#I’ve also finally finally FINALLY settled on something or another for the Nektons

[headfullof-ideas]

Rivalries (at least ones that aren’t in the pre-existing lore, Ala Viggo and riders, Alpheus and Ant, so on and so forth…)

I genuinely don’t really see Snotlout and Alpheus getting along. Their personalities clash too much, and Snotlout just gets beef with anyone new in this story, due to trying to protect the other riders. Alpheus being a little pompous and cocky and ‘so this is the brainless muscle-head?’ Upon first meeting didn’t really help either. Lots of petty pranks and fights between these two, with poor Ant playing mediator, albeit reluctantly due to not knowing Alpheus too well himself, he just knows Snotlout. Honestly I’m not sure about Alpheus and Dagur either, i don’t know if Alpheus would play nice with someone named Deranged, though I do see Dagur enjoying messing with him, but that’s neither here nor there-

Kaiko and Viggo have had beef for longer than Fontaine has been alive, so Viggo starts sweating when he realizes that Ant is Kaikos kid. She also scares him a little bit…or a lot a bit. Assassination attempts have been had, on both sides. As well as petty smack downs with whatever they can get their hands on. Like the drawing above, where little-sibling-extraordinaire Viggo (not to be confused to these two being siblings, just that their fights can resemble sibling fights sometimes) is utterly losing.

Camicazi and Mad Madeline are a case of thief meets thief, but Madeline is better at it than Camicazi, with the additional bonus of being a sea-faring pirate, and also being nearly five to six years younger than Camicazi. And Camicazi HATES someone being better at something than she is, especially something she insists on being so good at. So naturally they clash. Maddie spends most of it just messing with Camicazi, much to the older girls infuriation.

I would like to clarify that Astrid and Fontaine’s rivalry has nothing to do with race, though Astrid has never really interacted with a person of color due to the overall whiteness of the Archipelago, Ant being the only person with darker skin she’s ever met till she leaves the Archipelago. No, it’s because they’re both stubborn, Astrid hates being called out on her not-so-great actions, and being held responsible for those actions, and Fontaine loves pointing this out and poking the metaphorical sleeping bear that is an easy-to-piss-off Astrid Hofferson. There may be a bit of petty grudge-holding due to what Fontaine has heard about stuff that happened between Astrid and Ant too, which also pisses Astrid off. Fontaine has the same flaw of being incapable of acknowledging her own mistakes though, so Astrid makes plenty of jabs in her direction too with the same effectiveness.

Heather is obsessed with Kari’s dragon Ardyn, and Kari is mad about the time she straight up tried to run off with Ardyn. This is probably the pettiest of rivalries here, next to Camicazi and Madeline anyways. Heather pretty much just pulled an Alpheus and started having beef with a thirteen year old for no real reason beyond spite and petty rage. Granted, little Kari is a menace who is not above biting, and has bitten Heather, so there’s some of a reasonable grudge there. (Especially not helped by Heathers older brother teaching the little brat how to shoot a crossbow-) It’s hard to feel justified venting to someone about it though when you’re reminded you’re getting into squabbles with a tweenager a head and a half shorter than you who hasn’t even started puberty yet. Heather’s younger than Alpheus is in the show, so it’s a little less embarrassing when she loses, especially when it’s over something wildly different

These are the ones I can think of, and I’ve got doodles i want to draw to further elaborate on these dynamics, that might not come to light in the actual story itself. I dunno yet, we’ll see. I’m juggling a couple of things irl at the moment, so new stuff might be a bit scarce, but i’m hoping to send chapter three to my beta in a few days! So hopefully chapter three comes out sometime in the next few weeks

[afutureinthesky]

The Heart Never Forgets, pt1

Ten years on, she never forgot the Sky. Even after coming back to her own world, she always found herself staring up at the heavens above her, always half-expecting to see a continent floating overhead in all its glory.

