Omet unfurled the map as they and their companions left the castle through the front door. “Hey, it says the landing site is actually really close to Tragnil. If I remember the scale from Millie, we can probably make it there in a few hours. Give or take, I guess.” They looked up at the others. “I think our ride parked herself once I got off. I’ll meet you guys at the docks.” They jogged off.
Salazar watched them leave. “...Alright then. Well, I’m glad you folks got what you wanted out of that. But, uh… Should I just go back in there? I’m pretty sure whatever that one Primus turned into left. I guess I bring Yang in, rejoin the force, figure out who should run Tragnil now, all that?”
Quet shrugged. “I guess that’s your job now. We seriously gotta move, now that we… Oh, hey, head start!” She pointed back at the castle.
Salazar turned to see Yang trudging out of the castle, headed in his direction. While she walked past Salazar, her head turned and she mumbled at him. “I’m leaving the city now. If any of you or your guys see me, feel free to shoot me or something.”
Salazar stared at her as she stepped on a flagstone, muttered a curt “Let’s go”, and left. “I… Alright then. That’s that.”
Horan patted Salazar on the back. “Best of luck with that whole ‘restoring order to the city’ thing, dude. But yeah, we gotta catch our ride.”
Waia waved at him as the four of them hopped on their flagstones. “Like I said! Waia never loses!”
-
“Welcome aboard, make yourselves at home.” Omet ushered the other four onto the back of the Potirangi, a few blocks away from the docks. “Make sure to wipe your feet on the way in.”
After wiping her feet on the flagstone, Quet followed her sibling into the command room. “Alright, we’ve finally got a bead on the gang. You ready to finally put this all behind us?”
Omet began pulling the Potirangi up and out of the city. “You know it. Still not sure what I’m gonna end up doing with this old girl, though.”
“Good question.” Quet bounced on her heels. “Man, I just can’t wait for us to arrive so that I can just show up, drop down next to you, look at Hurat and go “Ha! We just traveled across dimensions to save you! Because we’re good siblings and we value you, because I just wanted to say that you’re the best brother I could ask for!”
“Not typically something I would view as a superhero landing one-liner.”
“Exactly.” Quet pointed at Omet. “Good food tastes better when you don’t expect it. There’s no way he’s expecting the two of us to show up and rescue him, so us saying something like that is just the icing on the cake.” She dropped her hand. “Great, now I’m hungry.”
“You don’t need to eat.” Omet navigated through the Wizardly Suburbs.
“Metaphorically, I mean. Hungry for glory!” Quet glanced at the wall. “Hey, you’ve got a scale on that map there on the wall. What’s the travel time that I should be expecting?”
Omet figured that if they mentioned the whole ‘Whalon’ thing that they had learned from Salamin, Quet would probably spend the whole trip trying to figure out how the system precisely worked. They could just make up a rough number. “Yeah, I have no clue, actually. Distances are weird here, and Salamin mentioned something called Whalons when she explained how this thing worked. I think that’s what she was talking about. I was tired.”
“Oh, right, unstable spacetime.” Quet ducked partially out of the command room. “Well, it’s not far. Can’t be more than an hour or two, especially as the crow flies. Sorry, I’m just really excited to be done with this whole dimension. Later!” She left.
Omet turned around and clenched the control pad with both hands. They hadn’t meant to say that. That was worrying.
-
Horan took a deep breath as he leaned over the side of the Potirangi. “You know, I could never really tell the difference between city air and country air. I can smell and feel and whatever that they’re not the same, but I never figured out how. Y’know?”
Mark slowly shook his head. “Not especially, no. I don’t really look out for that kind of thing.”
“Meh. I guess it’s just something you pick up after a few centuries.” Horan called towards the command room. “Hey! Omet! C’mon out, smell that wilderness breeze!”
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“Nah, I’m-I’m fine in here!”
Horan shrugged. “Fine then, I guess.” He watched a mountain pass by, which seemed to be almost entirely covered in orange centipede-like monsters. “Still, it’s good to be on the tail end of this whole thing.” He nudged Mark. “Plus, we finally get to sleep somewhere for two nights in a row. I don’t think I’ve had anywhere like that since your car.”
Mark sighed. “Yeah, you got me. Being a good samaritan has its bonuses, once in a blue moon.”
Omet saw the star-shaped configuration of mountains that the map claimed were right next to the ruins. They didn’t see anything that they would call ‘ruins’, however. “Hey, I think we’re here. I’m gonna touch down, see what’s around.”
