, the future of our lineage.

On the other hand, “little Volt,” as I am ruefully called within my household, has no interest in such things. Even if I did, there'd be no way to catch up to my brother's overbearing greatness at this point. Despite my disdain for any sort of book-learning, I still get mocked daily for “having the vocabulary of a simpleton” compared to my brother. Trust me, I've worked hard to keep up with him and I think I at least sound educated to the average basher wandering the streets of Sigil. The common tongue is such a complex and diversely nonsensical thing, so I actually rather love it as a metaphorical reflection of the world in which we live. That linguistic love has given me an inspired knack when it comes to communicating with the infinitely-varied people of my home. I dare say that is probably my one true distinguishing talent, if I am to be generous enough to call it that.

Besides, no matter my mastery of the collective tongue, my father still boomingly demands that “We speak only proper Infernal in this household!” I remember many a retributive backhand for even allowing a single slang term to slip past my lips as a youth. One could say that I speak as I do both from a love of communication itself and an ingrained fear of using even one wrong word, no matter how innocently.

If I'm no mage like the other men of my family, does that mean I'm a cutpurse like my mother used to be (before she married into money)? No. In fact, I prefer to stay away from dishonest dealings of that sort simply because they often lead to larger piles of complications in one's life. Successful thieves know their marks well enough to ensure they can get away with stealing from them, and in this City of Doors too much is routinely unpredictable for such a “career” to last very long (hence my parents' meeting, I suppose).

No, I am – without trying to dress it up – a freelance “delivery boy.” Someone needs an item run from one part of Sigil to another? They pay me one silver piece per Ward that I'd have to traverse. I don't ask questions about the item, but I limit its size and weight to something which I can easily carry myself.

My competitive edge there is that I, like my mother, also possess wings as part of our Asmodean heritage. This means that my delivery routes aren't confined to the ground-level streets and footpaths other runners would have to traverse. Also, since the city is built upon the inside of this mind-boggling torus, it is actually less distance to fly than walk due to some sort of geometrical reason that my brother would be happy to over-explain. Again.

All I know is that I get paid to see this entire ever-changing city on a daily basis and at my own whim. In my pocket I keep a hand-drawn map which I update whenever I see something new show up. The map isn't so much for me as it is to help as a visual aid when offering a lost newcomer directions for a few coppers now and again. Even a small act of kindness (paid or not) like that can make the world better – and if the newcomer ends up becoming someone important, then they may remember me fondly in the future. If they end up being eaten alive by this city (literally or not) then at least some of their coins will be put to better use in my pocket than their murderer's.

For instance, that's how I came to know a wandering human acolyte of the human deity Shaundakul. The poor fellow had just arrived through one of the uncountable one-way portals hereabouts, and had the usual bewildered expression upon his face. I swooped down from a delivery run long enough to make his acquaintance and caution him against looking like fresh meat for too long in the open. He has since become one of my best friends and most trusted confidant. His name is Treyl. More on him later.

Speaking of friends, the only other being to which I would give the dubious title is a genasi named Ralin. He's… well, I'm not sure exactly what he does for a living, but he seems to always have money and he's never given me reason to mistrust him. He's the one who introduced me to the weekly card game held in my favorite inn. When I have more coin than I need to get by, I tend to wager it in that game. Sometimes I win. Usually not. If anything, it gives me a chance to meet new people who show up at the table and share either snippets of their stories or full epic tales of their diverse histories.

Ralin himself is a talker; we joke that he never seems to run out of breath because his lungs are conduits to the elemental plane of Air itself. I get the sense that he's not actually joking when he says it, but the smirk on his face implies otherwise so I go along with the story all the same. I've never come across someone I have such a hard time reading as Ralin, and that says something considering how much of my day is literally spent people-watching.

