Another Way

Interlude V: Velocity

Something very important, huh?

The Windrider sighed as she opened her eyes once more, her faint psychic grasp lifting Latch's letter before her yet again. She'd read and re-read it dozens of times, unable to stop thinking about it even as the sun set around her. Despite her many attempts to rest, sleep refused to arrive, just like her friend's words refused to leave her mind.

The excitement therein wasn't anything unusual for him. However, it was almost always aimed towards his research—and even then, only when he had confirmed a discovery or another. To see it regard something concerning her, and sensitive enough for him to refrain from describing it... left her confused.

For what could even be out there that truly concerned her anymore?

The thought cut through her idle pondering. The shrieks of her friend's letter getting creased in her psychic grasp broke the silence. It hurt to think about, but was a valid consideration. For all the years they've known each other, Latch knew little about her. Definitely not for the lack of trying, either. She was a friend to him, a title she held with joy. At the same time, he also treated her like a puzzle, a living box of secrets and mysteries that had grasped his curiosity and refused to let go.

His nickname for her—a single sound his language approximated to 'V'—was the closest he'd ever gotten to glimpsing one of said secrets. She remembered being annoyed at it once; angry that he'd overheard her drunken reminiscing of the conversations she'd had with her kin over a millennium ago and had somehow figured out which of the whistled, growled sounds corresponded to her name.

Nobody would ever utter it ever again; the intricacies of its pronunciation lost to anyone not of her kin. Nobody was to even try, either. For their names were sacred, gifts from the emerald deity of dragons itself.

And yet, the Windrider was glad Latch kept trying.

It wasn't much; he would never even get close, but... it was a connection. One much closer than she'd had with anyone since the tragedy that had devoured the archipelago she'd just made her pilgrimage to. She doubted she would ever meet someone like him again, someone so willing to chip away at her defenses, so determined to find out more about her as a person and not a demigod or a being of legend. Too stubborn to ever bounce off her aloofness. Maybe one day she'd finally crack, finally open up, finally admit to the most terrifying truth of all—

That, between her solitude and fraying memories, there just wasn't much to her anymore.

Anyhow.

She let go of his letter and closed her eyes once more, focusing on the sounds of the ocean. She'd maintained her determination for an impressive two minutes before curiosity reared its head again. And, once more, it honed in on the subject of Latch's message.

The best—and most unrealistic—scenario would be the news of more of her kin having been found by some distant exploratory mission. The Windrider considered it only for a moment before shaking the thought aside. She had already lost many, many decades to futile searching. The last thing she needed was to fall into that hole again.

So, if not that, what else? Very few even remotely plausible ideas sprang to mind, and she had lived far too long to derive any pleasure in outlandish speculation anymore. Or, at least, so she thought. Perhaps she just hadn't had any topics interesting enough to daydream about in the recent past; her mind suffocated by idle reminiscing, regrets, and... less than pleasant sights surrounding her whenever she stayed with Latch.

Not from him, thankfully. As far as the dragon was concerned, her friend was the shining star of his people; the very best and most thoughtful that Golden Sky had to offer. Sadly, all that meant that whenever she looked out the windows from his workshop, whenever she descended from his tower, whenever she attempted to talk to anyone, she only saw misery.