Beneath the stars, the Wind Village was silent. Since the defeat of Ghadius the villagers had not known a single bad dream, and all seemed well.
Up in his tower, Balue slumbered, slumped at his desk over a series of blueprints he had been working on non-stop the whole day. Indeed, he had only been asleep a few minutes when he heard something crash! into the tower. He startled awake, concerned that perhaps a foundation of some sort had broken, before looking out the window in front of him and seeing something fall right in front of it.
Something resembling a person.
A few pieces of debris followed the figure. Balue stuck his hard hat on his head and started down the staircase, ready not just to help whoever had fallen - but to chew them out for the damage to his tower.
By the time he stumbled out of the door, still half asleep and not fully certain this wasn't an odd dream of his, several groggy, yet concerned villagers had gathered around the stranger. Balue shoved his way through several residents who blocked his path, and raised his voice in order to calm the panicked crowd. After all, being the new chief of Breezegale meant he had to take responsibility for these things - whether he liked it or not.
"Alright, alright, what's the big idea?" Balue demanded to know.
"W-we're not sure!" one of the younger villagers piped up. "All we heard was this crash outside, and when we rushed out, this guy was just - just lying on the ground! I think he fell from the sky…? He's… oddly familiar though…"
Balue looked down , and understood at once. The stranger who had fallen from the stars had many scuffs and scratches all over his body, no doubt from the fall. However, more importantly, he was a Cressian - and Balue was quite familiar with them, even before his brief journey to the Moon Kingdom.
Balue looked down at the stranger's shoulder, and immediately winced. Not only was there a dark red gash that looked to have been made by a blade of some sort, but the entire surface of his shoulder appeared singed and raw. Something seemed to be branded into his shoulder - but this late at night, it was too dark to tell. However, the mere sight of the wound told Balue this stranger's appearance was by no means an accident.
Something was deeply wrong.
He looked back up at Cress, which hung in the sky like a mobile over Phantomile, and looked back at the villagers. He picked out three of the older residents from the crowd, and pointed back at his tower.
"You three, with me!" He bellowed. "We're gonna make sure he comes out the other end. The rest of you lot, go home! The situation is under control! Nothing more to see!"
The rest of the villagers shuffled back home, and the three residents Balue had picked out stayed by the stranger's side as he momentarily left, before coming back with a large, yet thin blanket - his idea of a makeshift stretcher. They carried him back inside on the stretcher, and Balue momentarily looked up at Bell Hill, thinking he could see smoke - before dismissing it as just a trick of the night.
Balue and the three villagers carried the stranger inside, and the rest of the residents put them out of their mind for the night.
As far as they were aware, everything was under control.
Huepow awoke, staring up into the inside of the bell that rested on top of Bell Tower, the large golden dome gently swaying with the faint wind. He sat up, and looked up at the ridge of the pit he found himself in. Looking down at him, was Sol, a smug look plastered on his face.
Sol pulled Huepow out of the pit, and the prince sat down next to a small fire that his ancestor had set up, overlooking Forlock Forest. Sol sat down on the opposite side, and looked over Forlock with him, before eventually turning back to him with that same smug grin.
"It felt good, didn't it?"
Huepow looked back, but didn't respond, too shaken up by his last few moments in Cress to say anything. Sol leaned towards him, never faltering in his self assurance.
"I knew she was there, you know. Your mother... and Emilio. I knew they wouldn't do anything to me, How could they?" He chuckled, before looking back at Huepow sympathetically.
"But... I wanted to give you one last gift. A choice, of sorts. Come with me, or stay in Cress. And... here we are."
Huepow looked back up at Cress, before Sol urged his attention back to him.
"There was nothing stopping you. You didn'thaveto. As far as I'm concerned you've done me a big enough favour to warrant me leaving you alone. And yet..."
Huepow looked down into the fire, trying not to think too hard about what he was being told.
"How often have youreally had that choice?" Sol pried. Huepow remained silent, thinking it over in his head, before he spoke up.
"...What did you do that was unforgivable?" He whispered.
Sol glanced off, hesitant, before regaining his composure.
"Nothing worse than anyone else in our family has done." He responded. "The thing about our family, Huepow, is that every one of us has done bad things - though some worse than others, admittedly - to protect our kingdom, and those we care about. I don't deny it - and neither does your mother."
