Chapter 1 – A High Entia Was Lost

"Sparks, turn off the lights," Eunie grumbles, wriggling on a hard surface of unknown type and material as the sounds of the sea wash in her ear. Wakefulness comes to her not with a gentle push into consciousness, but a glare of sudden light that makes the insides of her eyelids an odd pinkish color. She reaches for a pillow to clutch over her head and potentially throw at Taion if the occasion calls for it. Finding none, she opens her eyes with a long-suffering sigh, but only half-lidded, and realizes she is staring at a bright blue sky.

That in and of itself is not anything new. Eunie has grown accustomed to camping outdoors. Usually, though, unless she had a particularly strenuous day, she's up at the crack of dawn. Missing out on Manana's cooking is not something she enjoys. She cannot quite remember doing anything strenuous yesterday, but actually, she's finding it hard to remember yesterday in general. Or the day before. Or the day before that. Eunie's starting to panic as the earliest memory she can think of is going on that wild Nopon chase for Mr. Samon when a concerned voice knocks her out of her own inner dialogue.

"Ah, 'scuse me," says a short boy wearing an odd blue suit with an even odder headpiece bobbing on his back. If Eunie were to guess, she'd estimate him as a fourth… maybe fifth-termer? His eyes are wide with curiosity. His accent isn't very strong, but it's still placeable as Agnian, although not a dialect she's entirely familiar with. "You okay? 'Cause I didn't see you here when I went out salvaging about ten minutes ago, but you were lying there out cold when I came back up just now."

She blinks a few times (she was unconscious on a pier? What?), and looks around, brows furrowing. "Queen's wings, I shouldn't be on a pier," she says with growing concern as she notes that yes, she is indeed on a pier surrounded by very odd-looking ships with even odder creatures attached to them—or are the ships attached to the creatures? She's not really sure. In any case, she glances back to the kid and the boy's startled, gaping at her. "Wot? Keep your mouth open any farther an' you'll catch yerself a Skeeter, love."

"Your… your eyes. I've never seen a Blade with an eye like that before." He pauses, and Eunie tenses up. Most of the time when people make a big deal about her Ouroboros iris, it's because they're an enemy. "Well, I guess I've never seen many Blades at all, really, but I don't think that's normal…"

That is the first clue something is off here. "Oi, do I look like a bloody weapon to you, arsehole!?" Eunie, unaware of the clue being a clue, scoffs. "If you think I'm a Blade, then you're the one who's got weird eyes, you dag!" Sue her; YOU try traveling with Ghondor for a month without acquiring an expanded vocabulary.

"Huh? But Blades aren't wea…" the blue-clad boy mutters, brows knitted. "Wait, if you're not a Blade, then what's with those weird… head wings?"

Eunie stares. "How should I know? They're just my wings, arsehole. Y'never 'eard of a gal with wings?"

"Uh. …No?"

That is the second clue, and this one Eunie is aware of. "You… haven't?" she says slowly, almost unable to believe it. Up until this point, her head's been fuzzy and she's still felt half-asleep or… unconscious, whatever she'd been until a couple minutes ago. Now, though, now she wakes up completely and looks around again, fully taking in her surroundings. "Where the bloody 'ell am… I…?" Her words fall off like they're dropped off Swordmarch.

Behind her this whole time has been something Eunie recognizes as a massive boat - but a truly ancient style, matching descriptions that Triton's told them the few times his neurons happened to fire correctly to actually recall the way they looked. Extending from the ship is a dock and from the docks, the piers. Humans and Nopons alike - no winged or gray-skinned Kevesi in sight - congregate on the docks and piers, lugging crates around, fixing boats; doing whatever is needed. Above, a weird and disturbingly creepy balloon-like creature of a species Eunie doesn't recognize floats, the boat attached to the creature with a series of ropes or cables of some sort.

The biggest hint she was somewhere she was not supposed to be was what surrounded the massive, looming boat. Namely, a giant expanse of clouds stretching as far as the eye can see in every direction. Eunie had initially thought they were just fog on Erythia Sea because of the waves in them, but no, it somehow looked like the sea was made of clouds.

"What in the Queen's banana jumpsuit…?" Eunie chokes, feeling a rush of terrifying vertigo. She whirls around to meet the kid's bemused raised eyebrow and grabs his shoulders, startling him. She's absolutely not panicking because of how high up they probably are. "Where the bloody hell am I!? What's wrong with the sea!? Why's it all clouds!?"

The boy's eyes widen in surprise and he leaps back, tensing. "Hey, watch it! You're at the Argentum Trade Guil…" His eyes widen further. "What do you mean? That's just the Cloud Sea. It's always been like that."

"Cloud… Sea…?" Beginning to feel like she's definitely not in Aionios anymore, Eunie, dizzily, staggers back. "Who are you?"

"Rex," he says slowly, soft eyes knitting again. "I'm just a simple salvager. What's your name?"

