"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
Drifting has never been a skill that I excelled at. Despite months of lessons, I've never moved a single inch. My sisters were always conciliatory, but I know that their patience with me must be wearing thin. It was the signature trait of our family, the ability to move through the world without a true form, teleporting from one place to the next in the space of a heartbeat.
It wasn't wise to try Drifting during the day, and I knew that. It is safer in the slow moon light; the sun is too strong.
But I enjoy the feel of the sun on my skin, the way it illuminates the faint patterns of orange, pink and yellow that spot my skin, and the way it glitters on the rough surfaces of my jeweled snake. So I stood in the bright sun, and I Drifted.
Nothing happened.
For hours.
I opened my eyes, peering out at the wide blue sky, and sighed. The disappointment is a heavy weight, and as I blink back the tears...something changes.
My vision is hazy, the way they said it would be after Drifting. But I do not see the rolling green hills, and the sky has gone from blue to iron grey. Had I somehow Drifted a long distance? But how, when I have never before been able to move a single inch? And why is the world so very cold?
Blinking repeatedly to clear my vision, I stare out at a world blanketed in snow.
"Hello?" I call out cautiously, hearing the wind carry my voice away. "Melo? Are you there?" My sister had been keeping an eye on me; had she come too? But there is nothing familiar in the wintry landscape around me, only blowing snow and cold wind.
"Hello?!"
I reach for my power, the deep well of it that I have always dipped into before Drifting and find…nothing. No magic. Not even a wisp of it.
He is not sure what drives him home, but for the past several weeks there had been a feeling he could not shake. It had taken root inside of his chest, this slight ache for something familiar, and try as he could to ignore it, the feeling would not dissipate. It was not until the root of unease began to blossom into dreams of home that plagued him every night that he finally decided that perhaps he needed to pay heed to whatever it is that is calling him back.
Lautner cannot begin to imagine what that might be; he is sure that most of his family (or at least the family that he knew) is gone. He had been young when he left and had never had any children of his own, and no friends to speak of, either.
Without wings or any other kind of abilities that would make traveling easy he had assumed he would struggle to make his way back, but the magic that had always encompassed the land appeared to still be well intact. There was a particularly dense patch of fog in the forest he was traveling through, and as he slipped through it everything around him seemed to shift. It was as if he stepped through an invisible veil, the kind that you cannot find if you are specifically looking for it; just one of many reasons that newcomers stumbled into this place and could not find their way out.
He is still not certain that he is indeed home; there is so far nothing that stands out to him. He continues his trek through the gradually thinning trees, the snow muffling the sound of his steps, but he pauses when he hears someone calling out. The trees and the blanket of snow makes it difficult to discern where the voice is coming from and so he comes to a complete stop, calling back, “hello?”
The slowly drifting snow swallows her voice, and there is nothing but silence in response to Nizhonii’s call. There is no bright laughter of a sister revealing a joke, or the reprimanding bark of a tutor punishing her inattention with visions of a frozen prison.
Instead, the world remains constant as she steps deeper into it.
The snow at her heels is cold against her skin, out-of-season and unexpected in the world she’d come from. Nizhonii shivers, looking toward the distant Forest. The trees do not look inviting, but nor do these rolling empty hills. There’s no shelter here, so she turns her turquoise gaze once more to the trees as she weighs her options.
At this second glance toward the bare-branched woods, she sees the stranger.
He does not look especially monstrous or dangerous, and he bears none of the hallmarks of the clans her people are wary of. Steeling her courage, Nizhonii moves closer, doing her best to ignore the cold and snow. She offers the unfamiliar stallion a smile that is cut short by a sudden gust of wind.
“Hello. Where are we, exactly? And how far are we from the Emerald Sea?” Once she finds out how far she’s Drifted she’ll know what to do. Or at least that’s what she’s told herself, and the hope keeps most of the worry out of her jewel-bright gaze as she waits for him to reply.
It has been a long time since he last spoke with anyone else, and when he finally meets the bright-eyed gaze of the stranger he feels a flicker of apprehension. He used to be able to get by on small talk and simple pleasantries, but he was sorely out of practice and unsure how easily he could pick it back up.
