Chapter Text
Aether opens his eyes, and immediately regrets it.
Uttering a groan, he rolls over, clamping his hands over his eyes as sunlight floods his vision, prompting a dull ache to begin throbbing in his temples. His mouth feels like sandpaper, hopelessly and thoroughly dried out, and sharp pangs of pain arise from his muscles.
His mind feels as if it’s been stuffed full of cotton, but even so, he attempts to sift through his memories, digging around for anything to help him understand his current predicament. And then it comes back full-force.
His sister, flying alongside him. The unknown goddess, peering down at the two of them as if they were a particularly troublesome pair of vermin. Watching as his sister had been engulfed in the goddess’s magic, helpless to do anything but watch as she was trapped in an obsidian-colored block, helpless to do anything as she’d done the same to him…
He remembers the pain, and the paralysis that had overcome him, as he was sent hurtling through the void…
And then there was nothing else.
Aether forces himself to swallow back the cocktail of emotions he feels arising within him. As much as he wants to stay here and wallow in terror and hopelessness, that wouldn’t put him anywhere closer to finding his sister.
His first step is to open his eyes.
Cautiously removing his hands from his eyes, he allows his eyelids to flutter open, prompting the sunlight to flood his vision. All around him, impossibly tall stalks of grass sway in a casual breeze, and an enormous, bright blue sky bears down on him.
He pushes himself to his knees, absently noting the soft soil dipping slightly beneath his weight, and squints into the distance. Around him, on all sides, is more tall grass, as far as he can see.
So I’m in a field somewhere, he muses inwardly. That doesn’t exactly narrow anything down, location-wise, but it’s a start, he supposes.
He heaves a deep breath, a pang of sorrow briefly striking him as an image of his sister flashes behind his eyes. Whatever had happened, wherever he was…he would find her. He had to.
Easing himself to his feet despite the throbbing of his joints, Aether casts another glance around him. Well…I won’t get anywhere by just standing here, I suppose. Feeling resolve crystallizing within him, he picks a direction, and begins to walk.
He would find Lumine, one way or another. He was sure of it.
* * *
Aether walks for what feels like hours. It seems whatever planet he’s been dropped on has no shortage of tall grass, which makes traveling all the more difficult—it’s tall and thick enough that he’s constantly fighting through the stalks, forcing them to part just so he can squeeze through. He can see smatterings of trees in the distance, and every so often he passes the occasional boulder—but beyond that, there’s nothing of note about the land. No clues as to his sister’s whereabouts. He can feel his hope wearing thin already.
It’s when he’s slumped against the umpteenth boulder he’s passed, worn-out and panting from his long trek, that he finally catches sight of something promising.
From this distance, it’s hard to tell, but it appears to be a statue of sorts—one that emits a faint blue glow visible even under the bright sun.
Fresh vigor fills him, lending him newfound strength, and he leaps to his feet, eagerly making a beeline for the statue. It’s a ways away, but the distance doesn’t deter him—it’s a clue, after all, the first real clue he’s found as to his whereabouts all day.
It takes shorter than he’d anticipated to reach the base of the statue. It’s taller than he was expecting—it’s easily the size of a building, and the way it towers over him unsettles him. Even so, as he approaches, he can sense a sort of energy radiating off of it; the very air pressure feels different here, as if super-charged with whatever the statue is emitting.
Once he’s close enough, he lays a gentle hand on the surface of the statue, feeling the smooth stone beneath his hand. He’s only been in contact with it for a moment before a rush of power, pure and potent, sweeps through his body, settling in his core. The feeling is enough of a shock to make him stumble backwards, but as he does so, he can’t help but note the sudden rush of energy now coursing through his veins. It tastes like freedom, like the wind at his back and the breeze in his hair.
On top of that, the various aches and pains he’d been harboring from the start of his journey had mysteriously vanished, along with the fatigue that had steadily been accumulating throughout his trek.
Unsure what to make of it, Aether kneels besides the base of the statue, fingertips ghosting over the edge. Other than the faint blue glow it emits, along with its absolutely astronomical size it doesn’t look any different than a regular statue…and yet, somehow, it’s imbued with some kind of power.
