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The stage didn't smell of the ocean. It smelled like sweet petals and soft clouds.
The swish of water around her feet disturbed that perfect mirror, ever expanding forward into the distances. That image was mostly depicting the underside of clouds, but looking closely faint stars could be seen. There was also a thin expanse of sunrise, but the kind of sunrise that's white, before it took on any sort of color.
Elira breathed out, if only to hear herself within this infinite space. What was one little dragon like her, doing somewhere like this? It wasn't familiar to the new home she'd made on earth, nor was it exactly like the distant memories of her original, solar birthplace.
She felt she should be scared, at the vastness of it. If she walked forever forward, then she might never find a way out of here. Stuck, as an infinitesimally small speck.
Elira crouched down, dipping a hand through the water and letting the ripples from her finger's movements catch her fascination. Lukewarm. The water was clean, not a single piece of dirt in sight.
Elira finally looked further, eyes drifting down of their own accord.
In the water, a pale face looked back at her. Their light blue hair, often styled in deliberate curves, now fell off in frizz. The kind of hair that hadn't been brushed in days. Her lips were starting to crack, and shadows laid under her eyes.
Still, she had a small, tired smile. Her eyes showed signs of tears, but the joy in them was unmistakable.
Did she make it?
She moved a hand to her face, and the reflection broke into circular ripples. Elira took a deep breath, anticipation stuck in her lungs. She pushed down, onto the very surface she was standing on.
Her hand went farther down than her feet did, and for a second she was terrified she had made the wrong choice, and pretty soon she'd be falling into stomach-pulling weightlessness like all her nightmares- this time it'd be water instead of the sky-
And then, her fingers hit something.
Elira forced the air out of her lungs desperately as she wrapped around the item and pulled, a whine escaping in the moment. Right before she got whatever that thing was out of the water, she wobbled.
With a little cry, her crouched stance became unstable and she fell backwards into the water. Somehow, miraculously, she didn't sink that deep. Sprawled out, half of her was soaked, but her face and chest weren't submerged.
A single laugh pushed out of her body, and it sounded so foreign to her. When she tried to reproduce the sound, it sounded more like a strangled sob.
Can't I lie like this forever? It feels so warm...
It reminded her of better days, half-submerging herself in the warm water of her bathtub, completely zoned out and ignorant of her responsibilities for a few minutes.
The wind she hadn't realized existed started to pick up. Elira blinked, and pieces of pink filled her vision. She looked up in awe, and watched as cherry-pink rose petals swirled gently with the wind and rested on the water surface around her. The wind stopped.
One of them even landed perfectly on her nose.
She plucked it off in a daze, and stared at it disbelievingly. This has to be a dream, right?
She turned the petal over, noticing the way the fiber looked like plant-veins. Blandly, she held it above her mouth and let go the same instant she started breathing out again. It floated for half a second, just a little, until it fell off her air-stream. It landed on the water with all of the other petals.
No.
And then, she picked it up again, and tucked it into her hair. She forced her body to sit up, and then to stand up completely. It was a little difficult, considering she couldn't use her hands to steady herself on that logic-defying ground, but she made it up shakily anyway.
Elira stared back down at the water, just narrowly spotting that mysterious item she had attempted to pull up.
With something she could only call her battle cry, she dug both hands into the water, gripped around the item, and pulled with every ounce of strength she had. It came up, a small sound resulting when it wouldn't budge anymore.
Elira cracked an eye open, and found herself holding a milky-white guitar. The surface was as glossy as the water it had came from, and something was scrawled in blue on its edge. It wouldn't be visible to anyone else, but she looked anyway.
Lazulight
A smile broke out, returning with a force that wouldn't leave her lips. A sense of joy and wonder rose in her that wouldn't stop. There was more she wanted to do, she wouldn't give up here.
Elira felt something watching her, she turned around, and saw no one. Not a single person, but a simple microphone stand had appeared behind her.
Her legs were automatically drawn to it, even though they were shaking.
She gripped the guitar to her chest, even though she had never held a real one before.
She shook her head, dispelling the last of her doubts and demons, until she had come to a stop in front of the microphone.
She took the biggest breath she'd ever taken, and then spoke.
"Here we are."