We didn't make it out of Absolution before the Megaran (I THINK that's the word Frac and Metatron were using) soldiers showed up. They drew their guns and ordered us to halt. We didn't. Grace maneuvered past them and headed us out of town. There were gunshots and the sled started losing altitude. We were hit. The impact knocked Grace off the sled, and she fell to the ground as the sled careened past her. The sound of the shots had brought Metatron to, and he yelled at Frac to take the wheel. Metatron leaped off to grab Grace. As Fractal pulled the sled to a stop, another shot rang out. Kassandra cried out in pain, and I grabbed her to keep her from falling off the sled. Metatron and Frac stabilized Grace and got her onto the back of the sled. She had hit her head badly, and was unconscious. By this time, the soldiers had bridged the distance from Absolution to us. Metatron took a look at Kassandra, and determined she wasn't actually wounded. The soldiers were firing non-lethal rounds. Convinced the soldiers weren't actually trying to kill us, Metatron went forward, hands open, to meet them. Fractal, meanwhile, tried to fix the sled.
I couldn't hear the confrontation between Metatron and the two soldiers, but I could see it wasn't going well. Then I saw Metatron move like quicksilver, shots rang out again, and the soldiers fell to the ground. I yelled to Frac that now would be a good time to get the skiff going. Frac assured me he was on it, and I heard the engine come to life. Metatron turned and ran, juking his way toward us, and fell forward as a shot hit him from behind. He dragged himself the rest of the distance, and we hunkered behind the sled as we tried to decide what to do. It was Kassandra who came up with the idea that let us get away.
Kassandra began to chant, and her hands began to move through the air as if she were... well, the others wouldn't understand, but it was almost as if she were interacting with the Akasha. Her hair began to shift colors, and float in the air as if being blown in a strong breeze. The wind began to pick up, and blew faster and faster, until it was a sandstorm. As the sandstorm engulfed Absolution, we skirted around it and went north, toward the only path out of the valley.
While we traveled, we talked. The news that Metatron was the one who had led the soldiers to us, and that he had been sent to arrest Fractal was surprising, to say the least. It certainly explained the tension between the two of them. What it didn't explain is how the Megaran government knew about me, or why the soldiers turned on Metatron when they found him. He told us that he didn't know the answer to either of those questions. Metatron apologized, saying he didn't mean to drag us all into this. I responded that all of us are about as involved in this as we could be.
More traveling. We had to make a detour when we found our path blocked by a ravine the sled couldn't cross. We did some scouting for water (well, Kassandra did some scouting. I was too busy trying not to be sick to help. Great. Morning sickness. Well, at least it's better than the plague, right? I suppose I'll just have to take this pregnancy thing a step at a time.) and then moved on quickly once we realized it wasn't a natural ravine, but the track of some large (and possibly hungry) local fauna.
Conversation lulled after a while, and I worked up the nerve to tell Frac and Metatron that I'm pregnant. Hearing the words come out of my mouth for the first time felt strange, but also somehow made the whole thing a little more real. They were surprised and curious, of course, but also seemed to be surprisingly okay with the idea. So, I now had confirmation from all my new friends that they're behind me on this. My nerves are still rattled, however. I realized over the course of the conversation that there's still an indefinite amount of time I can't account for. I have no idea where I was or what happened to me between the time Arcadia fell and when I woke up. I added that to my mile-long mental list of answers I need just as soon as I figure out who to ask.
We finally stopped to rest. The nausea had let up some, but sleep was fitful. Everything was so open and empty. No people, no buildings, no one but me and the others alone in the Night. As I lay half-asleep beside the skiff, I felt the sand begin to turn cool and more solid. The ground began to smell metallic... familiar. I opened my eyes to find myself on the balcony once more. A moment later, I realized Alastor was there with me. But, I must have still been groggy, because he wasn't making any sense. He didn't sound like himself. He told me to come with him, that we were going to get some answers. Answers. Yeah, that'd be nice. Alastor and I left the balcony, and found ourselves in Arcadia's central control room. No Atravitus this time, thankfully, but the monitors were beginning to blink out. A sudden jolt of fear hit me in the pit of my stomach. I turned to Alastor in a panic, pleading with him not to leave me. Ironic how completely I believed him when he told me he never would. Then I felt the ground begin to move. I clutched Alastor's arm, told him not to let me fall. And then Alastor began to sound not like himself again. It took me a moment to recognize Fractal's voice. He was angry, insisting we weren't in Arcadia, that he wasn't Alastor, that I needed to stop this. I didn't know how. More lights blinked out, the shaking got worse. I turned my head to see Nobody standing in the shadows. Nobody assured me there was a way out. I tried desperately to find it, attempting to shake thoughts of Alastor and Arcadia from my head and concentrate on Fractal. An image flickered in my mind. Fractal, grease stained and beaten, climbing the blasphemous Icon, trying to reach me. I latched on to that memory, and Frac became himself again.
