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Under the night sky, in the midst of the cool desert darkness, a high profile nightclub called 'Oasis' attracted attention from all across the verdant valley it called home. Known for its dramatic but elegant style and wide spread of shows, it attracted a certain degree of class and manners somewhat unusual for the modern nightlife's predilection toward seedier venues and casual hook-ups.
Oasis had a special allure with its dark atmosphere, neon obsession, and strict rules against disruptive behavior that could pull attention from any bored or traveling fool with money to burn and a night to enjoy. Some even said it was only Oasis that kept the little settlement relevant.
Most of all though, even above its wide array of attractive hosts, it was the shows and artists that Oasis employed or contracted that drew in it's hypnotized crowds. Plays, operas, concerts, dance performances, and more would line up hundreds of clients every night for the exclusive privilege of live performance with quality meals, drinks, and company to enjoy.
The favorite act was a young woman from the local territory: a jackal-eared girl with bronze skin, obsidian hair, and gleaming golden eyes.
Tonight, like so many others, she was breaking every heart in the club with her signature solemn performance set to an upbeat synthwave track accompanied by lights and lazers. As she sashayed back and forth, gliding across the floor or a pole with a cohort of backup dancers, she cried out a desperate and vengeful aria of loss and loneliness. No matter how immersed she became in the heat of the song, the warmth of the lights, or the passion of her crowd the Dancer could never shake the cold, melancholic pit buried deep in her chest. Nothing could bring even the slightest hope for time to heal her wounds as she sang not just to, but beyond, the audience….
….As though, if only she believed enough, she could penetrate the walls and carry her voice to the other side of the globe to reach some solace hidden far away.
**
In the frozen northern wastes, an oversized motorcycle sailed on magnetic wheels across the icy tundra like a dream across silk. Hovering above iced-over roads, the slick neon capsule whirred softly through the whipping gales of perpetual winter.
The Driver sighed under the canopy, watching the snow and ice billow and beat upon the hull with jaded disinterest. A dancing hologram glowed in cool violet light above the handlebars consumed their true attention, as synthetic beats and blips mixed with traditional drums and woodwinds.
Heated by outdated but sophisticated elements, no amount of cold could ever hope to reach the driver or the materials in sealed storage. But no amount of warmth could match the embrace beginning to slip from their memory.
Encased in the ceramic and metal cocoon called Wildrunner, the Driver lived on the road. Back and forth between outposts, ferrying critical supplies and data drives. Week after week. Month after month. Year after year.
They avoided friends and nobody knew their name. Sinking deeper into an abyssal loneliness where they were only kept company by the digital ghost dancing in front of them.
The drives blended together into a single, prolonged memory. It was as if the Driver spent every waking moment on the road, gliding through sunless storms. A single thermal blip in an endless sea of empty cold.
**
In Oasis, the Dancer found solace in friends and confidants amongst suppliers, producers, and fellow performers. Shackled by contract and pardon for her role in revolution, she was a prisoner in a gilded cage of neon and adoration.
The performances could be remembered with perfect clarity. Each song was its own moment in time, unique and wholly separate from any other. They together wove a tapestry of agony through the years, scenes assembled in litany by choreographer and writer for her voice and steps to breathe life into them.
Pain and pride fueled eached act of rebellion, daring and threatening her jailors from behind her performances. Every day was but a moment to weather in her storm, a challenge to overcome and defeat so she could be free once more. Every ballad, anthem, and aubade was a new arm to shelter behind or strike with. The Dancer's charisma was sharper than any sword, more precise than any spear, and more destructive than any artillery.
Each ally in crafting her weapons was a member of her council, shielding and attacking with her will. Politics shifted and the world began to change around her, around Oasis itself. The nowhere village grew in importance and fame, held aloft by the hands of one cabaret and its goddess Dancer.
But still a dark, creeping depth consumed her from within. A void she couldn't fill by retribution, by company, or by adoration. A dread that drink could not dull and a lack that pleasure could not ease. Somewhere out there was a piece of herself she was calling home.
**
Nothing moved in the northern wastes; no news reached this far. How could it amongst the frozen fields and ancient installations? The Driver could scarcely pick any day out of the mess in their personal hell. A mobile prison, a bitter reminder of their crimes, protecting them from the world that condemned them in a stroke of despairing irony. Few Wildrunners remained afterall, bike or soldier, why not pair up the rebels with their namesake? Why not shackle them to their sins against the crown?
Desperation pushed the Driver forward like no other. A will to go on, a need to see the destination. To see the next dark day. Every mile was a step to walk, each trek a mile closer to a goal infinitely far away. The faint, torturous glimmer of hope provided by the gentle holograms driving them obsessively towards a goal that never seemed to be closer. A maddening dream haunting every waking moment.
