TRACK 25
I drop to the floor like I did before
Stop watching, I'm coughing, I can't be more
What I want and what I need are at constant war
Like a well full of poison, a rotten core
The blood goes thin, the fever stings
(Blackbirds - Linkin Park)
********
Claire felt quite strange.
It was as if she kept going from sitting to lying down, but she didn't remember moving. She could hardly remember anything, to be completely honest.
From time to time she could hear a bell ringing, tinkling in the air with its crystal clear sound. Hearing it, for unclear reasons, brought her to attention every single time. As if she had to be attentive. As if it were an omen of some kind.
She found herself staring down below in one of yet another shift in position. Beneath her feet, which were wearing plain brown sandals, was wooden parquet flooring.
Part of her brain told her it was all frighteningly unusual. But every voice in her head tried to tell her that what was happening was not natural, well, it was being trampled by reasoning that was not her own. But that actually seemed to be hers. They were in her head, so why then were they not hers?
She was waiting for someone. Claire knew that. Claire knew that she was continuing to wait for that someone, but that he was making himself wait. And it sickened her that he was making her wait like that. It sickened her that they had promised each other a time for that meeting, but as usual, that person could not keep his promises.
She started to pace on the parquet floor nervously, ticking her fingers on the sleeve of the pastel yellow Hanfu that she was wearing. Her long hair was being shaken by the warm, somewhat agitated wind that arose from the South, where the sun was high but not particularly warm, covered by grayish clouds scattered across the sky. Perhaps it would have rained soon.
The new jingling of the bell caused her to raise her head sharply, her eyes searching among the red columns and unlit lamps dangling from the ceiling. The man she had been waiting for until that moment finally appeared. Finally.
Claire had no idea who he was, but at the same time, she knew it anyway. For whatever reason, she recognized his broad shoulders. She recognized his ebony-black hair, which was tied in a long, thick braid, resting on the left side of his neck, descending near to his waist. It would have been so easy to grab and cut them. To put him to shame because of it.
She recognized those eyes, always black, sickeningly soft. And those angular features were no less recognizable. They were a common trait of many people, yes, but in him , they seemed particularly pronounced.
"Shaoran." She found herself saying in greeting, lowering her head slightly. Her voice came out dry, but calm... And... And strangely masculine? What?
'Why is my voice like this?' She -She! Hello? Why was she sounding like that, seriously?- couldn't help but wonder in a small part of herself, even more confused as to what was going on. And always being forcibly chased away, as if it were an annoying fly that kept buzzing around her ears instead of something she had all the right to wonder about.
"Dalai." Replied the man, just as serious but more relaxed than Claire -Dalai?- nodding in turn. He then conjoined his own arms, going to press his palms together, but not intertwining his fingers. "As usual you're right on time."
'And as usual, you're perfectly late.' She thought, but bit her tongue to avoid exposing herself.
"I like to be on time." She said instead, tightening her lips and turning her gaze to the sky for a couple of seconds, trying to calm down a little, getting a little less rigid in her posture. Then she went to grab both the old ceramic pitcher and the cup, also made in ceramic, that had been on the low coffee table -without a base to support it since it was perfectly down on the parquet- that she had in front of her.
"Thirsty, perhaps?" She asked politely, scrutinizing the other man and seeing him deny it with a small shake of his head. Claire -Dalai!? Seriously?- therefore put the objects back in their places, thinning her gaze.
"Let's get to the facts if you don't mind," asserted Shaoran, his arms always returning annoyingly to coincide. "What did you request my meeting for, O'Pacific?"
Claire -Dalai. That was his name- had a moment of paralysis at the polite title -which only his friends usually used, partly to joke around with him softly and partly because it was one of the Crucible's shared formulas of affection. The use of titles meant respect. It meant the continued trusting of each other. They receive and connect with each other's Magic without hindrance. But Shaoran was not a friend to him. He had never seen him as such- so she went back to tapping her fingers on her sleeves, taking a big deep breath.
"I would like..." she began. "I would like it if you would dissuade Xia from performing the ritual." She paused. A very small one. No longer than a blink of an eye, so short that Shaoran did not even have time to change his expression. Perhaps he did not even fully understand the request she had asked him. "She wants to do it for you ... So only you can convince her to stop what she is doing. Only you can make her see the negative side of it."