It took her five years to find out that she was not alone in her aching grief at what she’d had to leave behind. She had happened to stumble across the message board online, while she was looking up the names of places she’d known and finding they were the names of stars.

The Shrine of Spirits

Memories of the Islands in the Sky. Those from Nekton are never alone.

Just reading the name of the message board and the tagline almost made her cry. The yearning welled up in her so intensely that for a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Her hand trembled a little as she clicked on the link to the website. At the very top was a pinned post, almost as old as she was, judging by the timestamp.

Welcome to the Shrine of Spirits. Coming back is never easy, and we are few and scattered. But be assured, Spirit, that you are not alone. Please introduce yourself in the introductions thread with your name and the Island where your Bonded lived.

She did as the pinned post said and looked at the introductions thread. There were only maybe thirty posts, and judging by the timestamps, there were only one or two each year something was posted. Some years had a few. Some years had none. The newest post was from a few years previous. Tears welled up in her eyes as she read the names of islands and cities in each post.

Each name, of cities and towns and Islands, made her more and more certain that these people, whoever and wherever they were, were like her. They were all former Guardian Spirits, come back home.

Creating herself an account, she created a new post.

My name is June. I came back five years ago. I thought I was alone. I’m so glad to have found this place.

My Bonded was named Kalas. He lived in Balancoire, in Mira.

She hesitated briefly, and then hit ‘post.’ She wasn’t expecting to get any sort of response, especially not so quickly, but within an hour, she had a notification of a new message.

Welcome, June. I’m sorry for your loss. My name is Hiko, and my Bonded also lived in Mira, although she was from Parnasse. How have you adjusted being back?

That was the beginning of a long correspondence with another Guardian Spirit. She got to know several of them over the next few years, hearing their stories and telling bits and pieces of her own. A couple of them turned out to be contemporaries of hers; the one who signed up a couple years before she did spent a decade in Anuenue bonded to a caretaker of the Celestial Tree, coming back a year after June did. Somehow, the two of them completely missed one another during the times June had been there with Kalas and Xelha. Another had been bonded to a confectioner in Parnasse, although he had only been there for a couple of years, arriving a year before June had and returning a year before she did. Somehow, they had also missed one another, although June had encountered some of his influence in the village; he had helped Tisoco refine his legendary chocolate recipe.

Out of everyone still active on the website, June had the most fantastic story to tell. The others had been bonded to some influential people, sure, but none of them swayed the fate of the entire world like she had. None of them had even heard of the End Magnus, let alone Malpercio or Cor Haydrae. Only a few had even heard of the Children of the Earth, and then only the eldest of them.

The support group was a godsend for June. It helped her recover from her grief and start to move on. She even met a few of them in person, when they were able to co-ordinate such things. She had even made plans to meet with Hiko, who had moved from Japan to the United States just after returning from the other world. The night before she was supposed to meet him, June had a terrible dream.

Everything around her was dark. She wasn’t sure she had a body, but it didn’t matter, she knew how to deal with that. In front of her, something came into focus. A man knelt on a stone floor, hands chained in front of him. His clothes seemed ragged, his body smeared with dirt and blood. His blue hair--

Blue hair?

It was shaggier than she remembered, but it was unmistakeable. The man in front of her was Kalas.

“Call her.” June didn’t recongize the voice, but the tone made her shiver.

“I don’t know how.” Kalas’s voice was hoarse

“Call her.” The unfamiliar voice said again, cold and hard.

“I don’t know how!” Kalas insisted. “She’s gone! She’s been gone for years!”

“You lie.” The voice became colder, if that was even possible. “You are still bonded. Call. Your. Spirit.”

“I can’t!” Kalas’s voice cracked a bit. He looked ragged. “We broke our bond ten years ago. She’s gone.”

“It seems you need a bit more convincing.” There was a pause. “I will return tomorrow.”

June wasn’t sure how she knew the unfamiliar person was gone, but she did. There was a moment’s pause, and then a faint glow that June had always associated with dark-element magic seemed to coalesce around Kalas, sinking into him. He went as tense as a bowstring, back arching as he screamed.

