Chapter 7

She chose not to think about the humiliating scene that had happened just before she passed out. The wings flapped at least fourty beats a second, and she was dashing upwards in less than ten beats.

She flashed in a trail of light among the hanging vines, flying in circles and twirls all over the hollow. She felt a sense of liberation as she flew. The vines hanging from the ceiling happily danced along with her and glowing butterflies followed in her wake.

What a touching moment. That was when she froze. A touching moment with...

"Sherlock?", she asked in disbelief. The vines swayed in response and she somehow understood that it was an affirmative. The answer she had always received in the past was hard numbers and facts, and the right steps to be taken in the given situation.

"Is it really you?" It was almost unbelievable that it was acting in this manner.

There was silence for a while before images flooded her mind. Two thirds of the manobots in her body had been flushed out of her body due to massive blood loss, automatically shutting down in the ocean water.

The remaining bots were in her brain and muscles as they sunk down to the seabed. Cut off from the hive-mind, they followed protocol and burrowed into her bones before going into hibernation.

Then it had been rebooted through a link through her mana signature and found itself as a frozen tree, with all database connections cut off. Only the host's data and cache memory remained.

"Wait! Are you telling me that I have mana?" That was the most groundbreaking news to her.

There was no response and she suddenly remembered where she was. She was a small alien with wings living inside a sentient tree. That didn't lessen her excitement though.

She only felt a little guilty.

She wasn't planning to stick around in this tree after winter had passed. She needed to find out where she was and whether there was intelligent life nearby.

She also planned to search for yellow mana rocks. They would help her create and increase land mass in her dimension.

She thought it was about time to give it a name. She tried to think of an awe-inspiring one but she had never claimed to be creative. She decided on Amir. Her nickname, but with the last letter as the first.

If she succeeded, she might even come back to transplant Sherlock into Amir. Since she now had mana, she might not even need to find aether to do so.

It would just have to hold on till then. She touched a vine in consolation before flying higher up to touch the ceiling.

"Thanks for everything, Sher." She lightly bumped her horns against the ceiling before free-falling.

She came to pause directly parallel to the pond at the center of the meadow. Her hair didn't fall forward with gravity, but flowed behind her, flying with her wings.

The view was like a magnificent painting as she looked at her own image and her image looked back.

The two Mirandas each reached out a hand to each other across the glassy surface. They both suddenly vanished to thin air, then the water surface rippled. Miranda was still floating in the same position above the water, but she had turned invisible. It was the power in her wings.

The surroundings ubruptly lit up and all the butterflies flew towards her direction. They flew in a whirl around her and turned into particles of light that merged with her body.

Visions of a wide floating island appeared in her mind. The island was covered in melting snow and in the middle, stood a shrub. No, not a shrub but a huge tree.

A big white familiar tree.

Green grass and small shrubs grew in a circle around the tree. The snow on the island was rapidly melting to reveal a green undergrowth. A handful of other big trees also grew on the island but they were still buried in snow. Their normal brown tree trunks were faintly discernible.

She sighed in relief at this picture, she was quickly starting to get sick of the all-white vibe going on. Her favourite color was purple but green was a basic need. Green is life.

Speaking of life, she was really hungry and needed some food to sustain hers. She ate a bunch of the sweet clear grapes. She would never get tired of their juicy flesh.

Once satisfied, she flew up to hollow's entrance to see the view with her own eyes. She saw that the blizzard had passed and snow for miles around the tree had already melted. Green grass covered the ground and green shrubs dotted the area.

She placed her hand against the barrier only to come up short. She almost fell out but quickly used her wings to keep her balance.

"I'm free," she mumbled. "I'm free!"

She directly flew out and headed towards the ground. She landed gently and felt the earth beneath her bare feet. She then marvelled at how big everything was in comparison to her. No, it was how small she was in comparison to everything.

She must have been around four inches tall but she had already gotten used to the new proportions while trapped in Sher.

She was overjoyed to finally see some color in her life. The brown fertile soil and green grass were a welcome sight. She floated off the ground and into the fresh and crisp air with a beat of her clear wings. They glinted in the sunrays.

She flew around the plants for a while, tasting flower nectar and even recognizing some fruit tree seedlings. She was stunned. As a merchant, she knew just how rare and valuable fruit trees were in the galaxy.

She glanced around her and realised that there were probably more edible plants growing at a visible rate all around her. Was this Sher's way of trying to keep her from leaving?

She looked at the sun and thought that it must be a few hours after sunrise. She flew in a direction that she presumed to be South West. The closest island's edge was there in her memory.

She flew for what felt like hours before the ledge finally came into view. She landed a safe distance away and slowly crawled towards it. There were surprisingly no strong winds but she still decided to be careful.

It was then that she noticed that she was still in her birthday suit. She blushed a bright pink and turned invisible, hiding deeper into the tall grass.  She hadn't felt the cold at all.

She poked her head out of the grass at the island's edge and was stunned.

They were drifting at least a few thousand meters above the ground. A huge white world lay before her, as far as the eyes could see. And only snow-covered peaks dotted the neverending icy plains.