Things Change. Things Do The Other Thing, Too.

From Lira:

Look. I didn’t ask to get dropped out of a portal transfer from the Great Fantasy Faire and into this weird place the locals called The Space Between. I didn’t. And you know the worst part? It was awful. Like, full of things that bit you. And everybody said you could never get out. Like, I was going to be stuck there forever, and then if I wasn’t stuck there, I would just fade and cease to be, and I was all, but I didn’t sign up for that, and they were like, that’s just the way things are, and I was all, that doesn’t make any sense.

So I did some reading. OK, I did a lot of reading; that’s one thing Chimerical Librarians are very, very good at. I did a lot of reading, and I discovered that the big secret of Realmwalking, which is one of those things Her Fae Majesty (she called me into being, remember?) is meant to be super good at? The big secrets are firstly belief, and secondly attention to detail. This is why — and we studied this a lot in the Chimerical Librarian Training School that I remember, even if I’m not sure whether it was Real or not — this is why most people can’t Realmwalk. Now, Queen Gwyneth apparently got her ability to Realmwalk through being mentored by some deity-like being, whom she no longer has any contact with and now considers an enemy, and her Consort received the same gift in the same way, although from a different being. But truly, all this gift from a supposedly deific being can give one is the unwavering knowledge that one can Do the Thing, right? And that’s why lots of folk fail at Realmwalking. They are very tied to their realities. And that’s not a bad thing in and of itself; being tied to one’s reality is a very good thing, if one intends to make a living, have friends, interact with other beings, etc. The fact is most beings are so tied to their realities they cannot truly conceive of another one. Now, that’s not the same thing as being able to imagine something. But the ability to deeply believe something, that requires more skill than the ability to imagine something, even something with great detail. It is also the details that get them, in the end. They want to go to a fantasy world where everyone uses magic, but they cannot conceive of a world without a mobile phone, for example. Gwyneth, skilful Realmwalker that she is, simply believes that magic and mobile phones can co-exist, and that’s why Awenia has great Internet.

Sorry for that ramble: I do go on sometimes. I decided to try several different Realms to walk to, and the first one that worked was one we’d studied extensively in Chimerical Librarian Training School: the Land of Oz.

*Yep, this is about what I pictured in my head.*

Probably because Oz has appeared in lots of incarnations, many people have a good idea of what it looks like. I had read all the books and seen a couple of the films, and to find myself looking at the dead, stripey legs of the Wicked Witch of the East—well, that meant I’d succeeded, at least in this experimental sense.

The down side to this experiment, of course, was that I was now in Oz, and having proved I could get there, I needed to find a way to get somewhere else. Now, I’m not stupid: I knew Oz wasn’t the sanitised world you see at the beginning of the famous film. Fact is, there are all kinds of baddies in Oz, and given that it’d taken me nearly half an hour to realise my glasses were tucked into the belt of the costume the Realm jump put me in, I wasn’t sure I could hold my own against even the most meagre opponent.

This Tin Man wasn’t super talkative. I presumed this was because he wasn’t actually alive. He wasn’t rusted stiff: he was actually a statue. Well, all right. What we had here, I surmised, was a post-Dorothy Oz, where some of the characters had been immortalised. Fine; I could deal with that, as long as there were no deadly surprises waiting around any given corner.

But then I noticed something. There was at least one significant difference between the Realm I was currently walking round and the classic Land of Oz.

I don’t recall there being this sort of pastel watercolour mountain background to the Land of Oz. Certainly not in the film, which seemed to be the general feel of this place. So there were some edge blurs. Surely I could use that to my advantage.

It might be, I thought, as simple as walking out of the poppy field and into the mountainous landscape beyond—but that might also be dangerous.

As a Chimerical Librarian, I of course am blessed (or possibly cursed) with an abundance of caution. Of course more research would be necessary before I could just traipse off into the next world.

Well, great. It’s not like I have a handheld computer with me: The Space Between was one of those places that thought technology wouldn’t work with magic, and of course that meant I hadn’t got so much as an antiquated Palm Pilot with me for the Realm Crossing, and gods knew what there was to work with in Oz: maybe the Emerald City had some sort of Library?

As it turns out, libraries can be their own Realms entirely. I suppose I’m lucky in that I can almost always believe in a library full of whatever I desire to find—and that’s where I found myself after a shorter time than you might imagine in the Land of Oz. I spent a glorious few weeks here, putting together notes on a multiplicity of Worlds, Realms, Universes, whatever you want to call them (and folks have called them many, things!). In the end, I knew I wanted eventually to return to Awenia, but eventually… that can be a long, long time. For now, I think I’m content with enjoying this newfound skill. I’m sure it’s not meant to be part of my regular feature set, but I guess that’s what happens when you create a chimerical being and make her very, very smart.

See you on the other side, maybe.