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The first place Sunday goes upon being released by Jade is the Dreamflux Reef.
It is too late . A small voice tells him in the back of his mind. He knows what it means, yet a growing panic rises inside of him anyway. He is not ready to say goodbye.
He runs.
He trips, no longer the epitome of grace. Just a small bird stripped of his wings now; all alone.
He picks himself back up again, and staggers determinedly to the house he found himself waking in previously— where Gallagher claims he picked him off the doorstep and they spent their first and final night together.
The streets all look the same in the Dreamflux Reef’s depressing moonlight, but he tries his best to remember. Left. Right. Left again? Was it straight this time? His mind screams in more panic and anguish, at the thought of the memories slowly slipping away with time. Is he forgetting simply because of unfamiliarity or because something is slowly erasing Gallagher’s existence from the minds of everybody?
I don’t want to forget.
In his desperation, Sunday turns to prayer. A habit he formed since he was a child.
But he pauses before he can start, because he is reminded of everything that has transpired. The halovian knows deeply well that he turned his back on Xipe and has been abandoned by Ena.
He deserves everything that is happening to him right now. No Aeon will answer his call.
None of Them will want to receive his tainted prayers.
Still, Sunday is reminded of Mythus— They are the very reason why Gallagher existed in the first place. If he has the time, he will be more than willing to fall to his knees as he begs. But for now, he continues running as he pleads. Please be merciful. Please.
He reaches the door of Gallagher’s apartment and carelessly slams it open with his shoulder; injuring it a little in the process. The room is dark, empty and devoid of furniture or any signs of life. It is as if nobody has existed in its space for an entirety of thirteen years or more.
Sunday gives a shuddering breath.
Of course. Of course They would all punish him like this.
He turns immediately, still stubbornly refusing to give up. It is not over. There is still the monument of the Nameless. Sunday knows that it is his next best bet in finding the hound. He quickly retraces his steps to get back to the main area of the Dreamflux Reef.
As he runs, he tries to comfort himself with memories of Gallagher waking him on a bench of the main square.
“Talking in your sleep, birdie? Time to wake up.”
Sunday hated him back then. He had thought that the Hound betrayed him and was the traitor in the Family that killed Robin. The stupid dog did not have the good graces to explain nicely either— Gallagher simply stabbed him with that strange Memetic Entity he owned and forcibly brought him to the Dreamflux Reef.
When Sunday woke, all he received from Gallagher were quips, more riddles and a badly timed joke about how a random girl who approached them was Robin.
It was all so messy and dumb, just like him.
Why does he have to be like that?
Nothing made sense back then, yet Gallagher made sure to remind Sunday that even in the most uncertain moments, he should at least trust in himself.
“Fine, you don’t have to trust me. What you should trust is… the sense of Justice inside of you.”
That one line gave him the determination to see everything through; to follow Ena’s Path of Order for the betterment of the lives of everybody, as painful as everything may be for him. Gallagher probably did not expect for him to take that one line to heart, and he certainly did not mean for Sunday to follow the Path of Order. But if he knew the halovian well enough, he would understand that it is an inevitable path that he would have chosen.
And Sunday knows that Gallagher does.
He slows to a stop as he finally arrives at the monuments.
There are fresh flowers on the graves of Mikhail, Tiernan and Razalina but the person or people who laid them there are long gone.
Sunday falls to his knees, and hugs his shaking body.
Unexpectedly, Robin’s soft voice starts echoing from the layers of dreams above:
In candlelight, as time unwinds
I find myself, lost in your eyes
In midnight tolls, as darkness folds
I see your tears, when we say goodbye
They must be celebrating her new album by playing it aboard the Radiant Feldspar.
Tears fill Sunday’s eyes. He remembers how he promised Gallagher he would find him, no matter how many ember eras it may take. But the Oak Family has fallen, the IPC has stripped him of everything and he has been cast out of the very place he tried to protect.
The future is long and uncertain, and Sunday already misses him.
Abandoned by the Aeons and exiled by Penacony, he is terrified that he will neither be able to see Robin nor Gallagher ever again.
Sunday reaches up to touch his halo, where he had imprinted Gallagher onto one of its eyes the last time they met. He does not need a mirror to know that it still glows a beautiful reddish-brown. Quietly, as a last attempt, he closes his eyes to feel for any remaining presence of the hound nearby.
The halo hums, thrumming with power and glowing gently.
Nothing.
The Dreamflux Reef is as silent as ever.
It is as if the place does not even remember the existence of the man who saved it.
Nothing is left.
Sunday slowly lowers his hand, devastated and nearly ready to give up. The halovian mentally slows the flow of power to the halo when he suddenly hears it.
A very, very tiny…
…and familiar voice.
“Don’t cry, birdie.”
