Fountain Mountain

[00]

From one emptiness to another, Fink watches as the darkness melts away into a blank canvas.
Murky memories tickle its muddled mind while a cool spray ripples the feathers along its cloak.
The bird turns around to see itself perched on the lip of a bowl gushing a steady stream of water, the fluid so balanced and stable, in fact, that Fink's own reflection is clearly visible blinking back between faces.
Small slices of stone seem to simply float in space around the liquid column, swirling slowly around it in a conical vortex.

The fountain is vaguely mountain-shaped.

With this recognition the avian's eyes open wide, and all past memories and previous thoughts go right out the door as its cloak flies backwards, splitting apart into a furious flutter of whirling wings, sending the bird shooting to the very top of the structure.
Spiraling around several smaller columns that slip water under its wings, the bird rises upwards and grips the edge of the topmost stone, which, in its own turnings, is just about to be situated precisely at the peak.

The bird's wings fold around its body again, hands clinging to the smooth stone while it rotates in one continuous motion.
Feather-crest lowers as the bird appears to hunker down, almost seeming to glower downwards at the world below in a hunched, sulking way.
What with the world's whiteness, those eight strange structures on the horizon, and only one possible mountain in sight -- which, despite having already conquered, is not only infuriatingly small but is also made almost entirely out of water...well then, what's not to brood about?

Fink makes a quiet croak with an inwards breath, which barely manages to momentarily pull some of the spray towards it.
Glaring at an upside-down world (it's your fault for holding onto a rotating stone, you nerd), the hoopoe says softly to the void:
"My mountain.
Mine."

[00]

Only one minute later and Fink has already had enough.
Watching as its perch leaves the peak and the fountain slowly rises before it, beady eyes squinting against the constant spray whenever its face turns towards the water column again, the bird decides to begin looking around more closely at the horizon archways.
Hopping upside the hovering stone, the bird seeks out the structures' details and, figuring that it would take some time to fly to them, tries to determine which one appears the most interesting for initial investigations.

Within seconds the avian is up, speeding through the windless air towards that which sparks the most memory of the mountain's base: the gate with an armor of bark and crawling with messy vines.
Rising higher, Fink spreads its wings wide and starts a coasting soar; on the way, it occasionally spots a moving speck here or there, but with its mind firmly made it ignores them all with gusto, passing by with little more than an occasional glance.
On the wing it manages to make it to the forested arch in swift time, and so, with an energetic rattling call the bird folds its wings and dives down for the gate, eyes set on the glowing, swirling mass within, thinking that even one touch must lead to something.