She -He. He was a male. Dalai was a male. He was Dalai- had tried.
He had tried, even pushing harder than he should have, all to make her understand the danger her choice might bring to herself. He had desperately tried to make it obvious to her what she was getting into, but Xia -oh, the stubborn, wonderfully intelligent, and talented Xia- his Master, well, she had not listened to him. Any attempt to open the conversation was shut down with glares and the repeating of the same phrase. Over and over again.
'I told you I'm not going to talk about this anymore. I've made my choice. You can't change it.'
Shaoran was the only one, unfortunately, that she would listen to. Unfortunately. Just thinking about it irritated the hell out of him. Why him? Why not Dalai instead? It wasn't fair. It really wasn't.
The Health Mage fell silent, peering back at him for a while, before lowering his gaze with an almost guilty look. "I can't, I'm sorry," he said, his tone soft. And disgustingly happy, which made his stomach roll.
Dalai's world seemed to come to a screeching halt. As if the seconds were no longer flowing. As if a patina of ice had gone into one of the many objects of time in the Forbidden Wing of The Crucible, stopping every living thing in its forever static state.
He stiffened and gritted his teeth. And after that instant -that very long instant of nothingness and shock- anger exploded in his chest and began to make him tremble. He clenched his fists so tightly that he could have driven his nails into his flesh.
"No?" Dalai asked, his low voice quivering, almost interrupted by his own heavy breathing. He sounded both genuinely surprised and upset. "Why not?"
"Dalai..." Shaoran tried to say, making an expression that looked like mild exasperation, but at the same time an understanding of what he was feeling. Which was definitely not true. Shaoran could not feel what Dalai was feeling. He could not!
"Why not?!" He shouted, taking strides forward in his direction until he was very close, going to press his index finger against his chest repeatedly, letting go of how rude and aggressive he turned out to be because of this gesture.
He was too angry. Very angry. Too much hurt by his choice. And the more he thought about his response, the more his anger and upsetment increased. The more he thought about Xia, the angrier he became, on the verge of releasing his magic in waves. The Golems were far away from him, but that didn't mean he couldn't create a crude one from the ground if he wanted to.
"You're supposed to love her more than anyone else and you refuse to protect her?" Dalai added, feeling his eyes burning, just like his entire face was.
"It is precisely because I love her that I am doing this," Shaoran said, the serious expression returning to paint his face and a hint of resolve flashing in his gaze.
"I want to spend my whole life with her. And she wants to spend hers with me. That's why I can no longer say no to her, dangerous or not. We will do it together, wherever fate takes us."
"There is a risk that she will no longer be immortal," he blurted out, still loudly, breathing harder and faster. Even more than before. His magic was stirring in his veins at maximum speed and maximum intensity. He seemed on the verge of destroying everything around him, starting with the other Mage.
He knew perfectly well that he could control it. It was part of his being down to his hair. But the question was; did Dalai really want to control it? Did he really want to stop himself?
For the salvation of that place? Yes.
For that of the Wizard? No. He did not care at all for Shaoran. The only reason why he never tried to show his hatred for him was that Xia would have been disappointed in him.
"Yes." Replied the other in a flat voice. A flat voice that got highly on his nerves -and they were already pretty much fried- so much so that in turn, well, it was a factor only capable of worsening everything.
"There is a risk that she will lose all her magic and become a mere human being!" Dalai insisted, furious. He couldn't be so dumb as not to understand that, right? Right?
"Then I will make sure that I am going to be, too. I will live my last years of life with her. Whether it's for eternity, for sixty or a dozen years. It doesn't matter."
Dalai could no longer contain himself. The anger was so strong that it made him see red, but his magic did not move. Rather, he landed a punch in his face that was strong enough to almost turn him around.
And because of the blow, Shaoran lost his balance, falling backward, and almost colliding with one of the sides of the table.
"You can't do that," he muttered, panting heavily and continuing to tremble. Ignoring how his eyes were continuing to burn. Ignoring the poison of envy churning in his gut. The jealousy was flaring inside him strongly, but he did not want to admit it. "You cannot..."
