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Westra, still covered in a cold sweat and breathing heavily, started the short walk from the chill open air of the main deck to her quarters, her mind still racing wildly. As she reached the door, she paused for a moment. She stepped away from her room to make a quick trip to the now empty bar on the ship, everyone else sleeping soundly in their own beds. She reached behind the counter and snatched a tall bottle of liquor before retreating to her room. She had a lot to think about tonight, and the only way it could be done right was with a decent buzz. Though, considering the luck she’s had with alcohol so far, it was probably going to be more than that.
As she closed and locked the door behind her, she was relieved that she knew for a fact Tabasco was in his room, fast asleep. As much as she would begrudgingly admit she enjoyed his company, he had this annoying habit of listening at her door, and she really needed to be alone right now.
As she walked across the room, she slowed her step to make sure she could run her right hand against everything within reach. The grainy wood of the desk, the smooth leather book that lay on its surface, the soft blankets of her bed. The feelings were familiar, but almost a ghost of a memory; it was very strange. Westra took a short swig of the liquor and sat down on the edge of her bed. She looked down at her right arm, flexing the metallic fingers, still marvelling at the sensation.
Living with the mechanical arm for the past three years had drastically changed how she had interacted with the world around her, even if she hadn’t realized it until tonight. She had kept the world at a distance, shutting herself off save for a single objective. When she had first woken up those three years ago, she had spent the next six months obsessively training; barely sleeping, barely eating. All so that one day, if she ever saw those damn lizards again, she could finally have her revenge.
She could feel herself going down that same slippery slope now; she was in a state of constant stress and anxiety, single-mindedly working herself down to the bone to gather all the Wyverns and possibly lead them in an impending war to save the world. She was running herself ragged and, as much as she didn’t want to believe it, it was probably obvious to her crew that she couldn’t do so much longer.
If Onyx could see her right now, he’d lead her to the deck of the ship and lead her through some made-up training regimen designed to make her tired and pass out. While it seemed ridiculous, the exercise helped her to alleviate all her energy and stress, and the sleep afterward was heavenly. But Onyx couldn’t help her anymore. Because he was dead. Westra took another, much longer sip of the alcohol and allowed herself to go down a rabbit hole she’d been trying to avoid for some time.
Onyx. She thought she had known him. She had told him everything , and she thought he’d have the decency to do the same in return; it turned out he had kept quite a few major secrets. He was centuries old, and a leader of a powerful group of heroes that had saved the world probably countless times. Fuck, did Annabelle know any of this? Probably not, Westra could hardly believe it herself. Another swig.
She could finally feel the warmth of the alcohol spread through her gut and welcomed the pleasant fuzziness in her brain. She brought her attention and thoughts away from Onyx and back to her right arm, and ran her left fingers across its length. It didn’t feel exactly like metal anymore, but it didn’t feel like flesh, either. It was a strange combination of the two, as though someone had placed a shadow of her flesh-and-blood arm on top of and around the metallic arm she had now.
Westra closed her eyes and focused on that feeling, foreign as it was. She just couldn’t get over the fact that she could feel her fingers as they brushed and pressed against her metallic arm. It may have been only three years since she had lost the limb, but it had felt like forever. She really had no idea how much this disconnect to her own body had affected her until now. Her eyes opened in surprise at the feeling of something wet and warm crawling down her face and splashing against her arms. Her left hand brushed at her face and wiped away fresh tears.
Oh. She was crying.
Using both her hands now, she tried to wipe the tears away faster, and stop the sob that wanted to escape. Everything was just so much . The last time she had allowed herself to cry this hard was at Onyx’s funeral, barely a month ago, though it felt so much longer. These tears were all the emotions she had been trying to hide for the past month: confusion, anger, happiness, frustration, and sorrow. Why hadn’t Onyx told her something, anything ? Everyone kept looking to her for answers, but she had none to give them. If Onyx had given her at least one thing, maybe she’d stop feeling so damn useless right now.
