Silver-bright, gleaming as god. Orange eyes were beneath it too, deep circles of orange that seduced the ground and gouged holes into even the dirt as the ship hovered there. Simple, sleek- impossible. A small god. Arctic’s god. “Let's go. We have more places to search.”
Laeo didn’t go. He just stared at the eyes- not eyes, thrusters, and imagined what else in the world he didn’t understand. He felt like a novitiate staring at so many wondrous things, feeling as if he’d never understand them. Feeling as if he’d never understand Arctic… “Where?”
“It doesn't matter. Iaial. Abōeo. I’ll repeat my desires until they force her out of hiding. I will make her come.”
“How far will you go?” He shocked himself by saying those words, shocked himself by the vehemence with which he said them. “How far will you go? One city- two cities. A country? All of Xhyolok-”
“All of the world.” Arctic’s voice was cold as ice as he stepped into the ship and its cold metal interior, its panels of brightness and simple lights that were unlike any light he’d ever seen, fire contained within metal. Brilliant light, incandescent light… a greater form of sibilant, perhaps? “Until Polarity Light reveals itself or Iri gives it up I will scour the face of the earth. This planet, once uninhabitable, made habitable, will be reduced to ashes once again. All for the name of Polarity Light.”
Laeo felt sick… this was… beyond insane. It was the definition of madness, a psychological brokenness deeper than even Iri’s babbling… but all the more, through that he understood its importance. If Polarity Light was important enough that the world itself would be nothing to it, then it was clear that there was nothing or mortal nature as important as it.
He thought of Nolabo, and had an idea. It was the sort of idea he hated with a burning passion, but it was something that might save his country, even as he killed it… something that would forestall the death of the world. “Wait-”
Arctic glared at him with that impossible intensity, that burning light. “What do you want? I can leave you behind, to the hatred of the Sakaxhy? You will be destroyed, ripped to shreds and then more…”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“We can make Iri and Siqxhe come to us.”
“How?”
Ever so reluctantly Laeo stepped into the black-silver ship, the vessel of light and impossibility. There was a window at the front he could watch out of as the ship began to fly- impossibly, pushing itself to greater speed until they were roaring through the atmosphere, flames licking the side of the craft… and beyond it, above the very scope of the world, looking down over a blue drop. Laeo felt weightless… no he was weightless. It was a thoroughly odd feeling, to drift through the air with no sense of up or down. No sense of right…
He grabbed onto a chair trying his best to stand beside Arctic- who, expectedly, was doing just fine in the impossible conditions. “What is…” He shook his head, and when he glanced back out of the window he could see… everything. Two moons, floating above the world- one beneath them, shattered fragments tumbling. It was a sight that broke minds, reducing sense to nonsense. A new perspective. “We can force them to return to Nolabo.”
“What do we need to destroy?” Here they were, so high over everything, and he was asking what they needed to destroy. He no longer doubted the sibilant’s power. It was just so immense- the scope of the whole world spread out below him, brilliant blue with its spots of green. Xhyolok in the north and… he saw god. It was an immense thing, an oblong shape that shone brilliantly in the sun. A third moon so close to the planet…
He could see why the Ilyoachi called the three moons their gods. They were, after all, similar in size… “It needs to be natural. If Iri can figure out that we were behind it, then they’ll hide. And it needs to be persistent. Something that has an obvious cause and obviously will keep happening.”
Arctic frowned. “I can make a persistent threat.” Laeo would have laughed at that, if it hadn’t just been a threat for him to rain fire down on Nolabo. After all, there was only one place to which Siqxhe would come running…
“He has a hometown in the Nolabo isles. If we can injure that…” That idea came back to him, resplendent in all its horrifying glory. “If you really have as much power as you say you do, then you can take my craft to levels beyond what was ever possible before.” He spoke his plan above the globe of the earth, the Eternity Falling, the shattered remains of earth… praying for a forgiveness.
There was no right.
There was no wrong.
What needed to be done would be done...