Arcaea: The World of Glass

[Side] Colorful Dream II

A girl woke in a world of white with nothing on her tongue.

Nothing in her head.

Nothing in her stomach...

Her name was Ayu.

This story began long ago.

Before the sky was bent, before the sky was broken...
Before the sky grew overbright, and before day met with night...

And after a girl fell from a tumbling maze and tower...

Ayu awoke with nothing inside.

She raised to her knees, and then looked all about: at a world of light, a world of glass and memory.

It drew none of her interest. Her stomach: her stomach was empty.

She opened her mouth...

...and no words came out.

Nothing on her tongue, nothing in her head...

Ayu rose on shaking legs, fell, rose again and began to walk forward instead.

It took some time for her to fall once more to the ground after trying and trying to step, to crawl, and to crawl forth. Days, perhaps. Weeks, perhaps. Shivering and collapsed, covered in dirt, she reached for her abdomen and grasped. Her hand, covered by a sleeve, couldn't properly grasp at anything. She let out a breath, and once more rose onto her knees.

The glass left her alone her entire winding way. Light fell onto her, and felt not warm. She gaped at the barren landscape and fossil parts of cities before her.

With that emptiness gnawing at her from within...

Ayu began to cry, without knowing what crying was.

Where she was born, Arcaea, is a mistaken and misshapen world—made from a mistaken and misshapen heart.

Wanting, wanting...

...without knowing, is a truly painful thing.

She felt pain, and sobbed into her arms. A pain that can't be solved, a hunger to never be sated.

For no reason at all.

Stirrings of regret, and sparks of almost-thought...

In the wake of these, four wings took flight.

They hurried on with a clear aim and with hearts of glass...

Two shards, and two hearts.

She felt them before she heard them. They draped their wings over her back, and she found their wings were warm...

...

...Ayu was found, there, by two who would be her dearest friends.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Come on, Ayu!"

"Just like that, you've got it."

She walked on unsteady feet after them: the two little bats who had found her. Whenever she stumbled, they flew back to her and helped to right her.

They kept beside her, they kept ahead...

And soon enough she was fed.

"Try this, Ayu!"

"This too!"

They brought her to that glass floating through the air. They brought her close, and she knew to take each shard to her lips, her tongue, and between her teeth.

Between her teeth, the flat, hard surfaces felt right, and comfortable.

The sharp and jagged edges tickled at her tongue.

She would bite down again, and again, and another time.

A happy taste, a hearty taste... swallowed memory, and new knowing.

Her tears began to dry. Ayu began to smile, without knowing what smiling was.

And she laughed, and she called:

"Fans! Drem! It's yummy!"

"Ayu...!" said Drem, frozen in surprise.

"Ayu! What—you, you said what...!?" said Fans excitedly.

She leapt at the two bats, one black and white (and green, and orange) and the other white and black (and orange, and green). She spread her arms wide and squeezed onto both of them.

They laid their wings around her in return.

She went on to eat clouds and waves and seas of glass. Wherever the world wavered, she and her bats would go, and eat.

Before too much glass, flocked to one place, would compel an error...
She would eat.

And if an error, an anomaly, came into being elsewhere...
She would eat that, too.

She ate and ate and ate...
Guided by her friends all the while.

...

Arcaea is a world meaningless, pointless, and perhaps bereft of sense...
It may be pertinent to ask: whichever world is not?

In this silly world, dreamt of in sadness...

...a little trio found its happiness. Isn't that fine?

As Ayu, Fans, and Drem let go of one another and traveled on...

...the fate they were to find after the end of light would answer the question.