The Fallen City

|Chapter V: One to Another

Gale's eyes opened to the City around him. He took a moment to glance around as he continued to hover. His eyes panned slowly across the still remarkable architecture. Even in their state of decay, they still held an elegance unrivalled and unmatched Setting himself down slowly and gently he thought back to the counting clock. Its hands counting time longer than a minute, longer than an hour. He didn't know its timescale, he could only guess they had maybe weeks left. The City knew its time was coming.

Gale let out a depressive sigh, as the city around him rumbled with another distant collapse far away from him. He made his way with heavy feet to the still crashed ShardShip, he touched the nose of the ship gently, running his fingers over it once more. Like a brush he painted its original condition upon its ruin, the decay came back slower than it had done before.

"You wait all day?" His voice boomed loudly at the person leaning on the crenelations of a causeway above him. They looked down to him.

"No, For me it turned to night hours ago." They responded, Gale's vague assessment was right, definitely female. She pushed herself off into the air. "Is it safe to approach it?"

Gale pointed at the crashed ShardShip, he noticed the person nod.

"Yeah, nothing here can really harm you. Welcome to the City" He responded. "Or what's left of it."

Eagerly she jumped to the cracked and now ruined floor, Gale was happy to see she had the same effect upon their world as he did, if not more.

Finally, someone believed.

As they walked towards him the decay waned from a much greater distance than it did for him. It even brought back the faintest brushes of colour, and as their auras combined, the ground returned to a near pristine state. She passed a large square patch cut into the floor, filled with scattered grey stones. Yet at her approach each one turned black as onyx, metal rods began to rise, turning to branches and steadily growing into a metal tree the height of Gale himself, capped with a chunk of white opal on the end of each branch.

"Are you real?" She asked tentatively.

"As real as the bed you fell asleep in, but this is a dream." He frowned at himself. "So technically both... I think"

As they closed Gale noticed they wore a similar, albeit a different variant of the FlightSuit to him, whilst his was covered in panels closer to armour, theirs was coated in long threads of stone, more akin to a stone trench coat. No doubt only carrying the parts that would be required, making it lightweight to fit better onto the person's stocky frame. The stone was the same black whilst the plates were adorned with silver filigree, a design that continued up her helmet around to a blue visor shaped like a downwards pointing arrow.

Gale let them approach, he leaned on the ShardShip as it shifted on the floor. The gouge it cut into it repaired beneath it. They stood in front of him, Gale noticed they were about his shoulder height.

"You going to remove your helmet?" He asked pointing. The person just nodded. A moment passed before it unfurled from their head, laying itself against their chest plate.

Gale took a moment to understand the person in front of him. Her face had very sharp, almost sculpted features. She looked young. Her eyes a brilliant green, a faint scar cut through one of her eyebrows, her eyes looked reserved and withdrawn even though she had a mischievous smirk on her face. Her ebony hair fell down to her shoulders. The two were silently studying each other.

"Didn't expect to see someone else here. This place is empty." She finally spoke with a slight accent. It was clear English wasn't her first language. From his experience he'd guess she had a Scandanavian origin. Her eyes were locked onto his face, Gale could tell she was still studying him.