Chapter 3
The moment the candle was lit the two of them were transported away in a glimmer, it took merely a blink for them to be in the flats of a gray desert with a large, elderly man in front of them. He towered over them, he was at least 20 feet tall. He looked like he would die of old age 20 minutes ago. He had a long beard but was completely bald. He wore fancy, ornate clothes but it was all in a monochrome pallet.
"Ah. Young ones. How can I help you today?" He said in a calming tone.
"Uh… where are we?" Bree asked.
"We are in a place that does not exist physically. This is a place in my mind. My home of sorts, You are perfectly safe while you're here." The man responded.
"Wait, that actually makes no sense. If we can't physically be here then how are we here? Are our physical bodies located somewhere else?"
"Oh no, these are your physical bodies."
"That's literally not possible!" Bree shouted.
"Impossible and irrelevant. I am this realm's elder and I am here to help. That's all you need to know. Now, what are your names?"
"I'm Chrine."
"Bree." Bree was upset, she didn't appreciate the elder messing with her in this impossible place.
"Wonderful. You two are warriors, are you not?"
"I think? I don't know for sure we were just made yesterday." Chrine answered
"In only two days you've made your way to me. How wonderful, it normally takes young ones much longer to pass through this realm." This cheered up Bree a little bit. "Hmm… What is your purpose? If you were born at the same time it should be the same between you."
"We're going to fix the Engine." Bree said. Her tone was more like a challenge.
"Of course! This means I have four gifts for the both of you, tools, rank, wisdom, and passage. First take this." With a small wave of The Elder's hand a small bag appeared in front of them. "This contains all you need to be able to fix it." Chrine opened the bag, rooting around it's contents. There were a variety of tools but most of them appeared to be warped and twisted in odd ways, he recognized none of the tools. "Next, I offer you rank, should you choose to take it." The Elder held out a flame in his left hand. Neither Bree or Chrine knew what to do, they just looked between the flame and each other. "Treat a piece of this as if it were a Winged Light. You two have received those yes?"
"Of course we have. How else would we have a cape without one?" Bree said dismissively.
"Oh of course, of course. How foolish of me." The elder smiled in the way that only a grandfather can.
The two of them reached in and pulled pieces of the flames into themselves. Starting from the shoulders going to the ends of the cape a new color crept down, replacing the brown color. For Bree her cape turned purple, and Chrine's cape turned a deep shade of navy blue. "The next I offer is wisdom. I'm sure you've learned already but there is a candle inside you. It is a core candle if it is destroyed you cannot be reborn."
"We can be reborn? How and why would we need that?"
"Rebirth is a vital part of your life cycle. When all of the Winged Lights are expelled from your body you leave behind a statue as you perish, but if some kind soul offers you one of their winged lights when you are in that state you will be reborn, stronger than ever."
"So if we die in some obscure place or get buried in the sand or something we're just gone for good?" Bree asked
"Unfortunately yes, so try to die where we can find you if you can help it."
"That's not very reassuring you kn-" The elder interrupted her.
"My final gift to you is passage." He turned to the side and held a hand to a large opening stone door as gray dessert and the elder faded out and the Elder's chamber faded back in. "Remember…" The Elder's voice was getting quieter "Protect your cores…" and with those last words he was gone, all that stood before them now was the altar that took them to the gray desert in the first place. The doors ahead lead to nothing but sky, but it was hailing. The hail consisted of large, black chunks.
"I don't know if it's safe." Chrine said. The black hail pelted the open stone doors, shattering on impact.
"So we just wait here until Ozfonzo wakes up to help us? Yeah, no we can deal with some bad weather." Bree walked forward to the doorway preparing to fly through but a boulder of black hail slammed against one of the doors, shrapnel flew in every direction. A piece struck Bree in the forehead, the last star on her cape vanished as he cape took on a deeper shade. "Gah!" Bree shouted as she clutched the point of impact and stumbled back.
"Are you okay!?" Chrine rushed to her side
"I'll be fine." Bree said, sitting down. "I guess we can wait until it lets up some." They sat and waited. They waited and waited as the hail only got more and more intense during this time they worked together to restore each other's capes. "I think we missed our best chance."
"I'm sure it will get better, either way we can't go now for sure. Isn't it nice to rest through? We were walking for so long."
"I guess. I'd prefer if we could just get to the Engine already."
"I don't think we're very close at all. Something tells me this will be a long journey." Bree sighed at Chrine's prediction. They waited for at least another hour before the hail started to calm down. "See? It's starting to let up." Chrine's optimistic statement was punctuated by a lightning strike. "Or not…"
"The chunks are small, this is probably the best we're going to get." Bree said standing up. "Hold my hand, I don't want us getting separated." Chrine stood up, quickly grabbing Bree's hand.
"Who's going to lead?"
"I can handle it." Bree said, taking off dragging Chrine behind her. The skys were rough, small chunks of stone tearing through the clouds. It was safer now then if they had gone right away but it was still dangerous. Bree was keeping an eye on the falling debris making sure to fly through sections where they would be unscathed. Lightning crackled between the clouds in arcs, none of them going far enough to pose a threat. Suddenly thunder rumbled like a gong being struck way too hard. As if on cue the weather worsened. More, larger stones started falling, the wind blew from all directions harshly, and the lightning jumped from cloud to cloud like it was trying to win the olympics. Bree shifted focus from staying safe to getting through as fast as possible.
