Gale's eyes opened to the City around him. He took a moment to glance around as he continued to hover. His eyes panned slowly across the still remarkable architecture. Even in their state of decay, they still held an elegance unrivalled and unmatched Setting himself down slowly and gently he thought back to the counting clock. Its hands counting time longer than a minute, longer than an hour. He didn't know its timescale, he could only guess they had maybe weeks left. The City knew its time was coming.
Gale let out a depressive sigh, as the city around him rumbled with another distant collapse far away from him. He made his way with heavy feet to the still crashed ShardShip, he touched the nose of the ship gently, running his fingers over it once more. Like a brush he painted its original condition upon its ruin, the decay came back slower than it had done before.
"You wait all day?" His voice boomed loudly at the person leaning on the crenelations of a causeway above him. They looked down to him.
"No, For me it turned to night hours ago." They responded, Gale's vague assessment was right, definitely female. She pushed herself off into the air. "Is it safe to approach it?"
Gale pointed at the crashed ShardShip, he noticed the person nod.
"Yeah, nothing here can really harm you. Welcome to the City" He responded. "Or what's left of it."
Eagerly she jumped to the cracked and now ruined floor, Gale was happy to see she had the same effect upon their world as he did, if not more.
Finally, someone believed.
As they walked towards him the decay waned from a much greater distance than it did for him. It even brought back the faintest brushes of colour, and as their auras combined, the ground returned to a near pristine state. She passed a large square patch cut into the floor, filled with scattered grey stones. Yet at her approach each one turned black as onyx, metal rods began to rise, turning to branches and steadily growing into a metal tree the height of Gale himself, capped with a chunk of white opal on the end of each branch.
"Are you real?" She asked tentatively.
"As real as the bed you fell asleep in, but this is a dream." He frowned at himself. "So technically both... I think"
As they closed Gale noticed they wore a similar, albeit a different variant of the FlightSuit to him, whilst his was covered in panels closer to armour, theirs was coated in long threads of stone, more akin to a stone trench coat. No doubt only carrying the parts that would be required, making it lightweight to fit better onto the person's stocky frame. The stone was the same black whilst the plates were adorned with silver filigree, a design that continued up her helmet around to a blue visor shaped like a downwards pointing arrow.
Gale let them approach, he leaned on the ShardShip as it shifted on the floor. The gouge it cut into it repaired beneath it. They stood in front of him, Gale noticed they were about his shoulder height.
"You going to remove your helmet?" He asked pointing. The person just nodded. A moment passed before it unfurled from their head, laying itself against their chest plate.
Gale took a moment to understand the person in front of him. Her face had very sharp, almost sculpted features. She looked young. Her eyes a brilliant green, a faint scar cut through one of her eyebrows, her eyes looked reserved and withdrawn even though she had a mischievous smirk on her face. Her ebony hair fell down to her shoulders. The two were silently studying each other.
"Didn't expect to see someone else here. This place is empty." She finally spoke with a slight accent. It was clear English wasn't her first language. From his experience he'd guess she had a Scandanavian origin. Her eyes were locked onto his face, Gale could tell she was still studying him.
"Same here, it's been like this for a while." He responded calmly, lacking the hostility he held in the real world. The woman nodded slowly.
"You've been here awhile then?" She asked inquisitively.
"All my life." He paused. "More or less."
"Do you know where we are?" She asked, almost embarrassed. Gale turned his head slightly. He could almost predict her questions.
"Ah... Like I said, this is the City." He stated as his eyes drew thin. "Do you know how you ended up here?"
"I woke here a few weeks ago, after I broke up with my ex..." She paused briefly. Gale could tell it was a wound still raw. "It feels so real though, it doesn't feel like I'm dreaming... It's almost familiar..."
"Do you know why?" He asked, avoiding her original question until he had answers, he was happy to see another, but he felt like she was an intruder.
"No? I think it might be because I locked myself away after she left. I just tried to keep myself distracted..." She said, she raised her hands slightly, struggling for words. "I'm an artist and maybe im here so I can be inspired?" She asked rhetorically.
"That's not it." He stated, with a smile. The woman only frowned.
"How would you know that?" She asked firmly. "Who the bloody hell are you?"