"We will," he replied point blank, his left hand having gone to cover his bruise. It was already beginning to fade magically. Those words made Dalai hold his breath. "I'm sorry. Whether you want it or not, we intend to do it anyway. We will start on the day of the New Moon, after the ceremonies. And what you say doesn't matter anymore to us."
The day of the New Moon. After the ceremonies.
Dalai breathed again on that date, his heart racing just like his thoughts.
He still had time. Not as much as he would have liked, but he had some. He could find a way to stop them... If he found it even earlier it was better, not least because he didn't know how much to trust Shaoran on his words. And yes, the New Moon day was seen as good luck, as a new beginning, but he didn't care. The sooner he found it, the sooner he could better devise the details to put it into action.
He could protect Xia. He would do it no matter what. Even if she hated him for it.
To Dalai, it was enough that Xia was safe. Nothing else mattered... Although the idea of being despised by her, of no longer being seen as her Apprentice and thus no longer receiving her teachings, of not being connected to her magic through her Hoard Instincts... It brought him unimaginable internal suffering. And new anger because it was all Shaoran's fault if he was risking her contempt. Only Shaoran's fault.
He had stolen his Master. He had stolen from him the person he cared about most of all when it was quite obvious that he did not deserve her because he could not put aside his self-centered selfishness.
He couldn't really put Xia first, as Dalai would have done in his place. As he had always done. And as he would have continued to do until the magic had run out of his veins, leading to his slow and inexorable death.
When he would die, Xia would continue to live and shine her beautiful white light. She would have marked the world in a way Dalai would never have been able to, even if he had wanted to. And he was fine with that.
Or at least, he -... He?... No, wait. He wasn't a he. He was right now a he, but he wasn't!- was okay with it until Claire -only Claire, this time. Not Dalai. Never Dalai, but then why had he been there before?- found herself jerking awake, pulling herself up to sit up with shortness of breath, her head aching terribly -pulpit and aching, but only in one spot, not even if she had a migraine or something- and one of her arms pinching so badly that she wanted to start scratching her own skin overbearingly. Or even bite it. But she was too weakened and too confused to succeed in what she desired.
Claire found herself glancing first at the figure of Archibald, who was standing before her and was watching her with a vaguely tense expression, wagging his tail. Then she looked at some of the -not too far away from him- burning black grass, gathered in a hole that had been made in the ground and was cooking what looked like a black rat with three tails and two heads. The flame was so low that it was only noticeable by the smoke.
"Don't strain yourself," he said. His voice was heard a little blurry and garbled in her ears, but she nodded anyway, managing to understand the order, however with difficulty.
It did not take long before she came back to unconsciousness. She was too weak for some reason. Her energy seemed to have been drastically reduced to zero, making her feel as if any attempt to maintain her lucidity was an immense effort that she really could not stand.
Before she broke into the nothingness of her mind, however, her gaze fell on her itching arm. She noticed -only partially, partly because she couldn't really dwell on the fact and formulate a sensible thought, like maybe wondering why part of the fabric of her sleeve was missing and why the armor part wasn't there at all- that one of the two red spots was gone.
********
The armor had made it difficult to swim and avoid sinking deeper and deeper into the water. And the helmet, instead of protecting him from it, had only kept him under, worsening everything.
He had managed to avoid getting really hurt -since in the fall he had been lucky enough not to be so high that he was in serious danger of injuring or directly killing himself from the impact- but the aggressive speed of the current had dragged him forward for who knows how much time and space.
Nothing had been clear in those moments. It had all been a mixture of purple, seaweed, bubbles, and what looked like large frogs with numerous eyes, all present on the riverbed.
In the chaos, Douxie had been in danger of suffocating. Mainly from struggling to raise his head above the water level, but also from the fact that once he jumped out a little, taking in how much oxygen he could with both his nose and mouth, something in the air seemed to become thin and harder to keep in his lungs. Almost painful.
He couldn't breathe into the liquid, of course, but when he got out of it a little, he couldn't breathe well out of it either . Which did not make any bloody sense, really.
He must have swallowed a lot of it, mostly, in his fumbling and trying to swim decently. And this had testified that it was not real water, because the substance had tasted revolting, to say the least. A mixture that was a little bit like mud, a little bit like mucus, and... something else he could not define, equally unpleasant. Or that his brain refused to define, almost to protect itself from the idea.
