. A hazy blue sky stretched endlessly across the boundless sand. With no life to be seen, and nothing to cast a shadow, the rising sun set the sands in the high sky to a jaundiced yellow, scarcely different form the gleaming sand below.
. As the sun rose, the air stirred itself to wind, sweeping across the barren land, stirring the dust until it rippled; rippled like the waves on a fathomless, distant sea.
. Among the ripples, something stirred the surface. This form was built of substance— substance more than that of the wind which had heralded it.
. A figure robed in red danced across the dunes expanse; pointed feet spraying up shards of stone and flakes of dust; long scarf trailing behind it, embroidery gleaming in the sun and desert wind. The face beneath the scarlet twin-peaked hood was blacker than the night; a pitch-black night broken only by two moon-bright eyes beneath a thin band of gold.
. Aglow with curiosity and adventure, the figure sped forth; gold-embroidered scarlet robe blown open in the wind, revealing only a featureless crimson form, whose thin and pointed legs left a single trail in the sand. Onward, it swooped, to the top of a sandy hill, and between two obelisks, beheld a Mountain beyond the vast expanse of sand. The cleft of the mighty Mountain-peak glowed from within, beckoning .
. The figure robed in red gazed towards it, then away. The Mountain path was known, heart-known, long since traversed. Across the desert, beyond the dunes, beside the Mountain, there came a shimmer from the ground. Though murkéd and mired by haze and by dust, the the shimmer seemed lighter than the sand surroundings, as boundless as the open desert— and yet unlike the desert.
. No dunes rose from the paler surface to give it shape. No sand poured down and away off cliffs, only a vast and flat expanse, spreading to the endless horizon.
. An unbroken surface, with only —perhaps— the Mountain, reflected above its distance.
. Appraisal and delight drew the journeyman; called the crimson figure forwards; facing ever to this new land beyond.
. Slanted rays glimmered and danced long down beneath the surface, setting the aquatic forest ablaze with color and light; reflecting from the shells of turtles, sparking by the starfish, glitering from the scales of the groupers, and crowning the coral temples with gleaming gold. Beneath fish and kelp, coral and algae, sprays of sand shifted and drifted, pale tan streams in the eddies of the current; an endless play of light and shadow reflected from the clouds above.
. Among the schools of shining fish, a creature like no other moved, peaceful. Now hewing to the turtle's shell, now gripping the grouper as it sped here and there, the diver watched the world.
. The diver's head was as black as the body, reflecting nothing, frightening none of the fish that darted in all directions. Black cones protruded from the sides of its yellow-white head, pulsing pale white light; and only four white semi-ovals graced its face. Beside the strange creature, a small, yellow drone with a single lens for an eye darted back and forth erratically.
. The yellow drone sped for the surface. The diver, curiosity piqued by this sudden motion, followed, long, flipped feet kicking steadily, propelling the figure upward to breach the surface- and evade the rock shelf that enclosed this alcove.
. Afloat on the surface, the diver scanned the vastness of Above, the clouds in the distance, and the tringle in the air, and made to dive once more— dismissing the empty, thin air for the buoyance of vibrant Below. But before the dive could be carried out, the drone whistled, and continued its erratic dart forward, then back, then turned its lens to the diver.
. Dive aborted, the diver tilted head and neck to follow the path of the lens. There, beyond the algae, rock, and kelp, a glowing shadow suggested itself in the horizon; a sight, like the seafloor but above it, and ridged, unlike the kelp beds which were all that matted the surface, spread before it. A paler gold than the orange of the kelp forest by the third Coral Temple, smoother than tiles of lapis lazuli, long polished by the currents, this seascape above the sea seemed to stretch as far and wide as the ocean itself.
. Inquisitive now, the diver paddled to the edge of the rock face, and laboriously clambered out, in search of a better view.
. Awkward and ungainly, out of water as the diver was, the flippered form advanced across the algae covered rock and kelp; pursuing the errant drone, which came Above to dart through stony bores too small for any diver to follow.
. Upon reaching the open waters beyond the surface, the diver bounded down, and swam gracefully onwards; drawn by the mystery of the seafloor beyond the waters.
. The timeless heat and light of the desert was diminished. No more the harsh blaze reflected in haze off the sands, it was merely warm, and though brighter than the underground, dimer by far than anything short of the eternal snow obscuring the Peak. The gales no more buffeted the journeyman harshly, but instead blew and danced, gently drawing the crimson robes along. Upon a hill like and unlike the hill of Beginning, the traveler gazed downwards.
. The flat shimmer was as blue as the-skies-beyond-the-snow, shimmering, sparkling, and flowing like the light under the ground— but this shimmer moved like the pools and falls of the summit. Dazzling, the daylight reflected into the traveler's midnight face, and the crimson-cowled head shook, peaked ear-points twitching.
. The moonlit eyes blinked as the dazzle cleared, the journeyman astonished to see a creature, moving in the liquid sky-sand, leaping like the kites where ancient aqueducts stood crumbling. But this strange movement was all the distant shape had in common with the kites and ribbons, with its body black as the wanderer's face, and head the color of the single, singing Flower.
. Confused and curious, the creature robed in red slid down the dune, halting where the sand faded beneath the vast skypool, waiting for the stranger to arrive.
. The diver's head breached the surface once more, gauging the distance to the seafloor of Above, and shied away from the heated of its edge. But above the sandhill— like the statues that perched in the deep, stood a figure, all shrouded in haze. Despite the small split and double peak, this was no statue, nor vast rise in the distance; as the diver paddled forth the figure slid strange down the hill.
. Not at all like the mollusks that crawled along the seafloor, this one did not drag itself one limb at a time, but moved all in a rush. Only the pale rays above the hidden water had ever moved like that, one single arc Above. And those pale, stingless-rays had never slid down to stand, waiting, where lazuli steps —or drifts of sand— met the water.