He continues to sit here for a few moments, puzzling over the statue, when the rumbling starts.
It’s not like an earthquake—oddly enough, the rumbling starts and stops in rhythmic intervals. Aether’s not quite sure what to make of it, and he’s pondering the source of said rumbling when he sees an enormous silhouette approaching quickly—far too quickly for comfort—and his instincts spur him to dart away from both the statue and the giant, diving behind a conveniently-located boulder.
Just what on earth was that thing? Curiosity whetted, he slowly peers around the edge of the rock, craning his neck upwards.
The resultant sight is enough to make him freeze in place, his heart pounding wildly in his chest.
Walking towards him, entirely unaware of his presence, is a giant.
The giant looks human by all accounts, or she would, if not for her gargantuan size. Aether can hardly believe his eyes—the giant is easily large enough to crush him underfoot without breaking a sweat, or to scoop him up in one hand, a thought that sends a shiver down his spine. Even more odd, however, is what the giant is wearing—an embroidered white-and-brown outfit with a red jacket, complete with long white boots. A bright red bow sits atop her head, along with a pair of leather goggles, and a brown bag is slung over one shoulder.
She’s humming lightly to herself as she walks, bag swinging with the motion of her footsteps, and Aether suddenly has a very grim realization.
The grass he’d been trekking through for the past several hours wasn’t tall grass. The statue he’d been gawping over wasn’t an extraordinarily large, building-sized statue. The boulder he was hiding behind wasn’t even, by proper definition, a boulder.
The world around him is perfectly average-sized. He, on the other hand, is very, very small.
Aether sucks in a breath, staring with wide eyes at the gargantuan landscape as a cold feeling settles in his stomach.
This must have been the work of the goddess. That’s the only thing he’s certain of now—first she separates him from his only family, then she leaves him practically powerless in a world twenty times the size of him. The cold feeling is quickly eclipsed by a combination of rage and determination—rage at this goddess for stripping his life as he knew it away from him, and determination heightened tenfold to find his sister and escape this mess once and for all.
His train of thought is interrupted by the giant—or really, he supposes she’s the normal-sized one—speaking to herself, and he forces himself to peer back up at her.
“Windwheel asters…” she mumbles, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “Ought to be right around here…aha!” Her eyes are suddenly lit ablaze as she dashes forwards—thankfully not in Aether’s direction—towards a clump of bright orange flowers, slinging her bag onto the ground. He continues to watch, mind already working, as she plucks the flowers and tucks them neatly into her bag, still on the ground, before hopping away towards the next patch.
He couldn’t accomplish anything by staying in the wilderness—he was practically defenseless out here, and an area like this was bound to be teeming with wild animals. Not only that, but he needs clues—clues as to where he is, to where his sister is, and to how he can reverse this situation. As terrifying as it is to even be near someone so enormous, however, he knows that where this girl hails from is bound to have information of some kind or another.
Of course, that poses the risk of whether these people are even friendly—especially to him, who’s probably the size of her finger and has no hope of defending himself should they be hostile.
His gaze lingers on her bag, still lying open on the ground, stuffed to the brim with bright orange flowers.
Then again…what if he were to hitch a ride undetected?
A plan begins to form in his mind as he watches the girl continue to carefully pluck flowers, her back turned to him and the bag.
Well, he muses internally. I suppose it’s the best hope I have. Heaving a deep breath, he rises to his feet, and begins to run forwards towards the bag.
Thankfully, he manages to slip inside with little to no trouble, burrowing deep down amongst the flowers until he’s at the bottom. His heartbeat begins to pick up as he feels the rumbling begin to resume beneath him, the telltale sign of footsteps, and soon enough, he could feel his surroundings shifting as the girl presumably picked up the bag.
“Time to go!” Her cheery tone rang out overhead, and Aether managed to sigh in relief, burying his head in his arms. So he hadn’t been noticed, after all.
As he settled back against the leather walls around him, feeling his impromptu ride swinging with the motion of the girl’s footsteps, he felt a stubborn emotion beginning to emerge within him for the first time since he’d woken up: hope.
Maybe he could do this, after all.