Cloudchaser

There is, if you can find it, a Land without Land—a great void in the Outside far vaster than any can comprehend, rising up into forever and down into a formless grey nothing. Perhaps there is something underneath that false, clouded floor of the Land Without Land. What could exist in such a place? A sea, perhaps, or some distant cousin of rock that can survive the enormous pressures below. That truth remains a mystery; none who pass through those clouds return to share their stories.

Upwards is no better, for the Outside does not have a true "up"—there is only more Outside. No boundaries or limits can be found above the clouded floor; no edges of the world to cross no limits or barriers or gates or rings atmospheres. Nothing to separate the Outside into moons, or planets or, more importantly, stars.

Stars!

Who in the Outside could lack such sense as to believe in stars? Enormous balls of faraway light, burning so bright and hot that it cannot be called fire? Nonsense! Dream-stuff! And to believe that there are many more of these—hundreds perhaps—of these far-away-fire-balls...such beliefs can only be seen as a pitiable delusion; a beautiful sickness that only affects certain artistic souls, dreaming of a world where hundreds of little jewel-lights glitter above their heads.

Such fantasies are impossible in the Outside where there is always light; temperature-less, consistent and unchanging, neither dimming or brightening with change in day or night or season or time.

Yet while the Outside is unchangeable, immutable, and very, very big, it is not empty.

Were a patient and long-lived observer to look very carefully, and in the right 'place' (if such an idea can exist) that is called the Land without Land, they might see something quite unexpected gliding through the endless mist…

…a School, unbelievable as that may be.

This might be a great disappointment to some, but it is a fact; not even in the abyss is there respite from organized education.

Yet this School is not like others, for in the Land without Land there are no others at all. Indeed is only School in all of existence as far as anyone knows, and perhaps it is the only thing in all existence, which takes the form of an enormous Tower of indefinite height, seemingly as tall as the Outside itself. Upwards, the School disappears into ceiling mists, where its pinnacle cannot be visited or even seen. Downwards, the tower disappears beyond the sight of clouds and anchors to something, or somewhere, or perhaps to nothing at all. Nobody in the School has ever been to the bottom floors, for they are all but Students and Teachers, and to ask such people to explore these dangerous and strange places is quite unreasonable.

Besides, with all the homework and grading to be done, nobody in the School has time.

And even if someone did wish to skip all their classes and go off adventuring along the Great Staircases, where to even begin? Even the more imaginative among us have trouble understanding just how massive the School is—there is simply nothing to compare it to, even ignoring the parts sheathed in clouds. Nobody has counted the rooms, hallways, archways, columns, staircases, buttresses, meeting halls, or floors. Anyone determined to complete such a task would require the consent of their children's grandchildren to even make a dent. It would be easier to grow a forest from the seed of a single tree. Far easier is it to say, and it would be true, that the School is the largest structure in all of known Creation. As far as the Students or Teachers know, is the only structure that exists.

Truly, the School of the Outside is a marvel; a structure that defies all logic and physics and common sense.

But if any in the School were awake and paying attention at this hour, perhaps they would see something quite peculiar; a small, dark shape gliding gliding its way through the clouds.

Look!

Down near the great columns and pillars which support one of the School's innumerable branching towers. Around it goes, with only the faintest of sounds, gliding, soaring quietly and untroubled, trailing behind it a tail of clouds, dances with a silent wind wind. How it twirls! How it soars! Every cloud has become its partner, trailing their icy fingertips along the glider's silent wings, by comparison smaller than a mote of dust against the back of a god of mountains. They dance to a secret music shared only between these hidden partners, unspoken and unheard, but felt in the strings of cooling air and the brush of zephyrs and the baritone waves of air current guiding the small of the glider's back.

So does the glider waltzes and twirls in the Outside, untroubled and free…but not unseen.

Though it is the Time of Sleep in the Tower of the Outside, and all the windows should all be shut, there are some prying eyes who look upon this dance—and have been looking for some time. Only a little window, its sleep-shade cracked open, gives away the position unseen observer—a Spectator to the dance, uninvited and unseen.

The glider flies, the Watcher sees, and all believe they are alone and undiscovered. As we will see, this is not quite true...