Priscilla lay with contentment after her long battle with the tyrant, she felt that nothing could dampen her mood, not the shackles of purgatory or the shackles of the past. Soon she'd return to face reality, it was a second chance at life. A chance to live for herself and not for the sake of others, to see the world and the people, and to bring ruin to her father. Some part of her felt sad nonetheless, here she had Rin's company, but back there... she had nothing. Her family was gone, the friends she supposedly had scoffed and jeered as she was burned alive, none were real, but merely actors in a noble circus. She didn't want to leave Rin... but she had to, for her dreams and Rin's dreams depended on it. Even if Priscilla didn't know what Rin wanted her to do, she would do anything. It didn't matter what the cost would be, she would find a way.
She lay in the soft embrace of the bedding manifested of Rin's powers, she felt her care awash over her as she tossed and turned giddily in it. She felt like a girl again, innocent and free. Not the slumchild abandoned, not the burning heiress, not the tortured soul in the abyss. As she sprawled out on the bed she stared up at the ceiling as her thoughts drifted.
'How much has the world changed since I've been gone?' she wondered, Rin reassured her so it must be fine. Maybe no time at all passed, maybe she'd return to her funeral pyre and lay waste to them, or try to at least. But that seemed unlikely. 'Surely not!' she thought. 'Some time must've passed, regardless of how strange this place is, it's impossible to escape the flow, isn't it?'
She seethed with a burning excitement that couldn't be stopped, she couldn't wait for it. She really couldn't! Did she want to kill her father? Not necessarily, but she wanted them to feel the pain that she felt for so long. She wanted to find out the truth why she was wronged and betrayed. She had to know, why. Why did everyone turn against her so suddenly? Even if they were deceitful two-faced people, they must've felt something for her at some point? How could it be for a person to change so much in such a short time. It was one thing that perplexed her each time she thought of it, and a mystery she would need to figure out.
Meanwhile Zae-Rin sat by herself indulging in wine, she kicked her feet gently as she thought about the future and her dreams. She looked up towards the dark sky with the fleeting drifting landmasses above. 'How long I've waited for this...' she thought. Hope, finally she too had found a shred of hope. It's been so long, she lived merely to survive, she played her silly games of house avoiding the darkness in her heart and the betrayal that pinned her to this space. There was a peace and desire she craved so desperately, but until now it was merely a buried thought in the back of her mind. When she saw that girl, she too believed that there was a worth in having hope once more. Zae-Rin wished she could tell her more, to explain her some things, but she could not interfere. Such is the law of the world, undeniable and just.
Just like with all things in life the good times had to end, as too did their rest. The time had come to say their goodbyes, their final goodbyes even perhaps. Goodbye to this abyssal purgatory that brought pain and suffering to an inexplicable degree, this space that forced Priscilla to remember and relive the countless traumas buried deep inside her, things she never wanted to remember. Despite all of the bad, it also brought her good, this space gave her powers and a strength she never knew possible. Inconceivable and mystical, a force that truly embodied all the things those people claimed her to be. But besides that it also gave her a likeminded friend, someone she loved and adored with all her heart already. Having Rin in her heart gave her the strength needed to push through everything, to make their dreams come true, and it gave her the second chance she so needed. Still she wished to return one day, just for Rin's sake. She never wanted to go back, but how else would she ever see her friend again if she didn't?
''It's time, child.'' Rin said softly, she downed a glass of wine before walking out of the marbled gazebo with light airy steps. Her dress softly billowed behind her as the force of the world swirled around her at a hastening pace.
''Close your eyes, no matter what. Don't open them until you feel the weight of the stars embrace you.'' she added with seriousness as she stood a dozen steps in front of Priscilla. The girl nodded and shut her eyes firmly. She trusted in Rin and knew there was nothing to worry about.
Rin began to hover up as the power swelled around her, she lifted into the sky of her manifested world as her hair fluttered aggressively behind her. Each strand began to latch into the space nearby forming a resonance with the world at large. As she focused solely on it, her manifested powers couldn't keep up, the space around the two women began to silently crumble and fade. The beautiful garden turned into ruined buildings with scattered corpses all across the grounds. Their bones bent and broken in vicious ways, not a single peaceful death among them. As the gazebo faded the peaks of a sprawling palace emerged, it too lay in ruin, laid to waste until little remained. At the forefront of it a series of steel pikes stabbed into the ground, atop them skulls lined up from small to large. Clearly not a child was spared. As the deceitful shroud unraveled itself, so too did the shroud on Zae-Rin have to fade. There she hung, chained to the void. Her haunting form a drastic change from her once glamorous one. Her sunken eyes seemed hollow through the decaying bandages that wrapped around them, her shriveled skin a testament of countless eras bygone. Her raven hair intertwined with the abyss and became a part of it. It was unknown just how long she had been in there, but her nightmare was nothing more than reality at this point.
