Vessels and Tears (Archived Version)

*Turns around and walks away*

 Broken and Flower were still sound asleep (lucky them) when you, Hornet and Hollow bolted out of there in search of your father. You ran up and down the halls, through tunnels and up staircases in search of him. No sign of him nor Mom. This was starting to concern you, being as last time no one could find Pale he had... yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Bad stuff happened. But now Mom was no where to be found.

"I don't get it. Where's Dad?!" Hornet was probably getting the same "uh oh" feeling you were. You kept running through the halls, and you could've sworn you heard "On Little Cat Feet" but sped up playing in the background. You eventually found yourselves at the Path of Pain, and a sign next to it read "Just in Case of Invasion, Code E". You had no clue what that even meant. You were all a little out of breath after running so much.

You all headed back to your room and sat down, trying to think your next actions through. "So basically Pale's evil twin brother or some shit visited us, nearly killed our friends, insulted our parents and asked us to join his uprising or something." You thought to Hollow. "That's about right. How did he find us? I thought meeting in dreams only works if you've seen the bug your ever so rudely dropping in on." You discussed this while Hornet fidgeted with her cloak.

"Guys, I think I should mention this. While I was asleep earlier, he was there. The evil brother. He told me that everything that I once knew will be destroyed if I don't convince you guys to join him. I apparently have three days to other wise some kind of invasion will commence. " You both starred at her. "Oh so NOW you tell us?!" You wrote down. "Sorry, I just thought it was another dumb dream. Until the book thing though." You were ever so lost. Yep, this sucks. Mom and Pale gone? Check. Crazy evil brother trying to convince you to join his army? Yep. Timeline? Fucked up.

"This doesn't help find mom and Dad." Hollow said unenthusiastically. "What should we do?" "..." No one answered the question. At that moment you knew... you only get world class bad ideas. "What if I went back to sleep, tried to contact Pha'Talo and asked?" You wrote your terrible idea and they looked surprised. "That could work." And so, you flopped over, closed your eyes and... nothing happened. Usually if you tried hard enough, you could will yourself to sleep. "On second thought, he's probably awake right now, it wont work." Hollow thought.

"Ok... what if we checked the area for some signs of Pale and Mom?" You wrote. "Good idea."

The search was on.

_________________________________________________________________________

Pale sat near the edge, at the entrance to the abyss. "I don't care how long this takes, I will apologize." Mom sighed and facepalmed. "Dear, it'll take a lot more that just an apology to get them to forgive you." "And this is why I brought cookies." He pulled a bag of cookies from his cloak and frowned. "I cant believe that I did that to them." He looked down at the floor below. Hundreds of feet beneath the outcropping that he and his wife stood were the bodies of the innocent he killed. Not only the innocent, the innocent CHILDREN. His children.

"I'm a monster." Mom sat down next to him and wrapped an arm around him. They didn't see the shade literally two feet from them because they were still looking below them. The shade was drawn to them because of the scent of the cookies. When Pale looked up, his eyes were met with a pair of milky white ones. It drew back hesitantly, not exactly sure if it could trust its parent or not. He picked up a cookie and held it out for the Shade to inspect. It sniffed and hesitantly took it in its tendrils. It absorbed the crispy and sweet cookie. Pale held his hand out, gently touching its cheek.

The last few times he had tried this, the Shade had backed away quickly. But this Shade was different. It leaned into his hand and wrapped a tendril around his hand, like some kind of hug. He brought his hand back and hugged it gently, trying not to accidentally squish the child. "I'm sorry I was a heartless monster..." He whispered to it, and it nuzzled his hand. "Wanna name it?" Mom asked quietly, sketching the shade.

Pale tilted his head and thought for a second. "How about... Phosphor?" She wrote it down and smiled. "Phosphor it is then." A few other Shades were in the sketch book that Mom had. Distant, Light, Navigate, Dream, Flood, Puzzle. And now Phosphor. This was the first step of many to earning the Shades trust. Documenting and naming them. Hopefully, the Shade retrieval plan would be a success. But there's really only one way to find out. And that's to go with it.

Dream and Navigate floated nearby, they were the first to be documented. They knew the drill. Be nice, get rewarded with a hug or something else, like a cookie in this case. They floated over and joined the hug. Pale was close to tears at this point. He was being hugged by the children that he had ever so carelessly thrown away. They shouldn't forgive him, and yet... it seems they did.

Hornet stood behind them, watching as her siblings nuzzled and hugged her father. She smiled, not wanting to be the bearer of bad news. She walked out and ran to go find Rift and Hollow

___________________________________________________________________________

Kind of on the short side, but very important chapter! So hi, I'm back early from my trip. I was supposed to be gone a week and a half, but we had to come home because my dad got sick. How are you guys? I'm as tired as ever. I just want to thank you all so much for the love adn support this story is getting. Also, two things will be added soon! One is a possible playlist of songs, like background music. I saw it in a sroy I read recently and thought it was a cool idea. The other is... a surprise. Actually, most of you probably know about it of you clicked my profile and checked my published. Yeah, Dryya gets her own story. I got bored one day and decided to write it on paper, I'm almost done with the paper version. No idea when it will be released, but the teaser is out if you really wanna read it. DONT READ IT IF YOU WANT TO READ IT WHEN IT FULLY COMES OUT. That is all I think. No wait, not all. This story was originally going to have two arcs not including the finale. I extended it to include The Grimm Troupe and a surprise arc, plus a few mini (no literally) arcs. You'll get that joke in the future. Anyway, that's all I have for today, have a great day, Bye! *Sobs in I miss doing the announcements at school*