[private] brought the dark to the light

[Gale]

Gale started under neon lights, then it all got dark i only know how to go too far His tepid greeting dissuades her none at all, and the vermillion woman soon stands beside him. He is looking out to sea as she looks at him, aware of her curious golden gaze but knowing better than to engage. He might have continued to do so, had two things not occurred simultaneously. The first is that he realizes that there is water where land should be. Where the southern kingdoms had once met the northern sea is now nothing but a stretch of water between the Tephran volcano and the redwood-topped granite cliffs of Taiga. The second is that she asks if he is a Baltian, and it so startles him beside the missing shore that he replies.  “Am I a what?” What is a Baltian, and where has the South gone? Being lost is not unfamiliar to him, but he knows that there is little point in trying to be found. The Curse will return before long, oozing outward until Gale is nothing but a silent lament in the back of his own mind. He shouldn’t even wait for an answer. And yet he has been standing here at least an hour, and that is the longest stretch he has had to himself in a half-decade. Perhaps the Curse had finally taken on something too large? The hope feels bright in his chest. Gale quashes it with a scowl, one that he levels at the innocent red mare. “You shouldn’t be here.” He tells her. “It isn’t safe.” @Adria