Before his anxiety can grow into regret he finds himself face-to-face with a young mare, and though she does not give any outright indication that she is distressed he can just make out the slight tightness in her eyes, and he wonders if perhaps she is lost.
“We are in Beqanna. At least, I think this is Beqanna,” he pauses to look around, a slight frown creasing his silver-gray face. One thing he had learned in his travels is many forests managed to look the same, and the longer he stared the more he began to doubt that he had made it back. He would need to go further and search for a landmark — wasn’t there some beach with a strange whale sign or carving on it? — to be sure of it, but even without the scenery being familiar there was just the feel that this is the right place.
She mentions somewhere called the Emerald Sea, and while hearing an unfamiliar name momentarily throws him off (he does not recall there being such a place in Beqanna), he figures that whether they are in Beqanna or not, he is pretty certain they are nowhere near a place by such a name. “I’ve never heard of the Emerald Sea, not even in my most recent travels. My guess would be we are pretty far from it.”
Realizing that he has not yet introduced himself (it’s been awhile since he’s needed to) he says hastily, “My name is Lautner, by the way. Is that where you are headed? To the Emerald Sea?”
She is in Beqanna, he tells her, and she’s already frowning at the unfamiliar name when he continues that he only thinks they are in Beqanna. Her ears - one rose pink, the other white and yellow - flick nervously. He doesn’t know where he is either?
”Did you Drift here too?” She asks, but as soon as the words are out of her mouth, she realizes how silly that is. Of course he didn’t Drift here; he is not one of the Honi. ”Nevermind, I…” What was going to be an apology trails off before it begins, as the gray stallion says he hasn’t ever heard of the Emerald Sea.
At that she begins to smile. He’s teasing her, she realizes with a wash of relief. Because of course he’s heard of the Emerald Sea, especially if he’s a traveler. It is the water that surrounds the entire world, its depths as green as the gem that shares its name, boiling hot and impenetrable. All she needs to know is what direction the sea is in, and then she’ll be able to find her way home, to the dry and dusty shores of Honi.
He introduces himself as Lautner, and the smile at the edges of her rose pink mouth grows wider. Her eyes, as green as the foam of the frothing Emerald Sea she is sure surrounds this place that may or may not be wherever Beqanna is, are brighter now.
”I’m Nizhonii,” she says, the word both her given name and (she assumes) a proclamation of her homeland and status. ”I’m trying to find my way back home,” she admits, and even though she still does not know where she is, she is glad that the first stranger she’s come across is friendly. Surely that bodes well for the whomever else she might meet here.
”So how do we find out if this is Beqanna?” She asks, at least temporarily distracted from the realization that she has Drifted not only between kingdoms but also worlds.
He does not know what she means by the word ‘drift’, not realizing the meaning behind it when she says it — that it meant more than just aimlessly ending up somewhere. His answer still more or less works, since he would not say that is how he ended up here but his own definition of ‘drift’. “Not exactly. I was born in Beqanna, and have been gone for a long time. Something told me it was time to come home.”
He realizes he probably sounds like a fool for not being sure of where they are, if he was supposedly born here. But she also does not know where she is, so he likes to think this has left them on even ground. “Beqanna has a habit of…changing. There is an abundance of magic here, and things just…happen.”
He has no idea how true the words are that he speaks.
He missed much of the most altering events that have rocked this land: the Reckoning, the arrival of the ‘new’ kingdoms, the tumultuous period of time when Baltia and Stratos were discovered. Short of running into his own parents it was unlikely he’d find any sure indicators that this was Beqanna without finding someone else to confirm it.
“Well, Nizhonii, I suppose the easiest way to confirm that this is Beqanna is to keep walking. Care to join me? Perhaps while we walk you will see something familiar that can help you get back home,” the gray stallion says as he begins to continue down the path, glancing sideways to see if she is willing to follow.
Something that had told him to return home, at a time that has coincided with her arrival. Something had given her the ability to Drift at long last, just to cross paths with this particular stranger. She wonders briefly if the something might be the Fate that the Seers spoke of, the binding threads of the futures that they search for in the smoke
An abundance of magic, he says, and Nizhonii’s pale brows rise in intrigue as she is pulled away from her introspective thoughts.