No matter how hard she tried to stop them, the dam had already broken, so Westra sat on her bed and quietly cried and drank the rest of the liquor until both the bottle and her eyes were empty. She let the bottle fall to the floor and made to lay in her bed, hoping for sleep. However, as she turned out the lights and got under the covers, her mind still raced. Now that most of her thoughts surrounding Onyx and her arm had quieted (though the sensations were still a very strange and surreal thing to experience), she let herself mull over the events of just about an hour ago.
She’d told Daxter she thought she was ready to put on the ring that used to belong to Onyx. She had been told by its creator, Percy, that putting on the ring would give one powerful abilities, though they would be different for each person that put them on. She decided to put the ring on in the middle of the night, when most everyone would be asleep. She was still in the habit of refusing to ask others for support or assistance.
Just before she slipped the ring onto her finger, Daxter had given her the somewhat ominous warning to remember that none of the images or sensations she would be experiencing were real. Westra put on the ring and everything immediately went black.
She opened her eyes to find herself floating in a featureless, empty void. She glanced about her surroundings, trying to find some sort of indicator of what she was supposed to do, when she caught a glimpse of herself. She looked down at herself and noticed her clothes were different. She hadn’t worn these clothes since she served aboard the Osprey, back when she had her… She looked over at her right arm, and instead of the expected metal prosthetic, there was a flesh-and-blood arm. She stared at it, dumbfounded. It took her what felt like hours to finally feel out the rest of her appearance, and she also noticed her hair was shorter, and scars that had been on her body for years were just… gone. It was like her body had rewound itself to a time where her body was whole.
Her fascinated bewilderment was cut short by the sudden appearance of color in the empty space. Westra was still hovering in that space, as her surroundings morphed around her. It cut out and fizzled like static before settling on a scene. She was on a sizable cargo ship headed down a large river. She could see crewmen taking care of the ropes, a group of people near the helm hunched over different maps, and near the front of the boat, Westra could see four people. A brawny pale man, with bright blue eyes and dark hair, gathered in a loose low ponytail. A tall dark-skinned woman, with green eyes, curly brown frizz and large muscles. A young boy, about 4 years old on her hip, with light brown skin, bright green eyes, and a mop of black curls. And Westra could also see… herself. Her black hair was styled very similar to the man’s, and as she stood next to him, you could see how much she was trying to replicate his authoritative stance. Her blue-grey eyes kept darting over to him to see if her posture needed adjusting in any way. Westra watched her younger self as she stood with her family, looking over the afternoon horizon.
Westra knew what day this was. She watched on with a small smile on her face as she watched the first airship she ever saw cross paths above them, her younger eyes tracking the ship with awe and wonder. Westra remembered the determination she held in that moment, though she was only thirteen, that she would ride one of these ships and see the world from above.
The scene abruptly changed. There was a second of static before she was on a ship, watching herself get crossbow lessons from Captain Paddley herself. She was around 19 at this time, she’d only been on The Osprey for a year. Even so, she’d proven to be perceptive, resourceful, and a fast learner, making her a valuable asset to crew and captain. So much so that they were all surprised when she had revealed she had little to no training in any weapon. Given Westra’s keen eye, Captain Paddley had chosen the hand crossbow, and was currently teaching her how to hold it properly to avoid recoil damage on the wrist.
Westra watched this with a mixture of nostalgia and sadness. Over the ten years she had spent on The Osprey , she’d come to see the whole crew as a family, and this was one of her favorite memories. But she knew what was coming next.
As though this space could read her thoughts, the scene changed again, and it was now evening. She could see herself in the crow’s nest, looking out west, towards the approaching sunset. Westra tried to scream at herself; to look the other direction, don’t get disctracted, do your fucking job! Her cries fell on deaf ears, and Westra could only watch as the first bolt struck a crewman near the eastern rails, killing him instantly. Westra remembered this day all too well. She tried to close her eyes against the carnage she knew was coming, but the images just played across the back of her eyelids. It seemed there was no skipping past this, so Westra watched as the crew of The Osprey were brutally murdered by The Scaled Edge. She saw herself shooting down dozens of pirates from the nest, but they simply had too many. Before she knew it, everyone was dead, including Captain Paddley.