I suppose the last and most important thing I should mention is that behind my family's back I've been regularly attending meetings with the Mind's Eye faction here in Sigil. The Seekers, as we (yes, we) call ourselves, are dedicated to the idea that every being in the multiverse has both a predetermined destiny and conscious choice which enables them to exercise their will to rewrite that destiny. I know that sounds awfully esoteric and grandiose, but it's important to understand that since Sigil rests atop the Spire in the Outer Planes…. quite literally, here, what you believe alters reality itself. When enough people believe something it starts to become true, unlike how it works in the various dreary prime material planes where things tend to be more fixed in place. I'm guessing that's because the stagnant primes have gods and such dictating how things will work, while any being with a soul has a spark of the divine to exercise out here in the real world.

The Seekers have, more than any other faction, the most all-encompassing belief system which espouses personal identity as much as it promotes its own agendas. “Be the best You which you can be,” demands our official mandate. Perhaps one of the most reassuring points is that conflict itself is just an incompatibility of equally-valid perspectives among people. As such, everyone's point of view should be respected even if you yourself don't share their ideals nor goals.

I can't imagine anyone maintaining their sanity in Sigil with a different outlook on life than that, but clearly other mindsets work for other people to some degree. That fact constantly reminds me to be tolerant of others, whether they be a murderous orc trying to kill me for my shoes in an alleyway or they be a disappointed family member who can't understand my contentment as a delivery runner. Sometimes I scare the orc off with a diabolically fanged smile, sometime I fly away from the orc, and sometimes I give him my shoes simply because he needs it more, and I'd rather spend the money at a cobbler's later than have him hurt someone less understanding. Sometimes I let my father berate me until he's even more red in the face and then remind him that his guild gets a family discount for my services, and sometimes I don't even bother listening to his tirades because he seems incapable of understanding me in the first place.

No matter what, everyone is playing out their roles exactly as they must. All we can do is hope that each of our souls learn from our life experiences and carry that wisdom forward. We're all seeking our identity as much as we're living it and creating it all at the same time.

…. That still doesn't mean I'll ever get a steady job like my father wants, no matter how much I begrudgingly respect how he tries to protect me from my own supposed short-sightedness.

That leads me to the last day I spent in Sigil.

I had just had a busy day of delivery runs, most of which included a bit of hazard pay due to the reportedly dangerous parties and locations involved. My coin purse was heavy, and I had a few extra gems in my pockets as the recipient of one pre-paid delivery ended up dying shortly before I got there. No, it wasn't my fault; I don't do such things, no matter how sinister the common folk assume me to be.

So. Treyl, Ralin, and I went to see about playing some cards at our favored tavern. We set up our Blood War deck at a large table at the Dreamtime Inn and started playing amongst ourselves, waiting for strangers to walk up and join in.

It wasn't long before we had a scarred, leather-clad drow with an eyepatch pull up a hesitant chair. Then a cyan-skinned, silk-adorned woman who professed to be a genie glided up shortly thereafter. Lastly, we had a cloaked and twitchy little halfling…. boy?…. man?…. also appear and ask to be dealt a hand. I watched that last participant warily as he stacked some mugs and a plate upon the chair to bring him closer to our eye level. As an entirely sensible rule, I don't trust halflings in general. It's not that I don't wholly sympathize with their situation as a race nor as individuals; I just know that between the drow and the halfling, I can trust at least one of them to be consistently hostile.

I say that fully mindful that a number of my own direct ancestors hail from the lower planes.

The halfling introduced himself as Grimbletuft, the genie as Aordanya, and the drow never got around to presenting a name. Over the course of the game, Ralin started referring to our darkest-skinned player as “Patch,” and the elf didn't seem to mind so we stuck with that.

The game was fascinating. Ralin normally does very well, as he can read people with almost supernatural ease, but he was entirely distracted by our female player. He wasn't even trying to hide it – which was a bit out of character for him – and it caused him to make poor plays more than once. Treyl, meanwhile, seemed to be wholly at ease as normal. He chatted up each player, divining their life stories as much as he could and offering unbidden helpful advice when he saw an opportunity. Grimbletuft and Treyl managed to use up so much air with their small talk that even Ralin couldn't keep up.

The drow was relatively closed-mouthed, but never spoke a harsh word to shut down any conversation. “Stoic” is the term, if I recall my chronically brother-enhanced vocabulary learning. The halfling, however, would simply not shut up. I've never heard so much detail about what goes into this or that stew in my life. If I had more of a head for it, I might have gotten some solid cooking tips from the little man as he slowly started winning our money with increasing momentum.

