Nearly there.

The skies were filled with roars of thunder from the distant storm, serving as constant reminders to keep moving. The unpredictable currents surrounding what remained of the archipelago were vicious in their temperament, thrashing aimlessly through the ocean with their master long gone.

Guarding the eternal grave of the people who once lived there.

Their name was all but forgotten to mortal beings. Only a few coastal-dwelling civilizations had ever established trade routes with them, and of those that still existed, most regarded their existence as naught more than an ancient fable; a parable of an island kingdom swallowed by the ocean for their hubris and defiance of their deities.

Even that was but a light-spirited anecdote compared to the truth.

What were once splendid beaches of marble-white sand were now little more than swaths of salt and ash, swaddled in a lifeless miasma that preserved the bones of the slaughtered, dooming them to keep their hands clasped in prayer for eternity. Prayer to the very beings that had ended their lives many centuries ago.

As much as her body screamed for rest after many hours of flight, the Windrider knew better than to disturb the island with her physical presence. Their selves might have been gone, but the deep bond between the hallowed ground and its once-guardians remained powerful, even if the latter were naught more than still-moving corpses.

Thankfully, her destination wasn’t too far away, and after a few moments of meditation, she continued further inland. Her golden eyes scanned the ruins of forests and settlements alike in search of anything that stood out as she flew, just like she’d done hundreds of times in the past. There was less and less to be found each time.

What hadn’t burned down slowly eroded in the briny air. The beautiful wooden sculptures this island was especially known for had decayed into little more than featureless hunks of dried kindling, awaiting their turn to be on the receiving end of the endless storm’s wrath. Back in the day, she would spend days simply absorbing the beauty of this place, natural and crafted alike, with the depictions of its four guardians taking up a large and deserved part of the latter.

Valor.

Love.

Bloom.

Passage.

Names long lost to time, and to themselves.

The thought stung more than even the salty, smoke-filled air, forcing the Windrider to compose herself lest her tears disturbed the island underneath her. It was far from her first time here, inside the charred carcass of the jewel of the ocean, but the suffering that underlaid the gruesome sights never got easier to process, to reconcile with what she remembered of Her. What she remembered of them all.

Their courage.

Their kindness.

Their patience.

Their wisdom.

They weren’t proud of their pasts, of what they once were, of the many mistakes they had made over the millennia—out of haste, out of thoughtlessness, even out of cruelty. Even at their lowest, even when they still were as wild and ferocious as their still-untamed islands, they cared deeply about the islanders’ wellbeing.

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With time, the life that filled these dense forests and craggy cliffs became a part of something larger than itself, soul by soul. Something destined for so much more than a hasty death at the hands of whichever predator found itself hungry that day.

And as the islanders grew, their deities followed. Prayer by prayer, ceremony by ceremony, the four siblings shed more and more of their savage natures, their followers’ faith shaping them from guardians of the land to guardians of the people, their civilization growing ever brilliant with each passing season.

The Windrider still remembered her first visit to this enchanted land, to what those that visited it had described as heaven. The deep truths of philosophy and geometry the islanders had discovered and were eager to share with anyone who would listen, their unending hospitality, their joyous songs, elaborate rituals, and exquisite delicacies. Reminiscing the latter made her exhaustion sting that much more acutely, as did the contrast between her memories and the surrounding reality.

As did thinking back to the day of her discovery of the islands’ destruction.

One moment, she was racing across the azure waves to visit old friends. The next, flying above tens of thousands of dead, above unending wildfires, above the charred, dismembered remains of an island-wide celebration. She screamed, she wept, she called for anyone still alive amongst the carnage—and found what was once Love. If not for her kin’s swiftness, she would’ve died there and then. Died to what had once been her close friend and mentor, turned malicious and yet utterly hollow; not a thought emanating from Its shell as It tortured her with torment unimaginable.

For the longest time, the dragon assumed that an evil force had possessed them all. Possessed and drove them to commit unspeakable atrocities, before leaving their islands for good. There was no other explanation she could think of that came close to explaining the harrowing change that had occurred in even one of them, let alone all four.

It was only recently, relatively speaking, that she finally learned of what transpired here. Of the unimaginable crime that turned them into their present selves. Of a tragedy the Expanse had failed to prevent. After decades spent begging It for answers, It gave in and told her the truth; the guilt weighing heavily on Its divine essence.

One day, the flimsy wall that separates this world from others had torn in the middle of a joyous ceremony. Hardly a rare occurrence if Expanse’s words were to be believed. Its luminous reach was constantly on the lookout for these tears in Infinity’s filament, ceaselessly maintaining the boundaries between realities.

Before It could do so here, however, something slipped through the crack.

A nonexistence beyond comprehension. An absence of light, an absence of self, a living manifestation of ravenous hunger. Hunger for minds, hunger for light—hunger for names, mortal and divine alike.

Before the guardians knew it, they were gone in a gust of wind. Their very beings were consumed by It That Wasn’t, mere moments before Expanse’s intervention drove It back into Its own sunken realm. But, by then, it was too late. Without a mind to exert control over their divine flesh, every savage part they kept purging themselves of crept back in.

Everything they had repressed had come back to usurp them.

The Malice of strife.

The Cruelty of life.

The Misery of change.

The Grief of death.

No tale of the events that transpired had ever left the islands, for none had escaped the slaughter that followed.

The Windrider knew full well that her presence here was little more than folly, a childish plea towards a friend long gone, a naïve wish to unwind time and do something, anything, to prevent that unimaginable tragedy. And yet, she repeated her pilgrimage again and again. Each time, she brought the most meager of offerings with herself: a singular orchid bloom.

Just like the ones Love would endearingly weave into Her own and little ones’ hair at every opportunity.

Only the plinth remained of the monument of pearl and silvery wood that once sang Her praises. It loomed above the lifeless ruins, an utmost perversion of the living rainbows of flowers once surrounding it from every side. A patch of salted, barren dirt was the only remaining sign the latter had ever existed.

Holding back tears, the dragon clasped her hands to the furthest extent she could and prayed, her words eclipsed by the approaching thunderstorm—

“Oh, the ever graceful Love.

To thee, I offer this gift.

May it findeth thee at peace.

May we be granted solace.”

And then, she followed it with a whisper of her own, placing the bloom on the plinth. The moment the last word left her white muzzle, she took off, flying away from the island before any of its once guardians could show up.

“May Daybreak deliver thee home.”