. As the drone darted forwards, the diver undulated onwards, smooth side-to-side motions that swept any flexible creature forward with surprising speed propelling a lithe body onward. Reaching a suitable distance to see the figure's trench-dark face, gold and coral-patterned vermillion sensory tendril, and oddly pointed rhinophores; the diver chirped a greeting.
. The stranger on the shore chimed back.
. A head robed in red perked when the stone and Flower creature chirped. Chiming a response, singing out the unique sigil of identification, an introduction was made. Before the thing that moved like a kite could respond, a feeling as cold as Peakfrost swept over pointed feet, then withdrew. The cowled creature retreated hastily, stumbled slightly, and buried the points of those legs in the sand, warming away the wet-formed warning chill.
. The diver's head crested Above the comfort of the sea, and the strange oval-eyes blinked twice in surprise. Before a chirp could answer a chime, the red figure had flipped backwards at the wave-touch, with no current to smooth the tumble into grace.
. Concerned, the diver chirped several times when the robed creature approached in a level slither, trench-dark face nearly level with that of the diver. There were fewer details on that face than the diver's own, glowing eyes as steady as the coral's glow, unable to blink or move. Still, the red robed figure's slither carried frustration as strong as the Great White's teeth. Yet the chime of assurance carried only kindness.
. The crimson cowl shook twice, and the figure robed in red chimed back an assuring response to the floating Flower's concern. As it drifted closer, the journeyman saw that not only was the water-creature not made of living cloth despite the peaks of its ears —their kind's honor to the Mountain— but it had long, wide feet instead of narrow points, and two more legs attached below the head.
. How strange. Was the Flower-colored stranger another of the traveling kind, lacking a proper cloak and scarf and lovely crimson body? Could the chirping stranger even walk on such wide and flat appendages?
. Worried, the wanderer chimed once more, pointed ears flapping emphatically with the motion for the stranger to try standing. Surely those second legs were good for something. Why else have legs below the head?
. The diver blinked once as the walker nodded upwards. What could that mean? A request to leave the water? Standing was awkward enough in the Hidden Ruin, where hands could grip the edge of pillars before knees and flippers dragged themselves out of the buoyant deep.
. Inching closer, finned feet were tucked beneath a nautilus–marked torso, while flipper-less hands pushed the full form upwards. The flippers that propelled a creature so smoothly through the ocean were ungainly on the land, and so retracted as much as the diver was capable of, as a journeyer of the sea essayed a step on land.
. The water came no higher than the top of where a flipper ought to be!
. The second step was one too many. When hot sand scorched cool flippers, the diver chirped in shock, and fell backwards into the surf. The drone whistled in concern. And the diver, resurfacing, essayed it once more, stumbled, looked again at the figure robed in red and narrowed pointed oval eyes in defeat.
. The journeyman's curiosity was sparked higher than before when the flower-traveler stood, revealing a cloakless, pure black body with Flower's offshoots on the shoulders. The stranger's legs were longer than those of the desert-walker, and queerest of all- the second legs hung loosely after the initial push upwards, with only the normal pair employed in standing.
. Yet both shared the midnight-trench face, both had pointed ears or rhinophores atop their domed heads, and each spoke only in chime or chirp. Yet the wanderer could not approach the diver, for the diver fell back to the waters, while the wanderer shied from the liquid Peakfrost. Chimes and chirps flew between them, apology for the heat, frustration with the heat on tender flippers, and whistles of regret.
. Each sighed and settled; the diver with arms and head above the water, lower boy and singed flippers trailing off with each breaker, and the journeyman with legs crossed, body folded downwards in a position the diver knew well from time conjoined with Great White statues, searching the sea beyond.
. Each figure chirped interrogatively towards the drone.
. Signal to sonar recived, the drone motored away, searching, then returned. On its return, it whistled to both the robed desert-walker and the sleek diver, pointed its lens between them, and puttered off along the shoreline.
. Each figure looked at the other, then followed.
. Around a bend in the shore, a flat stone surfaced from the sea, shaded by a dune. The top of the stone was above the tidemark, and a shelf extended out below. Seeing this, wanderer and diver examined it, then with a heave, the wanderer soared to perch on it, while the diver climbed half out of the sea, resting by the side, free of the sand-heat.
. The drone whistled again, with pride.
. Chirps and chimes echoed free from shore and surf, from noon into night, as stars streaked in white, glimmered gold across the purple twilight, the risen moon.
. Each knew that they would have to part. But if they willed it, they hoped to meet again.
. The coming of Daybreak drove back the darkness of the night; it burned away the stars. Then the sky blended; desert gold and deepest blue. Distant, the Mountain shone, glorious, welcoming hue, and the Coral Temples Below returned their own light. And the world was new.
. And where sand and water met, wordless tunes mingled in a harmony of companions, of meetings and partings, of beginning and endings.
Enūma eliš lā nabû šamāmū
Pass the ice from below, or fly beyond the desert, and you may see it.
Stat Sua cuique dies
Where Mountainlight touches Oceanheart, you may hear it.
šapliš ammatu šuma lā zakrat
There, those born for this sang wordless tunes;
Maél is mé tó féran
And called forth the gods from the mist of heaven.
A.N:
I dared myself to write poetic sentiment and rhythm without the use of versification, and avoid trochaic tetrameter. I also dared myself to write something using very few pronouns, to see if I could. There is a logic behind the outlying capital Journeyman is in red because I could alliterate with crimson cowl and robes of red, but not with white.
This story dedicated to Austin Wintory, Matt Nava, and the detail of Journey's Mountain, visible on the horizon of Abzu's final level.