At one point, Grimbletuft was on a particularly emphatic sermon about the culinary merits of a starchy white root native to his homeland. That was when my life suddenly got massively more interesting than I had ever imagined.

“…. Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew,” rambled Grimbletuft in his gratingly high-pitched halfling voice. The stilted accent in which he spoke suggested he had spent at least a decade or two living in the cutthroat Hive Ward, and that indicator clashed ironically with his fresh-faced and childlike appearance. His small hand deftly threw down a cudgel-nine card in my direction with a flash of a grin that was equal parts apologetic and insincere. “I'll be takin' th' last o' yer hand now, boyo, if'n y'please.”

“Please do,” I chuckled good-naturedly. “They're clearly doing me no good.” I offered a one-shouldered shrug while my other arm tossed over all nine of the cards I had been hanging onto. They weren't particularly useful cards, but in this game a skilled player can make use of even the worst hand. Grimbletuft was clearly a better player than I, as evidenced by the large pile of coins and gems cluttering the tavern table next to him.

The other four people at the table, and myself, had been led to believe that the halfling had never played Blood War prior to sitting down with us. His story migrated from that, to citing beginner's luck, to admissions of being a fast learner; at this point in the story, all pretense had been abandoned. He was dancing atop the tightrope between feigned modesty and gloating, doing what he could to keep each of us from walking off early but still letting his clear enjoyment seep through.

Grimbletuft stood up in his chair to claim the cards, as his short arms made that move necessary more often than not. I had tried to politely toss them closer to him to compensate, but there's only so much one can do. “I thank ye kindly, m' demonic friend,” squeaked the little fellow.

“Diabolic, actually,” corrected my long-acquainted companion seated to my right, slurring the words a bit. A scruffy-looking human man wearing well-worn traveler's clothes, Treyl had a number of ales in him by now. He was always full of good advice, but when he drank his conversational filter prompted him to share his wisdom at the least provocation. He leaned into the table and slowly pontificated “… Tieflings generally come in two varieties. You've got your… your demon-blooded ones… with varied animalistic traits, including bat wings like my friend Volt here… and, ah, the devil-blooded ones… with horns and angular features. Like, ah, like my friend Volt here.” He paused for a moment, scrunching his face in confused reflection. He knew he wasn't entirely making sense, but apparently couldn't pin down exactly why.

A breathy chuckle issued forth from the player to my immediate left. Ralin, a male air genasi and another friend of mine, spoke up in Treyl's defense. “What our over-sauced holy man means to say is, Voltaris' parents are of mixed tiefling bloodlines. Sigil sort of does that to a person's family tree. Can't quite keep a lineage pure 'round here.” He turned to the admittedly gorgeous female genie also at the table and added, “Which is a wonderful thing, I say. Some folks are bred up as the best of both worlds. You agree, Aordanya?” He winked an azure eye at the woman across from him.

“Perhaps,” she replied smoothly and vaguely, shifting slightly in her barely-modest silk attire. Both she and Ralin's accents were similar, but she didn't have a trace of the mannerisms one would expect from a Sigil native. She seemed out of place, but comfortable; likely because she possessed enough personal power to lay out the entirety of the tavern's patrons if she so chose. In any case, she possessed sufficient grace to endure Ralin's continual flirtations without causing an unfortunate scene. She just seemed interested in playing the game, and if she received any flattery along the way all the better.

“So,” growled our sixth and remaining player from the poorly-lit side of the table, “Is it my turn yet, or are we going to talk ourselves to death?” The voice came from a short-haired, one-eyed drow male who declined to introduce himself, so we had taken to calling him “Patch.” He did, in fact, have an eyepatch and a number of varied facial scars suggesting an eventful life frought with peril. I imagined that he had a number of reasons to be displeased with existence in general, even more than your typical dark elf might.

