T I M E L E S S
It was desolate.
A sea without end, formless and touched with an echo of loneliness that resonated in her bones. Yeva stepped forward, shaking as she inched through the abandoned streets, the buildings getting closer together, bits of straw sticking between her toes. She dared not cry out for anyone. This place was too unknown, and Yeva wasn’t sure if she wanted to be found.
Or what might find her.
With the silence of a shadow, the young woman slipped past crumbling buildings and rotting beams. The smell of molded hay and autumn mud were heavy, and she was the splash of color, of life, creeping between the streets.
What was this place?
She tried to recognize the layout, the simplistic architecture, but it was neither the industrial grit of Zaichaer, with sharp edges and militant chaos, nor the sterile and curated beauty of Sol’Valen. This place felt human, or the remnants of such a civilization. Simple materials made of earth. Lost to time and man’s consequence.
She moved towards the center, her imagination struggling with great effort to try and imagine what this place looked like in another life, perhaps still. Outside and far away from The Sea.
Yeva lifted on her toes to try and peer into a grimy and broken window, squinting to make out the shapes in the dark, when movement caught the corner of her eye. She tensed, coiling back and crouching. Making herself small and unseen, a harder target, ready to run.
No footsteps, no sounds of breath. Not even a rat scuttling across a broken floorboard. She waited, spotting the movement again, just inside the village square, rising from the ground. It rumbled upwards, curling like a beckoning finger, rising to vanish into the air. Smoke, a single tendril, dancing to die.
Yeva scanned the vicinity, expecting a trap, but even those without the gift of interpreting signs could see its significance. Moving closer, her eyes darted around until settling on the lone cigarette discarded on the floor. Over half smoked, it was barely flickering, but still an undeterred rise of purple haze reached out. And beside it, as if it had fallen out of someone’s pocket, was a piece of candy wrapped in purple paper, so bright it looked fake against the dreary backdrop.
She picked up the candy, turning it over in her fingers, and then the cigarette, trying to piece together the two items, and the type of person who carried both. She did not yet understand.
The smoke stung her eyes as it knotted into her hair, pungent and yet… familiar. Rolling the candy over in one hand, Yeva glanced around once and quite tentively brought the cigarette to her lips.
The sharp bite of tobacco, sweet in aftertaste. It filled her lungs, electrified her nerves and when she blinked, she stood someplace like home, with two familiar faces.
“Franky!” she shouted, jumping up from where she was crouched near the tavern’s window. She beamed with joy. The old goblin was enjoying a morning coffee, and Weston, across, stood leaning over the bar, the ledgers opened before him, “Weston!”
Light and color so vivid, it shocked her and she spun around, relieved at the sound of voices, even shrill and nagging ones produced down the hall. Franky laughed, the sound pulling her attention back and she rushed forward, “You won’t believe what happened,” she rushed, running towards the goblin, reaching out as if expecting a welcome hug from being gone so long. She wanted to embrace both the men, having missed them and the others at the Knob dearly.
It wasn’t Ecith, and she would need to find Norani, but she wasn’t gone anymore, she wasn’t in danger, she was back, she was with allies, she was- “You might believe it,” she half laughed, her confusion as to his blatant dismissal of her return making her look uneasily between the two men, “But I was in Ecith and I met Galtiera. But I think something happened, I was in this awful place, Franky. It was so scary, there was nothing there, no people, and-”
A knock sounded at the door and all three looked up. Franky and Weston exchanged looks and the innkeeper rose to answer, “Franky?”
Still, he did not acknowledge her.
“Weston,” she pleaded, rounding the bar. Fear tinged the edges of her voice and she gripped the candy still in her hand tighter, “Did I do something wrong?”
The two had barely exchanged more than a few sentences when she had been in the city, but the brunette had always been welcoming to the mystic, treating her with respect and the occasional wayward smile, “Did something happen?”
He too, ignored her. As if she wasn’t even there.
Yeva reached out, putting a hand in his face, watching up close how Weston’s sleepy eyes seemed to sharpen as he listened carefully to the other men across the room. Never once acknowledging her. She was invisible.
She wasn’t back, she realized.
She was somewhere else, stuck between a moment of time, watching the ghost of an old memory.
A wanderer in the Astral Sea, lost but not forgotten.
