Finding Those Not Lost

Unwanted Reunion

     Sheldon walked forward slowly.  He looked as if he had seen a ghost.  He helped Professor Martz as they both shambled forward.  "Professor!"  I exclaimed.  I ran forward and wrapped him in a great hug.  Preston was right behind me still wearing his mining lifting steam suit.

     "Professor.  Sheldon.  Thank god your both ok.  You look exhausted.  Come sit over here and rest." said Preston.  They listened and made their way to where most of the rescuers sat waiting.  They sat and were offered water as they moved putting their backs against the caves wall.  They didn't speak for a few moments.  Only sat as if waking from some dream.  Eventually they looked to each other as in some wordless agreement.  It was Sheldon that began to speak.  Of what he said it is difficult to imagine what his words conveyed to us at that moment, but I will do my best to recreate them.  Even the sensational things which seem unworldly.

     "It is difficult to explained such a queer place we have just come from.  First let me say what Raven said of the place is just the barest information of the city and the second city upon the roof of the vast cavern.  First the city the Brotherless have protected through the many years is vast.  Yet unlike any city I have ever seen or read of.  Its buildings seem to be as giant stalagmites rising from the floor of the cavern.  Yet they are smooth as if they have been polished by hand as hard as that is to imagine for they are giant and tall.  There are windows of varying sizes along there length.  Though windows may be the wrong word openings, but carved or planned in there creation.  As you would see in any building yet with out glass.  Each of these buildings are black and smooth.  They curve like horns yet in various  directions like looking at some wild tangle of hair.  There are large plazas through out the city.  Their are statues of monuments within.  But of what I could not say without years of study.  But they were massive and spectacular.  They also were of the black smooth stone.  There was also vegetation.  Though it was strange it was also beautiful like any park I have walked through in one of our great cities.  Raven led us through the vast city.  Until we reached what I would call a temple.  Though it's dimensions are so vast as to seem incomprehensible. While upon the roof of the massive cavern was the second city.  They were so different in every way.  Where the city of men was a wild tangle of black buildings.  The city of the moth men was white.  With its inhabitants flying among its many building if you could call them such.  They were like smooth and straight towers.  With opens in the shape of hexagons.  What was most unnerving was not their presence flying above us like some combination of heaven and hell.  It was the sound they would make.  Everywhere you walked you could hear the buzzing sound of their flight or there conversing. She was right about their smell.  It is not repugnant just foreign.  Like the smell if you enter a candle makers  shop.  Like something between wax, and dust.  Raven didn't let us deviate from our mission though.  We continued to follow Raven among the black city until we eventually came to her old people and her husband and daughter."
     "This city sounds like the stuff of fiction and tall tales."  Said Preston
     "Agreed, but everything Sheldon is describing is exactly how it is." Said Professor Martz.  "It is the single greatest discovery that man has ever made."  He leaned his head back.  The obvious exhaustion catching up with him after his ordeal.
     "What happened with my mother and father?" Asked Sunrise.  She had been so quiet since we had arrived 
    "They seemed like two people who have been apart but never stopped loving one another.  They both seemed sheepish at first but it was only momentary.   But even more surprising was Richard and your sister, Night Whispers reunion."
    "I had suspected."  said Sunrise.
    "They embraced as if they could not be apart from one another.  It was even more shocking coming from Richard, who I have scarcely heard mutter a word until he told me his intentions." Said Sheldon.
     "What are his attentions?" I asked since I seemed the only one who didn't know.
     "Apparently after his rescue.  Or his meeting with Sunrises sister.  Richard and her fell deeply in love.  One of those things unforeseen by both of them as well as most of us." answered Sheldon.  I was speechless and caught completely off guard.  
     "So that is why Richard is not accompanying you back."  I said out loud.  "What about Raven?" I asked.
     "She also seemed to busy talking with her husband."  We decided to let them have their time. While we kept moving in this general direction."  Answered Sheldon.
     We stopped asking them questions so they could take a moment to rest.
Preston walked further down the path.  His suit clattering as he walked towards the entrance to the guarded city.  I watched him.  Looking at his creation.  The suit was a marvel.  It's gears and steam moving and pumping in tandem.  She had seen him working on it for months within his small shop back in their home town of Middleborough, Massachusetts.  She had seen the pipes and tubes burst on occasion.
She had seen Preston get a mild burn from the hot water as it escaped the pipes.  He even used a few choice words which she was so surprised about she burst into uncontrollable laughter.  But no matter the obstacle he would work his way through it with a quiet determination.  My mind was suddenly jarred from its complacency by the arrival of Raven.  She ran up to Sheldon stopping suddenly.
  "Oh no you are all still here!  We have been betrayed by my daughter.  We must flee for are lives."  I know I didn't move.  I seemed frozen in place.  For even as my mind was racing with thoughts.  It seemed as if was paralyzed.  One of the thoughts was about Ravens appearance.  Her black feathered cloak was torn.  She was covered in some sort of ichor, from what I did not know.  What finally helped me to action was a sound of all things.  It was the sound of buzzing.