[SWP] It comes in waves

WAKER

While you look to Otem for your answers, it is Night Sky who supplies them. It doesn't surprise you; she's knowledgeable, that much is obvious. Where Otem is youth and a thirst for knowledge, Night Sky is the fountain which quenches it—in your mind, this somehow makes them alike, just one is exuberant, the other, less so. Your eyes, kind despite the weariness evident in your face, rest on Otem a moment longer.

But it does surprise you to hear that the walls of darkness, the ones you took for granted as magical barriers to this strange and broken land, had not always been there. To you, they've seemed permanent, somehow, impenetrable, unquestioned. To think that something lays beyond them.. it makes your heart ache something fierce, hope better left dead flaring through your bones again.

Maybe it's a way out.

Yet the idea of going home terrifies you. You don't know what you'd find. Your land in ruins, your folk—dead and enslaved? You feel giddy and sick both at once, nodding mutely at Night Sky's suggestion. Dragon Man is already steering your ship that way, steadfast and sturdy, and you follow in his wake.

It seems to have been a good guess. Your shadows start to distort and dance, the orbs of Hope pulsing brighter and brighter with every step you take closer to the spire. Warily, you raise your head, looking around, but the only thing you see is a rangy colt walking into Dragon Man and then slipping around on some very out of place ice.

Seems perfectly normal, somehow. You blow out a sigh through dark nostrils, and shake your head. You're getting used to this place. You're starting to care about it, and its inhabitants. You don't know whether to be pleased or worried, but mostly, you just feel tired. Between the half-healed bite on your neck and the conflict of old home vs new home, you feel ready to just go nap while your Hopelight goes bananas.

You never really make it further down that daydream before the orbs all zip away, drawn to the peak of the spire. "What..?" you mumble, slack-jawed, staring until the brightness hurts your eyes and you're forced to look away. And like in the lake, the orb—singular now—explodes in a silent wave of light, sweeping through the ivory city, and through your bones. It rolls through you like thunder, and you're left blinking in the aftermath, peering at the others, and the city. It seems..brighter, somehow; you hear birds singing, and while it's still a deserted place, it feels less dead and more asleep.

You shrug, and your ball of Hope returns to your side. "Guess that's that," you observe lamely. Your body aches, yet you turn to face the direction you had come from. "We're going back to the beach. You're welcome to tag along, kid," you offer to the colt, perhaps feeling guilty about your rather recent outburst at Varuna, before beginning to trudge back to the sea.

[ Waker returns to » Together! ]