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Waves crashed far far below, spray splattering the rocks with euphoric noise. Beads of water crashed and roiled, revelling in the glory of a chaos only nature could summon. The inkiness of the sky drew a barely conceivable line between the waves and the heavens, the whole horizon melding into one single void, stars winking in merriment through wispy clouds silhouetted against a crescent moon. It shone with such radiance that looking directly upon it send colours spiralling through her eyes, flashing just on the borders of her line of sight before drifting up and away.
It was like staring into the void of the Core, except these twinkling lights were real, not energy humming through bulbs or projected from some unknown process far beyond her understanding. She knew the feeling of air, brushing her face as it drifted past; the lab often became stuffy and air conditioning was regular, but the sea air?
Oh the sea air. It made her feel truly free as the salt stuck to her skin, nestled into crystals in her hair, freshness flowing into her lungs. Nihil would have stared into the void, eyes black as obsidian as they told her what they saw. Could you even see anything in the sky of the surface? There were no cores, no cubes, no networks of light and pulsing energy, just... nothing. Or more likely, something, but far far beyond comprehension. Their cryptic speech had always riled her, yet now she felt a hollow melancholy snuggle its way into her chest. A loneliness hanging on the fringes of nostalgia.
The stones of the parapet prickled her feet with cold, each step blooming a new chill through her legs to rattle up her spine. A breeze whistled past her cheek, caressing her bare skin and sending her hair whipping about her head. She splayed her toes, feeling the chill creep up the skin less warmed to its sensation. She looked down at her hands, placed atop the battlements. They were tanned, freckled slightly with dark moles, and with an unmistakable sheen that twinkled in the moonlight. She gripped the battlements, skin impressed into salt-worn scars through the stone as she heaved herself up to stand upon the precipice. Immediately her senses were inflamed with ocean-borne scents, mingling with the salt and sending that primal feeling she knew nestled in the recesses of her brain wild. Her eyes flushed wide as she sniffed, sensing a distant tropical shore, magic swirling on the winds, bitter cold pinching crystals into the air.
Sand washed from a distant ocean... or was it a desert? Yes, a desert...
Her back stretched as her body changed and fingers unfurled, the digits of her wings steadily reaching out to grab onto the wind that sent her hair drifting about her face. They stood like sails, billowing with the air and gleaming with a silvery sheen beneath the moonlight. It relaxed her, feeling the gentle fingers of the wind brush up against the membranes, like it was saying hello before passing on towards its eternal journey upon the earth. Something primal scratched at the inside of her skull, her humanity drifting as she drank in the scents on the wind, rounded pupil slipping to a slit. Everything looked crisper, gaze piercing the darkness and illuminating even more of those incredible stars; she had to keep reminding herself that these were real. The magic clinging to the wind ebbed into her vision, twisting miasmas of pink and green drifted through the night sky, lit from within by a gleaming, otherworldly aura. She watched them pass like billowing silk scarves, disappearing and reappearing upon themselves, no regards for the physics this world was bound by.
"Ahem, Miss Bianca?"
What is Bianca? Oh... yes, that is me.
She turned, gripping the parapet with both sets of talons, before the humanity resting beneath the cowl of the dragon began to reemerge through the glittering gold.
It was a machine, holding a blanket folded neatly over one arm. She remembered it, the others had spoken of it before.
"Ahem, Lady Zola requested that I bring this to you." It held out its arm, the blanket almost slipping off of the smooth metal.
"Why didn't she bring it herself?"
She slowly slunk down the parapet, memories surfacing to remind her that humans don't do that.
"She is indisposed currently." It cleared its throat.
Why? It doesn't have a throat, why clear it?
"We have not properly met before," it jolted to attention, a fist grasped to its chest,
"I am Mecha General Szabo, serving beneath King Jibral XVI. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
The stone no longer felt cold beneath her feet as she stepped over, each pace heavy with a curiosity tinged with hesitance,
"You are a machine, you can't feel." She tilted her head, "you are the Commander class of Attendant robots... 3rd edition? They never released them with Eternal Engines, and how can you understand me?"
Flos knew it all, watching the robots pass their rooms and chiming off on their names, serial numbers, even date of manufacturing. It had always felt odd that the nature aligned member of their group had such an affinity for metal.
