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“How much further is it?” Gaia asked. Internally, she immediately was kicking herself. She knew she probably came off as annoyed, but at this point, she was genuinely more curious where Ryne was leading her.
Eulmore was far behind them as they made their way along the jagged, deserted coast of Kholusia.
“Almost there!” Ryne cried happily.
The beach was narrowing, the waves lapping against the feet as the pair walked along the cliffside.
What could be all the way out here? Gaia wondered, stepped carefully through the sand, grateful that her boots’ height kept the water from soaking her feet. Ryne’s sandals, she noted, were soaked through from the trip.
Suddenly, the cliff gave way, and the beach expanded into a small alcove.
An empty alcove.
“You… you’re kidding me, right?” Gaia asked, staring at the barren sand.
“Just a moment, I have the surprise right here,” Ryne said, pulling the crystalline necklace from her top, the half of a shard of everlasting ice from her brief stint as the Primal Shiva. “Go on, get yours!”
Gaia sighed and tugged her own out and presented the shard in her palm.
“I would have done this sooner, but I was worried it’d ruin the surprise,” Ryne said, leaning in close with her own necklace.
Too close, too close! Gaia’s mind was racing, but she watched as Ryne brought the shards together. A bright light flashed as she did, and as it dimmed, there was a decrepit shack, seemingly half rebuilt, but otherwise in similar shape to the shanties in Gatetown.
“You could have told me to take the necklace off to make it easier,” she murmured.
Ryne paused for a moment, then chuckled. “I guess so. Oh well, only needed to perform that trick once anyway!”
Gaia’s heart calmed as the two parted and they had a chance to the shack that had so suddenly appeared before them. “Alright, it was a neat trick, but why is this… building… out here? And why were our necklaces able to show it to us?”
Ryne smiled. “This is where Thancred was camping out in the weeks leading up to my rescue, and where we escaped to to hide. The Eulmoran forces found us soon enough, but after that was no longer a problem, this became a sort of… retreat. The gunblade and this are really my lasting mementos from him. With some help from Feo Ul… er… Titania? I have it hidden from view with their magic. And the necklace has a spell, too, to see it. One that could be passed to any object made of the same material.”
She twirled around, beaming at Gaia. “Which means this is our own private getaway for only the two of us!”
Gaia felt her face begin to flush, so she looked away from her friend’s bright smile. “Well hiding it from view is all well and good, but looking at the state of this, the renewed weather in the area might do it in before anyone could stumble upon it.”
“It just looks that way on the outside. You’ll understand when you see the inside. Come on!”
The door of the shack creaked open, as if it were struggling to not just fall from its rusted hinges. Once open, Gaia’s impression of the dwelling immediately changed.
The inside, inexplicably, had the look and feel of a proper cottage, log walls and all, and no sign of the structural deficiencies visible outside. Essentials for living, such as a small table and wardrobe chest were there, but more curious was a bookcase standing in one corner, packed full of tomes - likely gifts from Urianger’s collection, she guessed. Next to it was a small desk with a book already on it, and a small glowing flower draped over it to provide illumination to both the desk and the small bed nearby.
The desk was not the only place with flowers. Flowers of all shapes and colors seemed to dot the interior, some glowing and some mundane.
Ryne must have noticed Gaia’s gaze wandering to the decor. “Ah, the flowers? Feo Ul had some of the fae oh Il Mheg to assist, and they wanted to decorate the place the same they had done with Urianger’s cabin. I could hardly say no for the help they were offering.”
“I hope you don’t end up allergic to any of them,” Gaia said. “That said it is… nice. Cozy, even.” She sat on the bed and took it all in. “So this is… ours then?”
“Yep!” Ryne said enthusiastically, taking a seat next to Gaia on the bed.
Gaia turned her face away. Always with the closeness. She didn’t mind it, in truth, she just had no idea how to react to it. A long period of no close connections had robbed her of a sense to know what was appropriate, and this new friendship was… strange to her.
“Thancred left me the gunblade,” Ryne explained, pointing to the weapon hanging on the wall. “He also said I’m free to use this place however I see fit. Since it’s out of the way enough to not interfere with Eulmore’s current reconstruction plans, I took some liberties with it. I don’t know that he seriously expected me to take him up on the offer, but it’s at least one more thing to remember him by.”
