Gravity Rises (S2)

HW: Part One

When Blind Lincoln left for the forest, he had imagined a chance to be outside, to wander, to escape the narrow confines of the Order headquarters for once. Instead, he was stuck in this cave.

Escaping one stony prison for another. Wonderful.

The only person to complain to was Bill, who was probably laughing to himself about the irony of it all. Lincoln should be out there enjoying the sun, even if it was weak and wintery, but he couldn't. Because of Stanford Pines' pesky cameras.

They were boxy, dilapidated old things, but apparently a fair number of them still worked. Lincoln had no idea where they were, had no way to avoid them. But Bill did. So to get Lincoln out here, Bill had possessed him and navigated through the forest, out of the cameras' views.

It'd been the first time in years that Lincoln had been possessed, and getting torn out of his body hadn't gotten any easier. But it was over now. Now, he had all the time in the world to stare at the ancient prophecies scrawled on the stone walls of his cave.

Luckily, no cameras could see the entrance to his cave, so Lincoln didn't have to stay entirely out of the sun. He'd brought supplies to attempt translations of the prophecies, but his mind wasn't wired for language, and he spent most of his time sitting and basking in the sun.

He didn't get much sunlight these days. Or any, really.

Currently, he sat on a rock just outside the cave, watching the sunset. He couldn't make out the whole thing through these trees, but what he could see was beautiful. Bare tree trunks spindled upward, cutting stark lines through the splayed red light of the sun. Clouds just above the sun glowed pink, but the sky on either side was a rich, deep red. Lincoln thought it must be the most beautiful sunset he had ever seen.

Not that it had much competition.

Lincoln watched, still as a statue, as the sun gradually sank behind the distant mountains, as the stars began to peek through the periwinkle sky, as the color of the sky faded from purple-blue to purple-black. He had watched the sunset every night since arriving at this cave, and he treasured every one. It meant sitting in frigid temperatures, but he didn't mind. The cold made him feel alive.

After a while, he carefully picked himself up and climbed down from the rock. With one last smile up at the stars, he ambled back into his cave.

He returned to his bedroll and sat beside it, leaning against the rock wall with a sigh. There didn't seem to be much point behind him coming out here. Bill had made some offhand comment about recreating the memory gun, but then he'd instructed Lincoln to leave the memory gun with Pacifica, and Lincoln couldn't go out and talk with the dwarves anyway, what with those cameras. When he'd found out he'd be staying in the cave of prophecies, he brought along paper and pencils and a book or two for an attempt at translation, but that was just for his own sanity. The only reason he'd been given for this expedition was to be "out of the way for a few weeks." Why that was necessary, Lincoln did not know.

But then, he'd been ordered by Bill. Lincoln couldn't exactly disobey a direct order from Bill.

Eventually, Lincoln crawled into his sleeping bag. He may as well try to sleep. It wasn't like he had anything else to do.

He was in the middle of a dream when something odd — his hands, with six fingers instead of five — pulled him into lucidity. He glanced around the dream version of the Order headquarters, excitement bubbling in his heart. Lucid dreams without Bill were rare, and he knew exactly what he wanted to do in this one. Lincoln jumped into the air and flew through the ceiling out into the daylight, which was the same shade of red as tonight's sunset. He soared across the sky, into the wisps of light on the horizon. Sometimes, a person needed a good flying dream, and Lincoln took the chance to have one whenever he could.