As the Potirangi was lowered through the fog, the five began to see massive, roughly hexagonal indentations in the ground, arranged in a line like footprints. They seemingly approached the landing site in a straight line, then veered away to the side. And when Omet squinted, they thought they could see something moving in the distance.
The Potirangi landed in a mostly flat plain, littered with blackened boulders and shards of charred wood. When it touched down, a plume of gray powder was thrown into the air.
The five of them slid down from the Potirangi and onto the ground. Mark inspected the dust covering the ground, then exchanged a glance with Waia, who looked just as worried as he was about the presence of this much ash.
Quet scanned the nearly-empty plain, fingers tapping against her thigh. “...Not a fan of this…”
Horan flew up a few feet and looked out into the distance. After a moment, he pointed to something buried in fog to the rest. “There’s something. Looks like a person, at least.”
While most of them simply started to walk over, Quet practically sprinted in the direction Horan had pointed in. Horan came back down and nudged Omet. “Don’t you wanna follow her over?”
Omet buried their hands in the folds of their cardigan. “Nah. Think I’ll take my time with this one.”
Horan paused for a moment, then looked down at the ground. “Yeah. That’s… That’s fair.”
-
Quet came up on the figure in the distance, who was kneeling in front of a large pile of ash. The figure appeared to perk up at the sound of Quet’s footfalls.
Gilnevn turned to look up at Quet as she approached. “You an Aztec?”
“I…” Quet’s gaze leapt between the wounds on Gilnevn’s chest, legs and hands, then slid towards the ash pile. “...Am I late?”
Gilnevn shrugged. “Well, you’re the first one here.” She nodded towards the pile. “Besides him. But I guess he doesn’t really count, does he?”
Quet expected tears to well up as she unconsciously knelt down next to Gilnevn. She expected to break down in tears or, worse, have a meltdown all the way out here. But she just felt nothing. Like all of her emotion and enthusiasm had leaked out of her and into the ground. “...So, it was just him?”
“Yup. He was the only one from your Do… From your family to get stuck down here. Ligivul got to us a few hours ago, after wiping out the rest of my Domain from a distance. Did a number on both him and me, but you should’ve seen what he did to her.” Gilnevn let out a half-hearted chuckle. “I didn’t put quite as much work into her grave.”
Quet waited for the others to catch up in silence, sitting next to Gilnevn. A hand went to her chest, only for her to remember that she’d lost her glyphs, too. She had expected to find her fingers tapping uncontrollably, like they always did when she was stressed out, but her hands were completely calm.
She didn’t feel like she had been hit with a sudden, crushing revelation. She felt like she had only now been proven right regarding something that she had known for a long time. She wasn’t sure when the idea that her quest was doomed had first crept into her mind. It felt like it had been there since the very beginning, too squirreled away in the recesses of her mind for her to do anything about it.
Gilnevn spoke after a while. “I… This was on me. All of this, really, but that’s a different story. I shouldn’t have gotten him involved in this. Ligi was only interested in me, she could’ve finished me off and then the rest of you could just move with your lives. Ligi could’ve figured out what to do with her life, Hurat could’ve been picked up by you guys, the Joeys could go ahead and invade the earth for all I care. Instead, you guys came here to have a guided tour of all the ways I messed up. So, uh… Sorry for disappointing you guys.”
Quet turned around to find the other four standing awkwardly six feet behind her and Gilnevn. Seeing that she had noticed their presence, Omet stepped forward and put a hand on Gilnevn’s shoulder. “Think we can take him?”
Gilnevn looked up at them for a moment. “...Well, he’s got a bunch of holes in one side, but he’s in one piece. I don’t think things decompose down here. Be my guest.”
Horan waved one hand and swept the pile of ash away, revealing Hurat’s peaceful form lying in the ground, still half-buried. Waia pulled him out and hefted him into her arms like a sleeping child. The gold in him, what little was left anyway, had hardened, so it took some bending to get him in a comfortable position.
Omet helped Quet to her feet and looked down at Gilnevn. “You want to come with us? There’s plenty of open space back at our place.”
Gilnevn looked at the ground for a moment. “...Nah. I think I’ll spend some more time down here, if that’s okay. Maybe I’ll find a portal and head up, someday. You guys live in Mexico, right?”
“Just south of the big dot close to the middle, yeah.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Gilnevn spun around and watched as the five people walked back to the Potirangi, carrying Hurat with them.