The end of the sentence seemed far more somber to Gaia. She paused for a moment, thinking what to say. “You still miss him. Them, I guess. Thancred, Urianger, the Warrior of Darkness…”
Ryne rocked her feet back and forth on the edge of the bed. “I do. But they gave me a life I never thought I would have. And thanks to them, I also have a friend to share that life with.”
Ryne’s hand slid across the bed and clasped gently onto Gaia’s. At the touch, Gaia’s head whipped back around to look at what had happened, only for her attention to be redirected as she noticed Ryne’s crystal-clear blue eyes staring at her, though she couldn’t help but notice the anxiety that her eyes - and face as red as Gaia’s own - conveyed.
Gaia broke her trance and slowly turned her hand over to hold onto Ryne’s. “W-well, who else is going to understand what you’ve been through? Besides, I’m from this shard. I’m not going anywhere.”
Ryne’s nervousness melted away to her usual gentle smile, though the hue of her face remained the same. “I… I’m glad. I’d rather not lose anyone else. Especially not… someone like you.”
“I… wait, what do you mean, someone like me?” Gaia asked, amused. She hoped her normal teasing would help break some of the nervous tension she was feeling.
Ryne closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I learned so much journeying with the Scions. About the world. About myself. The Warrior of Darkness though… she taught me the most important things. She’s been on even more adventures than the rest of them, and has experienced all sorts of things. Things that I didn’t have a name for. Did you know she has a lover on the Source?”
Gaia could only shrug. “I can’t say that came up in our adventures with Eden, such as they were. No time for personal romance when you’re dealing with a weirdo with a giant Sineater making a mess of things. So? What’s he like?”
“She,” Ryne replied.
Gaia’s eyes widened. “Ah, so she…”
“Fell in love with another woman,” Ryne finished. “Romance was never something I afforded myself any thought for, what with the captivity and all. Even friendship wasn’t really an option. But after I met people, after I made a friend my own age,” she grasped Gaia’s hand tightly. “I… had to sort out all of the information I was learning. Even about myself. She told me about her own challenges with similar questions. So with her wisdom, I thought about it. And I thought and I thought, wracking my mind to figure it out. And I think… I finally have.”
Gaia’s heart and mind were racing. Where is this going? She can’t possibly…
Ryne looked her in the eyes, the nervousness gone, replaced only by the stern conviction she had shown before when solving the mystery of Eden. “You are my first real friend, Gaia. I treasure that, but I… I like you… beyond that. I mean it when I say I want to remain by your side. You’re precious to me!”
Gaia thought back to her own interactions with the Warrior of Darkness. When she, too, had sought the woman’s wisdom in the aftermath of the battle with Mitron. Why, for all of the history they had apparently shared, she felt nothing similar toward him, or the thought of any man.
The Mystel had shrugged back then and laughed it off. “Who says you have to? That was another life - another person, even if you shared a soul. You are you, and you are free to love whomever you please. Or no one at all. Love doesn’t need to conform in such ways, even if you see other people setting a different normal.”
I guess we did talk about some romance after all, Gaia thought.
Ryne began babbling, the courage from her confession clearly spent. “I understand if maybe that makes you uncomfortable, you were hesitant to make friends at first, after all. If you don’t…”
Gaia pressed a finger to her lips to shush her friend, startling but silencing the red-haired girl. “Don’t decide on your own that you may have made me uneasy. You don’t know how I feel yet.”
“Then… do you…”
“Dummy,” Gaia said, smiling at her. “Of course I do. You didn’t just wear me down or anything I… genuinely enjoy spending time with you.”
Ryne flung herself against Gaia, embracing her tightly. Though caught off-guard, Gaia quickly returned the hug.
“I was worried… that it was just me,” Ryne whispered in a trembling voice. “That these feelings were mine alone to deal with.”
“I’m sorry if I did anything to cause you to worry about that more,” Gaia replied. “But you don’t need to anymore. I’ll be by your side always. I promise.”
Gaia wished she had talked more with the Warrior of Darkness. If she had the same conversation with her that Ryne had, they might have both reached this conclusion far sooner.
But it was of no concern now. Their feelings were in the open, and whatever the future of Norvrandt had in store, she and Ryne would face it together - not as duty-bound Oracles, but as partners - in every sense of the word.