Sea of Golden Sand: Chapter 9
I dreamt a very long dream.
In the dream, there are no lead-grey waves and lonely islands, but there is a stretch of azure blue desert—I think, if the desert is blue, that should look like the sea.
On the boundless surface of the ocean, a youth that looks like the Sea God holds the hand of a girl. They walk towards the horizon.
The Sea God lifts his hand, and waves bloom one after another under the girl’s feet.
Schools of fish dive. White seagulls circle over their heads, and sing as they land on the girl’s shoulder.
That is the happiest day of the Sea God’s life.
At the moment he drops a light kiss on the girl’s lips, the Sea God offers up the entire ocean for the girl he loves dearly.
However when I wake up from my dream, no matter how, I can’t recall what the Sea God looks like.
Natasha: Your Highness… I originally thought after milady left last time that milady would never be back, but now, although milady has returned, but still…
MC: …
Natasha: It’s as if someone has pulled the soul out of milady… did something happen?
MC: Should… be nothing…
MC: Lately, have I forgotten something?
Natasha: … no, milady has been very quiet, and has not been running amok.
MC: …
MC: (But why does it constantly feel like something is missing…)
Natasha: Your Highness, milady is staring blankly at this fish again…
MC: … Natasha, tell me, where did this fish come from?
Natasha: Milady said before, it is a gift from the person most important to milady.
MC: The most important person…
MC: (The most important person… who is it…)
Natasha: Your Royal Highness! Why is milady standing beside the lake again!
MC: Natasha… previously, did I encounter someone in this lake?
Natasha: Your Highness, how could there be anyone in the lake?
MC: That’s true…
On the placid surface of the lake floats a little boat. I just feel I seem to also have walked on the surface of this lake like this little boat.
Natasha: Your Highness what is milady doing! If milady walks any further, milady will sink into the lake!
I lower my head, and then I discover my feet are already submerged in the lake.
So it turns out… I actually can’t walk on the lake’s surface?
Then, where exactly did that blurry impression come from?
My days as a princess continue to be calm and uninteresting like before, but I no longer have thoughts of escaping this palace.
I keep feeling as if there is a dark shadow, and it is burning a hole in my heart like a flame.
I fall into this deep deep hole, and am being consumed by the void little by little.
Natasha: Your Highness, is milady worrying again?
MC: …
Natasha: Recently there’s been new happenings in the royal city, shall I tell them to milady?
Natasha: I hear, those infiltrators who snuck into the palace some time ago, the royal guard has found their base.
MC: … Infiltrators?
Natasha: Mmhmm, the Lemurians, the recent assassinations are all their doing.
MC: Lemurians…
Natasha: The king is very angry, and says he wants to find all of the Lemurians in the city, and leave them out in the !
MC: !!!
MC: Why?
Natasha: Rumor says their ultimate target is to awaken the oceans… but the world already has no oceans.
Natasha: If they were to be allowed to have their way, then when the floods come, won’t everyone drown?
MC: Awaken the ocean…
MC: … Where’s Rafayel?
Natasha: Rafayel?
When this name comes out of my lips, I myself am stunned for a moment.
MC: Why… this name sounds so familiar…
Natasha: Ah, I remember now, this seems to be the name of that Lemurian youth that was gifted to milady as a present a long time ago.
MC: Lemurian youth…?
Inside that clump of black flame in my mind, it seems there’s something wriggling, like a butterfly, about to break out of its cocoon.
Under the guidance of some intuition, I walk to the bed and feel around for an object from under my pillow.
Natasha: … a fishtail beacon?!
Natasha: This is a weapon used by Lemurians! Your Highness, how does milady have this sort of thing?
MC: Fishtail beacon? It’s called a fishtail beacon?
I place this beacon in the middle of my hand. It’s as if previously there was someone who held it together with me, and sliced open our palms.
I seem to remember the first time I saw it, it was stuck into the railing of the balcony, the swaying end of it carrying news I had been looking forward to for a long time.
And it seems… there was also someone who held my hand, who told me—
“Hold it like this, and I will be able to sense you.”
MC: …
Without active thought I hold this fishtail beacon with both hands. It vibrates in my palms, glowing faintly.
MC: Rafayel… Rafayel…
In my hand, I tightly clutch that fishtail beacon, and look again at Natasha.
MC: Natasha, I seem to remember now…
Natasha: Your Highness, how is my lady? My lady is a little strange today.