He had managed to get out of the river only after grabbing a large rock that had been in the middle of it, not too far from a long branch that reached the part of the river with the lowest, calmest liquid crossing it. It was from a bare tree, all curved in on itself, one of several that were around the purple river, but which in this case had had its roots right in it, below the boulders and soil.
Holding on to the rock had indeed stopped him from continuing to be tossed around and nearly drowning because of the current, but it had torn the fabric of his gloves and caused a cut in both his palms. The pain -because of the tension and adrenalin that he was feeling at that moment- he had not even felt it. Not even a little.
Going to grab the branch had been more complicated. For a moment he had risked getting caught in the current again, being pushed by it with the same intensity as before -if not worse- but he had still managed to grab it and cling to it with his arms.
He had used all the strength he had at his disposal, so much so that he had even wavered from breaking away from the branch, desperately continuing to search for oxygen but having to partially put his head under the liquid for relief. Which was extremely weird as it was.
After a time that had seemed both short and endless, Douxie had managed to slowly make his way from the whole tree, the pebbles crunching beneath his feet in a deafening noise... and then to shore.
He waited until he found himself in a stable part of the ground, far enough away from the levees to prevent perhaps something from collapsing and throwing him back into the water, then he let himself fall to the ground on his back.
Gasping and shivering with cold -there was no cold air, no. There was no wind at all, but his wet clothes felt icy. The whole liquid had been icy- he lay there in silence.
He struggled to breathe like a fish out of water and felt his lungs on fire. His instincts almost demanded that he throw himself back into the river in the hope of lessening that acute sensation, but just the thought of finding himself tossed right and left again in the waves, sinking and having to push himself up with his legs to get afloat... It was even worse torture than that one and was therefore enough to deter him.
An intense feeling of shame gripped him from head to toe between lying down and gasping. Shame at its most intense, such that it led him to try to make himself smaller by rolling in on himself.
He didn't understand where it had come from at all, he just didn't understand, and that only served to increase his feelings out of proportion.
Perhaps it was due to Master Merlin's whole situation, he told himself. But just the thought of his Master, in all that chaos -in all that desperation trapping him like a bug in a spider's web- made him feel his stomach tighten. He did not want to think about him. He didn't have to think about him, or about what he had told him... or even about his total rejection. He forced himself to drive him out of his mind, continuing with all his might to search for oxygen with which to fill his lungs.
Maybe it was due to how fragile and incapable he felt without his own magic. Maybe it was that, yes, it made sense after all. But not even with a collar tightening around his neck and his head shaved he had felt in such a way. And that had been pretty shameful -He still could not understand how Nique had found him beautiful like that.
Maybe it was because he just couldn't breathe and it was embarrassing how the more he tried, the more he felt it disappear. He had tried slowing the pace at which he was trying to recover it, taking deep, slow breaths, but nothing. No result. No air seemed to reach him. Or at least, it reached him only to escape quickly after.
But in any case, the reason was not important.
He couldn't breathe! That was important. He couldn't bloody breathe and it was so fuzzing painful! He could feel his cheeks becoming warmer and warmer every second a little more.
The emotion and sensation were there, insistent and corrosive. And they continued to stay there until Douxie put two fingers in his mouth and forced himself to regurgitate, hoping it would work.
If his ability to breathe had disappeared with the absorption of the river substance, then the expulsion of the latter might get him going again.
At times the purple liquid seemed to stick in his throat, it seemed not to want to come out, as if it were natural for it to remain there, not even if it were a parasite in a liquid state. But by dint of coughing and forcing himself to spit it out, Douxie managed to get as much of it out as he could.
As he did so, slowly and painfully, even the air began to seem less thin and more breathable, though some of it continued to burn inside his nostrils. But being able to breathe for real brought a tinge of relief to his mind. It did not entirely remove that choking sensation that made him partly believe he was going to die at any moment, but it was better than nothing.
Once after he had totally emptied himself, or almost totally -he could not be sure- he barely dragged himself forward, crawling against the ground. This was only to keep enough distance from the sticky substance, which had formed a puddle. Just looking at it turned his stomach all over again... and the smell did not help.
