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Snap. A picture of three chimeras playing in a sunny garden in Okhema City. Two chimeras, one colored pink and the other gray, seem to be terrorizing a teal one sprawled on the grass.
Snap. A blurry picture of the teal one, snapping at Stelle’s ankle as she dashes away.
Snap. A picture of Stelle posing in front of Kephale’s huge form in the distance. She’s giving a thumbs-up to the camera while her other palm stretches towards the dawn device Kephale holds on their shoulders. It would have given the appearance that she is helping them with the task, if not for the fact her hand touches nothing but blue sky. A failed attempt at forced perspective.
Snap. A picture of a plate of shiny grapes on a table between two chairs. Dan Heng sits on one reading a book. On the other, Stelle’s cheeks are stuffed with, one can only assume, a terrifyingly impressive number of grapes.
Snap. A picture of Stelle and Dan Heng in the bath house. They’re in proper bathing clothes this time, with towels on their heads. “It adds to the ambiance!” Stelle had said when she put them on herself and a begrudging Dan Heng. Their cheeks are flushed from the steam.
Snap, snap, snap. Several pictures of a bright blue sky. Some include the scenery and landscape of Okhema, while others are simply a blue rectangle, dotted with clouds.
Snap. A picture of Dan Heng, Stelle, and Mem. With Mem in the center, Stelle and Dan Heng use their arms to form a heart shape around her.
“March will like this one for sure!” Stelle had said when she checked the picture after they had taken it. “I think she’d like you too, Mem.” She nudged her floating companion, who chirped gleefully.
Despite Dan Heng’s austere expression in the picture, he had to agree with Stelle. March would definitely like the picture, and might even boast about how her photography skills seemed to be rubbing off on her traveling companions. And no doubt she would have already taken a million pictures of Mem.
Since the crisis in Okhema City was temporarily averted, Dan Heng and Stelle had plenty of free time to continue exploring Amphoreus without any additional sidequests that consisted of saving someone, thwarting enemies, or some other third thing that always happened to crop up. They had been all around the city using March’s camera to take pictures of their sightseeing: the bath house, the food they ate, the sky, the architecture, chimeras, tailor’s shops, gardens, dromas, all so they could keep their promise to the friend they left behind on the Express. This break had also given Dan Heng ample time to find any signs of fuel for the Express and take notes for the databank, which he typed on the Notes app on his phone or jotted down in a sleek journal he carried with him.
He and Stelle had just came back to their guest room from a walk in the garden, and Stelle complained with each step that she hadn’t seen a single trash can since leaving the Express. “How is that even possible!?” She flopped onto her cot and pressed a plush pillow onto her face, muffling her frustrations.
Dan Heng ignored her as he settled into his own cot to rest his feet. Out of habit, he opened up his Messages app, about to text March about his day when he remembered they had no service to the Express. He stared at his screen for a moment, unsure of what to do now. Even though it was futile, he still tried to send a message again.
“I miss you.”
Message could not be sent.
He sighed, still worried about her. Worried about the entire Express crew, of course, but mainly for her. He hoped whatever ailment Amphoreus was causing her would pass quickly.
Hoping to take his mind off the issue, he compiled the notes he collected for the day while Stelle tried to teach Mem tricks, the latter stubbornly refusing each flip Stelle was demonstrating.
Later, the eternal sun of Okhema continued to shine as the three of them settled into their cots and went to sleep.
Dan Heng and March sat side by side on her bed, her head resting on his shoulder.
Swaddled in blankets and still feeling ill, she spoke groggily, “You better not damage my camera.”
“I know,” Dan Heng replied gently.
“And don’t let Stelle beat up any trash cans. At least not in public.”
She went silent. Dan Heng put his arm around her and patted her head. “It’s okay, you’ll come with us to the next destination,” he said, sensing her disappointment welling up again.
March moved her head and rested her chin on his shoulder. He silently wished he could take away the illness she was feeling right now. He kissed her forehead. “For health.”
She kissed his cheek in return. “There,” she said with a smile. “For luck.”