Grimbletuft piped up brightly as he settled back into his seat. “M'apologies, cutter! Takes li'l Grim here an extra span t'gather up th' cards owed him, y'know. Can't blame these souls overmuch f'r rattlin' boneboxes t'fill th' ticks.” He smiled broadly back at the intense drow's restrained glare.

“I have no idea what you just said,” rumbled Patch dismissively. He tossed a card from his hand to the discard pile and drew three, then looked grimly at Treyl, who blinked blankly back at the elf. A beat passed, and Patch admonished Treyl impatiently. “GO, damn you.”

“Oh!” startled Treyl, as if waking up from a reverie. He lifted his hand of cards and began his drink-addled contemplation over his next play.

Meanwhile, I just sat there, soaking it all in. I know that the varied personalities at the table had no choice but to clash; that's just the way it is in the world. Everyone's different, either a little or a lot, and those differences create the most fascinating friction. I was losing money hand over fist, but I saw it more as paying for my education.

~~~~~

So it went, until Treyl was so drunk and broke that he excused himself from the game, kissed the holy symbol around his neck, and leaned his head back to promptly pass out.

Patch watched that process silently until he snarled speculatively, “I thought there were no gods in Sigil. Why bother worshipping one? Is that just another idiotic human habit?”

I chuckled. “Treyl wasn't born here like Ralin and I were. Where he comes from, gods have been known to assume flesh and walk the world. His god in particular transforms each devout member of his clergy into a cloud upon their holiest day, allowing them to wander the lands unfettered for a time.” I glanced around with an appreciative smile. “Personally I think that sounds wonderful. With worlds as big as I hear the primes are, it's fantastic when your god actively wants you to see more of them.”

Patch scowled. Rather, he scowled even deeper than his normal face. “Sounds tiresome to have your life meddled with like that. If you want to go somewhere, you should just go there yourself.” He cocked his more-visible eyebrow at me. “Yet this sounds appealing to you?”

Nodding, I agreed. “It does. I was born in the Cage,” I said, gesturing around vaguely. “I may die here, or I may accidentally wander through a portal one day and die elsewhere. I might save up the gold to pay for access to the Portal Scouts' library and find a nice world suitable for a homestead, and die a happy man there instead.” I shrugged. “No way to know, only to try and hope for my fate to be an engaging one.”

The drow snorted and counted out some coins idly while speaking. “Then you'd best stop losing your gold at cards if that is your plan.” He made a play which resulted in him being in a better tactical position to win the current cash pot, and for the first time since I met him he seemed not entirely displeased.

“'Ey now, sun-shunned, don't ye be discouragin' the lad,” tittered the increasingly insufferable Grimbletuft. He traded out a single card to the middle of the table and beamed a smug smile at the group which would cause the most ravenous otyugh to blush. Laying out his hand in triumphant display, he intoned “I, fer one, happen t'find Master Volt's plan right tasty.”

In truth, the halfling had engineered a truly devastating hand of cards. Not only did he manage to win the entirety of the current pot on the table, he had also won the rights to half of any subsequent gold won by the other players for the next seven hands. He could effectively drive the next half dozen wagers through the roof and still put us into the poorhouse even if he lost the hands themselves.

Ralin tore his gaze away from Aordanya, then performed an actual triple-take at the cards on the table. The faintly luminescent blue in his eyes swirled in surprised alarm, then settled into the narrow gaze of suspicion. He regarded the halfling with a focused hostility that I had never seen before in my otherwise carefree friend.

“Two of those cards were not in your hand a moment ago,” accused Ralin. “I know this because they were in mine until I put them into the discard pile eight minutes ago and twelve minutes ago, respectively.” A light mist began wafting from his upper body, as if he were literally starting to steam.

The small man stirred uncomfortably in his chair, causing the makeshift booster seat to rattle noisily. “That, ah… that's a surprisin'ly certain sense o' th' ticks ya got there, m' half-genie friend,” spoke Grimbletuft with uncharacteristic caution. As I watched, his diminutive frame slid almost imperceptibly into a more tense posture beneath his loose clothing, as if he were priming himself to jump at any moment.

“Gentlemen,” came the softly mellow words of Aordanya as she rose from her seat with practiced poise. Her body and silks reminded me of billowing clouds as they moved, and it wasn't until I recorded those thoughts into written words just now that it occurred to me I've never seen a true cloud in my life.

How was she evoking that unbidden and unfamiliar imagery, I confess I do not know. Even after the events which unfurled later.

The genie continued, confident that her quiet voice had commanded attention. “… Gentlemen, if I might shed some light upon the situation.” She gestured at the halfling's presented cards, and the suspect pair of them shimmered out of existence as if they were a dispersing mirage.

Grimbletuft started to open his mouth in protest to Aordanya, but something caught his attention out of the corner of his left eye and interrupted that line of thought. He attempted to turn his head in that direction to get a better look, but his body failed to cooperate due to the presence of a leather-wrapped handle protruding from his neck as if it had always been there. I tell you sincerely, dear reader, that there was clearly no such thing attached to him just a moment ago.

It was then that I also became aware that Patch was no longer in his chair. I realized this only because his voice inexplicably came from behind me, announcing in a raspy growl: “I find myself relieved for that opportunity, at least. Safe journeys to you.” A few patrons at the next table widened their eyes at the sight of Grimbletuft clutching at his neck while starting to gurgle incomprehensibly.

With that, everything went black.

…. No, no, I wasn't knocked unconscious. It took me a heartbeat to realize that myself, as my ears continued to report expected sounds and my wings were knocked aside by an unseen person moving quickly through my personal space. The tavern lights hadn't gone out, as I'd still be seeing through the nearby darkness. I had evidently gone wholly blind.

“Volt, let's go!” came Ralin's voice right before the distinctively chilled fingers of his hand clutched at my arm and pulled. I was off balance for a moment as I lurched forward, all but tripping over the still-unconscious Treyl. I paused and attempted to blindly rouse my drunken friend.

In that moment, another set of hands found mine in the dark. These were slimmer than Ralin's, but possessed the same coolness of skin. They slipped two small, smooth objects into my palms and gently closed my hands into fists, securing the unknown items within. The hands retreated in silence, leaving me puzzled but preoccupied.

Ralin's voice and grasp launched back at me, yanking me and Treyl with astonishing strength. I felt my courier's bag thrust into my midsection as I moved, and I grabbed at it with my empty hand. I flailed and bounced off of a chair and at least one tavern patron, sightless and helpless.

Treyl's groggy voice found its way to me over the increasing din of the alarmed tavern dwellers. “…. Huh? Wha' in Shau… Shaunda…. What in Windrider's name is going….”

…. And then the darkness was joined by total silence.

