SSOWeek - June 2015

Silence

Important little side note: In my little timeline that I've made for SSO the original Starshine Legacy games took place the year the first one was released (2005), and the events of SSO begin the year SSO was released (2011). This means Anne went missing in 2009 (two years prior to the SSO game start, as established in the quests in SSO when they talk about Anne). Using the grand invention that is a calculator, I'm operating as though 6 years have passed between SSL and SSO. This is important. I promise.

Six years ago.

He was assigned to a small little town on an island. It was called Jorvik, and for some reason his bosses thought that it was absolutely important that they send him there to check on some suspicious activity. Part of him thought that this was a joke, but the camera they gave him to use suggested otherwise. The camera was special, everything about it had to be specially made, and some of that involved very dangerous missions that had cost them good people.

Whatever was in Jorvik was serious, and his bosses thought that he was the perfect one to find out what was going on. But he didn't understand what he was going to find going undercover as a scout for a fashion model agency. He should be sneaking around some dangerous facility where he could be shot and killed, not setting up in a school to photograph eager girls hoping for a breakthrough.

Although truth be told, this was the first time an assignment had him near girls within his age range, and some of the students were eyeing him with a similar interest.

"Hi there, I'm your new model," a proud girl told him as soon as she saw him. She told him her name was Jessica, and she was lean with black hair held up in a pony tail and green eyes that bore into a person, challenging you to even consider saying no to her. He was polite and sidestepped her declaration, taking her pictures and wishing her luck in the competition to win the spot with Glamour No. 5.

And then he saw her.

Her name was Anne, he could tell her confidence in approaching him was desperately trying to hide her nerves. But she was earnest and excited, and something about her seemed to click with him.

He told her his name was Derek, and she smiled with a blush and nodded when he asked her if she was ready to take some pictures.

It was no surprise to him when the photos he took of her showed that she had an aura, but he had not expected the photographs to reveal her horse's essence as well. As far as he knew the camera only worked on humans, and yet the pictures revealed Anne glowing like the sun and Concorde with wings flared out in a proud salute.

She won the competition and became Glamour No. 5's new model, and his bosses wanted him to keep an eye on her. They knew there was something about her, and the other girls and their horses of Jorvik, that was important.

He didn't mind the assignment to stay in Jorvik. Neither did Anne.

Four Years Ago

It was difficult between them, distance made it difficult. As he had expected, Anne had proven herself with Concorde and now competed on an international level. He did not see her often anymore, but they wrote letters. The few times she could return to Jorvik rarely matched up with when Derek had time off from his own job. Anne never went into detail about what happened two years prior, but the suspicious activity suddenly stopped and his bosses had grown bored and reassigned him. Sometimes he was able to see her compete when they were in the same country, other times they were only able to communicate through a computer screen or a letter.

But they made it work. It wouldn't always be like this, they promised each other. They would find a way to see each other more often, somehow they would make their schedules match up so they could be together properly, without countries and seas between them.

Two Years Ago

She didn't call to tell him the results of her France competition. He thought it was just because of how tired she must have been, or perhaps she was busy with parties and interviews with reporters.

But it was strange, the silence of his phone unnerved him. Normally she called as soon as she could to tell him all about how her dressage performance went, who she had been up against, how well she had done, what she could improve on, how Concorde was doing.

It wasn't until the next day that he opened the paper and saw a small article tucked away in the pages of the crisp paper:

"Dressage Rider Disappears"

There was nothing more than a short paragraph saying that Anne and her horse had failed to appear in the ring when they were called, and there was no trace of them to be found anywhere at the event, the stables, or her hotel room.

A few sentences. Written impersonally and with no feeling. Nothing more than a "well isn't that strange, a person and her horse just vanished! And now the weather."

He felt sick. After calling everyone he could think of, after trying to pull every string, call in every favor, he was left empty handed. After begging his bosses to let him return to Jorvik, let him go to France and try to find her, try to find some trace of her, they finally officially reassigned him to work in Jorvik once more. On the books they said it was a reassignment to follow up on the mysterious activities happening in the area, but he had a feeling they pitied him and thought he would be too distracted to be of use to them anywhere else.

He no longer had the camera, that had long been returned to his bosses, but they set him up with a postal position in Silverglade. It was a central location, and the mail was an excellent way to keep track of the going ons of the island. He didn't complain, it was perfect. He didn't think he would be able to handle being at Jorvik Stables again, or see her friends. It would hurt too much.

Present Day

Somewhere in his heart he had hoped he would see her again. He half expected a letter written in neat cursive to appear in the mail for him, saying that she was fine. He spent every night listening to different frequencies, checking the radio waves for any suspicious activity that might be connected to her. He reported countless things of interest to his bosses, but they weren't about her. Dark Core was up to something, but that didn't matter to him besides the fact that it was his job to monitor them and all other major energy consumers on Jorvik. He never changed her ringtone, he couldn't help but pray that one day it would ring and she would be on the line. There were nights when he was so lost he could swear he heard her voice through the static of the radio, calling for help.

But there was nothing but radio silence.