Once he was done, he left himself on the ground, exhausted, feeling his own heartbeat rumbling in his temples.
He should perhaps have gotten to his feet again, left the riverside, and set out in search of the others, but all his limbs, lower and upper, weighed like boulders. Gravity seemed to have concentrated all in them, so suddenly that it was difficult for him to struggle against it.
Hisirdoux looked at his palms -his hands were both resting on his chest, trying to regain a modicum of warmth by keeping them close- after noticing the taste of metal hovering on his tongue.
They were bleeding profusely, showing cuts that were deeper than he would have expected. The image was unpleasant, especially as black threads and torn cloth mingled with the crudely split skin and the purplish liquid still painting it everywhere in dirty splotch, but it could have been worse.
He could have risked cutting a vein. Yes, that would have been tremendous bad luck. And almost impossible to remedy in that situation. It would have been quicker to bleed out in the river than to reach the shore and then try to close the cuts in whatever way he could find.
Douxie shifted his gaze from his hands to the sky above him. The blackish gray seemed to subdivide like inkblots, but without creating any sensible shapes even for his imagination -maybe because he was too tired, too agitated, and too lost for it.
In his staring, however, he hoped that others had not found themselves in a similar situation to his own. Difficult because of the way the territory had shown from above, but he hoped for it nonetheless.
He let himself lie there a little longer, failing to get his legs going. As much as he wanted to try, he simply did not have the strength or energy.
In that imprecise amount of time, a thought -more or less disconnected, more or less sensible, no longer entirely related to his near-death experience- appeared and took possession of his mind.
His phone.
It had to be his phone that was dead. Or almost dead, although the percentage chance that it had survived was pretty slim. Douxie was soaked to the boxers, so it must not have saved itself from inside his pants pockets. Had it done so, it would have been a miracle.
He had no more rice available to try to fix it. It had been kicked back into his bracelet. And he was not able to use his bracelet at the moment -he was not able to do anything, not like this, not with the barrier around him, really.
He and the others had considered whether or not to put it in the stockpile earlier -before he left to close the cracks on his own- but honestly it would have been a little old, though not so old as to be inedible -main reason why he hadn't offered it at all from the beginning- so not very good... and hard to cook in a place like that.
In any case, he couldn't get the bracelet to work or put his hands in his pants pockets to check. They were hurting him too much to try.
Everything was heavy. His nose was burning. His lungs seemed partially plugged which disturbed him. His throat was parched -maybe from the efforts he had forced it to make in trying to release the unknown fluids- and his palms ached like hell.
Wonderful .
'Fuzz me... I couldn't ask for better, couldn't I? I always have such dumb luck .' He thought sarcastically, taking a fresh dose of air and throwing it out in a big huff. Doing so meanwhile moved a wet strand of hair flowing from his forehead to the tip of his nose. The movement was very small. The remaining hair was mostly stuck to his cheeks. 'But maybe I shouldn't think that. Every time I do that, I jinx myself and an even worse situation comes along than those before.'
He continued to remain motionless, lying there where he was. He would remain so until he had recovered enough of his strength and the almost physical need to get to his feet. For the moment he really didn't have any, but there didn't seem to be any danger around.
Maybe staying down for a while would help a little, maybe not. He could not know. What he did know one hundred percent was that Archie would be able to find him -wherever he was, far away or not, he was always great at intercepting his scent- everywhere. The nose of a dragon or of a cat were not magical matters, but of his own kind and that was all.
So whether he got up, set out, or just stood there for a moment trying to feel a little better, well, it hardly changed anything.
Sure, standing still and waiting made him feel a little guilty -and it came back to make him feel the shame under his skin- but he just wasn't able to leave. The whole misadventure had left him bewildered and exhausted, so much so that he felt his eyelids weigh like bricks.
He would not venture to sleep, not unless he knew what might pop up there, but he would allow himself some partial rest. Then he would actually decide what to try to do.
'Let's hope that nothing bad happens... ' he thought with a sigh, his gaze falling on the river. 'One thing is certain. That liquid, whether purple or of other colors, is best not to drink it under any circumstances. It's not known if they all have the same effects, but it's best not to trust it.'
