Stardust

Chapter 8: Arrival

       Captain Fenala's ship settled onto the grass of the island, the wind buffeting the metal sides as Reka stopped her mana from flowing into the hull. She moved next to Fenala and Yuval, putting her hand on Yuval's shoulder.

       "Let us be rid of this Hashran finally." She spoke to him, her words harsh, but her tone not quite as sharp as she had been previously when speaking of Fenala. 

       Reka's eyes moved briefly to look at Fenala, who was doing her best to ignore the remarks as she stared out the window of the ship. Yuval let out a quiet sound, like waves crashing against a beach. He looked to the side, his eyes roaming over the Hashran...  no, the woman next to him. He cocked his head to the side curiously. Sometime over the journey and through his interactions, he had begun to think of Fenala as more than just a strange being from beyond the veil, more than a Hashran. She did not act like the stories that were told to children, like the savages that the tribes were constantly at war with. Yuval wondered why that was as him and Reka took up position on either side of the captain and led her to the airlock exit. 

      Upon reaching the airlock door, Yuval opened it and Reka floated through the entrance and waited as Fenala followed behind her. Reka went to the outer door and stood waiting as Yuval entered the airlock chamber and closed the inner door, the latch clicking as it locked in place. Reka slid the outer airlock door open with ease as Yuval came to float beside Fenala, the heavy door seeming almost weightless in her grasp. Fenala looked anxiously to the side at Yuval who was noticeably ignoring her glances. Reka motioned for Fenala to exit the ship as she made a sound that sounded to Fenala as if she were scraping rocks together in her throat. 

       "Alright, alright. I'm going." Fenala said sighing as she stepping through the protruding doorway out into the light. 

       She held her hand up to her eyes, shielding them from the worst of the sun's rays. They had set her ship down onto a small outcropping of land that jutted from the Ocean, stretching about two lengths longer than her ship in every direction. She looked around in surprise at the lack of landmarks. All she could see was endless ocean, the sun's light glimmering off the waves in a brilliant pattern of sparkling diamonds. Her ship was big enough for one person to fly and live in comfortably, only slightly larger than a small house or barn would be on her home planet. She wondered how they had known to set the ship down here without any kind of waypoint to guide them as she stepped off the small step protruding from her ship and away from the airlock door exit.

       As Fenala walked forward, further towards the edge of the island, she could see that there was actually more land stretching out just beneath the water. From where she was, she couldn't see how far it went, but that it did indeed stretch into the distance, the soft lapping of the waves obscuring it from view previously. As Fenala was taking in the new surroundings, Yuval and Reka came up behind her on either side, each of them placing a hand on one of her shoulders. Yuval spoke, his voice almost solemn.

      "We must take you to the Tribe Mother Captain Fenala." The words came out short and without pause he dropped his hand from her shoulder and floated in front of her towards one side of the island. Reka did not remove her hand from Fenala's shoulder as she pushed her firmly towards where Yuval was leading the way, but without the roughness that was expected.

       Fenala didn't try to resist or argue. She merely followed Yuval with Reka at her back. She didn't really like having Reka in particular behind her, but she was at least not trying to kill her as when they first met. Reka was a mystery to her. Yuval seemed pretty straight forward and seemed to at least have some of his own opinions. Reka on the other hand seemed to hate her with such enmity that could only come from past trauma or conflict. Fenala was roused from her musings as Yuval had reached the edge of the island, where the grassy land turned into slow moving waves against the rocky edge. Suddenly, he disappeared in front of her. She hesitated slightly, but Reka pushed her from behind, almost making her stumble. As she was forced forward towards where Yuval had been before, Fenala could see now that he hadn't been going down into the water, but was making his way down an opening in the rocks just at the edge of the island. There was a tunnel with stairs carved into the stone that led downward in a spiral. The water around the entrance flowed into little slits that were carved just before the stairs and around the edge of the circular cutout that made the entrance. Fenala stepped cautiously onto the wet stone and began making her way down the stairs after Yuval. 

       Their descent was lit by glowing crystal-like fixtures in the wall at about shoulder height. The crystals were varying shapes, like uncut gems that the stone was molded around. They emanated a soft green glow that seemed to fade dimmer and then brighter once again as they passed. Fenala was constantly slowing down to try and inspect them as they walked, before Reka made her walk on. It was all so new and fascinating to her. To think that there was a whole new world with life on it outside of her own. Fenala became like a child, each new detail of her journey only adding to the excitement and also fear of what was to come next. As the time passed, Fenala began to wonder if they would ever reach the bottom. The crystals on the walls became brighter the farther down the stairs they got and some of them even shimmered with different colors, with small particles of light floating in and out of them. They shimmered like shining beacons with cloaks of light against the dark stone walls. 

       Very abruptly Fenala was stopped as she nearly walked into the back of Yuval, his fish-like tail swishing against the bottom of her legs as he floated in front of a large door. The door was carved from the same stone as the walls of the passageway they had travelled down and Fenala couldn't see any way of opening it. She was about to speak up and ask as Reka floated up next to Yuval and together they each placed a webbed hand onto the door. Once again, as with every other time the two had used their mana, Fenala could see the light gather within them, concentrating in their chest before moving through their arms and hands into the stone door. She noticed that although it seemed to glow to her eyes, the color of the mana fluctuating constantly as it was expended into the stone, there was no light cast against the two users. Nor was there a single shadow created from the glow that emanating from the beings. "Weird." Fenala thought to herself.

       Yuval and Reka having finished their ritual of mana, pushed against the door and it swung open freely, revealing an entire expanse of space on the other side.