Every face on the way was but a distraction to ignore, a host of wardens in their singular incarceration. No matter how uncaring for politics and southern wars they seemed, an indignant stain dripped from every kind word and offer of friendship. Gestures that surely would not extend to the Driver's company back home, who wore animal traits with pride and refused to be disrespected.
Each gentle insult would be pushed away by drink, ignored by pain, and forgotten by heat. Pale words from empty faces amongst infinite sheets of white. Fury boiled under the surface of every quiet tearshed in this battle of inches.
**
A decade and a half of tireless work; a lifetime of influence and manipulation; a lifetime of performances with a cause. Borders shifted, allegiances swayed, and new terms were addressed before yet another war could come to bear. They had meant to weaken her, declaw and defang by pulling her away from the field and the arms she'd nearly bested them with. Instead they gave her unshakeable vigor and weapons that could not be broken.
Under new passions and fully realized art, the Dancer had fought her new revolution. Surrounded by millions of allies, soldiers, and friends in public, it was never enough to wane the persisting shadow of isolation and want.
Alone. By her will and desire, she had brought a crown to heel at her foot. A people set free and a land set loose its bonds. The Oasis sat at the center of it all, surely to be a national monument in the days to come. Atop this legendary pillar of the fight stood one woman, one Dancer, and the broken heart she hoped to mend.
Many months passed since the celebrations and treatises, and still she danced. Singing aloud a manifesto of her pain forevermore, until her long lost love came home at last.
**
While they had been set free, the Driver endured their familiar cell for a time still. Money would be needed to return home, afterall, and they could not be sure they were even still wanted. The news had come as a shock, utterly detached from the world beyond the eternal storm.
The bartender's congratulations had come off just as patronizing and backbiting as anything he'd ever said to them, and to jest over such a topic was enough to finally test the durability of the Driver's chains as they snapped out of their haze into a flash of rage.
They were both saved by a working girl, the only person the Driver had ever found to be truly kind… in her own way. Her desire to ease their heartache and loneliness had always felt genuine, like she knew the pain from a personal place. With running mascara and swelling eyes, she confirmed the news and defused the younger victim.
At the precipice of the floor, the Driver stood at last ready to see the ghost in the flesh. 16 years had now passed, with only cold light to accompany day-long trips of little to no effort through blinding squalls of snow and ice. Released from their prison of heat and isolation, seeing so many faces and feeling so comfortable was alien now. Stepping through to see the stage would be like facing the final judgment, an absolute point of no return, a test of will and want they were willing to submit to as they stepped forward.
There upon the platform, bathed in neon and worship was their long away goddess. Gleaming in energy they'd never seen and burning passion across the audience like a roaring inferno worthy of heaven itself. Paralyzed in resurging emotions, blinded by a beauty greater than remembered, they could only stand on the verge of tears as the Dancer's most infamous and intimate aria cascaded through the room like a tsunami in every beat and syllable. The reality of facing her after the show became even more inescapably terrifying when faced with the reality of her pain.
**
The Dancer was surrounded by her entourage yet again, a cohort of coworkers become family who loved her as she loved them. The walk through the VIP enabled hall after her performances had become a chore as much as an honor. For every thankful cousin was an annoying reporter and each of them was matched by an obsessive fool who thought they could answer her distant cries. Laughing and embracing, the Dancer still had appearances of stardom to maintain.
A hundred new faces every week, bleating and begging for attention like children. Concealing her pity with warmth as she scanned across the masses with kind eyes and a kinder smile, placating their drive for approval as best she could manage without personal connections.
However… a familiar silhouette moved in the crowd, between cameras, signs, and walking daydreams. Clad in ancient leather and a purple scarf, the symbols of a bygone movement, it was unmistakable to those who knew it.
But the figure turned to leave as she continued to carouse with her friends and entertain the crowd. Panic gripped her on the edge of her final salvation; the Dancer had to know if her eyes revealed the truth!
**
The Driver saw her happy, surrounded by friends and family and praise, and felt a bittersweet kind of happiness. She was free of them, it seemed, unbound by the crippling loneliness they had sunk so deep into. Met by so much noise and so much love, surely they had been left behind and allowed to die for her sake. The Driver accepted this, and turned to leave her be. If she was happy again now, without them, then they would not sully it by dragging the past to surface.
"[......]!" a voice smooth and deep as caramel called out, parting the crowd like an act of miracle cutting into the sand. In her summon was fear, caution, and longing all as one.
The Driver had stopped at the sound, being now the sole focus of the adoring crowd as the Dancer's voice muted in their ears from the shock. Slowly they turned around, tears welling into their eyes and ready to burst.
There she was at last. The Dancer. The ghost who'd haunted them. A beaming smile and shattered composure undid the Driver and the duo united once again in embrace as they called to each other over and over. The crowd was dispersed by security, and the entourage left them to the respect of privacy.
They knew who the Driver was, only one presence could match the stories the Dancer had sung. No other soul could possibly be so dear to her.
Finally, her long lost Wildrunner had come home.