This story is part of the Wanderer series.
Her world went dark. It was as if she lost herself to the void.
Then, her body began to tingle. A new world slowly fading into view. Nozomi blinked a few times, making out countless stars from the darkness. Small puffs of clouds broke the nightscape, illuminated by the full moon. She was outside, in a plain full of tallgrass. It was unnaturally flat, the horizon cutting off abruptly close ahead, like a cliff edge she could not see over. There was a solitary tree. Tall, and great, with arms stretching far from its trunk. The scene in its entirety was eerily familiar, raising the hairs on her arms. A chill surged down her spine. It was not danger that she sensed. Rather, when she finally spotted a dark silhouette contrasting the flat horizon, she knew what was there.
There, was a round stone boulder. Weathered smooth by centuries of rain. At the base of the boulder, shaded from the moonlight, was a slender figure, sat hunched over on top of a smaller rock, one leg bent up to its chest, the other limply stretched forward. A long stick was tucked inside an arm and a leg. Her warm smile instantly brought a sense of ease to Nozomi. A long lost familiarity.
“Sen.”
The figure did not immediately speak. Instead, she lowered her staff to her lap and straightened herself, silently staring back for some time before eventually speaking.
“You are awake, finally.”
Nozomi leaned forward and parted her lips, but didn’t say a word. She didn’t know where to start.
“If you sought for me, I must be dead.”
Retracting her step, she shut her mouth, sadness taking over her gaze once again.
“The seal I placed on you,” she said. “It’s gone.”
A sheepish but proud smile broke out across Nozomi’s face. “It broke a long time ago.”
Sen nodded, smiling back. “I see.”
Tall stretches of grass trembled under the moonlight. The gentle breeze barely brushed Nozomi’s hair against her cheeks.
“Do you recognize this place?”
She straightened, eyes wandering the plain. Quite quickly, her eyes fell on the solitary tree again. Now that the question was asked, it did look abundantly familiar to her.
Sen lowered her chin and stared with her eyes beyond, seemingly gesturing behind Nozomi. Slowly, she turned around, almost knowing what she was going to find. There, not too far behind her, was the tall, stone brick structure; a limestone castle capped with a dome at the top. The wide, arch entrance, surrounded by extending buttresses, welcomed her. A sight incredibly nostalgic and recognizable, yet, at the same time, not quite the same as what she remembered.
“The castle…” she whispered, her voice tinged with sadness.
“This was how it looked when we first met,” Sen reminisced. “When you first woke up under my care.”
She nodded along, smiling dearly. Nozomi knew this story, but did not object to hearing it again.
“You did not talk or seem to know about anything.”
“Mn.”
“It took some effort to get you to approach me. You did not know who I was or what I was.”
Gazing up the pillars, then meandering off to the right, she searched for the domed wing that carried her bedroom. Instead, she found an empty field.
Sen chuckled brilliantly. “Forgive me if this is all familiar to you, as this memory does not share the memories of the Sen you once knew.”
“No,” Nozomi giggled, turning around. “I’m always happy to hear this story again.”
She raised her staff, briefly pointing it in front of her before placing it down against the boulder behind her. Following where she beckoned to, Nozomi noticed another smooth stone face, hidden under the sea of tall grass, and moved forward. Stepping up onto the rock, she briefly stood taller than her guardian before sitting down, crossing her legs over the stone.
“Have you mastered your own power, then?”
The breeze began to pick up, the warm breeze swaying both of their long strands of hair.
“Yes.”
She simply nodded again, her eyes studying Nozomi’s face. “You have grown.”
Nozomi retracted her chin, almost blushing as her eyes dropped. She rubbed the back of her head with a hand. “Well, it’s been… what…? Almost three? … four years since I last saw you.”
“Longer than that,” Sen corrected. “You must remember, I am a memory.”
Nozomi dropped her hand, keeping her eyes down on the ground. “Right.”
They both went silent. Staring at her, Sen also dropped her head for a moment, eyes scanning where her child’s was. When she got back up, her smile had tempered.
“Has it been that long that you can no longer hold your gaze with mine?”
