multiworld travel is the fading practice of a dying family, whose final connection to their history is a gateway barely large enough to crawl through. there, tucked away in the forest like a forgotten shrine, it is time for the youngest member of this family to take up the tradition again, for potentially the very last time.
i am so excited to post these! i drew my characters at different ages and it was super fun. made me really nostalgic so i went back and made a timeline of how their designs have changed over time as well!
this is one of the first paintings i finished that i was truly proud of. i still really love this piece, even thought i can see things wrong with it. it was after this that i decided i didn’t enjoy painting and that i don’t need to use this style to make the kinds of illustrations i want to, which was rather freeing at the time.
here’s nico’s sheet! honestly a tiny bit dissatisfied with this one so i might redo it at some point. but here he is anyway!
image text: [Nico is a shadowkin completing his Trial, a quest and sacred rite of passage granted to young shadowkins by the Ether. His quest is simply to go to the Ether itself, which is incredibly vague and seemingly impossible. Nico is not dressed in typical shadowkin garb but clothes that are more useful for stealth. When fights are unavoidable he favors the bo staff and a variety of single-use magic crystals. He has ties to firedancers and the Hraefna.] END
Above The Clouds has always been an important image and scene to me. It was one of the first things I remember drawing for Alicca and Nico and I have wanted to do it justice again and again over the years. I have attempted it eight times in total and finished it three times. This final piece is my favorite so far and I am very proud of it, and I am excited to redraw it again in however many years.
The biggest difference in this version, aside from the art style shifting to a more painted look, is the absence of Nico. In previous versions he has always been there to guide Alicca as she overcomes her fear of heights, leaving her instead in wonder. I have decided now that it is more thematically accurate to depict Alicca alone because to include another figure is to diminish the importance of this moment to her.
It has been absolutely wonderful working on this book for the past five years and I am so happy to be able to look back on how far I’ve come.
Title: Story of Ether, Ch.1
Genre: Sci-fi/Fantasy
Words: 2000~
Summary: With the help of a mysterious book, two girls open a portal to another world in their bedroom. One remains.
Slight notes about this one, this is a bit of a shaky beginning (obv) and I was trying to shake the Good Omens writing influence the whole time (lmao), which mainly shows up in the beginning.
Learn more about Story of Ether here
Alicca and Catalina found that the circular rug in the center of Alicca’s dusty bedroom made a very convenient magic circle. They didn’t have candles to light around it, though, and Alicca had insisted that doing so would have been a fire hazard. In her mind, too many perfectly good wizards had probably burnt to death because of a similar oversight. But Catalina, in turn, insisted that they put something around the edges if only to add intrigue to the ugly vintage rug that, she made a point in saying, looked like it belonged to her literal great-grandma. So, after digging through her family’s holiday bins for half an hour, they managed to find a box of battery-powered candles.
This intricate ritual of properly candling a magic circle was only partially driven by aesthetics and was more so created to stave off the impending apprehension that surrounded the magic books Catalina had found. She said they came from the library, but Alicca practically lived in the library and had never seen any books quite so mysterious and, well, beaten up. Besides, there were no stickers or check-out cards to be seen. But Alicca didn’t push for an answer; she didn’t want Catalina to snap at her.
Finally, they settled at the edges of the circle across from each other.
“Which spell should we do first?” Catalina asked.
“You’re the one with the books,” said Alicca.
“And you’re the one with the witch mom.”
“Witch” was a strong word. Alicca’s mother was pagan, and Alicca had spent a lot of time observing her process. It was because of this that she had placed a crystal at four corners of the circle (“to represent the four directions,” she said). Alicca’s mother cast spells and partook in rituals, and this was partially to blame for Alicca’s obsession with magic. The other part came from books. Her mother’s magic was the closest thing that Earth had to offer to the kind Alicca wanted, but after a while, it stopped feeling authentic. It’s not really magic, a little voice in the back of Alicca’s mind told her. Not like I want it to be.
