Chapter Text
I feel like I fell into a pit of Razor Vine... What happened yesterday? Ori wondered, groggily, as the spirit shifted in his bed of leaves.
Wait, my bed isn't made of leaves! He awoke with a start, tail lashing, to stand on the pastel pink canopy of what appeared to be a Spirit Tree.
At least, he assumed it was a Spirit Tree. Like Sein, who Ori believed to be Nibel's Spirit Tree and Ori's progenitor, there was a central bough cradling a large orb of light - but the color was off. Orange, instead of the pale blue glow of Sein's core and Ori's fur.
Just then, Ori heard rustling behind him. He whirled around, to see a bizarre spirit - for what else could it be, to survive so close to a Spirit Tree's heart-Light? - bound across the pink boughs towards him.
Their appearance differed wildly from Ori, but few spirits ever looked similar. No, perhaps the oddest thing about the stranger was their glow. It emitted almost the same hue as Ori - a pure white, rather than his bluish-white.
Don't Spirits share the color of their parent tree? Ori wondered.
He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the last bits of drowsiness. Now isn't the time to get lost in thought. Besides, they’re talking to him.
"Thought you'd never wake up, pup," stated the strange Spirit as it approached, thick tail dragging behind it. At this distance, Ori could make out a glowing square dot floating between the stranger’s single pair of antennae - or are they ears, and the dot its antennae?
“You're lucky to be so light; if you were any heavier, I would've had to leave you out in the Rain."
"The... Rain?" Ori asked, his antennae and overlarge ears flopping as he tilted his head. The last thing he remembered was tagging along on his adoptive younger sister Ku's first flight, then... a storm ripping them apart. "Oh. That rain." His lower, earlike pair of antennae drooped far enough to rustle the leaves.
The strange spirit chittered, ears flopping in a way that brought to mind the feathers Ku had in a similar place. "You must be from pretty far away, then, to go flying so close to the Cycle's end. By the way, what happened to your mount?"
"Hey! She's not a mount, she's my sister! Adopted, but still!" Bluster exhausted, Ori dropped to the floor. "And she's... probably all alone, right now. Hurt, scared, maybe worse." Tears welled up in Ori's eyes. "We never meant to go this far," he sniffled, "We were just going to fly around Nibel and back, but then there was that huge wall and..."
The strange spirit loafed, for lack of a better term, crouching down to hide its paws and pressing their thick tail against its side. It placed a paw on Ori's shoulder. "Hey. We'll find her, OK?”
Ori dried his tears. No, perhaps it would be more exact to say they evaporated. "How." Not a question - a demand. Given a path, he would follow it to the end.
The stranger blinked, sitting up sharply. “I know someone whose wandering eyes can see everything within the Retaining Wall - the wall you almost crashed into.” They pointed at something over Ori’s shoulder.
Ori followed its path.
Close by, something new had appeared: a curved cyan stalk with a white orb at the end, dancing in the wind. Too low to be their target.
Further out, he could make out more trees that held glowing orange orbs, and a uniquely tall specimen of that type. Guess this isn’t a Spirit Tree after all, then. Just to be sure… “The tree?”
The stranger shook their head, moving to Ori’s side to wrap their long tail around him. “No, pup - further. Behind that tree, above the ancient structures, even beyond the retaining wall. Can’t you see it behind the clouds, blotting out the horizon?”
Disgruntled, Ori peered into the distance as he whined, “Stop calling me ‘pup,’ I’m taller than you!”
The stranger looked at Ori. “What should I call you then? I used to be called Survivor.”
“Ori. My name’s Ori.”
Slowly, Ori began to perceive the outline of a massive blocky structure through the clouds, catching glimpses of machinery across its surface. He was reminded of the memories Sein shared with him of the intact Gumon Ruins.
(His mind considered the possibility that he’d somehow been tossed back in time, but quickly discarded it. There was simply too much that was different.)
“Then that’s where I’ll go.” Ori declared, rising to stand on his hooves. He made to run to the canopy’s edge, but quickly tripped on the unfamiliar terrain and fell through the branches.
“I’m OK!” He called from the ground, glad that, being a Spirit, he’s not heavy enough to be injured by a simple fall.
As Ori stood, Survivor’s face peered down at him from the pink canopy.
“No, we’ll make the journey together,” they decreed, slinking downwards through the branches. “You’ll need a guide to show you the way through.”