Chapter Text
She could faintly remember the warm glow of the ballroom. The chandeliers towered way out of reach, but their candles burned ever so bright. The ballroom itself was more elaborate than anything her village could hope to build, and invited guests she could only imagine faint outlines of. She wasn’t even sure what kind of dress she was wearing that night.
It was easier to remember the one guest who caught her eye. A slender, pale man with small horns poking out of his messy brown hair, still wearing the village’s traditional shawl beneath his immaculate outfit. He flashed her a smile of familiarity. “I told you I’d get you here,” he whispered, his voice clearly audible amid the orchestra playing in the background. Filled with relief, she reached to take his hand.
Then Mono woke up. “Wander,” she muttered, slowly remembering the tree she chose to nap by. As she gathered herself, she half-noticed the deer looking curiously at her. Surely by now it would recognize her. How long had she been out? Even with the sun directly above her, it was hard to tell time in this place.
Her stomach rumbled. “Ugh, that didn’t take long,” she muttered, using the tree to rise to her feet. “Uwe,” she called, looking around. No sign of him. “Uwe!” she repeated, walking around the tree. She huffed. Where had the little scamp run off to now?
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Uwe mumbled between bites, holding a half-eaten fruit up to Agro. “Even after all this time, I keep finding new fruit around here.”
Agro snorted and trotted away. Uwe scoffed and looked the other direction, across the small desert the two had just crossed. “Hey, don’t go too far!” he yelled, finishing off the fruit. As he tossed the core aside, he noticed a small pigeon struggling to perch on the branches overhead. “Oh, hey sir!” he yelled, relieved to have new company. “My name’s Uwe. What’s yours?”
The pigeon, as he expected, didn’t respond.
“You must be new around here,” said the horned boy. “Bet you’ve got a lot of questions.” His attention turned to the collapsed bridge that divided the desert. “So, I live here with my Mom. Been here about…” He tried counting on his fingers, trying valiantly to make sense of time. “Hard to say,” he conceded. “I swear, some days here run on for weeks, then you get a bunch of nights one after the other. Even Mom doesn’t know how long we’ve lived here.”
The pigeon hopped along the branch, finally settling on a stronger part. It stared down at him. “Uh, technically I’m not her son,” he explained. “She adopted me right here. Says she doesn’t know what the heck I was doing in the middle of a dry pool, but uh…” He pointed meekly at the Shrine of Worship, visible from every stretch of the Lands he’d visited. “Yeah, that place. Raises a bunch of questions.” He pulled at his cotton shirt. “Would you believe there’s entire chambers full of cloth like this? Mom wove this for me herself!” He looked down at the one sandal on his right foot and felt a little embarrassment. “Shame she’s not a cobbler,” he added, scrunching the dry grass with his left foot.
The pigeon flew away, knocking another fruit off the tree. Uwe threw himself backwards to catch it, hitting the ground with a thud. The fruit splatted over his face and shirt, dazing him for a second. “Yeah, I need to come back here,” he thought aloud as Agro started trotting back. “Here, you should try one,” he said, licking his lips. “If it can cure broken bones, what else can they do?”
Agro shook her head, as if beckoning for Uwe to climb on. His shoulders sagged. “Fine,” he said, grabbing her reins. “You think Mom noticed I was gone?”
The fruit only left a small stain on the collar of Uwe’s shirt, which dried quickly under the erratic sun. Agro headed straight for the Shrine of Worship while Uwe called out for Mono. With such empty horizons everywhere, sound was the only reliable way for either to find the other, and that luxury went out the window on particularly windy or rainy days. As the horse predicted, he heard her cries from the Shrine. “Man,” he complained. “Was hoping she’d be in the forest this time.”
Mono stood alone by the side of the Shrine, giving her adopted son a bemused glance as he approached. Her long hair blew in the wind, while her long, somewhat tatty gown billowed with it. “What fruit did you find this time?” she asked dryly, noticing the stain on his collar.
“Oh!” Uwe gasped. “Uh, it was brown and sorta shrivelled,” he said sheepishly, dismounting. “Sorry for disappearing,” he added, as if he was expected to just stay in the Shrine while she slept.
“Right,” Mono nodded. “How’d it taste?” Her son had visited and tried more fruit than she had for a while now. She didn’t enjoy riding Agro; her dress made it awkward to sit comfortably atop the saddle and take the reins, and the Shrine’s chambers didn’t have any more practical clothes that fit her. That being said, ever since she’d tried her first fruit outside the Shrine, walking barefoot across the plains had grown a little less painful by the day. She hadn’t thought of using the chambers’ sandals for a long time.