It was desolate.
A sea without end, formless and touched with an echo of loneliness that resonated in her bones. Yeva stepped forward, shaking as she inched through the abandoned streets, the buildings getting closer together, bits of straw sticking between her toes. She dared not cry out for anyone. This place was too unknown, and Yeva wasn’t sure if she wanted to be found.
Or what might find her.
With the silence of a shadow, the young woman slipped past crumbling buildings and rotting beams. The smell of molded hay and autumn mud were heavy, and she was the splash of color, of life, creeping between the streets.
What was this place?
She tried to recognize the layout, the simplistic architecture, but it was neither the industrial grit of Zaichaer, with sharp edges and militant chaos, nor the sterile and curated beauty of Sol’Valen. This place felt human, or the remnants of such a civilization. Simple materials made of earth. Lost to time and man’s consequence.
She moved towards the center, her imagination struggling with great effort to try and imagine what this place looked like in another life, perhaps still. Outside and far away from The Sea.
Yeva lifted on her toes to try and peer into a grimy and broken window, squinting to make out the shapes in the dark, when movement caught the corner of her eye. She tensed, coiling back and crouching. Making herself small and unseen, a harder target, ready to run.
No footsteps, no sounds of breath. Not even a rat scuttling across a broken floorboard. She waited, spotting the movement again, just inside the village square, rising from the ground. It rumbled upwards, curling like a beckoning finger, rising to vanish into the air. Smoke, a single tendril, dancing to die.
Yeva scanned the vicinity, expecting a trap, but even those without the gift of interpreting signs could see its significance. Moving closer, her eyes darted around until settling on the lone cigarette discarded on the floor. Over half smoked, it was barely flickering, but still an undeterred rise of purple haze reached out. And beside it, as if it had fallen out of someone’s pocket, was a piece of candy wrapped in purple paper, so bright it looked fake against the dreary backdrop.
She picked up the candy, turning it over in her fingers, and then the cigarette, trying to piece together the two items, and the type of person who carried both. She did not yet understand.
The smoke stung her eyes as it knotted into her hair, pungent and yet… familiar. Rolling the candy over in one hand, Yeva glanced around once and quite tentively brought the cigarette to her lips.
The sharp bite of tobacco, sweet in aftertaste. It filled her lungs, electrified her nerves and when she blinked, she stood someplace like home, with two familiar faces.
“Franky!” she shouted, jumping up from where she was crouched near the tavern’s window. She beamed with joy. The old goblin was enjoying a morning coffee, and Weston, across, stood leaning over the bar, the ledgers opened before him, “Weston!”
Light and color so vivid, it shocked her and she spun around, relieved at the sound of voices, even shrill and nagging ones produced down the hall. Franky laughed, the sound pulling her attention back and she rushed forward, “You won’t believe what happened,” she rushed, running towards the goblin, reaching out as if expecting a welcome hug from being gone so long. She wanted to embrace both the men, having missed them and the others at the Knob dearly.
It wasn’t Ecith, and she would need to find Norani, but she wasn’t gone anymore, she wasn’t in danger, she was back, she was with allies, she was- “You might believe it,” she half laughed, her confusion as to his blatant dismissal of her return making her look uneasily between the two men, “But I was in Ecith and I met Galtiera. But I think something happened, I was in this awful place, Franky. It was so scary, there was nothing there, no people, and-”
A knock sounded at the door and all three looked up. Franky and Weston exchanged looks and the innkeeper rose to answer, “Franky?”
Still, he did not acknowledge her.
“Weston,” she pleaded, rounding the bar. Fear tinged the edges of her voice and she gripped the candy still in her hand tighter, “Did I do something wrong?”
The two had barely exchanged more than a few sentences when she had been in the city, but the brunette had always been welcoming to the mystic, treating her with respect and the occasional wayward smile, “Did something happen?”
He too, ignored her. As if she wasn’t even there.
Yeva reached out, putting a hand in his face, watching up close how Weston’s sleepy eyes seemed to sharpen as he listened carefully to the other men across the room. Never once acknowledging her. She was invisible.
She wasn’t back, she realized.
She was somewhere else, stuck between a moment of time, watching the ghost of an old memory.
A wanderer in the Astral Sea, lost but not forgotten.