Gale smiled, he took a step back and looked up and down the City's causeway. For a moment. He could hear her impatiently demanding his response.
"My name is Gale Mayfair, I'm like you. Only thing is I never left like you did." He responded cryptically. He could tell she was taking it all in. "Welcome to the City of Dreams, The Great City, Urbe Somnia, Ciudad de los sueños, Asgard... It had so many names..."
"Had? What's it meant to be now?" She asked. "None of this makes sense."
"Now it's only the rotten remains of what it once was. The City draws out the best in all of us, but only to people who will pay the price for it. You must have made the decision to push yourself beyond your means, and by so doing, enabling you to once again travel to this city crafted from the dreams of humanity." He spoke with heavy words. "Though I imagine it was something more than that that brought you here..."
"What you're saying still doesn't make sense!" She barked at him, her gauntleted hands rose to her temples in frustration. "Man you're making my brain hurt."
"The City is like a refuge. It nurtured us, it made us better. We are only where we are today because of it and when you were no longer interested in the greatness it could offer you all let go of it you left what remained abandoned and ruined! You abandoned it! And now its in front of you, you still don't believe it!" He started calmly, but his anger got the better of him, like he was in the real world.
He spun around and drove his fist hard into the side of the ShardShip. The crash of the two materials echoed through the city, punctuated by the crash of a distant collapse. With a powerful chime the minute hand high above them moved closer to midnight. Gale rested his hand on the dented hull of his faithful companion. He lashed out at it, it hadn't deserved that. The damage healed beneath his fingers, but the damage would never truly fade...
He looked at the young woman beside him, she only watched him carefully.
"You have no idea how hard I've tried to make people believe in this... and now someone is here you still think this is just a dream! It is so much more than that." He practically cried to the world. Silence echoed around them as the distant rumble of the collapsing tower still made its way through the city.
"Carola Lucian." She said beside him. Gale frowned, not even looking at her.
"What?"
"My name... is Carola Lucian."
"Why are you telling me that?" He asked bluntly.
"Because, Mr Mayfair, you are not alone anymore..." She said with a smile. She stepped away from him, reaching behind her back to pull out her flightboard. "Don't dwell on in anger. Maybe we are here to help each other."
He just watched her as she set the flight board on the ground, it hovered up with a green glow as it powered up. Gale cocked an eyebrow at her.
"What are you doing?" He asked. Carola just pointed at the great clock. Not really helping answer his question.
"I don't want to know how long this place has left..." She responded. Gale didn't know how she had figured it out, but he neither confirmed nor denied it. He smirked at her, tapping on the quiet ShardShip. The large canopy collapsed seamlessly. Carola stepped onto her board as he pulled out the craft's crystal. She gripped her own firmly, her helmet closed gracefully around her face once again.
Within moments Gale was inside and the craft had started to hover, its 'engines' flared with a brilliant blue light. It sung with power unlike any other.
The Rider and Pilot took their own means into the sky. The ShardShip flew alongside the flightboard, and the flightboard alongside it.
"Follow me to the edge of the Ocean." Carola noticeably jolted in surprise as she heard Gale's voice echo inside her helmet.
"I'd like to go my own way for now, Gale." She responded calmly. Gale nodded. She could feel the sadness in his voice of being left to fly the city by himself.
"Find me when you're ready... Thank you." He spoke to her, she gave a quick wave and Gale darted the ShardShip through the arches of a great viaduct, underneath one causeway then over another. Very faintly the blue of the ocean sat like a little smudge at the end of a canyon of spires.
He was thankful not to be alone anymore. He smiled as he made way to his destination. Looking back, he could see the trail of the flightboard go into the deeper parts of the City. Gale let out a long breath. Not of relief but of sadness.
Gale mulled over the events in such depth he didn't even notice the time going by. He flew the canyons on autopilot with such skill the shardship moved more akin to a bird than a construct helmed by an earth-bound being.
With his eyes growing heavier, Gale inverted the vessel, with precise eyes he scanned the ground. He lazily pointed the crystal at a patch clear of debris, and with practice and precision the Shardship touched down without a sound. The canopy came open, and as Gale climbed out and sat on the crystal wing he could immediately feel the pull of the real world.
It had been waiting for the best parts to be over...