But these books could be. The stuff inside sounded like it was written in another language. It read like English, but the spells it described rarely made sense, except for the few that didn’t mention ingredients or places that could have been cherry-picked from a fantasy epic from the ’70s. Catalina flipped between the comprehensible spells, which they had marked.
“Well, we might as well go big or go home.”
“I’m already home, Kitty,” Alicca smirked. “Besides, they all sound interesting. It’s magic.”
“Nah,” Catalina squinted. Her face lit up and she turned the book so Alicca could see the page she chose. “This one,” she said with an evil grin.
“To Open a Gateway.”
Alicca hesitated. She was all for casting strange spells in the middle of the night without an experienced supervisor, but she had learned from her books that being too foolhardy only ended in tragedy and magical destinies. Some of those took years to fulfill. “That sounds… complicated,” she said. “And dangerous.”
“Well I’m complicated and dangerous, so the wizards had better get used to it.”
“Kitty, I don’t know if--”
“Alicca,” said Catalina, suddenly serious. She put the book face down on the ground and stared intently into Alicca’s eyes. Alicca blushed and wanted to look away. “Isn’t this what you want? To find something amazing, to go somewhere? Or at the very least, to see something?”
Yes, Alicca thought. That’s everything. She didn’t say anything. Catalina picked the book up again.
“Besides, this one actually looks pretty simple. We don’t need anything fancy. Just a proper focus, a circle, and the magic words. Take a look.”
She passed the book to Alicca, which was heavier than it seemed. The leather cover and pages had gone soft with age, and Alicca was worried that it would disintegrate with one wrong move. The page Catalina had chosen was covered in writing scribbled around the text. The letters were totally unfamiliar; they looked more like runes than alphabet. Par for the course, Alicca thought. There was a sketched diagram on one page showing a magic circle that was surrounded by candles (Alicca tsked) and crystals. The instruction was actually fairly brief, just a couple of sentences and a list of materials. Alicca frowned at the rest of the text, which didn’t make much sense, but sounded like a warning or directions for post-casting.
“…Be sure to always know where you are going and where you are coming from. Worlds are not laid out in a straight path. It is incredibly easy to lose your way if you are not explicitly careful. Never attempt to travel without a plan and sufficient insurance in case something goes wrong. Traveling is not something to take lightly…”
It carried on like this for several paragraphs.
A short list stuck out to Alicca, which she made a mental note of:
“If you must travel, you are bound by law to abide by these principles:
Never reveal yourself to a native as a traveler.
Never remove a native from their world.
Never influence the way of life on another world, and leave no trace of your coming or going.”
Alicca glanced over the material list. Catalina was right, it was incredibly simple. Their crude setup might actually work. Alicca wasn’t sure if the random assortment of crystals she had chosen would create a strong enough focus for the spell, but the instructions weren’t very specific anyway.
“Wait, there’s one more thing,” Alicca said, squinting at a line that had been partially covered by the haphazard notes. Haven’t they ever heard of margins? Alicca thought. “It says we need ‘an intention.’”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Catalina.
“I have no idea. Maybe we need a purpose in order to actually cast it?”
“We do have a purpose, and it’s to see what will happen if we open a Gateway.”
Alicca laughed. “Alright, well, I guess all there is to do is to read the incantation.” Alicca began to hand the book back to Catalina. For the first time, Alicca had ever noticed, Catalina seemed hesitant.
“Uh, actually, you should do the honors, witch kid.”
Alicca didn’t realize how much she had been hoping Catalina would refuse. “Okay.”
She read over the text a few times to make sure she would pronounce it right. The silence bit into her throat. For some reason, this felt important, like the books weren’t written by anyone known to humanity. Like something could actually happen if she managed to get it right. Alicca could tell Catalina felt the same. Everything in the room was still, Catalina, the crystals, even the candles with their programmed flicker. She took a deep breath and looked up from the book.
“[magic words].”
The light flickered. Not a weak flicker, but a genuine, split-second blackout. The girls stared at each other. Under any other circumstances, Alicca would have reluctantly passed it off as a coincidence.
