Dio pictured a small, dark brown sphere with white grain lines. He knew the thick piece of branch he held in his hands was neither that color on the outside nor the inside. But he also knew the color didn’t really matter. It was irrelevant. What mattered was the weight of the ball he intended to carve, and its shape... though the latter only so it would roll evenly...

  Still, a little variety in the color might be nice to look at.

  His fingers moved over the bark, rough and marked by ridges running across it like a tangled network of streams or rivers, wild, yet hinting at some hidden structure beneath. The irregularities were obstacles to the form he wanted. The sphere needed to roll! Smoothly, evenly, elegantly... It couldn’t wobble. It couldn’t be flawed.

  And it had to be dark brown…

  Dio froze.

  There was something beneath his fingers. Something he hadn’t noticed before. A sensation that sent goosebumps across his skin and made him shiver. Something was in the wood. Or… something was moving through the wood as his fingers traced over it faster and faster.

  No… whatever this is, it’s in my fingers too. It’s in the wood… isn’t it?

  Suddenly, the piece of wood felt almost like clay in his hands. it was buzzing with a strange, tingling energy. Or maybe the bark wasn’t bark at all? Maybe it was a surface of water, and he could break through it to pull something up from the depths.

  A ball?

  Something else?

  Another cold shudder ran down his spine. The thoughts were impossible to put into words. The feelings, the sensations, they slipped away the moment he tried to grasp them. And now, a wave of nausea crept up on him, as if his mind had brushed against a blindness, like it had before. A warning, perhaps? He didn’t even know if the comparisons his mind was throwing at him made any sense, or if his sense of touch was simply playing tricks on him.

  Dio realized he was on the verge of losing track of time again, but now, he was determined to stay focused, to stay aware of what was happening.

  He looked down.

  There it was already in his mind: the ball he meant to create.

  Dark. Brown.

  It was supposed to roll, and weigh the same as the other, which…

  Suddenly, he couldn’t tell anymore whether he was looking at the piece of wood and simply imagining the shape... Or whether the wood itself had become a memory, and chunk had already turned into a dark wooden sphere in his hands.

  The images blurred, blended, twisted. They were distorting into something else for the briefest, breathless moment.

  A part of blindness that made him shudder and sweat.

  Then his fingers brushed over the smooth surface of a sphere, and all that remained of the strange sensations, emotions, illusions, and half-formed visions was the dark brown sheen of polished wood. The moment Dio saw the ball in his hands, exactly as he had imagined it, his legs gave out, and he collapsed with a groan into a patch of dark yellow shrubbery, just barely managing to direct his fall.

  As his hand, trembling with exhaustion, wiped across his face, he flinched. His skin was wet and burning hot. His breath came in ragged gasps, and his heart pounded wildly in his chest. Yet a dry, voiceless laugh escaped his throat.

  He reached around until he found the other ball he’d dropped and held it next to the new one. They looked exactly the same, aside from their color. They felt exactly the same in his hands as well.

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  Done!

  The sun had already dipped below the treetops, and Dio figured it must be close to evening. He might have turned inward, meditated to push aside his exhaustion, if not for the question that had begun to stir in him in the morning:

  How consistent is the Dream here? Could I use these spheres and the groove to detect irregularities? Anomalies? Instabilities?

  Dio knew there was a good chance he’d see nothing. The balls would likely roll at the same speed...

  But he had to know. Even if they reached the moss bed below at almost exactly the same time every single run, it would still prove that the Dream around Daw was incredibly stable.

  But you changed things yourself, said a voice in his mind. You carved the ball, shaped and polished it. Without proper tools…

  He brushed the thought away. It was a distraction. He’d deal with that tomorrow. What mattered now wasn’t what he could force into being with focus and will; it was how the Dream normally behaved around Daw.

  Groaning, Dio got to his feet and stumbled back up the slope, careful not to damage the grooves. When he finally reached the top, panting and bracing himself against the tree, he looked down at the two wooden balls in his hands again.

  Which one will reach the bottom first?

  They should arrive at the same time, shouldn't they? And if not, it would have to be due to the grooves. That, at least, he could test by swapping them and trying again.

  But he’d already wasted enough time.

  Slowly, he placed the spheres side by side at nearly the same height at the top of the hill, right at the start of the carved channels.

  He looked down. The run was at least fifteen feet long. Hopefully enough to show a difference.

  If there is one…

  His fingers rested on the bare wood, and he realized he was trembling slightly with anticipation.

  He took one last breath... and let go.

  Both balls rolled downhill, picking up speed as they went, racing toward the mossy bed.

  When they hit the bottom, Dio furrowed his brow, scratching his chin. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

  They’d landed at exactly the same moment. Just as he’d expected.

  Somehow, he felt like he had always known that would happen, that it hadn’t really been a guess, but more like… a memory. Something familiar. But it didn’t matter. The spheres had rolled in perfect sync, behaving exactly as they should.

  Still, Dio wasn’t satisfied.

  He staggered back down the hill, plucked the balls from the moss, and ran the test again.

  Same result: Both balls rolled side by side as if held on an invisible line, and they landed at the same time.

  Dio swapped the balls.

  Same result.

  He released one slightly ahead of the other, and the distance stayed constant all the way down.

  He nodded, pleased.

  Then, a warm, joyful feeling bloomed in his thoughts.

  Not long after, Brela emerged from the underbrush, strolling past ferns and brambles, and planted her hands firmly on her hips.

  "Dio, you went into the forest without me? Tsk tsk tsk, I’m offended! What are you up to?" Brela said in a sharp voice, though her familiar smile flickered on her lips.

  "I'm testing something," he replied, gesturing toward the grooves.

  Brela let her arms dangle and skipped over to the slope. She lifted her green dress and crouched down to get a better look at the channels, finally whistled in admiration and nodded.

  "Wow, those are really straight! Did you make these? How’d you get them so... exact?" she asked.

  "Not important," he said. "I wanted to see how much the Dream near Daw is still in flux. Whether things here are... fuzzy, like they are farther out. As you described, when we... you know..."

  Her expression darkened at the memory of the end of their last walk, but she quickly brushed it aside.

  "So how are you testing that? I mean, the checking part?" she asked.

  Dio pulled out the spheres.

  "I roll these down the hill. What do you think? Which one gets there first? The light one, or the dark one?" he asked, knowing his eyes must have been sparkling with excitement.

  Brela tapped a finger to her green tinted lip and ran her other hand through the blue flowers woven into her hair.

  "The dark one’s way faster, obviously!" she laughed.

  Dio nodded, barely suppressing the urge to spoil the result.

  "Why do you think that?" he asked gently.

  Brela giggled.

  "Well, the color kind of reminds me of my skin. And since I’m super fast, the ball must be too!" she laughed again.

  Dio grinned and held up the dark brown ball.

  "This one? Alright, let’s test it!" he said, climbing back up the hill.

  He placed both wooden spheres at the top, lining them up with the grooves.

  "Ready?" he called down to Brela.

  "You bet! Go, my little ball! Show them who's boss!" she cheered, clapping her hands in encouragement.

  Dio released the two balls.

  They both began rolling down the grooves…

  The brown sphere suddenly surged ahead. It quickly slammed into the moss at the bottom of the hill. It had such force that green bits flew everywhere, mixed with dark soil.

  Brela cheered.

  "Ha! I knew it! I told you she’d win!"

  Dio stared at the hole the ball had punched into the ground.

  "Very nicely done!" he said with a laugh, trying his best to sound cheerful, though his mind was racing.

  Brela stopped hopping and narrowed her eyes.

  "Dio, are you okay? I know that look! Your fake careful smile when you do not want me to know you are worried."