wish

The Ocean

Lance glanced at Sunflower with a soft smile.

Sunflower felt torn. She didn’t want Ruby tagging along — the journey ahead could be dangerous. She was a skilled fighter who could withstand almost anything, and Lance had a rare power with regenerative abilities. But Ruby was only a child. The ocean he wanted to see was at Dewbour, the port city on the far west — the safest route to the sea, and the very reason Dewbour had been built.

After a long moment of contemplation, she decided to stop overthinking.

“Fine,” Sunflower said at last. “But you must always stay close and follow our instructions.”

Ruby nodded, and the trio set back on the road.

Their walk to Mavule Village was smooth but slow. They took more breaks than usual to accommodate Ruby’s small, easily-tired body.

During one of these breaks, a sudden sound erupted from the forest. A flock of birds burst upward into the sky all at once. To Ruby, it might have seemed normal, but Lance and Sunflower immediately stood, tense and alert. Both faced the treeline where the birds had taken flight.

Still watching the forest, Lance asked, “Are they moving?”

His question was directed at Sunflower.

“No,” she replied. “It’s odd. It’s as if they teleported out of nowhere.”

“It also feels like the presence is far away… and in the sky,” she added.

Ruby, beginning to panic, asked, “What’s happening?!”

“We don’t know yet,” Lance said calmly. “But whatever it is hasn’t made a move.”

“Maybe they haven’t seen us. I can’t see anything out there,” Ruby muttered. Being so young, he wasn’t accustomed to the horrors or unimaginable powers of the world; to him, their behavior felt like a strange act in a play.

“No,” Sunflower said firmly. “They’ve sensed us. I can feel their eyes on us.”

“How many are there?” Ruby asked.

But the duo stayed silent. They couldn’t answer what they didn’t know.

“Well, what should we do?” Ruby’s anxiety spiked. He fired question after question, feeling the edge of dread.

“In this situation,” Sunflower said, stepping forward, “I’d rather run. But they’d catch us quickly. The only logical choice is to face them.”

“Face them? Why?” Ruby shouted. “Can’t we just mind our own business and keep going?”

“We could have,” Lance replied, following Sunflower deeper into the forest. “But they keep watching without moving. That’s a signal to step forward. If we refuse, anything might happen.”

Ruby took a deep breath and followed them.

Soon the trio saw golden light shining through the trees. As they crossed the last row of trunks, they emerged into a field so vast it stretched for nearly ten kilometers, ringed entirely by forest. Golden light streamed down from above — not sunlight, but something else.

Slowly, they raised their heads. Their eyes widened.

High above in the sky stood a woman. Her features were hard to make out at such a distance, but her golden hair radiated light across the field. She floated with enormous golden wings, their slow, deliberate flaps keeping her suspended. One of the wings was so large it dwarfed even the meteor Lance had once hurled at Tresia.

The woman’s voice drifted down, soft and mature:

“O mortals, be blessed by the grace of the Holy Sky.”

She smiled faintly, her eyes settling on the trio.

“For recognizing and remembering His Holiness, I shall grant you one wish from the cosmos. Speak, dear children of the sky — you who were born from the twelfth heaven and shall return there.”

“I,” she declared, “the Angel of Perseverance, shall witness and obey your wish.”