He smiled back at her, his hand moving to touch the spot she had kissed, but he found it oddly cold, like he had just touched an ice cube. He blinked and looked at his hand in confusion, and there was a touch of blood on his fingers and suddenly they were in a snowy alleyway in the backstreets of Belobog, the sounds of chaos surrounding them. He clutched his spear in his other arm and whirled around just in time to see a Fragmentum monster lift its axe cleave him in two.
Then, inches from his face, a shimmering pink and blue shield blocked the axe’s arc. An arrow of ice lodged itself into the side of the Fragmentum monster’s head and it crumpled to the ground.
“Dan Heng, are you okay?!” March jumped over to where he stood, frozen in place with confusion. Her hand reached out to touch his cheek. “It looks like just a scratch. Come on, we have to keep moving, Stelle is just around that corner!” She grabbed his hand and they started running away from the other Fragmentum monsters following them. He looked down at their intertwined hands as they ran. Hers was as cold as ice.
They ran and ran until the scenery changed…and they were back in the Express’s Parlor Car? Neither of them were holding their weapons anymore, and instead of fear and panic, March sounded breathless with anticipation and excitement.
“Almost time for the warp jump!” she said, spinning around to face him. They stood alone in the center of the room. “I won’t fall this time!”
Dan Heng raised a skeptical eyebrow out of instinct and sat down on one of the seats to process things. He recalled this moment being the warp jump right before they had crashed into Taikiyan Stadium. The memory of the Astral Express Crew’s faces after seeing they had smashed a hole in the arena was impossible to forget. The fight in Belobog, this moment in time, this has all happened before. Exactly as he remembered it. Why was he remembering it?
He glanced at the hand that had a swipe of blood just a moment ago, but it was now clean. Yet the chill he got from holding March’s hand remained. A cold, stinging sensation had begun to climb up his arm.
“That’s what you said the last four times,” he said involuntarily. That was exactly what he had said before.
“Yeah, well, this time will be different!” March stood defiantly, arms akimbo in the middle of the room.
Dan Heng waited for the sound of Pom-Pom’s voice from the intercom to count down the warp jump. He knew it wouldn’t be different this time. Even so, she always tried. He watched as March stiffened, preparing herself for the rumbling of the train.
“3…2…1…”
A great burst of light shone through the Express and Dan Heng was thrown out of his seat and onto the floor. He heard her fall to the ground too. “March?” he called after a moment. He looked up and they were in an empty room. No. It was the unoccupied room next to his. Thousands of stars dotted the dark scene just outside the window. The girl they found in the ice laid in the middle of the room on a thin blanket.
Dan Heng was left to watch over her. The conductor, Himeko, and Welt had rushed off to find a heater and extra blankets in the storage room, murmuring about what to do with the girl when she woke up, if she woke up. For now, she laid under a pile of Dan Heng and Himeko’s coats, Welt’s scarf, the blankets from their rooms, and Pom-Pom’s small conductor’s cap on her ear, but he could still see her shivering under the layers. He crawled over to her and gently brushed away the half-melted ice crystals on her pink hair. Her eyes remained closed.
They would have sped right past the floating block of six-phased ice if it hadn't been for the conductor who spotted the girl's curled-up form suspended in it. They took the block into the empty room where it had begun to melt almost instantly, and the girl fell away from the ice as if being released from a cage.
No, not just a girl. March 7th. Dan Heng recognized the memory, the moment he and March first met, the moment when she wearily opened her eyes and asked him what day it was.
“March. March, wake up.” But she remained unresponsive. She needed to open her eyes. He needed to know she was okay.
He shook her shoulder and sharply pulled his hand away from her. It was as if his arm had been plunged into icy water. What’s happening? He pulled his arm close to his chest and shut his eyes from the pain.
The cold was unbearable now. The chill was no longer surface level, he felt its icy grip on his very heart. Each breath of cold air felt like daggers to his lungs. Dan Heng opened his eyes and saw nothing but a long corridor entirely of ice in front of him. March was gone. “March?” he called out with uncertainty, his breath a puff of air in front of him. He stood up shakily. The ice beneath him echoed with his footsteps.