~~~~~

I had a vague sense of being pulled through the tavern doorway to the streets outside, but it was like I never made it through the door itself. The unknown items in my hand pulsed once with a tingling, popping sound and I got the sense that I was falling.

My wings reflexively snapped outward to slow my fall, and caught purchase upon strangely thick air. It was at that point I realized that during my moments of blindness, I had subconsciously closed my eyes. I opened them to a rolling gray mist surrounding me on all sides. It was featureless, but thick and…. moist, it seemed. Chilly. Utterly silent.

I beat my wings experimentally, but could not easily tell if I was moving. I adopted a steady rhythm which should keep me hovering under normal circumstances, even with the extraordinarily pregnant air, and took a moment to glance confusedly at my filled hand.

Two triangular gemstones sat within: one deep purple amethyst and another a dark blue sapphire. I knew this at a glance not because I have any particular talent as a jeweler, but because these happened to be the two mystical gems I had been tasked with delivering earlier that day.

This being the first time I had a moment to pause and contemplate, I spoke aloud to myself and the misty nothingness, flatly voicing perhaps the wisest thing I muster in that situation:

“Huh.”

A mere three wingbeats later, and I became aware of a sudden rush of a building… pressure, perhaps? Potency. Power. Fizzling, crackling, gathering intensity in the air from all around me. As my wings cut through the mist, they left small snapping pops in their wake. The gemstones began to glow, with the amethyst painlessly sizzling in my hand and the sapphire vibrating my bones.

