Broken Glass - Taekook

43

I wake up to darkness. 

For a moment, I find myself panicking. After a dream like that, there's a part of me that's on guard from watching the devastation of that battle take place. But there's another part of me that's confused, a little calmed by the scene in the cave, though I have no way of knowing what that's supposed to even represent. 

As my senses take over again, and start to function properly, I realise that night still has a firm hold over the city of Mavathyr, that the world around us hasn't been destroyed in some cataclysm. It takes me a moment to fully relax and come back to the present, but once I do, I'm just relieved. I'm not in danger. Nobody here is in danger. The city is still safe. It's all okay. 

A strange energy begins to build in me, somewhere deep within my being. I close my eyes again, try to roll over and fall back into sleep. I lie there for a moment, two, and then find myself jumping to my feet. My mind is too active, too busy, to focus on anything right now. And anyway, the faint silver light of the mirror is gleaming, from under my pillow. I've been keeping it there every night we've been in Mavathyr, to keep it safe, but I never even considered the impact it could have on my sleep.

I reach over carefully, pulling the artefact from its hiding place. It rests in my hand, the familiar weight somehow comforting despite the fact that I haven't experienced a dream in so long. And not one like that, either. For a while, my visions were more like a conversation with the river itself, but the meaning appears to have shifted, and I'm now back to receiving wordless visions that make no sense. Left to try and explain the meaning to myself. Mostly in the middle of the night, too. 

I turn the mirror over in my hands, tracing the etched markings with one finger, knowing each twist and turn by heart at this point. On the nights where I can't sleep, this is what I bring out, to remind myself of my purpose. When I don't know what to look for, I take it out, and beg for answers. I'm not proud of that, not in the slightest, but it's my only connection to my benefactor, the creator of this entire world. I have no other choice. If I have been placed here by the golden river, I have to seek it out sometimes, and this is my only link. 

There are some questions you cannot pose to your friends, for fear they'd question your loyalty, your logic, your sanity perhaps. I've never wanted to appear like an idiot, like I was searching for something I never deserved, a connection not meant for me. It doesn't seem right to demand something like that from a world that I don't own. From a source that seems so alien and so familiar all in one. 

The mirror has become a focus, almost, something that I can turn to if I need to ground myself in the real world. Whatever that even means. 

I try to calm my thoughts now, return my attention to the destiny laid out before me, try to focus so that I can return to sleep and get the rest I need in order to access new information in the morning. I know that I haven't found everything I need. It's only been a week now, just about, since we arrived in Mavathyr. We don't know enough to defeat the king. 

But maybe we're just running out of time. I wouldn't know. 

As I sit there, just contemplating it all, a warmth seems to surround me, comforting in nature. There's no indication of where it comes from, no smiling friend or floating Gaklea before me, no glowing golden light. The mirror itself slowly fades, as it usually does, the brightness dimming as the magic wears off. And I'm left to sit there, in the middle of the night, alone in my room, and yet embraced by nothingness. 

"What do you want from me?" I murmur into the air. "What can I possibly bring to you? I am nothing, just a person from nowhere found floating in a river. I'm trying to understand, trying to grow, but I don't know enough."