Nozomi glanced up. The smile left her face.
They watched each other for some time. Sen studied this expression as they sat in silence. Her own began to waver as she noticed glints of light forming in the eyes of her child. Gathering what she heard earlier, she tried to decipher what she was seeing.
“Four years, you said? Were you still young when I left, or have you mastered your aging?”
Nozomi straightened again, but didn’t seem to hear her at first. “Mastered my age?” her voice trembled.
Nodding, Sen leaned back a bit, the question seemingly answering her question. “Then… if I may ask you to recall… How did I die?”
Finally breaking her gaze again, Nozomi tried to maintain her posture as her voice faltered even more. “I don’t know… No one does.”
Nodding slightly, Sen hunched forward. “Then, I may not be dead?”
Eyes shooting back up, Nozomi was taken aback by this notion. The words brought a glimmer of hope to her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“No one has found me? Not even a trace?”
The words seemed to move the girl even more. “… No… Not one bit.”
“As if I seemingly… disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“I see…”
Leaning forward, Nozomi grew curious. “Is there any reason you would disappear? And where you would go?”
Sen set her elbow onto her knee and palmed her chin. Her expression grew serious. “I would not abandon my responsibilities for you on a whim. If I have done so, it must be to protect you. However…”
“To protect me…?”
Something seemed to trouble the guardian. “What became of the castle?”
Nozomi shook her head. “I don’t know either. When I woke up, both you and the castle were gone.”
Sen raised her eyebrows. “Gone? It was destroyed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it attacked?”
“No… I don’t think so.”
“And there are no ruins to speak of.”
“No, I haven’t been able to find any.”
“Not at the bottom of the sea, perhaps?”
The idea gave a new light to Nozomi. “I don’t know. We haven’t been searching the oceans. But… I don’t remember being above one the night before you disappeared.”
Sen gazed off to the side and thought to herself for a long moment. This posture was familiar to Nozomi, sparking a little bit of impatience in her.
“What are you thinking of right now? Why would you disappear like that?”
Realizing her own behavior, Sen faced Nozomi and trained her eyes on her face. Nozomi was taken aback by this serious expression.
“The castle was supposed to protect you. If even that failed to the point I would leave you on the surface world, then the castle must be gone.”
“… So it was destroyed?”
“If it was, magicians across the continent would have felt it.” She leaned back, musing some more. “In what state was the castle when you last saw it?”
Nozomi tried hard to think back. “I don’t know… Nothing seemed wrong about it… I don’t remember anything weird about that day…”
“What were we doing…? What were you doing before you last saw it?”
“You were telling me a story before bed, I think…”
“And when you woke up, the castle was gone?”
“Both you and the castle. Rin said she found me in the forest, left to a feeding node.”
“Rin?”
“Oh…” Nozomi caught herself. “She’s… a friend of mine.”
Sen perked up. “You have friends now?”
Nozomi smiled a bit. “Yes, lots of them.”
This seemed to bring comfort to the guardian, who was smiling proudly. “I am happy for you, then.”
Cheeks blushing, Nozomi sank her head into her shoulders, glancing at the ground again. Then, her smile faded as she thought a little longer about what she just said. “But…”
Sen grew serious along with her. “Then… I suddenly abandoned you. And not only that, but in a dire situation.”
Nozomi’s expression sank as she heard these words. “You wouldn’t have… just… leave me… there…?”
“No, I would never leave you to die like that,” she reassured. “As unbelievable as it sounds, I must have lost.”
“… Lost…?”
“I tried to protect you, and I lost.”
Nozomi sat still. The breeze froze with her, leaving her stone still. She was speechless.
After a while, Sen dropped her head, as if she was mourning for the loss of her own child, even though she was sitting there, right in front of her. The breeze resumed, rustling the grass around them. Eventually, she raised her head, as if realizing something.
“The power of this memory is waning. If you sought me, you must be in need of my guidance.”
Sitting up, Nozomi quietly nodded.
“What became of the world?”
“There is a new danger to the world. A danger to Wanderers like you and me.”