I wrote previously how I prided myself upon my command of the common tongue. I tell you honestly here now that there is absolutely no combination of words in any of the languages I know which could adequately describe what happened in the next moment.

Visually, my world exploded in a violently violet light. My ears registered what could have been an explosion of astonishing magnitude, yet left my eardrums with no uncomfortable ringing afterwards. My skin prickled with the delight of an epic lover's caress, all over my body at once. My nose caught a sharp, stinging odor as if I inhaled an exotically intoxicating spice from a faraway land. I felt simultaneously starving and sated. My heart raced as if I were at the height of an intimate climax but my mind was as clear as the sky around Sigil itself.

No; no, those words are still not enough. Perhaps I might study under a minstrel long enough to put together a fitting poem for sake of posterity, or at least to let my mind process the event into conscious expression.

In any event, my world changed with a rushing blast. I was no longer hovering in… fog? I knew this word for the first time. In fact, I knew many different words for many different kinds of fogs. I knew the words for lightning. Thunder. My mind rushed through a litany of weather terms. Natural phenomena of the sky. Complex interactions between water, air, ground, heat… a living, breathing atmosphere which was just as alive as I was and perhaps just as self-aware.

I was no longer hovering in a storm cloud. I had been struck by lightning. The impact of the thunder had thrust me forward through the dark mists, accelerating me unharmed but spiritually awakened. The gemstones in my hand sparked and hummed interchangeably, their arcane energies bleeding into each other and through me.

The sky darkened more. A rush of erratic wind buffeted me sideways, bashing me about against the fluid air currents. I began to feel as if I could predict the updrafts and aerial vortices moments before they happened, as if they were speaking their intentions to me. I pumped my wings, responding to the atmospheric whispers of intent and compensating for the storm's energies.

Still, I plummeted downward. Gravity seemed to be gaining strength, and the condensation of the cloud's substance cooled. Droplets hung in midair, wafted upwards to cool and gain mass before gravity took hold of them too. As I sped downward, trillions upon trillions of individual raindrops joined me, all falling at the same rate as my descending body.

Suddenly, a vast plain of… earth, that was the word… opened up beneath me. I had penetrated the lower barrier of the cloud, bringing my army of droplets with me. Endless terrain spread out beneath me in all directions in an impossibly wide field of view. Trees; the greenery below me growing out of the living earth had to be trees, although I had never imagined in all the multiverse there was ever so much green. Not a single building in sight. No roads. Just rocks, trees, dirt…. a world, shaped like a gigantic flat garden.

Most shocking of all: there was only one sky. And I was falling from it as if I were just another raindrop in the thunderstorm. I realized I should probably do something about that descent speed before I converted from a mystical epiphany into tiefling jelly.

Those flightless beings amongst you might imagine that slowing one's fall is a simple thing. “Just spread out your wings, catch the air, you'll be fine.” Indulge me for a moment as I explain that suddenly opening to full wingspan in freefall is a lot like slamming a pair of large pillows into both of your wings each at a hundred and twenty miles per hour. I do not recommend it.

Instead, a carefully measured opening must occur so you don't tear the skin from your wingbones all at once. The descent must be gradually, painfully countered the whole time you're trying not to overcompensate and suddenly spin out of control even with the counterbalance of a tail.

I angled myself as best I could to buy myself more time to fall constructively (or, at least, less self-destructively), causing the terrain below to speed by as I approached it. My plummeting form endured windburn the likes of which I had never before, and every muscle in my otherwise non-athletic body strained mightily against the very air. I've a pleasantly dark blue skin tone, but I do not exaggerate when I say my knuckles were turning a much lighter shade of sky blue on the way down.

The last clear memory I have before waking up was the sensation of crashing unceremoniously through treetops, flailing out of control and landing in a farmer's filled vegetable cart. I happen to know that it was a farmer's vegetable cart because the last fuzzy memory I have after that was the aforementioned human standing over me in the rain, muttering something about sky-devils cursing his entire crop of turnips by bleeding all over them.

…. And that's how I woke up in this dark prison cell, battered and bruised, but perhaps more alive than I had ever been.