There is very little magic in her homeland outside of the Drifting and the Sight, though she knows it is more plentiful in other lands. But how could she not know the name of a land with so much magic? Surely it would have been mentioned in lessons, or sent emissaries to treat with the politicians? But she brushes aside the concern, continuing to push away the worry that the Fates are drawing at her string.
“To be honest, that sounds absolutely terrifying. The thought of magic just…doing things?” She shudders, but less intensely than she would have had she known that magic has done just that to her by placing her here.
“I hope it stays the same until I can get to somewhere I recognize,” she adds, her tone lightening in jest as she nods her acceptance of his offer. “I take it you were born in some other part of this land then?” The mare asks, matching her stride to his as they move forward.
When she says the idea of so much magic is terrifying it causes him to pause a moment.
Despite having not been back here for a number of years he had never considered what it might be like for someone unfamiliar. To him the magic was just a part of it; it had actually been surprising for him to learn on his journey that not all places had disasters of such a magnitude that they changed the landscape, and they did not frequently follow some glowing orb (or what have you) up a mountain on a fever-dream of an adventure and come out the other side with a new ability — or the loss of one.
That had never happened to him, of course; he liked to think himself too smart to follow strange sights and sounds, but growing up here he knew it was a common occurrence.
“I guess it’s a little unnerving,” he concedes, recognizing that his life outside of Beqanna had actually been quite peaceful without the constant changes. “But somehow you just get used to it.” He has no way of knowing, of course, that the magic here was far more rampant than before.
She asks if he had been born somewhere near here, and he cannot help but to smile at the memory of his childhood. “I was born here, yes,” he starts off, traveling north through the forest. “In a tropical lagoon that I’m afraid no longer exists,” his old home being a victim to the earlier land-changes that he had spoken about. “I remember it being beautiful, though. And we had the place mostly to ourselves — my parents and my siblings, I mean.” He feels an unexpected twinge in his chest at the thought of his family; he had little hope of seeing any of them again, but the hope that did exist flinched at their memory.
“What was your homeland like? Does it have magic, like here?” He asks her, briefly tilting his head towards her before again looking ahead to the deer-worn path he is navigating.
‘You just get used to it’. At that claim, Nizhonii raises disbelieving orange brows, the right side of her mouth turning up in amusement at his continued banter, and incredulity at the fact that magic might ever become something a thing she could just ‘get used to’. Until today, until a few minutes ago, magic had been very far from her reach. Though her lineage suggested she should have the ability to Drift, she had never shown any capacity for it. She couldn’t move a hair’s breadth, let alone the several yards of the most skilled.
She is thinking of that, until he starts to tell her of his home. As he speaks of a tropical lagoon, Nizhonii keeps pace with the grey stallion, moving beside him as they travel through the forest. His home is gone, and she suspects it had been claimed by the magic of this world. He has a siblings and was raised with them, by their parents. Nizhonii has heard of such customs, and keeps her surprise that a place with such advanced magic would have such old-fashioned traditions from appearing on her face.
Lautner looks back at her to ask about her homeland.
Hadn’t she introduced herself, she thinks? Nizhonii? Maybe he had not heard her clearly, because if he had, he wouldn’t need to ask.
“I’m from Honii? The Sandseers? The Drifters?” None of their well-known titles seem to strike him as familiar, and the yawning pit of worry that she has Drifted too far begins to feel as vast as the distance she must travel to get back home. To quiet it, she tells him that Honii values its magics, and that they originate from The Drifter and The Sandseer. She knows little about Sandseeing she admits, only that the descendents of the Sandseer can find visions of the past, present, and future in the drifting sand.
“The Drifters can travel through space in the blink of an eye, appearing somewhere else without ever seeming to move. I’m a Drifter. Well, I should be a Drifter, but until I came here today, I’ve never been able to go anywhere at all.” She gives a swift shrug, as though it is not important that she lacks in magic, but the effort is belied by the way she looks out at the forest around them and blinks rapidly.
Nizhonii had not meant to admit that much, but she has always been prone to chattering. Things tend to slip out when she does, and this has been no exception.
