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Celeste La'More always wondered what Tarne Duck saw when he looked at a game screen.

Try as she might, she could never fathom deep enough into the mallards mind when it came to that particular area. She could share all her thoughts and feelings with him, all her ideas; no matter how nonsensical they turn out to be most of the time. He could always lend an ear to listen to her. Sometimes in a way that no one outside her family could.

The way Felicity did.

But whenever they steered into her friend's obsession… she was stumped.

Full out, completely 'went-crashing-head-first-from-free-fall-without-a-helmet-through-a-cloud-only-to-come-out-drenched-and-slamming-into-a-titanium-wall' kind of stumped.

And she had on more than one occasion done that. Well not the titanium wall part of the statement, but crashing through a cloud? Definitely. She was pretty sure the principles were the same.

Just what does he see?

She knows what she sees when she looks at a blank piece of parchment. She sees an endless stretch of space where she could create her own world from scratch –or a pencil tip. A world where miracles could be shaped and moulded, a place where fairy tale endings do exist. Spaces where she could control; she was fate itself.

Again she wondered what he saw.

Did he see his own world when he looks into a blinking screen? The way he could give rapt attention to it, as if he was wrapped in his own cocoon and the world around him next to melted away to nothing.  In a way that was so similar to the way she felt when she faced a blank parchment.

Does he feel the same satisfaction she felt as his fingers expertly sweep across the controls, parallel to the way her pencil could move on from a continuous flow of words from her mind?

Did he ever come across that little voice at the back of his head –at the times when he just had to have something important to see to- as he spies an untouched game boy by the family's couch? The same ever so familiar relentless tug on her will power that could make her drop everything or anything that she was doing as a storyline or idea came to her mind?

How often had he given in to temptation?

Did he ever feel a rush of prickly joy as he nails a game in hand? The familiar swooping sensation she felt as her characters finally meet their happy ending?

She stepped out from her thoughts as she momentarily cast her gaze out of her window. Her bedroom on the 134th floor of the tower commanded a sweeping view of the city and its inhabitants. She had spent countless nights just staring out of it, watching as life flew past at its rapid pace, pondering on her own thoughts and ideas.

She shifted her gaze towards the sky. A low, bright moon stood drastically out of the inky darkness, looking all the while like a beacon of light suspended from invisible strings lowered down from the heavens. She watched in mild interest as the clouds slowly drape over the moon, inch by inch, until there is but a vague half moon impression against its white, silk cloak. The sun had set hours ago.

It was dark outside.

Almost automatically, she reached for a piece of paper by her side table and brought out her ever trusty pencil from her pajama pocket. She flicked on her nightlight and pressed the tip against the blank paper.

Celeste smile was brief as a title came to her mind. In sure, quick movements, her familiar neat writing transferred the words onto the paper. This was the beginning of the epic tale in her mind, the kick off point. And it consisted of four words; not more, not lest.

Just four.

One and The Same…

***

I'm trying out a slightly different writing style than usual XD