Westra could only look on as the pirates took everything the ship had. Some of them tried to climb up to the nest to finish her off, but she always put a bolt between their eyes before they got too close. After it seemed they were satisfied with their haul, the pirates all fled back to their ship, though not before Westra hit a few more during their retreat. Once they were all safely on the ship, all of their cannons fired with a loud *boom* , destroying The Osprey and causing it to start plummeting out of the sky.
The scene followed Westra’s journey from hundreds of feet in the air as she fell. She saw herself jolted out of the crow’s nest by the impact and free-falling next to the vast amount of wooden and metal debris. The last thing she saw before the scene switched to static once again was her own form, falling toward the ocean, and the look of utter despair and hatred on her face.
The scene went to a dirt field with targets set up on one end and Westra standing on the other. She couldn’t help but wince seeing herself: she had massive bags under her eyes, she was practically swimming in clothing that had fit six months ago, and her arms and legs were trembling from exhaustion. She wondered if this was close to what she looked like right now—she sure felt like it.
She was holding her hand-crossbow with her metallic hand and attempting to aim it at the bullseye over 200 feet away. Westra averted her gaze from watching herself to look around, and… yep. There he was, walking down the lane straight towards her. Onyx. She watched him approach and stop in front of the fence just in time to watch the bolt fly from her past self’s hand-crossbow. It flew across the range and *thunk* imbedded itself in the ring just outside of the bullseye. Westra watched one of Onyx’s eyebrows raised, impressed. She remembered feeling so disappointed. She’d been hoping for a bullseye, and she was frustrated she hadn’t gotten it once during her six months of training.
Westra looked on as Onyx waved and called out to her. They struck up a conversation. Knowing what she knew now, Westra didn’t know how to feel about this scene. Yes, she owed Onyx a lot, but there was so much he had kept from her, and now she had been thrust into this situation with no information, and a lot of the blame could be placed on Onyx’s own shoulders. Westra just waited as the memory played out until the now familiar burst of static came and changed the scenes. It seemed to be speeding up.
She was now on the deck of the ship, giving out preliminary orders and she could see herself send Sarah down to summon the captain.
‘This too?! How much longer must I suffer?!’ Westra tried to speak, but her voice refused to come out. So, as the memory played out, she saw herself standing over Onyx’s dead body, finding his note, and crumpling down next to the wall.
It skipped to meeting Thornwick and learning the truth about Onyx and the Order of the Wyverns, and his plea to Westra to reunite the group.
Another staticked skip, one for each of the members of the Wyverns she had picked up. She could see all that she had done in the name of her “quest”, and some of it sickened her. As her memories caught up to the present day, she couldn’t help but quietly cry, her left hand covering her mouth.
As quickly as the memories started, they stopped, and Westra found herself sitting in a wooden chair in front of a giant circular table. Glancing up through her tears, she found all the other members of the Wyverns sitting at other charis around the table: Onyx, Thornwick, Jack, Percy, Katie, Dax, and three others she didn’t recognize, though she knew their names were Oxford, Destiny, and DeeDee. Westra was the only splash of color in the otherwise completely black-and-white scene. As she tried to control her breathing, she managed to choke out:
“Wh-what the hell was that?”
At the sound of her voice, all the heads of the Wyverns turned to face her, and their eyes began to glow a harsh, bright white light. Their mouths all moved at once as a singular, harsh, raspy voice spoke:
“Who… are you?”
Westra sat, stunned into silence. She looked around nervously at each of the glowing eyes trained on her. After a few moments, the voice spoke again.
“Who… are you?”
Westra started, almost propelling her out of the chair. After trying (and mostly failing) to calm herself down, she hesitantly spoke, softer than normal though it seemed deafening against the silence.
“I am… Westra Stormwind?”
All the heads nodded, seeming to accept her answer. They all “spoke” once more with that same raspy voice.
“Why… you?”
Ever since Onyx had died and she’d learned the truth, she’d been wondering about the same thing. She’d been traveling with Onyx two years prior to his death, she was only second mate because he knew her and, out of the two of them, she had the most experience on an airship. She was not particularly smart. She was not charismatic. He didn’t even trust her enough to tell her the truth about himself during any point of their travels. She answered the voice as honestly as possible:
“I don’t know.”