"Eunie. Where in Aionios am I?"

"Aionios? Never heard of that before. This is Alrest." His voice raises and he calls to someone behind her. "Uh, hey, can I get a medic!? I think we have someone really hurt here…!"

"Not… Aionios?" Eunie whispers.

It's then that all the memories of the past few days hit; the fixing of their ship, the storming of Origin; N, X, Y, and Z. The splitting of the worlds.

Didn't the Queen of Agnus once say her motherland was called Alrest? And that the Kevesi motherland was the opposite world?

The High Entia immediately looks around for anything she can use for the clearest possible reflection of herself, notices how polished the fifth-termer - Rex's - helmet is, and spins him around immediately to peer into it. Her reflection's chest is still cursed with that damned Homecoming Timer.

"...Spark," Eunie swears.

"What the heck!?" Rex yelps.

Since Eunie does not, in fact, need a medic, she tells the man who comes to spark off. The doctor does not look convinced but accepts her decision and scampers off to whatever corner of the stupidly big Argentum Trade Guild ship he came from. Rex, still worried about her, bless him, offers to let her stay with him and his Gramps who's currently out for a swim in the Cloud Sea. Eunie's about forty percent sure she actually heard him say on Gramps, but that doesn't seem right, so she must have misheard. Of course, that also raises the very important point that swimming in clouds should not be possible.

While Eunie works through rationalizing the information she's gotten, she goes over a few key points. First, this is an entirely different world from Aionios. Second, it's specifically the Agnians' world, not the Kevesi's. Third, Rex has no clue what Aionios is. That means he either forgot or was never trapped in it. Eunie can't see it making sense that he's already forgotten everything about it if she still remembers, but she also can't think about what it means if he was never trapped in it and she's stranded in a world that's not her own with a still-active Homecoming Timer. She decides, to ashes with it all; she's going to check with everyone else in Argentum. Surely someone must remember.

"I'm coming with you," Rex decides. "I don't have any more salvaging to do and you could use the support, right?" No amount of convincing dissuades him, and his desire to help her without knowing the first thing about her reminds her of Noah and Mio, so she grudgingly takes him along.

This is a good thing, as it turns out, because by the seventh time Rex is asked "when Friend became driver and how he get so pretty Blade" before she can even ask them about Aionios, Eunie's ready to punt the bloody Nopon into the Cloud Sea. This might also be due to how many stares she gets from, like, just about everyone as they walk around, specifically focused on her wings. Rex, noticing the twitching of her eye, quickly starts guiding her away.

"No, no, that's not it, Mochichi," Rex assures the purplish Nopon wearing glasses as they scoot off. "Her wings are just a birth defect of some sort! See, she doesn't have a core crystal!"

"Birth defect!?" Eunie snaps, wings fluttering angrily. "I don't know what that is, but oi! They're natural! Natural!"

"Mochichi see…" the Nopon muses as Rex pushes her back to the pier where they came from. "Apologies to Friend!"

"Apologies to Friend my arse," the brunette growls. "I'm not some snuffin' weapon… Why's everyone think that?"

Her new friend (?) gives an awkward chuckle. "Sorry," he offers. "Uh… since you don't seem to know much about Blades, Blades aren't weapons. They're… ah… they're like people you can summon to fight alongside you and give you weapons, as well as Arts. They all have core crystals in their chests, too. Not many people in Leftheria ever became Drivers, though, so I don't know much more than that."

"Huh," Eunie mumbles, admittedly kind of interested. "So you don't just… y'know, summon your weapons yourself?"

That throws Rex for a loop, and he blinks at her. "Huh? No, how would we?"

"Uh… no reason."

Eunie decides it might not be a good idea to show people that she can summon her weapons herself. That would just confuse them even more. "So, uh, I think I know what's going on with me now."

Rex sits down on the edge of the pier and dangles his legs over the Cloud Sea. "You did?"

She takes a deep breath, hesitating, then sighs. "I think… well, I think I'm somehow… somehow in the past."

It is the only thing that makes sense if she thinks about this like Taion would. Why would no one seem to be aware of humans with wings? Why would she only get blank, unrecognizing stares when she asks about Aionios? If things had worked, if Origin had succeeded, at least someone should be like her, should remember. For now, at least.

The only other explanation is that maybe, maybe because she's Ouroboros, that somehow allowed her to retain her memories. But then why does she still have her body from the Pod when no one else she's seen does? No one else has a Homecoming Tattoo. She's the only one.

Therefore, it only makes sense that she's somehow in the past; the past before the worlds began to collide.

"In the past?" Rex repeats, flummoxed. "You mean, what, you're a time traveler?"

"I need to see the Queen!" Eunie insists. "Take me to the Queen of Agnus! I can stop Z before he ever gains power! I just have to warn her…"

"The Queen - Agnus - Z - uhh, Eunie, what are you talking about?" He looks overwhelmed, and he shakes his head like he doesn't quite know what to make of her. Which, to be fair, is a reaction, she's not exactly unused to.

…Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Eunie's starting to think she might be in even deeper ashes than she'd thought. "Rex, you listen to me and you listen good, because this is real snuffin' important: what are the countries you know of?" If he hasn't even heard of Agnus… this really isn't good.

His answer does absolutely nothing for how much hope she feels at the moment. "Um… countries? I dunno about that, but the biggest Titans I can think of are Gormott, Uraya, Mor Ardain and Indol? Well, and Argentum and Leftheria too, but they're really not all that big." She's silent for an amount of time that Rex is clearly worried by since he says, "...Eunie? Still there?"

"The spark's a Titan?"

Eunie discovers there's so, so much about Rex's and Queen Nia's world she had no idea about. For example, apparently there are massive snuff-off creatures the size of sparkin' continents, that they're the only solid ground anyone-or-thing can actually live on, that these creatures are slowly dying out resulting in increasing tensions between nations, that those fluffy cat eared Agnians are actually not humans but an entirely separate race called Gormotti, and that for some Queen-forsaken reason, Rex's Gramps is a mini Titan. With grass growing on his back. Oh. And he can fly. So apparently humans have Titan blood in them here, which just makes it all the weirder why apparently there's no bird people here. If Rex's Gramps is a Titan and Titans can fly, why the heck haven't humans grown wings yet?

Eunie swears to the Queen this world is going to be the death of her sanity, especially considering how far back in time she apparently is.

...She edits that last thought. Not just the death of her sanity. The death of her.

"You… only have a year left to live?" Rex's brow furrows. "That's not right. You're too… You can't be much older than me. Maybe a few years?"

"Tell me about it," Eunie, defeated, says with a hysterical laugh. She slumps against the side of the little cabin Rex has set up on his Gramps's back, a shaking hand holding up her head. "I thought… I thought I'd finally be able to be free of this damned thing. But now… I'm gonna die here. I'm gonna die here, in a world that's not my own, without even my best damn friends there at my side." Without… without even her other Ouroboros.

Her heart aches. More accurately, it's been ripped in six, and she's only got the one sparkin' piece to hold onto. And that ain't nowhere near enough, not by half… She misses them so, so much. It's like an icy hand is gripping her heart and squeezing it, and in her mind's eye, that hand belongs to a face that looks an awful lot like D's.

"You shouldn't give up hope," Rex's Gramps rumbles, a grizzled yet kind voice that's admittedly really soothing. Eunie's breath shudders as she draws in a deeper one. "I can't say I fully understand your situation, but you said you recognize the name Uraya, yes? Perhaps someone there can help you."

"Maybe…" Eunie breathes out, sucking in a shuddering breath and then letting it loose. "Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Thanks. I feel. Well, not better. But… I have something to work towards now."

Rex and his Gramps exchange glances.

"I'd offer to give you a ride on Gramps," Rex sighs, "but I don't have enough money saved up for that. I have enough that I get by, but I send most of my money home to Fonsett Village, sorry."

"What's a village?" Eunie blurts.

Both human and Titan gape at her.

Eunie suddenly feels like she said something very, very stupid and she does not like that feeling. "...What?"

"It's like…" Rex says slowly. "A small town, or…" At Eunie's continued confused look, he slumps. "It's a place where a relatively small number of people make homes and live."

Gramps seems amused. "The student becomes a teacher," he quips with a soft chuckle.

"Oh, so it's like the City," Eunie concludes, and Rex nearly trips over his own two feet.

"You knew about cities but not a village or a town!?" he cries out, facepalming. "Wait, no, not important. I can put in a word with Pupunin and get you a job around here if you want? That way you can build up enough Gold to at least get you started on a ship to Uraya." He pauses and thinks about that. "I'm pretty sure 12 Brothersisterpon has been needing some help lately, actually."

"Really!?" Eunie's so relieved she could hug him. She needs a goal, a job, anything to work towards right now to have a hope that she might not die in a year. In fact, she does hug him, and Rex sputters in surprise while Gramps's very amused chuckles rise up again. "Thank you so much! I really owe you one!"

Rex's right hand awkwardly rubs the back of his head while his left gives her back a few pats. "Don't mention it, helpin' out those in need is the salvager's way!" His gaze is inviting and comforting, his smile bright and friendly.

"That so?" she says warmly, and she swears she sees a smiling ghost of Noah behind Rex, saying, Helping out those in need is the off-seer's duty. "I like that. I think you and my friend would get along."

"Then I would very much like to meet this friend of yours some day," Gramps tells her with a sincere nod, and Eunie nods shakily.

She wants to meet him again, too. So, so much.

Noah, Mio, Taion, Lanz, Sena. Wherever the snuff you guys are… I'll find my way back to you. And that's a sparking promise.