Douxie tried to ignore the possibility that if they did not find the Keeper of Balance before the food and water supplies ran out, it would force them to do so. It would have forced them to try so that they would not be dehydrated.
He also ignored the fact that he, in his solitude at that time, had no food or water, because if he thought about it... well, he would never come out of those thoughts again, a feeling of deja vu twisting through his brain.
Holding up a lean period in food was fine enough, nothing to be frightened of, but the effects of the lack of water... they were the worst.
Although the probability was there and remained in a corner of his mind, he decided to pretend, at least for once, that it wasn't really there.
********
Nari did not know exactly where she was, but one thing was absolutely certain: she was underground.
The rock above her head, a short distance from her -so much so that if she was not careful to bend well, she was in danger of bumping into it at times, even if she was small- was dark and marked with small, slightly lighter grayish veins. It also surrounded her around... though at a greater distance. And she felt it underfoot, too, hard and hollow. Lacking of life.
It was discouraging to perceive the surface so cold and distant. So silent and detached, its Core almost hidden. It was as if it refused to connect to her, but Nari knew better than that.
It was she who could not perceive the whispering of the rock, not the rock that refused to whisper in her ear. It was she whose senses were completely blocked, making her feel more isolated and lost than she should have been, even though she was not alone anyway.
Blinkous Galadrigal was good company and a very intelligent and kind Troll. He stood beside her with his reassuring warm presence, and as much as at times, in their advance -in which she wished she could have gone faster, but felt weaker than normal, to the point that she slowed her pace a lot- he seemed a bit tense and eager to catch up with the rest of the group as soon as possible, it was more than obvious that he was trying not to let it weigh on her.
He must have noticed that the lack of her Magic was diminishing her physical strength, especially since her Magic, at times, was her strength. Her Mana was in every single part of her being, not only inside her Core. It was in her legs. Arms. Eyes. Hair.
He must have noticed, too, that even pushing to proceed faster would take them nowhere. They did not know at all what and where the exit of that dreary underground stone labyrinth might be. They had never been there before and most of the things that could have helped them out were missing.
Despite everything, however, they continued to proceed, from time to time exchanging a few words, looking at the bag and judging the various paths that lay before them, hoping that some wind -always present in caves on Planet Earth but extremely absent in that case- the sound of water, voices -whatever voices they were- or creatures might make it clearer which way to go.
It was not working as a technique for the time being, but hopefully, it would come to fruition sooner or later. It couldn't be otherwise unless they were continuing to go further and further in instead of going out.
From time to time, both she and Blinkous would linger on the rock, looking for differences due to the moisture in the rock or just in the temperature of what they were touching. It was hot, from what she could feel, at the moment. And very dry. If there was always some language of the stone that was common to the one which was present in the Material World -not certain, perhaps unlikely, but it was hoped that at least the vital rules were the same- then trying to reach the cool rock would be beneficial, since the climate below the barrier pressure had been tepid anyway, tending toward slightly humid.
Had it been very, very warm, the icy rock would have signaled the exit, and had it been very, very cold, the opposite way around. Because of the steam that came out from the exit.
They proceeded for an indefinite time. It often happened that her head would spin like a top, making her feel weak and near to faint, but every time it happened, it led her to take big deep breaths. Still, except for the slow breathing and trying to gain a more clear head, she would not allow herself to stop. Or that was until they began to notice that the rock, both above and below them, was going down instead of up. And it was even warmer, sadly.
Rocks and stones -that were not due to any natural developments she knew- were piled up right there, as if there had been a landslide. But there had not been, no.
It was enough for the untrained eye to see that they had been arranged that way on purpose because they were ordered by size and shape as if wanting them to match perfectly and not collapse under the weight of the others. Whoever had done this had made sure that they were perfect to cover something .
'It is a tomb ,' Nari thought, looking at them with a sad, but calm expression. 'But at the same time, it is not.'
It lacked the smell of a decomposing corpse. Or, at any rate, the smell of bones. And if there had been, once upon a time, so long ago to not even leave a scrap, a shadow of the body, it would still have been that of a child, since it was too small to cover an adult.
