Arcaea: The World of Glass

[Side] Sunset Radiance

A thousand small fractures beneath every footstep, all softened at once by the smothering white all around them. A little interesting, a little strange to have here. Snow fills her footsteps as she leaves them behind and walks into more drifts. Snow, really, drifts all around her. Slowly, under a dark sky, the world is filled with white.

There, Kanae quietly considers her direction.

"It should be..." she whispers, looking toward the sky, "there... and then there." Her eyes trace something beyond what most might see glinting only vaguely up above in the dark, past the little waltzes and swings of thoughtless snow. She lowers her gaze after, and looks on ahead.

This a valley beyond a cliffside: it is an empty place, filled simply by empty cold. The white surrounding welcomes glimpses of the purple starlight above, leaving a hazy shimmer over much of the landscape and the far horizon. A plain place painted. Were this another time, she might stop to admire. Now, though, her course is kept with a sure and measured gait.

The silent night air, lightly decorated with those thousands of breaks below her; wind dancing only a little in the air. Her breath clouds her vision, warms her face...

Though she might treat it all unremarkably...

...so many would find it fascinating: this, the second snowfall of Arcaea.

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The winds bite at her nose, and with that bite Kanae narrows her eyes and picks up her shoulders. She taps her nose tip, slightly frowning. The world is darker now, as it often becomes with distance from the daylight border; and in the valley full of wind's whispers and shouts and through increasing snowfall... Kanae wagers that she's beginning to lose her direction.

She promptly looks to the sky again. She looks for faint glints in the heavens.

Now it's a bit too "without light" for even her to see. So, slowly, she raises a hand...

What has been glinting from above begins to glint now stronger, and stronger. Soon, each spot of weak light from above begins to powerfully glow until each has neared enough to be made out clearly. Yes: these are shards of glass, shards of Arcaea, in seven pieces.

They crawl toward her and when near enough hang loosely in the air, each little one spinning at its own slow speed. The purple that the snow had caught rests within them as well, and her eyes pass over each surface carefully. She looks not at the memories that they hold... she looks at them all, together, "as" something. She bends her fingers, extends them, and like that the shards begin to shift. They, as seven, begin to swiftly form a shape.

They shape first like a face...and after, for a moment, like a sword. Like a shield for a moment, and then like a twisting vine. Imprecise, but recognizable shapes... as the glass pieces take each vague form, they dull, and dull, and dull—though an especial one will never dim. After some time, she turns her eyes to that last remaining bright piece... and turns as well toward it.

This is her strange touch, and her stranger guide—or it might be best to say the strange guide is herself. What she can do, and always could: she can, simply, make a compass of Arcaea using these makeshift stars and faux starlight.

Satisfied with the new aim of the glass, Kanae marches forward once more: just as the winds around her turn again, and turn more than a touch fiercer.

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She finds a storm ahead and walks on through it.
As it whips at her ears, as it scatters her hair...
She marches ahead, following a single point of light nearly hidden within the blizzard.

She holds her clothing more tightly to herself and thinks to close her eyes, but does not. Wincing, she keeps her eyes steady on the glass formation ahead and above her, even as the wind almost pushes her from her course—even as the snow begins to climb beyond her calves, beyond her knees. Her heavy robe begins to feel thin, and her breathing begins to shorten.

Her ears feel as if they're being cut. Her nose is like ice on her face.

And she continues on.

"Can I... make it?" she speaks to herself, and in the raging snow she can't hear her own voice. Despite that, she affirms: "I have to."

But wind pushes down on her again. She falls to the ground, her hand pushing through fallen snow until that snow reaches her shoulder. It pushes up into her sleeve and hugs her arm. The heat of her skin quickly dies, and she coughs flakes from her face. Snow overtakes her, and she looks above again.

She forces herself to stand, and collapses.

"Up..." she bids.
"Up...!" she insists.

She rises to her feet, and feels suddenly without energy. Tired. Ready to rest.

Her eyelids feeling heavier, she breathes out a breath that feels warm, and shuts her left eye.

Her right gazes around. Still cognizant, still thinking...
Her right eye catches sight of a free and flying glass shard.

Kanae shuts her mouth, breathing through her nose and shaking all throughout her body as she reaches out toward that piece.

It's only a chance...just a small chance...
But a small chance is why she is here. It will be fine. She swore that it would, and it will be.
She reaches out...
...and the glass comes to her, and overwhelms her with light as she drifts into its memory.

A new place, though not a new time. A cabin of somewhere, and from a look through the windows: in the dead of the night. Kanae is upon the floor, her breath shallow and her ears and face warming... Warming?

She picks up her chin and finds a fireplace blazing before her. As her head grows warmer from its heat, her eyes widen. That this would be something she would feel...that this would be something that seems so real. It is real, it's real. She eventually finds strength and crawls up to sit before the flame.

"..."

A quiet cabin on a quiet night, in a memory caught in a storm...

Letting her body warm, Kanae lets a small smile find its way across her lips as well.
There is some poetry to all this...

Sat in a little miracle, Kanae keeps warm and remembers what brought her here.