I lay looking up at the sky. Everything is peaceful. No not just peaceful, still. Like everything is frozen in time. I'm so tired. I think I'll get some rest.... on this tiny little boat. Why is it...? I'll figure that out later. I flip around looking at the tiny boat. There's a little message written in oddly polite handwriting, if it was carved into the wood.
"I'll meet you there"
Oh boy is that quite the message, meet who where? And.... and worst of all, why in the hell is the writing so similar to how I write? I check myself over, no I'm not a clone and I haven't made one since doll was destroyed. So who wrote it? I'll figure it out later. I'm so very tired.
I feel myself getting lifted. I'm about to break whatever is doing it, but its shadows. Its manifested shadows.
"■■■■ don't your eyes!"
I do so, he seems a little panicked. I get dropped on some wood and I open them again to see neph, sunny and... a young girl? I sit up and I pat myself off.
"Oh hey guys. And hello person i dont know"
The girl smiles brightly
"Maybe us entering the storm was not fully useless, my lord it seems you where stuck in the eye of the storm"
The what? I'll ask later from what I'm getting we are in a storm in a boat.
"Should I summon my echo?"
I had called cetus back when prince had sent that message to morgan. Sunny shakes his head
"No its too dangerous. Right now we need to keep out of the water."
I nod well then...
"How long has it been since this all started?"
I only took a nap? Sunny and neph exchange looks
"Its been a few months since this all started"
I cough loudly almost choking
"I've been out for how long!?"
The ship is filled with water so I move two extra arms, some bowls and I start shoveling it out. Sunny comes closer glancing at the two other people, in a whisper he leans over
"So.... so was there anything written on that tiny boat?"
I nod
"I'll meet you there. In my own handwriting as well. Isn't that odd?"
He clearly shivers.
"Yeah I'll uh... I'll explain my theory on that once we are out of here."
He then picks up with the metal bowl he has. I'm not sure what neph is doing but she sure is doing it.
The storm hits us, it feels like I'm being ripped apart. Although it seems to be a messed up feeling like that i got making doll. Time. Its missing with time, how and why i don't know but it clearly is. I try to hold off some of the winds and any waves that are about to get in are turned to ice and are broken into tiny pieces. That will work. I glance at sunny then I look away. Its the storm playing with my head, he's not insane, and was never that kind of insane. Its not true, not real, it does not exist.
Suddenly the water inside the boat slides out and soon after, there's no more noise. I hold onto the deck. I glance down at the army made of ice. No. Its more tricks of the light. The ice had gotten wet enough to act like a mirror. My face in it was wrong, with 3 eyes, with two on one side and the other had a line across it going to the mouth. There was something like looked like a smile, but it seemed to be how the face rested and not a real smile if anything it was completely apathetic. Not real not real not real.
"M-my Lord?"
I put my hands on the deck and I make a thin layer of ice around it to take most of the damage. I hear a loud crack when I turn back neph is on the deck and the steering oar is broken. What now? Shadows suddenly fill the space, sunny's shadow lantern? Something odd and wrong seems to suddenly disappear or get weaker. We are thrown into the air as shadows wrap around the boat. I feel a hand grab the back of my robe and pull me over. As the oldest, or at least physically, it is my job to protect them, right? Around the shadow ropes I make a small shield of ice to stop water from getting to us.
I close my eyes. I don't want to see those... those horrible versions of them anymore. I don't want to see the burned dead body of neph, nor the near complete insanity of sunny. Least of all, I don't want to see that version of myself. Its like everything is wrong, in so so very many ways. But one thing seems to hold steady, I have to protect them. I have to, I can't just let them die. I won't, I can't.
I lay there, what a way for this to start.... its over, it seems. Light all around us, no more winds to combat. I'm so tired, didn't i just rest, or maybe not just. I have some experience dealing with time fuckery due to death of many, but its very little, yet it made a world of difference. It must have been so much worse for them. I slowly open my eyes looking at sunny sitting up, then a panic, i look past at neph.... where's the kid? He picks it up staring at it, neph hugs him from behind
"She's gone."
It feels like I'm seeing a private moment.
I wake up to the ship moving, or well being pulled. It would appear that cetus summoned itself and the two where now using it as a way to move the boat. I lift my head looking at the new oar and the raised sails.
"You where out like a light."
I look over at sunny
"We didn't wake you because you held both storms back alone so we figured you where out of essence."
I slowly sit up.
"That.... that writing.... it was me wasn't it? Just not this me."
He nods
"Yes. There's two of each of us, except neph, and their all corrupted."
I look at the sky "there's no other version of her because they killed her in their insanity" that was what I kept seeing. The burned corpse was her, and that insanity was him.
I look out standing next to sunny, there's a odd sense of dread
"What... what the hell is it doing here?"
I look at the... chain breaker. He looks away
"How could it be here?"
I extend heat sense, there's nothing evil in it at least
"I don't know. Maybe... maybe it's a different ship. The people who built the Chain Breaker could have created more than one vessel. Maybe."
I shake my head, no, its the chain breaker.
"....Or maybe Noctis had visited the Tomb of Ariel at some point in time. If he did, then his ship would have been carried into the Nightmare by the Spell, just like Daeron of the Twilight Sea was. Because the Great River flows through time."
I speak up
"Too different and that is not the same tree."
I active my wings and I hop on over to the ship. I walk around slowly everything is in order. I walk down to a room i know quite well, and I take off a panel. There's another message, next to a terrible scratched in drawing of my helmet.
"He will leave"