"That'snot what I asked." Huepow rebuked, clearly becoming irritated. "I didn't ask what our family has done. I asked whatyou'vedone.
Sol looked back down into the fire, and didn't speak for several moments, before nodding his head despondently.
"Very well... I guess if you've committed to this choice, then you deserve to know the truth." He sighed.
"Thousands of years ago, during the Hundred Day War, the battle against Ghadius was not always going as smoothly as the legends may have told you."
"Five guardians were granted great power by the four spirits, each representing the five settlements that made up Phantomile - and still do today. Water, wind, nature, the moon, and the sun. These guardians were imbued with this power for one reason - to seal Ghadius once he was overcome, and his forces depleted. I, being the king at the time, oversaw these guardians, and watched firsthand as they grew stronger in their powers..." Sol looked aside, with a sad smile. "...And closer to each other." He looked down into the fire, recalling what happened to them.
"But even with the might of the spirits... It wasn't enough. One by one... the guardians were whittled down, and our own forces suffered loss, after loss, and we started to feel the ground burn beneath us."
Sol took a deep breath, and continued.
"One night... during the last few days of the war... Ghadius took someone very close to me. And he told me to meet him. Somewhere secret."
"I hid within a cave for days, waiting for him to manifest. They thought I had died by the time I returned. And when he finally appeared, he offered me a deal. Slay the two remaining guardians, and he would spare me and my family. Fail, and our lives were forfeit."
Huepow stared at Sol, horrified, and he quickly deflected.
"I- I wasn't going to fulfill it. I just had to make him think I would so he would leave my people alone. Leave my family alone."
"But it didn't matter in the end. Because on the final day of the war, Ghadius appeared in Cress. A desparate attempt to avoid being sealed away. And more importantly, I had failed to uphold my end of the bargain. I hid away in the tunnels, hoping he wouldn't find me. But he was already there."
Sol motioned down at the Crucible in his chest, where the deep gash used to be when he was a ghost.
"And that was that."
The two stared at the fire for a long time, Huepow taking in Sol's words, before Sol continued once more.
"Ghadius trapped me in his cloak for millenia while he was sealed away. And while he had the mercy of unconsciousness, I was awake the whole time. And nobody knew. Not a soul. It wasn't until you and the dream traveller... Klonoa... came and defeated him, that I broke free of his influence. And as I wandered the world as a spirit, taking in the new status quo, I saw you and him. And I saw the two of you separate. And now... Here we are." He finished.
Huepow sat in silence for a few more moments, before he spoke accusingly.
"Were you really unwilling to betray Cress just to help those closest to you?"
Sol stared back at him, piercingly.
"Are you so different?"
Huepow was shaken by the question, and didn't respond. He didn't have an answer to that. Sol sighed and looked down at the ground beneath him.
"The Dreamcaster was made by my mother. After an...incident, during my childhood, we carved out a deep chamber beneath the crystal mines in the Wind Kingdom - what you now call Breezegale - to keep it sealed away. When we needed somewhere for the guardians to hide during the Hundred Day War, we rebuilt the upper half of said chamber into a sort of sanctuary for them. They never knew about the Dreamcaster - not to my knowledge - but it's still down there."
Huepow looked back into Sol's eyes. "Why was it sealed away?" he asked. Sol gazed back at him.
"...I think I've bared enough of my soul for tonight, but I'd like to tell you sometime." He responded. "For now, before we rest up, I want you to give me your cloak. I want to offer you another kindness after all you've done for me."
Huepow fiddled with his shoulder pauldrons and removed his cloak, staring down at it. The crescent moon symbol was ripped, a gash in the center made by Emilio's dagger when he had tried to stop him from escaping into the caverns. Despite it only having been hours since the incident, it felt like a lifetime ago. He handed the cloak to Sol, who looked down at it for a few moments, before draping it on top of the fire in front of them. The edges began to singe, before it began to burn away within the flames. Huepow simply watched, feeling a pang of guilt as it burned away. Sol continued, looking down at the fire.
"We shall sleep for tonight, before we enter the mines. And I will allow you to take joy in knowing that you'll see him again very soon."
"Rest easy Huepow. For tonight, you are free."