“Pretty savory,” Uwe replied. “I prefer the ones by the beach, y’know?” As he thought about that lone tree watching over the cliff, excitement grew within him. “Hey, can we go down to the beach later? Please, pretty please?”
“It’s always the beach, isn’t it?” Mono muttered. “You know there’s a perfectly pleasant forest up north, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but it’s so cramped in there,” Uwe protested, dismounting Agro. As he did, Mono noticed his left foot was bare. The moment it touched the ground, he realized his cover was blown. “Oh, uh, I lost a sandal along the way.”
“Again?!” Mono cried with an exasperated sigh. “Were you trying to climb out of the cliff entrance again?”
“No, um…” He scratched the back of his head. “There was this eagle, you see…”
“Another damn eagle!” Mono turned and walked around the Shrine’s back. “I swear, sometimes I think you’re trying to get killed.”
Oh no. She was mad at him. “Hey,” Uwe stammered, feeling a knot in his stomach. “I’m sorry. I thought this time I…”
“You never learn, do you?!” Mono snapped, scowling at him. “Do you realize how lucky we are to be alive in this Gods-forsaken place? Why do you think there’s nobody else around here?”
Uwe looked down at the ground, unsure how to answer. “I…”
“This is a cursed land,” Mono hissed. “Before my sacrifice, time didn’t even move here. Even now, we’re strangers here. How are we going to survive if either of us is just going to climb around like a damn idiot all the time?!”
Tears fell from Uwe’s eyes. “M-mom, I’m…” he tried to say.
“If you were sorry, you’d…” Mono continued, before something caught her attention. A strange warmth emanating from the northernmost walls of the Shrine. The anger melted from her mind as she approached. There was a thin crack in the brickwork, as if they would move aside on approach. She tried pushing against it. No luck. How had she never noticed this before? “So you still hide secrets here,” she thought aloud, looking up at the spires towering above them. As her attention returned to the ground, she saw her adopted son, still crying from her outburst.
“Hey,” she said, releasing her remaining anger with a sigh. “I’m sorry about what I said earlier.” She bent on one knee to look him in the eye. “I’m just a bit frustrated being stuck here, you know?”
Uwe nodded wordlessly. He understood that frustration all too well.
“You got any more sandals you can use?”
“I-I don’t th-think so,” Uwe stuttered.
She offered him a smile. “You could always try one of mine,” she joked. “C’mon,” she added, getting back on her feet. “I fancy one of those beach fruit now.”
He nodded, still tearful, and ran ahead to the Shrine’s entrance. Mono watched him go with a tinge of regret. He didn’t choose to be born here, after all. As he disappeared, she felt a strong rumble in her stomach. A couple of fruit weren’t going to satisfy that. “Alright, come on old girl,” she said, patting Agro on the flank. “You didn’t move my bow again, did you?”
The arrow’s whoosh cut through the distant roar of the sea, stabbing the white-tailed lizard with a loud thunk. It writhed in pain for a second, stopping just as Mono approached to rip the tail off its body. She took a few bites, feeling that trademark energy course through her body with delight. Since eating the meat, she found it easier to walk for longer across the Lands’ plains. In fact, she was getting used to running across without breaking a sweat. Even if she couldn’t keep pace with Agro, the strength was too invigorating to not use.
“Hey, Mom?” Uwe yelled from behind her. “Could I have some?”
Mono turned with the last gulp, and was immediately met with Uwe’s disappointed look. “Uh, sorry,” she mumbled, running to join him. “Only saw one.” She looked around, noticing a white glint on a nearby boulder. “Ah, hey! There’s one!” She gestured for Uwe to step back as she readied her bow. Her gaze ran down the arrow’s shaft, focusing in on the tiny black smudge scurrying around the stone. Her fingers strained against the bow's tension, pleading to release it.
“Oi, watch it!”
The arrow went wide, bouncing off the boulder and scaring the lizard away. Mono snarled and glared at Uwe. “What was that for?”
“Hey, that wasn’t me, Mom!” Uwe cried, looking toward the cliff edge.
“What do you…” she started before the two heard it again. “How many of these are there?!” A man’s voice. How could a voice sound so deep? Uwe couldn’t make sense of it, and instinctively ran to get a good look. Mono followed, watching her son freeze in shock. “Uh, Mom?”
She saw it very quickly: the mast of a galleon off the coast, with a rowboat docked on the sand, two men dragging barrels across the beach.