Once upon an orbit of planet Fait, a playful young girl and her flustered yet resourceful single father must endure sickness, encounter exotic creatures, escape a predatory government, and outwit a wicked wizard to survive just one more day. Having...
Io, now all dissolved into mud and goo, splattered into the desert, leaving one big green smear.
Father and daughter landed to the black rocks of the Western Wilds, but, much to their surprise, instead of a hard hit to hard ground, the black sand splashed.
With Shadowslider wrapped around them like a cocoon of black feathers, his arms over his head, Rene and Nariah were sinking quickly down through the black sand while she hugged him.
In their little cove of black feathers, the rainbow braid was glowing, providing light. Face to face, Rene smiled and said to Nariah, "The ground's not hard, it's soft. That means we can swim up and out."
"Oh. Right. Well, I wasn't scared, at all, actually, Daddy."
"Of course you weren't, my brave girl."
"Um. But. Um. Like. Do you know how to swim?"
"Before, when I was your orbits, Grandma taught me by the shore."
"And now, you're going to teach me?"
"Exactly, my daughter. All you have to do is kick your legs, like me. Can you kick your legs? And chop with your arms?"
Nariah began to kick and chop, chop and kick, and Rene was kicking, too. Rene kept his arms raised over his head, with the cloak providing them a cocoon of air around their upper bodies. Soon, they weren't sinking anymore, but rising up—slowly, slowly, up.
Finally, the tip of the Shadowslider cocoon pointed up through the black sands of the Western Wilds. Side by side the father and daughter tread sand, bobbing there, with their upper bodies free to the air.
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Heaving for breath, Rene said, "Now, now, we need to find...something to...hold onto."
"What about the staff?" Nariah pointed.
Rene looked to the green smear that had been Io and sticking out of the black ground was the silver staff Xiphos. In his singular focus to rescue Nariah from the crashing aerocycle, Rene had neglected to recover the staff from the console. Now, the silver staff rapidly sank down into the black sand, and vanished.