“Say it again,” Catalina breathed.
Alicca did. Nothing.
At least, not right away. After a few tense moments, Catalina yelped and jumped away from the circle.
“Are you okay?” Alicca cried.
“That crystal almost burned me!”
The crystal didn’t appear any different. It was still dark, the faces flickering a saturated blue when the light caught it just right. It wasn’t moving or emitting light of its own. Alicca moved to Catalina’s side and carefully pressed her hand to the crystal. It was warm, too warm for there to be any logical explanation.
“Spectrolite,” Alicca said. “We need more of it.”
The girls shared a glance before dashing out of the room, to Alicca’s mother’s bedroom. Alicca scanned the haphazard pile of crystals on her dresser and picked out all the spectrolite she could find, handing each stone to Catalina, before tearing open the jewelry boxes. They crashed back to the circle, where Alicca shoved the excess crystals away so Catalina could spread the spectrolite around.
Both of them were too excited to sit. They locked eyes and shared a thought.
This has to work.
Alicca scooped up the book and, glancing anxiously between the fraying pages and the scattered crystals, read the words again.
“[magic words].”
The lights flickered again, stronger this time, and Alicca could have sworn the spectrolite rattled against the floor.
Please, thought Alicca, closing her eyes. Please, show me my adventure.
“[words]!”
The light went out, and a vrrrr rang throughout the walls as the generator shut down, leaving only the fake candles to light the room. The spectrolite clacked on the hardwood, and Alicca saw that the taller crystals had stood upright on their own. They were shining with a dim inner light, which dazzled off the strands of black that strung themselves across the blue of the crystal. A faint hum was growing in the background.
“Look!” Catalina gasped, pointing to the empty air above the circle. It looked like it was shimmering, morphing and twisting what little light remained in the room like the inside of the spectrolite. Alicca’s heart was pounding, and she tried to hold on to the desire that was sticking out in her mind. Show me my adventure.
Finally, the shimmering air started to form something else, something that obstructed Alicca’s view of her friend. It was like a patch of light, shifting and balancing, stabilized by beams of white light that had shone out towards it from the crystals. It grew to fill the space within the confines of the circle, extending to the ground and a foot or two above Alicca’s head. As the shape came into form, wisps of wind whipped out from the edges of the circle, whispering, dragging themselves over Alicca’s ankles and raking slowly through the ends of her hair. Her heartbeat throbbed in her ears, and she held her breath. She couldn’t move. She found herself utterly contradicted.
The crystals hummed with energy, a single low tone that blended into the background. The fake candles rattled quietly beside them, their light rendered unnecessary. The inside of the Gateway (it had been aptly named, Alicca decided) shifted still, the light fading from a brilliant white into a space with depth, bordered and secured by the light from the spectrolite. Alicca saw a landscape, and a blue sky, and she realized that the light from another world was spilling out onto her bedroom floor, over her. She didn’t hear Catalina calling her name from behind the Gateway. Her mind was racing, but it contained only one thought.
Through the Gateway, she saw craggy spires rising away in the distance, and clouds larger than any she had ever conceived of billowing up, up, into a sky that couldn’t possibly be that tall. A huge crescent moon easily three or four times the size of earth’s hung in the color of the sky over the strange, vertically reaching landscape. And in front of it all stood a person, with dark clothing and a cloak that drifted heavily in the wind, wind that Alicca could feel, and who turned suddenly and through a mess of blond hair flashed a look of surprise and then resolve. The moment their eyes met was like a physical blow as Alicca realized she was staring at someone from another world, someone that stared back with piercing green eyes which saw more than Alicca would have liked in just a glance. And very briefly, in a corner of her mind, Alicca saw, no, felt something else, a presence; but there was too much else going on, and she let it slip back into darkness. She was still in the moment, her eyes locked with those of the other-world. But that moment was over as quickly as it began because, without hesitation, the person reached a gloved hand out of the Gateway and dragged Alicca through.
Reblogs are super helpful! Learn more about Story of Ether here.
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