Heroes of Dreamland Rewritten, Book 1: Stars Amidst Lightning

Chapter 33

Sakura Dee|さくら•ヂィー

It takes us about another hour of flight to make it to the edge of Whispy Woods. We keep going for another fifteen minutes or so, until we reach a deeper, thicker area close to the river that flows through the center of the Woods— with all those storm clouds bubbling up on the horizon, I don't want to be somewhere where the trees are sparsely grouped and any one of them makes for an inviting lightning target, especially when everything's so dry and anything not close to the river could easily go up in flames all thanks to just one stray bolt of lightning. Once I spot a thicket of still-deep-green trees all grouped closely together, making a sort of leafy roof, we land in a nearby clearing and enter the thicket on foot.

It's not quite sunset yet, so we're all a bit sad to have to set up camp somewhere so dim and sunless, especially since there's no telling when we'll get to see the sun again. Once again, I feel sad for Meta Knight— I understand why he's so suspicious and on-edge, but you'd think even he could have enjoyed the weather today, since we have no idea when we'll get to have a nice day like this again. Probably not until after we've defeated the monster, wherever it's hiding.

It's not hard at all to find dry wood nearby, thanks to the lack of rain, and so I have the kids make a game out of tearing up a small patch of grass while I head away from the river a ways and collect wood and kindling to build a fire with. When I come back about ten minutes later, the kids have even built a little stone ring around the dirt patch, using damp stones from the riverbank. In the cheeriest voice I can manage, I thank them for their help and start building the fire, while the two of them head back down to the river under the pretense of Kirby grabbing the Water Ability just in case the fire gets out of hand. More likely, they just want to play in the water before it gets dark out. I tell them to be back before sundown, and to come back right away if they see any lightning at all.

The fire starts easily enough, and when the kids bring back a couple of fish that they caught using vines, sharp stones as hooks, and worms as bait, we actually end up having our first hot meal in over a week. I'm even able to find some tubers not far away that I recognize from a book as being non-poisonous, so we end up having a sort-of rough fish and chips dinner. It's not fine dining by any means, but it's the best we've had in over a week, like I said. Either way, when the fire begins to die down some and the world grows dark (with the clouds still slowly spreading from the horizon) an hour or so later, the two kids are able to fall asleep under a tree with full stomachs.

While the kids were still awake and goofing around like they usually do, it was easy for me to keep my mind off of things. But now that they're asleep and I have a long night of being the only one here to keep watch stretched out in front of me, any pretense of happiness quickly disappears. I still feel just awful about earlier. I still don't know what got into me, when I told Meta Knight that my name isn't Sakura. It doesn't make any sense to me, even now. I like my name; a lot, actually. And I definitely didn't mean it the way he took it... but how could I ever explain that when even I don't know how I meant it?

Sighing heavily, I hug my thin cape around myself as the night grows chillier (it's absolutely beautiful and easily the coolest thing I've ever owned, second only to the Cherry Star Sword, but it's worth nothing when it comes to warmth, it seems). The summer's been unusually cool this year, probably thanks to the clouds that keep blocking out the sun. At least they're not having a blanket effect and making everything hotter than normal. The lack of humidity's probably helping with that, I guess.

Making a face at my boring weather-related thoughts, I try to think about other things, but keep ending up back at how bad I feel about earlier, and how worried I am that Meta Knight won't come back. Most of me understands that his sense of honor and duty will keep him from being away for too long, but I'm still afraid that I've really done it this time and that he'll never come back. At the same time, I'm even more afraid that he will come back, but that he'll be angry at me forever. Unfortunately, that outcome seems way more likely than any other.