All the lights on the monitors flashed on, and for a brief second, Fractal and I were standing in a field of wheat. I caught a glimpse of a cloud of dust, and suddenly thought of Kassandra. It must not have been just my imagination, because I heard Frac call out her name. And then it was dark. Darker than dark. Frac and I grasped each other's arms and just stood there, not really knowing what else to do. After a couple of frightening moments, the Deep Night passed, and it was only night again. We found Kassandra in the reeds nearby. The three of us set off back toward the sled, our way lit by small glowing insects.
The Night had taken it's toll on our equipment. The sled and weapons looked rusted and disused. At first, we didn't see Metatron or Grace. Then Metatron stepped forward with a young girl. Grace had disappeared, and the girl had shown up soon afterwards. The others recognized her. Apparently her name is Jennika, and she's from Lightsfall. Or, at least she was. We dressed her physical wounds as best we could. The mental wounds were not so easily treated, however. I thought about that later, when Kassandra was tending my wounds. There was one above my heart that I'm pretty sure isn't going to heal correctly. Kassandra had to staple it shut. It hurt, but not as badly as getting the wound in the first place. A scar...
We traveled fairly uneventfully after daebreak. The only strange thing were the odd tracks in the sand. Someone had been through the desert before us, wearing boots with crossed nails in one sole. The crosses triggered a memory (one of Lenore's, I think) of the King in Black. I think whoever was leaving those burning cross marks is the messenger he promised to send. I can sense the thread that ties all these mysteries together, but I can't see it yet. I think, though, that we're on our way to at least knowing where to start looking for answers.
We had to stop to let the sled recharge, and the group of us finally got some rest. When I woke up, I noticed that Frac was on watch, and everyone else was asleep. I decided it was time to talk to him about what had happened. I hadn't really said much to him since Night passed. I didn't really know what to say. But, I knew I had to say something. So, I started with "I'm sorry." It seemed such an insignificant gesture, but I think it went a long way toward smoothing things over. We talked for a while, mainly about Alastor. It amuses me how much the two of them would probably rub each other the wrong way if they ever actually met, despite how alike they are in some ways. I'd never tell either of them this to his face, but they're both softies at heart. They're both wounded... Alastor by too much time facing the dark and Frac by... something he promised to tell us about later. I'm gonna make sure he keeps that promise. Sometimes it can really help to let the skeletons out of the closet. In any case, I promised Frac I'd try not to turn him into Alastor again. I'm not sure how I'm going to keep that promise, though. I think my memories of Arcadia are going to bleed through regardless. Somehow I have to learn to control them, so the memories don't control me. If the memories insist on coming through, I at least have to guard the door. Otherwise, I might hurt myself. Or someone else. I can't take that chance.
A few hours later, Jennika finally started acknowledging the world again. The downside is she did so by attacking Kassandra. None of us wanted to hurt her, but we had to keep her from hurting Kassandra. From seeing Jennika's wounds earlier, I knew they weren't all physical, that most of what was left was image damage. As I watched her try to attack Kassandra, I made a connection between Grace's disappearance and Jennika showing up, and what happened to Fractal when his image was low. Suddenly I had a very strong feeling that Grace was inside there somewhere, buried by image corruption. I yelled out to the others what I'd figured out. I could tell Frac and Metatron were coming up with a plan. As they finalized things, though, "Jennika" began to rise into the air, and a hill of skulls began to rise from the ground beneath her. Frac asked Kassandra to send him some lucky stars, and then he and Metatron climbed the hill. Metatron and Frac worked together to save what was left of "Jennika's" good image while getting rid of the corruption. Kassandra, meanwhile, seemed to be concentrating on something else. Was she... did she hold off another pulse of Deep Night? When all was said and done, the dark clouds had passed and "Jennika" was better. She's still not Grace again yet, but I think she will be soon. I couldn't help but think to myself how lucky I am to have ended up with a second amazing set of friends. We've been together such a short time, and we're all so different. But, we're also all really different from the world around us. I think that, along with all we've already been through, is already knitting us pretty tightly together. It's really nice to feel accepted. And it's nice to think that, even though I still don't know where my child came from, it looks like it's gonna have one heck of a family.
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