Ode to Love

The Mechanic sees a rune flash inside her head. "That's the signal!" She makes her way above decks, shouts to her crew about her leg of the mission having begun, and then disembarks along the gangplank. The shoreline is foreign to her. She is used to the clutter of the underbelly of the ship, but still she makes her way along it. The cool of the night contrasts the warmth of the sand well, and provides some difference in sensation for the journey. Still, each step feels labored in its monotony, and so her mind starts to wander. Suddenly, she feels herself generate a rune of her own.  Just like that she is in a facility. It seems welcoming, though intentionally sterile. There is something... missing about it. Her mind starts to run at a million miles per hour, but only briefly. I suddenly walk in, as if drawn to the diaspora and her need for a partner, and she relaxes to a degree. It is as if the flywheel of her mind has a counterpart to lock into, someone running at the s...

The Ghost Rat Messenger slips off the ship onto shore, beneath cover of night. She had a plan in mind for how to encounter The One Sought, but she knows it will not be easy. Upon reaching the shoreline she looks over sea and up, and brightens the night sky with a grand display. Like fireworks, the dazzling lights replicate The Starry Night, certainly visible from anywhere within line of sight of the shoreline. From there she just wanders for a bit, letting her cares wash away like sand beneath waves. She finds herself beside the giant conch, hauntingly beautiful in the moonlight. She knows that I am here somewhere, though she knew this before, as her station grants a degree of foreshadowing and something like narrative sight. It is as if she can scan the sand and see me walking, but without context enough to say where. Still, it seems that I have witnessed her light display, and I am making my way along the shoreline somewhere, based on the specifics. Despite an endless shoreline, stil...

The Demon of God spots it, backlit by sunset. It is a land of storied legends, where The One Sought is said to be. It is said to be an island, but a scan of the horizon reveals only shoreline. "Land ho!" she cries out in her native tongue, and the crew makes rapid preparations for landfall. Soon enough, the ship presses against soft sand, and she alone gets off.  This island is strange, known for its mystical landmarks, shifting along with its sand, though no one has ever claimed to be here directly. It is a threshold in its own right, a double shoreline in a way, for the laws of her native realm do not fully apply here. Thoughts like these, and of the stories which she has heard, read, and memorized in preparation for her arrival, eddy within her mind like a sandstorm. Still, what once was thought impossible is accomplished before the sun fully sets: she finds the giant conch.  "He's somewhere on the beach." She came on her birthday on purpose, believing him to...