(Rose)
The boat has departed, my new friend commanding it.
I'm sailing for the first time in my life. We're heading East, toward Italy. It shouldn't take a day she says.
The wind, the sea, the boat's engine running... It feels so... nice. It's mesmerizing.
Behind us, the island is soon no more but a stain on the sea.
The young woman is crying in relief over the controls.
H - I thought I would never see this day in my life... Thank you...
She cries and smile, and pushes the boat to go even faster.
And it can sail incredibly fast!
The wind is getting strong in my hair and against my face but I like it. It's a pleasant sensation. It's a kind of massage.
After a while, I realise she's not holding the bar anymore but looking at the sea with me.
I gawk at her, round eyes in surprise, at which she laughs.
Don't worry she says, that boat can be smarter than people and it'll keep going straight ahead to the shore even without guidance.
I can barely hear her voice because of the sounds from the sea we're sailing over.
The boat endlessly goes slightly up and down. My stomach holds for now. The wind is very nice along it.
I'm feeling good, but I'm rather lonely still, since Blume keeps quiet most of the time currently.
I'm sure despite being embodied in someone else but me currently, that she'll soon be able to talk to me directly.
Wasn't there a strong and growing link between our brains too?
She said that once.
Yet I can't hear a thing from her coming from within me currently.
Horanah is younger than she looks, but also more damaged. She must be infinitely more relieved than even I am, to leave her island behind. And she is.
She looks back at it a last time.
It's barely visible in the distance now. It's the end of a long, long nightmare... It lasted but a day or so for me. Years of agony for her.
Today's sunshine is an inconceivable dream come true.
And soon, the shores of Italy will appear ahead. A land of liberty she couldn't dream of anymore not so long ago...
The next step of my journey can mean so much more to her.
Was it luck, or just fate?
I've heard once that probability of past things happening as they did exactly, is always nonsensically low. Thus, the past always sounds like fate?
R - How do you like the sea, Blume?
Horanah looks at me with round eyes this time. She still doesn't quite understand us. And maybe she cares less about this than about fleeing away from her jail finally. I can understand that.
Blume speaks through her.
B - It's eerie. I don't know what to say currently, it's too new for me to say... There's nostalgia perhaps?
Nostalgia about the sea? What does she mean by that I wonder.
She doesn't say anything afterward. She really isn't as talkative as usual since I lost her...
R - Are you feeling alright Blume?
B - I'm just a little tired. I will take a short nap and I'll be all better right after.
Horanah laughs at what she just said. On my side, I have a cold shiver. I turn away from them and keep my gaze at the sea.
It's endless, even though we're close to the land. The boat is sailing at full speed across the surface of this unknown world.
We're almost flying above a liquid void. I'm feeling anxious without Blume by my side...
~
Hours have passed. The boat still sails straight ahead. She's holding the bar, looking ahead and at a compass. Something is not right and she's concerned.
H - We should have reached the shore already...
Yet it's nowhere to be seen.
Either we're not where we think we are, or this area of Italy has sunk quite deep into the sea. Or we went the wrong way? Well, that comes to the first option as well.
We search what is wrong.
The compass and map look alright. We can't see the bottom of the sea to check if it used to be land, it's too deep.
She slowed the boat's speed while we think about it.
I have a weird intuition. What if the magnetic field of Earth had gone upside down? The compass would guide us in the opposite direction.
The sun is still setting West though... So unless Earth also began rotating in the opposite manner, this mad idea is wrong. Thank goodness...
We're still lost though. And night is falling.
Horanah lets the boat go slowly ahead and we go to sleep in our different cabins. We'll see if the night was long enough to reach a land by then. We head North East now. We're bound to hit some land soon enough...
This night I dreamt about the mermaid I once met. Mir... I wonder how that strange creature shaped like a wheel is doing? I hope it's alright...
And the snake back home... And my friends... They're family to me now...
I see those clear blue eyes again.
They're like a violent but quiet explosion in the silence of the night.
I wake up in a gasp, drenched in cold sweat.
A bad dream... Again...
I'm lonely. She's not there to reassure me. I miss her kindness.
I hardly fall asleep again.
~
The sun has risen over the sea, but doesn't reach us. A large shadow rised along in front of us.
The high cliffs of the land we reached are just there.
We've reached land.
~