Above the white stones, however, was a small wood carving of a bird -probably a crow- with an egg in its mouth. It was beautifully carved, wrapped with a strand of straw and a lock of hair, which even without her Magic made her know that it was covered in Mana. And on some rocks, there were dull, broken carvings, also understandable only if she had used a revealing spell. It was so easy to understand. It was so easy to look at it and just feel everything that came from the tomb.
There was care. And emotions. But at the same time, there was a need to let go of those emotions. To hide them in the depths of the ground so that they never come to light again. Just looking made her understand the pieces of the picture clearly. It must have been too big a wound to keep uncovered.
She knelt for just a moment, resting her hand on the rock beneath the small raven.
"Requiescas in omni loco, flumen temporis tui do not relinquat, terra memor sit tui. Requiem." She murmured in a small voice, narrowing her eyelids. And hoping that her prayer would reach the Beyond, where perhaps the Gods would have listened to her. Or perhaps she could renew someone else's request; the one who had created that tomb.
Nari would have liked to leave some flowers for the lost soul that was sleeping there, but the problem always remained the same.
"We should try to redo the path we have already taken, but in reverse, Miss. Nari." He heard Blinkous say after a while. The Troll had also knelt beside her, bidding farewell to the fallen one, whoever they were. Whatever they had done in life.
Nari, after a moment or two, found herself nodding and stood up, giving only one last glance at the Tomb before starting to walk away from there in complete silence.
********
Toby would have been lying if he said he wasn't scared. But at the same time, even if he wanted to tell someone that he was or was not , who would he tell? He was completely alone!
The landing had been eventful, but quite soft considering that he had fallen into the greenery. But really green green , not in the simple white grass that had been about ten meters away from him. In the green so green and bright that it seemed like an eyesore compared to how dull and dead the rest was.
That didn't change the fact that he was alone. Alone, lost, and in some ways terrified to the point that he struggled to imagine a way out of such a situation.
He didn't even see the shadow of a living soul around, not even a small one -not even his own! Creepy!- ...and if it hadn't been for the numerous sessions of D&D, Assassin's Creed, and much more, he probably would have remained there, his mind in a stop, his body paralyzed on the spot as if the Ice half-god had frozen him in place. And no, fortunately, Skrael -Skrael right? That was their name? Nari had said so, but maybe Skrael was the Lava dude and he had inverted them? Or... ok, did not matter, back on tracks- wasn't there.
But yeah, he had played enough fantasy games to realize that, one , finding an actual geographic landmark would help him a lot and that, two , he had one of the four bags with him, which, while useless in the field of finding his friends, was a good point though. Better than not having it. There was food in it. Nice.
Toby could already imagine the PC screen listing all the fruits, vegetables, and water bottles it contained, and those things that were missing. Including the allies of his game that he had to recruit. He could even hear the music ringing happily in his ears, so much so that he almost started whistling it.
Seen this way, the situation almost seemed funny -yeah, almost- no matter how scary it was on the other side.
So, alone or not, he had to get to a place where the others could be there too. A place that everyone surely knew existed and that would take them to check it or go for it, too. And looking forward he could see land, land, more land, some trees... and the giant lake in the distance, in the middle of it all. Which was like a giant exclamation mark, there. Like the colorful rivers.
But none of the rivers were near him yet. Maybe moving towards the lake was the best option, but trying to proceed horizontally would also perhaps help him find a river in the first place... and then see what would happen. He couldn't do otherwise, honestly. And he was more than sure that that was what Jimbo and the others would do too. Not to mention that Aaarrrgh and Archie had a good nose, which helped a little in the whole finding people stuff.
He had to try to reach the destination... and then wait there. Yeah. He really couldn't do otherwise, no matter how much he wanted to.
He seriously hoped that someone would notice him or that he would find that someone in his path, also because he had never liked being totally alone.
Having always had Jim and Nana as a child, then Aaarrrgh, Blinky, and Claire and gradually getting closer to more and more people had made it difficult for him to imagine what true loneliness was, even if he had felt that way from time to time.
He had never really experienced it before, though. And maybe it was never supposed to happen considering he was only sixteen. Maybe learning to be alone, as bad as it sounded and seemed to him, was part of becoming an adult. Maybe.
It still sucked, though.