Their heads nodded once more, expressions eerily blank. There was a long, uncomfortable silence as they all stared blankly at her, their eyes still glowing that harsh bright light. Westra could only fidget there, growing more and more anxious at all the silent stares. She was about to try to leave when they all “spoke” once more:
“What… are you?”
Westra started, looking at the faces surrounding her in confusion.
“Excuse me? What does that even mean?”
There was no answer, except for the same words:
“What are you?”
Still puzzled, Westra tried to think. She stuttered out the first thing that came to her mind:
“I’m… a half-elf?”
There was no response, except for a door behind the table, that she was sure hadn’t been there before, opened suddenly. Through it came all the crew of the newly-named Silver Tail . Leading the somewhat sizable group were familiar faces: Fei, Tabasco, Sarah. They were all there, and they were all staring at her with the same blank expressions and unnatural white glowing eyes as the Wyverns. All their mouths moved as the voice asked the question again, louder.
“WHAT ARE YOU?”
Westra had already been nervous, but she started to panic slightly at the multitude of white eyes that continued to silently look at her, seemingly staring into her very soul. Looking around at the room again, she looked at the faces of her crew, and gave the answer she thought the voice was looking for.
“I’m a captain?”
The numerous heads stayed still as the door opened once again. In came the past crew of The Osprey , including Captain Paddley. The recent broadcast of their deaths to her mind made her heart sting all the more at the sight of them. The voice spoke again, even louder this time.
“WHAT ARE YOU?”
Suddenly frustrated, Westra stood abruptly from her chair, making it scrape against the floor, and nearly knocking it over.
“What the hell do you want from me?! What do you want me to say?!”
As she yelled and started to pace, the doors opened once more and once again, people from her past kept pouring in; her family, childhood friends, even people she hadn’t seen in decades. The room was filled with just about everyone Westra had ever met in her entire life, and they all had their strange white eyes trained on her. The voice spoke one last time; a single voice, yet cacophonous at the same time. It was so loud that Westra had to cover her ears and close her eyes in an attempt to block it out.
“WHAT. ARE. YOU?”
“I DON’T KNOW!” she yelled, her eyes snapping open and hands swinging for emphasis. Her voice paled in comparison to the entity’s, but it felt nice to shout. “I don’t know what I am! Tell me! Tell me what I am and I’ll be it! What am I?”
The room and all the faces disappeared, and she was back in the void, falling. She tried to right herself, but there was nothing to right herself to, there was no up, no down. Direction was meaningless. As Westra fell, a faint golden light appeared above her, and she no longer felt as though she were falling. She now felt like she was floating, hovering in the golden glow of the light. It seemed to speak to her, but not with the voice of the entity she had been interrogated by previously. It spoke to her with her own voice.
“You are more than you know, Westra. You are a weapon. A survivor. A hero.”
As it spoke, It showed her more memories, but these were slightly different. Instead of being from her own point of view, it showed her actions in the eyes of those she knew. She could see the love in her father’s eyes as she hugged him goodbye before boarding The Osprey . She could see the care and pride in Onyx as he watched her grow during the two years they spent together. She could see how determined she could make her crew, just by looking at the fire in her eyes. Westra started tearing up, understanding, for the first time, what an impact she had on the people around her. Her own voice continued:
“Westra Stormwind. Are you ready to accept this power? To sacrifice yourself for the greater good of all? To defend those who cannot defend themselves? To fight for what is right in the names of those you have lost? Are you ready, Westra Stormwind?”
Westra wiped the scant tears and thought for only a short moment before nodding resolutely.
“I am.”
The light disappeared, and she thought that she had done it, she had passed… whatever the hell that was. But she started falling again, and Westra tumbled in a panic until she landed in what seemed to be a pool of inky black sludge, nearly imperceptible against the void around her. She struggled against it, trying to reorient herself. However, the sludge wound itself around her in tendrils, and slowly began to pull her into its depths.
She started panicking, trying to rip herself free from its grasp. The tendrils refused to budge, if anything, her movements were speeding up her descent. She tried her hardest to fight against it, but the inky black soon overtook her.