It looked taken aback, before raising a metal finger with a familiar murmur of whirs and clicks, "Ah, actually 2nd, but late in production. I have been blessed with one fairly recently, allowing me a greater spectrum of emotion as well as a Shadow of my own. Also I still retain data programs sufficient enough to allow myself to converse in the language of the Ancients."
Ah yes, the Ancients. No one called them the Sojournans any more.
"Who did you serve? Before King Jibral?" She blinked up at it, a pace or two away from the blanket.
Szabo looked hesitant, eye contact breaking, "Ah, I would rather not speak of it."
A machine can have a Shadow, and I can't.
"But rest assured!" It jolted back to that salute, "My loyalties now remain steadfast with the king, and to Monster Town."
She tilted her head, indicating her curiosity for him to continue.
"Monster Town is a place established for monsters who wish to live peacefully alongside humans. My Shadow guards it as steadfast as I do here."
"You are willingly living alongside monsters?" She blinked, as Szabo gave a nod of affirmation,
"Indeed! And we have worked incredibly hard for its survival!"
"Monsters, like... dragons?"
It couldn't hide its sheepishness. Refusing to make eye contact was an obvious tell to hesitancy or subterfuge,
"Ah... uhh... well... not yet! Perhaps some day, we will."
Why was it trying to soften its response?
"I see." She failed to hide her disappointment as it cleared it's nonexistent throat again, "We have endeavoured to make it a haven for those who wish to live peaceful lives. It is highly likely that someday we will have a dragon."
"You would accept a dragon?" She blinked again.
Szabo hesitated, gaze avoiding her own once more. Finally it sighed, hanging its head,
"I cannot lie, I don't trust dragons, and I do not trust you. I am sorry."
"Why be sorry for stating the facts?"
It shook its head, "It is hard for me to go against my programming, no matter how much I have changed. I see a remnant of the Ancients, an entire person, not just a picture or a video log, and I know others look upon me with doubt towards my loyalties."
"Why would that be the case? You don't know who I am, I'm not a Sojournan- sorry, Ancient."
Szabo chuckled softly, a sigh weighing impossibly heavy, "it's been many years since I heard that name used."
Bianca fiddled with her nails, reflexively scraping the beds clear, "I don't trust you either. Machines don't listen, they only obey. They do, they don't think."
He laughed again, "I suppose that makes us in the same boat, yes? In a way, neither of us are what the other believes; I have an Eternal Engine of my own, I serve whomever I choose. I remain loyal to Jibral as it was his scientists who restored me after destruction. He gave me a second chance."
"I'm a dragon, but I'm also human." Bianca smiled softly, "I'm both, I've got the positives and negatives, but I have my own mind."
"It seems we both have much to learn." Szabo held out the blanket, plates within his eyes rising to emulate a smile.
Reaching out, she took it, wrapping herself in the plush warmth of freshly tumbled fabric.
"Mecha General Szabo-"
"Please, just Szabo." He seemed to preen beneath the title.
"Szabo... Thank you, for this."
She didn't want to go into it now, the loneliness. She was surrounded by people who seemed delighted at her presence, but they wouldn't understand. They couldn't understand. Two relics stood either side of each other, stone in a world of steel, both bearing the weight of an entire world, lost, and yet the same world flowed on around them.
"Shall we head inside? I am sure you must be feeling the cold." Szabo finally broke the silence.
"I don't really." Bianca shrugged, "I think it's cos I'm a fire dragon."
"Intriguing." Szabo hummed, "Another thing that we share."
"A tolerance for the cold?" She laughed, the thought so absurd it tickled her.
"Oh, one more thing." She stepped back as he opened the door back into the warm embrace of the castle, "what is your Shadow?"
"Ah," he preened once again, quite proud of his source of power, "He is a Jack of the Lantern. A pumpkin headed beast of formidable marksmanship."
She slowly nodded, "I see... a more modern creation then. Huh, interesting... Dr Bishop had a Balaur."
Szabo looked pensive, "That... sounds familiar... Ah, it will come to me!"
Bianca held the blanket tighter as her bare feet padded from stone to tile. Szabo hovered silently after her, giving one last glance back to the bejeweled night sky before closing the door behind them.