“Dan Heng!” March’s voice reverberated faintly in the corridor. Feeling hope, he started to run and followed her voice down the corridor, hoping to find her. But the corridor stretched on and on, each wall of ice identical. “Dan Heng!” her voice called out again, this time louder. He knew he was getting closer and ran faster.
“Can you hear me?” His voice shook and the sound rang out amidst all the ice. The colder he got the more panicky he felt. What is this? Why does everything feel wrong in this place?
Somehow, he reached the end of the corridor. A light shone from the other side of the ice and Dan Heng leaned in to see through it. It was like peering into a frosted glass window, any shapes were out of focus as pink and blue hues shimmered in the ice. He could barely make out somebody lying on the other side, as if asleep. “March!” He recognized the unconscious figure. But he could see something else around her. Floating around was something red. Multiple things.
He knocked on the ice and the frigid temperature sent a shock through his body. What’s happened to her? There were more of the red things. Was she in danger? He banged on the ice, not caring how cold he was getting or how the ice on the ground was beginning to grow up and around his shoes. “It’s me, Dan Heng!” The ice wasn’t cracking, but he needed to get to her. He drew back his arm, getting ready to strike the ice again. His hand met the ice.
It exploded red.
Dan Heng awoke with a start, March’s voice still echoing in his head. Faint light seeped through the curtains of the window. He sat up, sighing deeply. A dream of memories. But that last one was no memory. A chill ran through him at the thought of March trapped in another prison of ice. He ran his hands through his hair, then stood up to walk outside to the balcony, careful not to wake Stelle or Mem in the process. He needed to clear his head.
On the balcony, he leaned against the railing and looked towards the sky. The dawn device held up by Kephale meant that an eternal day would reign over Okhema City as long as it remained active. It seemed a pity to Dan Heng. On past trailblaze expeditions, he often spent sleepless nights in a strange land gazing at the stars above, studying the constellations and sometimes taking note of what ones were visible to them in that location in that time of year. A long time ago, March sat with him and tried to guess which patch of sky the Express was located in. A fun game, she called it. A futile endeavor, he countered. But to this day, he always tried to look for the Express in the sky.
“I think it’s right…” March had trailed off, squinting as hard as she could as if it would activate some sort of enhanced vision that could rival the best telescope on Herta Space Station. “There!” She pointed at a piece of sky just above the treeline, making sure he also saw the bright pinprick of light she guessed was the Express. She had joined Dan Heng on the rooftop of their lodging house in Taikiyan–after their “dramatic entrance” (Himeko and March had taken to calling it that), they were forced into the modest inn to make sure they didn’t shirk their punishment: two weeks of community service. She said her soreness from the labor made it hard to sleep, and she heard him on the rooftop so she decided to join.
“Why there?” he asked.
“Because that’s the brightest one!”
“It could be a multitude of things, a supernova, a binary star…”
“Well, maybe, but the Express is like a beacon of hope in the sea of stars, so of course it has to be the brightest to stand out! I mean, have you seen the headlight?”
He scoffed but found himself smiling a little. He had started to find her enthusiasm endearing. “If you say so.”
Afterward, they had quickly jumped into a different game, trying to make up new constellations.
Now, no stars were visible in the azure sky. Even so, he stared up at the blue, trying to see any pinprick of light that could shine brighter than the dawn dutifully carried by Kephale. Past the sky, was March also in the Express looking towards the light of Amphoreus, hoping a certain someone was looking back at her?
Dan Heng caught his line of thinking and chuckled wryly. Ironic. Just over a week ago they tried to suppress rumors of a “Rosy Celestial Maiden” beyond the skies, looking down on this world with curiosity. A spectacular, divine, pink-haired, nosy, extroverted, picture-obsessed, silly, kind-hearted, beautiful maiden looking for him. March always praised and jokingly mocked him in equal measure for his intelligence, but she always had a way of making him a little foolish.
He decided to bask in the sunlight a little longer. And even though he knew it was futile, he couldn’t help but look up for a sign of his Rosy Celestial Maiden.