She extended her arm, even as her head was forcefully submerged, praying for something, anything , to save her. Just as she thought she would surely die, a sudden flare of bright golden light pulled her out and enveloped her.
She had startled awake, gasping heavily for breath and coughing under Daxter’s slightly concerned gaze. He helped her sit up, and leaned her against the main mast of the ship as she tried to control her breathing. Westra ran her right hand through her hair as she looked at Daxter, somewhat wildly.
“Wha- What the fuck was that? That was the trippiest shit that’s ever happened to me!”
Her mind was reeling, her breathing still ragged, until she realized she felt something in her hair. More specifically, she could feel her hair. With her metal hand. She slowly lowered her hand to eye level. It didn’t look any different…
She brought her hand to her face and slowly pressed it against her cheek. She could feel the skin under the metal. It was almost like her hand had… nerves again, or something. She realized that she had spaced out, and Daxter had been trying to say something to her.
“What?”
“I said, do you feel any different?”
Westra tried to focus on the rest of her body, but all she could come back to was all the new sensations in her right arm. She began running her hand across the wood of the ship, her hair, her face, her clothes.
“No? Well, I can feel, and that’s different? It’s been, uhh, about three years since I’ve felt anything in my right arm and now it’s just—”
“Yeah, yeah, okay kid, but that’s probably not all it gave ‘ya. Come on, get up. We gotta figure this out so I can go back to sleep.”
Daxter helped her up to her feet, and motioned towards a mountain they could see in the far distance.
“Point your arm at it, see if anything happens.”
Westra, still slightly in a daze, did as he requested, and raised her right arm towards the vicinity of the mountain. They both waited for about thirty seconds in an awkward silence before Westra lowered her arm and looked at Daxter.
“Welp,” Daxter sighed. “That didn’t work. To be honest, this could take a while. It could be any one of a number of triggers, mental, verbal, or physical.”
“We don’t have that kind of time!” Westra groaned. “I only have at max maybe another month or so, at the rate we’re going, before we jump headfirst into an all-out war ! I can’t afford to try out every little hop,” she did a sarcastic little hop, “skip,” she did the same for a skip, “and juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu... OH MY GOD!”
She would have finished her thought, but when she had jumped, she had been rocketed upwards. She looked, and there was the top of the crow’s net, about ten feet below her. That meant she was at least 40 feet in the air. It appeared she reached the peak, though, because she stalled for a second, then began to fall to the ground.
“Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god OH MY GOD CATCH ME CATCH ME CATCH ME!!!”
As she fell, she saw Daxter fiddling with the ring he wore on his own finger and watched as he grew two sizes from his small stature to almost the size of a large orc. He managed to catch her in his now-massive arms and slowly set her down on the ground. He shrunk back down to his normal size and they stared at each other for a minute before Daxter abruptly shrugged.
“Welp, there ‘ya go. You figured it out. Congrats. Night!”
He began to make his way below deck. Westra gawked before trying to protest.
“Hold on—”
“Up bup bup!” He held up a finger, not even turning around. “I’m too tired for this shit right now. Tomorrow, maybe.”
“But—”
“Tomorrow!” He didn’t even look back as he descended down the stairs, leaving Westra alone on the main deck.
Westra lay under the covers, questions racing through her mind faster than she could even process them. What was that voice that had spoken to her? How had it been able to look into her memories and throw them in her face like that? What was that black sludge? What would have happened if that flash of light hadn’t saved her?
She shivered at the possible answers to that last one. Trying to take her mind off of it, she brought her attention back to her arm. She raised it above her head, looking at the same metal that had faced her for three years. It felt different now, even if it wasn’t different at all. Or at least, it wasn’t supposed to be. She wasn’t making any sense.
She lay the arm across her eyes, feeling the cool metal across her skin, though it wasn’t as cold as it used to be. She contemplated going through her nighttime routine, which would include taking the arm off, to reduce the risk of breaking it in the night. She knew, though, that she wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight.
That, and she didn’t want to give up these new sensations so soon, not for a second. Not yet.
And so there she lay, arm over her face, the rest of the night filled with racing questions and fitful sleep.