There was a tunnel through the clouds, it might be a shortcut. Bree took her chances and flew through. Thunder rumbled behind the clouds until Lightning struck Bree she screamed and the hair tie holding her ponytail snapped, it fell into the clouds below, never to be seen again. Chrine saw as both of the stars on her back faded out as her cape darkened two shades and her body went limp. She started falling, loosely holding Chrine's hand who was willingly falling to keep up with her, he dived down and swooped under Bree catching her. He tried to fly but with the weight of two people he was sinking Chrine took a deep breath in and quickly blew it out flapping his cape darkening his own to just get enough speed to fly through the tunnel. The hail had not stopped, they were safe in the clouds but they were out now, Chrine saw a patch of ground that looked like a split mountain, Chrine went for it. The hail planted the two of them leaving bruises on their bodies and a sharp piece cut into Bree's left shoulder before they landed. He sat Bree down, leaning her against one of the sides of the spilt mountain. He gently lifted Bree's cape to get a better look at the injury, she was bleeding. Chrine hesitantly touched the dripping blood still on her shoulder, it stopped dripping and just stayed how it was Chrine watched with high interest. He pressed his hand against the wound gently, his hand was blocking his view of it but he could feel the blood flowing back up into the wound, when he removed his hand all that remained was a scab. Chrine sat down, he was starting to feel tired so he decided to rest. The mountain provided cover from the hail, they were safe. Sleep slowly crept in on Chrine and the two of them slept as the hail pelted around them. Despite the harsh conditions around them the two slept well through a dreamless night.
"Fix the Engine."
They heard it again. Chrine woke up first this time, he stretched his arms high in the air as he stood up. He was going to wake Bree up but before he could she opened her eyes.
"Why do you keep doing that? I mean we're gonna fix it anyways." Bree said, wiping the sleep from her eyes.
"I'm not the one saying that, remember? I'm just glad you're okay." Chrine yawned out the last bit of grogginess still within him.
"Of course I'm fine, he might've gotten a few good hits in on me but Ozfonzo can't take me down."
"I'm talking about the lightning, it sounded like it hurt a lot."
"What lightning?" Bree stood up. "I think I'd know if I were struck by lightning."
"Do you not remember? It must've hit you pretty hard, it knocked you out immediately." The memories were coming back to her.
"Oh. Oh… yeah I remember now."
"Your hair tie fell off when you got hit by it." Bree sighed.
"I don't look terrible do I?"
"No! Not at all." Now that they had a time to rest Chrine actually got to see how Bree's hair looked now. It was a shoulder length cut. "Wait how do you have bangs now?"
"I don't know. Lightning induced hair growth? Either way it's irrelevant, we should keep moving." The hail had completely stopped and as they stepped out of the safety of the split mountain they found flowing green fields of grass. There was a structure here at some point but it's just ruins now, probably due to repeated beatings from hail. It might be a regular occurrence here. There was a sand path snaking its way across the ground. The sand was tougher than it was in realm before, this was clearly a road frequently traveled. The two of them decided to be the next travelers on it. Chrine stepped on something half buried in the sand. Chrine picked it up, it was the end of a broken harp, only 3 strings still remained attached, it held an air of regret to it.
"Huh. this used to be an instrument." Chrine said presenting it to Bree
"The hail probably broke it awhile ago, I don't think there's much significance about it." Chrine shrugged and just dropped it back into sand and carried on. Bree was focused on the ruins. As they passed on of the broken down walls they looked inside and saw a broken table with four broken chairs around it, legs snapped, backrests smashed, and the main table body was split.
"That's… sad? Why am I sad to see this?" Bree was more confused then she was saddened but it was a depressing image to her even though the only thing she could see was broken wood there was something else that was broken here, Bree didn't know what it was.
"I don't know, but it's sad to me too." Chrine said in an attempt to comfort Bree, it didn't actually sadden him but he could also tell that isn't wasn't just the furniture that was broken here, there was something else, something that wasn't physical.
"We should keep moving, we don't want to get caught in that hail again."
"Sounds good to me."
They continued, heading to a large stone archway step atop a stone foundation of some kind set on a hill.
"I wonder why there were so many broken things here, in the last realm there wasn't much of anything but I think this arch is the only thing that's not broken so far."
"The hail, idiot, if it were a regular occurance I don't think much would be left standing."
"I don't think regular beatings would only do as much damage as we saw, I don't think there would even be a table to look at, just a pile of broken wood."
"That's fai-" Bree cut herself off. "-woah." She had just crested the hill looking into the land beyond.
"What's the matter?" As Chrine got to the top himself he stood in awe with Bree. In front of them laid a sea of shattered tables, destroyed chairs, and busted instruments. All laid out in front of them stretching far into the distance. They could now tell what was broken beyond the table. The sense of community, and what was set out in front of them was a social genoside. This used to be a hub or a plaza, plenty of people laughing, playing music, sharing a drink with each other. Now all that remained was the corpse of the establishment, and two lonely travelers. The wind chilled a tear that was building in Bree's eye as she wiped it away from her face, she didn't want to admit that this hurt her in some way. The two left the peak of the hill silently to investigate, leaving the few remnants they found before behind. They didn't know what they hadn't gotten to experience but they knew they would miss it.