Chapter Text
Esteban doesn't remember how it happened. All he recalls is a sound, a flash, and the world suddenly collapsing around him.
It's hard to describe how he feels right now. He can't start picturing his feelings, the sensations on and around his body, it's just...it's just too hard. It's like a thick blanket had wrapped around him, and was now squeezing him tight while blocking everything from outside. He can't breathe. He can't see, he can't hear anything. He can't move.
There's a sound ringing to his ears, the high-pitched whistle of something ominous coming over. He's got a bad feeling, a horrible feeling about this. He doesn't like it. He hates it! He wants it to stop, he wants to go home! Please, leave him alone!
He tries to move. To see where he is. But he can't. He can't move, he feels like he's paralyzed, like his body is out of his control. He tries to feel his hands, his legs, but they're nowhere to be found.
He starts to panic.
It's a strange sensation. It's like he's floating in a dream, and he cannot move, only following whatever fate his own mind wants him to follow. He's barely aware of his own state, and witnesses it more than he truly lives it. But the more time passes and the more he realizes this is not a dream, but a wide, engulfing nightmare that settles over him.
It's dark. He knows it is, and yet he cannot see it. Perhaps he's actually being engulfed in light, and he can't process it. Perhaps his eyes are definitely gone. It's impossible to know, and he's scared, and he can't help thinking about it. It doesn't hurt, but he doesn't know it. He's persuaded it hurts, even though he cannot feel it anymore.
He's scared. He's horribly scared. And slowly, amongst all of that fear and that nightmare, there is a feeling that rises. A feeling that screams and shouts, and begs and calls out.
I don't want to die!
~~~~~
He's not aware of himself, of where he is. He feels odd, but at the same time he doesn't feel. It's horribly strange. His body is nothing but a vague sensation.
He realizes he's in a dream of sorts, and he tries to regain control. To move his arms, to make a step, but he can't. He doesn't know where his arms are, yet he knows they're not where they're supposed to be. He doesn't like this feeling.
He recalls this strange element of dreams, where a person he doesn't know suddenly feels like a best friend; when a face that is foreign to him suddenly becomes his own. He figures it is something similar, that he feels this way only because he is still in the confines of a dream, where everything makes sense and everything is how his mind pictures it. He is not worried about it, he knows he will wake up at some point and that this reality will unfold and disappear. He does not worry. He needn't worry.
He tries to wake up. To realize he's in a dream, and to get out of it. To let this heavy feeling wash over him, to recover notions of gravity and pressure, to feel his body again.
And he does. He eventually does. Gravity applies to him again, and he slowly manages to feel it- but he feels it very much, too much, and he becomes scared and he doesn't know what is going on, and- and-
And he knows where his arms are, and where his legs are, and it hits him like a bucket of cold water, and he jolts awake in a thrust of fear, and- he cannot see what is around him, he cannot hear anything, but he can sense something- he senses the warmth that settles over his back and arms, and makes him feel good and revitalized. He senses something hard under his feet, he senses the ground. He doesn't know whether he is lying down, standing or sitting, he is- he just is, he doesn't know about the details, he's not sure he can know. It feels all too strange and foreign for him to ever know, and perhaps he will never know at all.
The warmth spreads. It spreads through his whole body, and he starts to feel better. He can sense it move through him, like a fluid; he senses his own body as it goes on, he feels himself through the presence of this foreign but familiar warmth. It spreads from his exposed back, to the tip of his stretched fingers, pointing to his sides. It runs over his neck, and it takes much more time than he'd have thought, as if his neck had somehow doubled, tripled in length. He feels the nape of his neck, his slender cheeks, his nose that is much longer than he remembers. The warmth then spreads down his back, to his hips, and quickly travels down his legs, to feet that he knows are heavier than he recalls. He is confused, and thinks he is still in a dream; but the heat that settles within him is real, and it wakes him up even further.
He decides to ignore this feeling of doubt, and to carry on. He is in the process of waking up, and this is something that needs time. Slowly, the rest of his body comes to life, powered by this rising warmth, and he feels himself more in detail. He feels the force of his extended arms, the power and heaviness in his gut, the force stored in his lower back that only wants to emerge and burst out. He does not know how to feel about this, about this form that he does not recognize. He is still dreaming, he is not afraid; but he then hears voices, he senses things around him, and slowly he realizes that this is not a dream.
He recalls now. He was- his friends, himself were exploring, trying to find a clue leading to the fifth City of Gold; and something had gone wrong, and- and-
And he doesn't recall anymore. He cannot remember anything beyond this point, and he is worried. He tries to remember, to force himself to, but he can't. He can't, and he's worried. He tries to remember things from even before, but they seem to fade out of his grasp. Memories of things he's lived, names he's known, places he's been to seem to become more distant, more foreign to him, like the memories of a stranger that he's watching through his own mind eye. He doesn't like it.
The voices come back. Voices he knows; who do they belong to? He's sure he can remember- give him the time, he'll be able to, he promises…
There is another sensation that comes up; it is not visual, or sound, but he senses it. A signal that he recognizes, that he knows he must obey to. Without thinking about it, he lowers his head, and opens his mouth, and stands still.
There are presences. There is someone with him- next to him- inside of him, and he should be disgusted, but there is none of it. He is not able of disgust. Not anymore.
There is an itch at the back of his head. Some sort of feeling, as if someone was touching to a very specific part of his brain. And it made him jolt, it made him move, and his fingers stretch and his mouth closes and his head rises up and the warmth on his lower back gathers and builds up and suddenly it bursts and before he knows it, he's moving, and he feels lighter than air, and- he's flying, he's flying! He's as light as light itself, as the light he is made of, as the light that powers him, and this feeling suddenly comes back to mind, familiar and reassuring- and he realizes where he is, but his mind tells him that it's wrong; that it's not where he is, but what he is. He knows this feeling, but it is much more intense than what he recalls, and that's when his senses awake and he knows where he is, and he becomes aware of what he is doing and for the first time since he woke up, he knows what is going on.
He's flying. He's flying like he used to, during his journeys in the Condor. But there is no steering shaft between his hands, there is no fabric pressing against his back, there is nothing for his feet to rest on. He is flying, but not in the way he is used to; and yet the speed, the height, the rush of emotions is the same, albeit much more intense than he is used to. And it feels familiar, as if he has always done this way.
He is not the pilot anymore. He has never felt this as a pilot, in all of his traveling life. Instead, he feels what his machine would feel. The more it makes sense to him, the more his mind awakes, and the more it feels like the truth.
Esteban has become the machine.
I have become the Golden Condor.