“June!” he howled. “JUNE!”

June woke up with a gasp, covered in sweat and her heart racing.

“Kalas,” she whispered.

She didn’t go back to sleep.

“You look tired,” Hiko observed the next day as they sat at an outdoor cafe. It hadn’t taken them long to recognize one another; June saw the same look in his eyes as she saw in her own every morning in the mirror. After they formally introduced themselves, they sat down for coffee.

“Didn’t sleep well,” June murmured. She had her hands wrapped around a latte, the warmth seeping into her fingers.

“Insomnia?” Hiko asked, not unkindly. June shook her head a bit.

“Nightmares,” she replied. She hesitated. A Spirit’s Bonded was usually a personal thing; they exchanged basic information about their individual Bonded, but not more than that. But she trusted Hiko, and he’d been a Guardian for much longer than she had, and had been back for much longer, as well. “I dreamed of Kalas.”

“Your Bonded?” Hiko asked. At June’s nod, he continued, “should that not have been a welcome thing, to see your Bonded again, even in dreams?”

“He was… somewhere,” June said. “I don’t know where. But he seemed like he was in trouble. A lot of trouble. Someone was--” She had to force the rest out. “—torturing him, for some reason. They were trying to get him to--” she stopped. She hadn’t thought about it much, past the fact that Kalas had been hurt in her dream, but now she was thinking about the details. “They were trying to get him to call me. As if I were still there.”

“I understand how that is painful,” Hiko said. He was quiet for a moment. “It is… not spoken of, even amongst us. But sometimes… Sometimes the bond is not completely severed.”

June looked at him sharply.

“What?” she asked.

“Sometimes, when a bond is strong, it lingers,” Hiko said quietly. He was silent for a moment. “For years, I would dream of Leena.” June knew that was the name of his Bonded. “In those dreams, we sometimes spoke to one another.” He looked at her. “Our bond was not nearly so strong as yours. Have you never dreamed of Kalas before?”

“Sometimes,” June admitted. “But… we’ve never spoken. I only ever follow him in my dreams, and see him from afar.”

“Perhaps because your bond was settled,” Hiko observed. “You had closure. There was nothing that needed to be said. Leena and I were not so content, at the end.” He looked at her, and reached over to touch one of her hands. “You dream of him when you need reassurance. Likely more often, at the beginning, than now. But it seems that now he calls to you because he is the one in need.”

“So you don’t think it was just a dream?” June asked quietly. Hiko shook his head.

“No,” he said. “It was not just a dream.”

“Then how do I go to him?” June asked. “We have no magic here, no magnus, nothing.”

“That… is not exactly true,” Hiko said.

“What?” June asked.

Hiko looked uncomfortable. “That you dream of your Bonded is a testament to the strength of your bond with him. That bond is still there. It only requires a… spark, if you will.”

“How?” June asked. Her latte sat on the table, forgotten.

“It is dangerous,” Hiko warned her. “I do not speak of it lightly, for I know there are others who would attempt it as well, who are not as strong.”

“I don’t care,” June said fiercely. “I’ve faced down evil incarnate and sent it back to hell where it belongs. I can handle whatever it is.”

Hiko studied her for a moment, and then nodded.

“There are places in this world where the boundary that keeps things separate is… thin,” he said. “Places where our world touches theirs, where those of us with the potential can… slip through.”

“Thin, like Mira?” June asked. Hiko nodded.

“Very much like Mira,” he said. “I have made a point to keep track of all such places I come across. I believe I can guide you to one. However, you must make it across on your own.”

“Please,” June begged. “Please show me. I need to get to Kalas.”

Hiko seemed to hesitate, and then nodded.

“Of course,” he said.

That had been days ago. June hardly slept as she anticipated going back. Finally, Hiko reached out to her again with a set of co-ordinates and one single line of text.

Good luck, Spirit.

Part 2