MC: I remember now… today, I seem to have a very important appointment…
MC: (Rafayel seems to have said… he is about to leave here…)
At this moment, if we’re talking about anything that I will miss in this royal city, then there is only this friend before me who has taken care of me for so many years.
MC: Natasha!
I hug her tightly.
MC: After I leave here, you must make sure you live your own life.
Natasha: Your Highness…?
I give her one last glance, and then release her, and turn to leave.
The sky is clear and bright, sixty-four waterways leading outside the city reflecting rippling light like scattered pieces of silver.
Boat after boat passes each other on the riverway. People are playing lutes, singing songs. This royal city, like a white pearl, is still as beautiful and shining as ever.
I recall, Rafayel previously followed one of these rivers to leave here.
Once I longed endlessly to see the liveliness of the royal city, but now it no longer gives me pause for even half a step.
I run through the large crowded streets and small alleys, gripping that fishtail beacon in my hand tighter and tighter, and completely don’t notice my palm has been pricked and is freshly bleeding.
Everything I have forgotten is like a dream, left behind in the ruins of the Island of Songs, left behind in that ancient golden Lemurian prophecy burnt away by clusters of black flames.
And now, I’ve woken from this dream.
I remember everything.
MC: Rafayel, wait for me… you must wait for me…
Outside of my field of vision, the bloodied fishtail beacon is faintly glowing.
Standing outside the post, Amund’s planned departure time has come.
Amund: What are you still waiting for?
Rafayel: …
Amund: I have been a Lemurian elder for generations and generations. A Sea God like you who dares to forcefully rewrite the Tome of the Sea God, this is a first.
Amund: Since you can’t bear to take her heart, then you can only , you really—
Rafayel: As long as Lemurians can return to our homeland, then that’s fine.
Rafayel: Whether or not the Sea God exists is not that important.
Having finished speaking, Rafayel doesn’t open his mouth again.
Actually, from just a moment ago, he has felt that in his heart it seems something is slowly growing out, like a seedling, like a sprouting climbing vine, circling round and round, ensnaring his soul.
Rafayel: …
Amund spots the once-again-glowing fishtail beacon in his hand.
Amund: This fishtail beacon… didn’t you say you’d completely destroyed your bond with her?
At this moment, from inside the city comes the sound of a girl shouting—
Rafayel turns back. In the bustling crowd, he can only see a fluttering white robe.
Like a butterfly, and like a little silver-white fish, swimming rapidly towards himself.
Rafayel: How… is this possible…
MC: Rafayel—!!!
Luckily he hasn’t gone very far. I manage to catch up to them.
On the white camel, it’s the first time I see that usually calm Lemurian reveal such a surprised expression.
Rafayel: You…
At a spot a short distance from him, I stop my footsteps.
MC: You’re thinking of leaving me, and just quietly running away by yourself like this?
Trying hard to calm my heaving breath, I take step after step towards him.
MC: If gods truly do exist in this world… then Rafayel, you must be the worst one.
Rafayel: …
MC: As a god, how can you abandon your own follower.
MC: You promised, you’d bring me to see the ocean.
I arrive beside the camel and lift my head to look at him.
MC: I won’t forget that easily.
Rafayel: …
MC: I won’t be returning to the palace.
Rafayel: … but do you know where we are going?
MC: The bond is there for eternity, no matter where you go you can’t shake me off.
Rafayel: You’ve thought it through?
Rafayel pulls on my hand, and I use his strength to climb up and sit behind him.
Rafayel: Perhaps one day, I will still cut out your heart.
MC: I said it earlier.
MC: If you really are the god who can take my heart away, then…
MC: Then bring me with you.
Dust is stirred up. The pure white divine camel leaves, stepping slowly towards the setting sun.
Deep within the palace, the little blue fish swimming lazily in the fishbowl has served its purpose, and gradually turns into a single bright silver scale, sinking to the bottom of the water.
That palace and royal city that has seen ninety-nine escape attempts… on this purple cloud-filled evening, just like that, the princess leaves them behind her without even a backwards glance.
On this planet Philos with dust-filled skies, the oceans have been dried up for thirty thousand years, and the golden prophecy has faded.
Perhaps, there will never again be raging rivers and wide, deep oceans here.
But that princess with the heart of a god, and the sea god who saved her—that Lemurian who led her out of her invisible cage time after time…
Eventually, they still met each other.
—<<Legends of Deepspace - Sea of Golden Sand (Volume One)>>
—But Rafayel, after we leave the royal city, what kind of place do we want to go?
—Didn't you say, you wanted to see the sea.
—We’ll go look for Whalefall City.
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