Wonder Wander

Chapter {2} Lure of a cure

A few minutes later Dawn's father had managed the mess so it was time to make their way back into their home. Climbing onto his father's back, the two crossed the desert pond before landing under the shadow of an enormous stone at the center of the oasis. It had been cut, smoothed, and hollowed with glass windows and an entrance that was partially submerged in the water.

Making their way up the entrance steps they arrived in the living room. Everything was made from either metal or some sort of stone or granite, from the floors and walls to the furniture.

A double clap turned the two's heads, and there his mother Kyrah stood. White skin, vibrant blue eyes, and salts that sparkled distinctly in her long black hair like tiny stars. Using the sleeves of her black cloak she ruffle-dried Dawn's hair before kissing his head and stepping back to sign something with her hands:

[I'm glad you're swimming, but please do be mindful not to swim too deep.]

"Trust me Mom I won't."

Kyrah's hands hesitated [Are... are you prepared to start?] She disliked that her waking always had to be the prelude to what was to come next.

Dawn gave a sighing chuckle but steeled himself. He looked into his mother's eyes with a determined smile and signed back [If it will allow me to live long enough to meet a girl as pretty as you, then yes].

Kyrah let out an audible gasp, quickly covering her mouth, then Dawn's hands [It's only dusk, don't make me cry!]

Leo laughed and began walking Dawn over to the center of the room. There, beneath the soft twilight that peered through the skylight high above, was a large obsidian disc encircled in a ring of porcelain lying on the floor. Taking a step up onto it, Dawn slid from off his father's back and into its center, while his mother and father seated themselves behind and in front of him.

With a magical flick of her wrist, and without a touch, Kyrah flipped over an hourglass that sat upon a granite stand beside them. As its sands began to trickle themselves down she quickly took hold of Leo's hands creating a ring around Dawn, while Dawn himself placed his hands over theirs.

A dark shadowy aura began to ooze from Kyrah like oil rising from the sea, with the pressure in the air beginning to increase. Simultaneously, a warm bright aura began to emanate from Leo in flickers of light that drifted off like fireflies into the night. The warm energizing power of his father, and the cool calming energy of his mother, flowed through his body like a stream both calming his body and sharpening his mind.

But as the sands continued to fall, Dawn began to feel a cramping sensation that traveled from the tips of his fingers squeezing its way up his arm and into the base of his neck, causing his entire body to tremble.

Leo began to increase the flow of his bright aura into Dawn "Be strong son, bear it as long as you can then bear it even longer! You exist in your mind not your body, you have ten ticks left push yourself!"

His father's aura was electric, hearing he had ten seconds left nearly took the wind from his sails, even as the last grains of sand were falling, he could feel himself slipping away.

Kyrah's dark aura pushed back against Leo's, it was hard enough watching her boy suffer as it was, let alone when his father tried to push him.

But this did not deter the boy, instead tightening his grip over their hands "No helping mom I can make it..!"

Kyrah reached her thumb over Dawn's hands trying to offer some sort of comfort before closing her eyes and having her aura recede back to equilibrium with Leo's. The strain returned and intensified, creeping from the base of his neck and into his brain and eyes, he strained, and pushed, and then just as felt he could bear it no further-

he could bear it no further.

Dawn's eyes rolled into the back of his head, his hands numbly slipping from off Kyrah and Leo before having his head thud into the granite without so much as a bounce.

His mother rushed her hands under his head, quickly but gently bringing him close to her. Leo went to reach out, but Kyrahs demonor forbade it, she did not look at him, she simply held him ever closer.

She felt Dawn's waking body shuffle with in her grasp, before going still.

"Son? Are you alright?" Asked his father.

Dawn gripped his mother tightly, digging his face into her shoulder as tears began to well up in his eyes "No..." Hard as he tried to contain it, a sharp gasp of for air escaped his chest, and he began to cry.

There was no hiding it now, Dawn wept into his mother, his body and voice had betrayed him in order to shout out the truth "I don't want to keep doing this! Balancing isn't helping like it used to, It's getting harder, and I'm scared it's just going to keep getting worse! Is this the rest of my life? Am I going to have to deal with this forever? And with more pain on top of it? What's going to happen if you aren't here to help me? It scary! I don't want to die, but it's exhausting, I feel... helpless... and hopeless too."

The couple sank into stillness, any other day they would have expected Dawn to keep to himself, but today was the first time that their son had ever been so open. Kyrah held Dawn's hands tightly in hers, before signing emphatically within them  [We, will never leave you. You will always have us. We will always be here to support you. I wish, that you had told us that you felt this way...]

Half blind that he was, even Leo could see that Kyrah's words did little to comfort him. Dawn had long accepted that his life would never change, but the conversation with his father had opened old insecurities that ran quite deep. "Kyrah, could you sit him at the table please?"

Kyrah obliged while Leo left the room. There was some shuffling heard from the other room before Leo returned with his hands behind his back. As he sat at the table he placed perhaps the single most coveted thing throughout the realm of the Varee, a cactus, and with it, three of its fruits resting atop a large bowl of sand.

"If I had to guess, it's probably going to take more than some fruit to motivate you, even though there are men that would kill for this here. Which is why..." Leo rolled the fruit over to Dawn, but as he caught it he noticed it was abnormally heavy. Leo gestured to take a bite, and so he did.

As Dawn bit into the soft sweet meat of the fruit, his teeth hit something solid, shrugging back he looked to see something shining inside. Dawn began further eating and peeling away, digging his finger in he pulled out a ball of pure Gold.

"You're mother and I had hoped that with enough time we could cure you, but as you've said, this is no cure let alone an enjoyable way to live the rest of your life. We've made it a point not to tell you this, but there used to be Eclipsi children just like you, and they were never cursed by their mixed blood. Do you know why?"

Dawn shook his head.

"It is because they were born, and lived on the surface of Insonia, back before the gods banished our people to the Varee."

The look on Dawn's face said it all "Really?"

Dawn's father nodded back "Yes really. They never had to be balanced or cared for because the realm of Insonia made it innate, in fact, they were often the strongest amongst us, blessed with dreams day and night. We've kept this from you because sometimes, it's better to be left in the dark rather than to chase an unfulfillable wish just out of reach."

Dawn thought back to the Crob that he had fished out of the brine earlier "Yeah..."

"But you're four halos old, you're a young man, so I believe that you can handle the truth. But also, I don't intend to offer you false hope. The gold in that fruit is Terrarian horn gold, melted from my blade. I want you to swallow it because where I intend on taking us, I will no longer need it."

Dawn felt a gasp in his heart.

"There is a way back, back to Insonia."