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'Goodbye, child.' Zae-Rin muttered the words in her heart.
As the surging tide of power condensed around her, Zae-Rin screamed fiercely as she slammed the aura behind her where Priscilla quietly stood with shut eyes. The space around the girl began to shatter at a rapid pace, the void tried to resist and reform, the cracks healed and broke time and time again, but Rin kept increasing the pressure onto the space. It wasn't easy or painless, but she had to do it for Priscilla's sake. Finally she forced the space to unravel wide enough to push the girl through, before Priscilla could react she felt her body jolt backwards, her eyes opened as she saw streaks of light surrounding her, they shimmered in straight lines that warped into the ether. She tried to look back, to get one final glimpse of Zae-Rin, but she could only see the cracked space closing up behind her. She was... gone.
Tears began to flow uncontrollably down her face, it was too late now to regret it, but it hurt to leave. Would she ever see her again? Would she? She would need to figure it out, some day.
She gazed at the space around her, soaking it in. It was surreal, almost other-worldly. She followed the streams of light, they all moved with purpose like guiding beacons meant to show her the way. As she followed them marbles of light and land filled her sight, they blurred into the space indistinctly, but with a strange magnetism they caught her eye nonetheless. There were so many of them shimmering in different shades and hues, some larger than her sight could even take int, while others clustered into groups of twos and threes yet remained as small as can be.
The further she got, the stranger her body felt. It was as Rin said, the markings on her body were weakening. They began to fade and turn translucent to sight, burying themselves deep into her flesh, receding like the tide as her connection to the abyss severed between the boundaries of the worlds. She breathed in deeply as she took it in, her body felt strange, the power still residing inside of her, just so much less of it that she had access to before. It was inevitable and nothing she could do about it now, instead she focused on the world itself which seemed monumental to her in the moment. She felt so small in comparison to everything she witnessed, but at the same time it opened her mind to the possibilities out there, it caused her determination to steel as she thought of life, and home.
Her travels continued ceaselessly through the streaking path of stars, purely fueled by her faith in Rin as it guided her. The stars flowed endlessly and so too did she as the illuminated path surged. She finally saw one distant marble call to her, its decorative hues of colour swirled around it aloofly as they beckoned her to come closer. A thunderous quake shook her being as the streaking lights began to flee and scatter. Darkness blanketed the once illuminated path as a massive thing loomed atop her, falling down onto her. Five pillars rushed at the woman with strangely indescribable fury, before it passed right through her. It was akin to a giant hand in the sky, a defiant remnant turned eternal, as it lost sight of her it faded into a swirling mist that surrounded the worlds with unwillingness.
Priscilla breathed a sigh of relief as her body began to move swiftly towards the large marble on her path, she began to feel a force sucking her into it, her body began to be propelled by the force of it. Cruising through wind and flames as her body became one with the marble. She could see the land forming beneath her as the disfigured blurs took shape in her sight. It was an ethereal out of body experience for her, even with all she'd experienced up until now. She wasn't certain whether it was real or not, but she continued regardless, her body out of her control as it fell towards the land. She saw the murky specks of blue that spattered across the marble's mass, bisecting the now clear landmass into two equally large landmasses. Her eye sparkled as she took that in, for the Empire had always taught there was only one continent, one that belonged to man. Yet if this was her home... there were clearly two large continents.
Her body accelerated through the sky and clouds as the continent narrowed the gap between them. She could feel the burning heat of the force caressing her skin with a ticklish sensation as a thin golden filament covered her body. She found herself striking the land abruptly, the gap closed and the world at her feet. Her body ricocheted off the ground, slamming through one tree after another in some questionable woodland. Branches splintered and trees shattered as she landed, the primal energy that covered her preserved her body, but it could not preserve the land. The area where she dropped lay in waste as cracks splintered into the earth from the force. Unfortunately for the land, this was not something she cared about right now. She lifted her body up out of the crater she launched into, standing in the center of it as she felt her body, the air entering her lungs, the slight rays of starlight beaming against her skin. She stood there taking it all in, it was real. Her heart beat vigorously, reassuring her that it was still there. Yes, it was real, and she was back. She was— alive!
She laughed as she looked around herself with a bright-eyed smile, the world was so much more beautiful than she remembered it, there was brightness and vitality in the air, and the maddening silence was nowhere, the birds were singing their hymns of joy, the rustling of leaves echoed through the woods, the whole place was stirring with life, and so too was she.