Sunday’s gaze urgently snaps upwards in the direction of the voice. Through the blurred vision of his tears, he sees a hound statue sitting on the railing to his right. Its ruby red eyes stare intensely at him but it says nothing else.
“It’s you.” he whispers to it, still afraid to hope, “I know it’s you, because of the imprint I made that night.”
The hound statue does not answer and remains as immovable as ever.
“I’m sorry it took so long. I couldn’t… they chained me up. I was convinced that they would execute me.” Sunday stands and approaches the hound statue. He reaches out to caress the side of the hound’s face and waits for an answer.
A quip. A rebellious attitude. Anything.
The only answer Sunday receives is silence. The lack of verbal response yet tangible existence of the hound statue tells him that the vestiges of Gallagher’s power are possibly slowly dissipating. It is not that his hound does not want to respond.
It is that Gallagher cannot.
“I’m not ready to say goodbye.” Sunday hugs the statue, completely ignoring how it might look to others who might pass by, “And I’m greedy. I want every moment I can get. I want you to stay.”
“I like it when you say my name. Can you say it once more?”
As if it is Gallagher reminding him, a memory of the man kissing him during their last night together flashes across his mind. He pulls away and looks at the statue, surprised and confused.
“Gallagher?”
For a moment, it seems as if the hound statue’s eyes flares a brighter shade of red. Sunday feels another strange sensation— a feeling like when someone is pushing something into his hands, for him to hold and cherish. A memory invades his mind again; this time, it is another scene of Gallagher wiping away his tears with his long fingers as their bodies melt together.
“I love you, Sunday.”
The confession catches him off guard, and Sunday chokes amidst his own tears and shaky breaths. He barely has the time to say anything else when the hound statue starts to dissolve under his touch; having served its purpose.
Gallagher was conserving whatever is left of his energy to wait for Sunday here.
The halovian tries to desperately grasp at it, but like sand falling between his fingers, the death of the man is certain.
As the very last particles float off from his fingers, Sunday’s face scrunches up in anguish. He realizes that he has never taken the opportunity to verbally convey how he truly feels. Gallagher has left so suddenly and quickly that he never had the opportunity to hear the words straight from Sunday’s mouth.
He tries to compose himself but he is still shaking. Above him, the melody of Robin’s song continues to play in a loop.
Watching stars, as we drift on by
A touch, a glance, fly away
Will our paths converge 'neath the sun?
A silent desire in melody sung
Beyond this stolen night
We share a cherished dream
Between souls whispered that it "seems"
Sunday feels lightheaded— the entire ordeal since the start of the Charmony Festival announcement has been too much for him. The lack of sleep, injuries sustained during battle and interrogation by his jailors continue to accumulate into a disastrous outcome for his body. He grips the railing tightly to steady himself and to stop the shaking.
He holds onto it so tightly that his knuckles turn white.
The halovian takes a deep breath and exhales. Once. Twice.
A pause.
He lifts his head to look at the beautiful sight of the Penacony Grand Theatre floating in the distance— where everything began and ended.
“I love you, Gallagher.”
He does not know if the man hears him, because he cannot sense the hound’s presence with his halo anymore. But at that moment, a small breeze picks up from the direction of the theatre and rushes past him like a gentle caress. Sunday can hear a couple of surprised shouts from behind him; it seems that a sudden breeze like that is not common in the Dreamflux Reef.
It dries some of Sunday’s tears, though the cold wet feeling still somewhat stings on his face.
“There are things to be done.” he says to both Gallagher and himself, “And I don’t know when we will meet again. But when we do, I will make you proud.”
“I had enough of dreaming. It’s time we make the dream a reality.”
Sunday releases the railing and regains his once-proud posture without its help. He looks to the sky where an upside down view of Penacony can be seen, and closes his eyes to take in Robin’s voice.
He misses his beloved sister too.
Sunday knows very well that Robin must have given away something of impossibly precious value to negotiate for his release. The responsibility of his loss against the Nameless and IPC is most likely now borne by her.
Slowly, as the music escalates into the last verse of the chorus, he starts harmonizing with her using an ethereal voice that he has hidden away for so long:
Will shooting stars align 'neath the sun?
In whispered hopes where journey's begun
In dreams we waltz the sky
You watch me drift on by in your memory
A whispered song
A seed of hope where we belong.
He hopes they both heard him: For Gallagher, his confession, and for Robin, his singing.
Sunday opens his eyes and in the gloomy depths of the Dreamflux Reef, their golden hues light up with a steely resolve— he is Sunday of the Oak family. First born of his house, and for many years, the Leader of Penacony. If they think this will kill him, they will have to think again.
He is not afraid to sever his wings and walk among the mortals. In fact the Family and IPC have already done him the favor of doing the first half to him.
It is not over yet.
Sunday will take up the IPC’s challenge, save his sister and find his hound again.