Suddenly, Clara opened her eyes.

“AAA”

But before Thomas could even react, she screeched and quickly brought her arms to her eyes, rolling about the tall grass in pain. At first, Thomas thought it had been because, just like him, she’d stared directly at the sun, but it didn’t take long for him to perish that thought.

After all, it was near twilight.

Hmm.

Surely, she hadn’t been scared because she’d seen him…?

It had been so long since he’d looked at himself in the mirror that in all honesty, he almost didn’t remember what he looked like. He brought his hands to his face, in an attempt to calm himself down, and unsuccessfully tried to hide the gigantic smile he’d had in his face for the last two hours.

She could have seen it and thought it was creepy… But still, isn’t rolling around on the ground from one side to another with your hands covering your eyes a bit too harsh of a reaction?! Not exactly how he’d imagined their awaited reunion… If anything, it was a little hurtful.

It took her less than 5 seconds to stop rolling around as though in pain, but Thomas’ brain was going so fast that he’d already imagined both the best and worst case scenario.

Soon, she opened her eyes ever so slightly, no more than a mere squint, and muttered.

“Where?”

Wiping his tears of both happiness and despair, Thomas answered with the queue he’d prepared beforehand.

“Clara… Don’t worry, you’re fine now”

Clara looked at Thomas, her squint narrowing, and her expression turning a little sour.

“That doesn’t answer my question in the least, Thomas”

She tried to move up to a sitting position, but fell back to a lying one, panting. Thomas reeled a little after getting such a cold answer, but nonetheless got up and earnestly answered her.

“I don’t know either…”

“How reassuring”

Thomas was already screaming inside. Had she grown cold from oversleeping?! He was this close to shedding tears. Though maybe he was the one at fault…

After all, it had been a long time since he’d last interacted with another human without threatening them, not to mention that said human was Clara, out of all people. There was a high chance he’d let his already meagre social skills drop to an unacceptable standard…

Before he could think up what to say next, Clara continued.

“How long was I asleep”

The reply took a few seconds to come.

“...I don’t know”

He wanted to answer, but at some point, he’d so completely and utterly lost track of time that he couldn’t even give her an estimate.

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“How reassuring”

Thomas looked at Clara with a conflicted face. She really had grown cold on him for some reason… He needed to do something. Show that he knew something!

“But, well, you know, it was a, uh, really long time. So long that I lost track of it!”

“And what happened during that time for me to suddenly wake up in the middle of tall grass at night?”

Thomas scratched the back of his head.

“Well… You woke up… The bracelets broke and exploded… Then this guy appeared from a portal or something… And then there was another bracelet… And then when that bracelet broke I woke up here… And, you know, stuff”

“What?”

“Well, you know… Uh… Erm… hmm”

Clara stood there, waiting for him to continue, but the words wouldn’t come out of his mouth. It had been a long time since he’d said anything more than the well rehearsed queues he used to get people to let him feed Clara.

Or in other words, it had been a while since he’d had the need to form new sentences. Right before he’d woken up in the plains, he’d talked to the person that had come out of the portal, but they had done most of the talk. Most of Thomas's sentences had been incredibly basic.

Moreover, Thomas was nervous. Extremely nervous. He didn’t want Clara to learn about his “gone mad” arc (which had finished a mere few hours ago), so he also had to be careful not to let anything that’d nudge her in the wrong direction slip.

It was hard work. Or so he was thinking, nodding to himself, until a peeved Clara interrupted his train of thought.

“In any case… More importantly, can you help me get up? I can’t seem to do it on my own”

Thomas got out of his dazed state and reached his hand to her, which she took. Then, with a bit of pulling, Clara finally stood up, but the moment he freed her hand she fell to the side. She looked at him, with a slightly pained expression.

“I can’t stand…” She trailed off, trying to leave her sitting position.

Hearing this, Thomas stared at her, his mouth impossibly agape.

“Me?”

“What? No, I can’t stand on my own two feet”

Thomas sighed in relief.

“Want me to give you a piggyback ride then?”

Clara squinted her eyes before ultimately agreeing.

“If you wouldn't mind”

Thomas lowered his body and squatted, allowing Clara to painfully climb on top. Then, he stood up, but before moving, a sudden realisation came to his mind.

“Uhm, what do we do now?”

Clara sighed.

“Shouldn’t you be the one who knows that?”

“Well…”

Whether to move or stay in the place they woke up was a hard question. On the one hand, they were completely lost, and usually, it’d be best to stand still waiting for help than to move around risking getting even more lost.

However, they had been teleported there. They could very literally be anywhere. For that reason, it was best to move, Thomas concluded.

“I think we should…”

But just as he was about to finish his sentence, he looked ahead of him and saw a spectacle so out of this world that the words he was about to say escaped from him.

Some of the stars in the young night’s sky were moving at high speed around each other, creating mesmerising patterns. Or at least, that’s what it looked like at first glance.

Taking a closer look, the moving dots of light were most certainly not stars. Although the distance made their shape look like a dot, it was not, and their brightness was small compared to the actual stars. Most likely, whatever was causing the spectacle of lights before them was either extremely small, far, or both.

“Fireflies…?” Exclaimed Thomas.

“It doesn’t look like it…” Mumbled Clara “It’s night but… Let’s approach it anyway. We might find other people there”

“Aye aye captain! Your wish is my command” Thomas puffed his chest, walking with long, playful steps.

“Stop”

“...Alright”

Thus, towards the strange lights they went.