The Floating Island

“Be careful!”

Crystal reluctantly listened, stepping away from the edge, but not enough to soothe Ridley and Alinyah’s anxiety. It was like she was trying to scare them.

“Are all kids like this?” Ridley wheezed. “I’m starting to remember why I never wanted them.”

“I promise it’s not always like this,” Alinyah replied, squeezing his arm. “I only feel like killing them a quarter of the time.”

“You’ll forgive me if I just take your word for it,” Ridley snorted.”Oh, um, you can put me down now.”

Alinyah rolled her eyes, but set Ridley down with the grace only a mom could do.

“I can dust myself off just fine,” He complained as she tried to help him. “I’m not a little boy anymore!”

“I know, but you’ll always be my little boy,” Alinyah purred, as she nuzzled his cheek. “Not every mom can still do this like we can.”

“I guess so.” Ridley admitted.

The night had passed without incident. Crystal and Alinyah had woken to the smell of Ridley cooking eggs and warm cereal, who had promptly began devouring the spread he had made as if they were competing with one another. Thankfully, Alinyah helped him with cleaning the mess that had been made, and they agreed to go on a hike before she’d leave towards the island’s edge so that Crystal could see the lake beneath them and the mountains on the horizon. What they hadn’t planned on was for Ridley’s age to catch up to him, meaning he had to switch places with the little girl who had been carried up to that point and get ahead of them.

“Weer weally high up!” squealed Crystal, standing on the tips of her toes as if it would make her see farther. “I can see moun’ans! Theyw so big!!”

“Those mountains are called the Ranges of Hao,” Ridley shared, joining her at the edge. “They were originally much smaller, but were raised to their current state when Xelf was gathering supplies to build his school!”

“Woah, weally?”

“And you don’t have to take my word for it,” he continued. “Alinyah helped him!”

“Is that twue?” Crystal zipped over towards his mom, a new light in her eye. “You can make moun’ans?”

Alinyah blushed. “Well, maybe a little,” she confessed. “I dabbled with some earth magyk when I was younger.”

“Lemme see!!” Crystal exclaimed. “Make a moun’an!”

Ridley knelt down and put a hand on Crystal’s shoulder. “It’s a bit hard to make a mountain on a floating island,” He informed her. “How about we try something different? She knows more than just earth magic, you know.”

For a moment, Crystal looked discouraged as Alinyah took her hands in her own. After a moment, a light sparked to life in the little girl’s blue eyes as she spoke with renewed vigor, “Oh! There’s a twee over thewe,” she exclaimed, pointing. “Do something on the twee!”

Following the child’s finger, Ridley and Alinyah saw a beautiful oak about thirty feet away from them, its branches shimmering with the vibrant greens of summer.

Alinyah smirked. “Alright, this’ll be easy.” She purred. “Watch and learn, Crystal. Mama's about to have some fun.”

Crouching low, she leapt towards the tree, covering the vast distance with the speed and grace of a professional dancer. Crystal’s eyes widened even further, screaming in delight as the Cait Sith began to exert her will upon the branches and the very trunk of the oak. After she was finished, Alinyah stepped back, beckoning them over and admiring her handiwork.

“This is amazing!” Crystal clapped, bouncing up and down at the sight of the wooden replica of herself. “How did you do that? You didn’t even touch it!”

“Well, I used my magyk,” Alinyah answered simply. She knocked on the bark. “I reshaped it, that's all. It’ll still grow and get bigger, I just changed the shape a little.”

“But how did you do that!”

Ridley reached over and ruffled Crystal’s hair. “It’s probably kind of like how you see the future,” he tried to explain. “The thing, though, is that magyk is hard to understand, and harder to use. Maybe one day Alinyah will teach you how it’s done.”

“Why can’t you teach me now?”

A mischievous grin began to take form on Alinyah’s face. “Okay, how about we make a deal,” she began, crouching down to Crystal’s level. “Let’s play tag. If I can’t catch you, I’ll teach you today. I’ll even give you a headstart, okay?”

Crystal’s eyes sparkled in amazement and she nodded furiously and began to run off, shrieking with laughter. Alinyah exchanged glances with Ridley, grinning.

“I think it’s sweet that you’re telling her stories about me, do you have an idea on what you’ll tell her tonight?”

Ridley shrugged. “I was thinking I’d maybe regale her about one of your more daring exploits. Is there one in particular you would prefer I share?”

“I’ll leave that up to you, sweetie. I have a little girl to chase.”

With the same speed and grace she had used earlier, Alinyah bounded for her target, shifting into her true form. Ridley tried to keep track of her, but quickly lost sight of her among the shifting foliage. Crystal’s shrieking returned even louder somehow now that the chase was on.

Within moments, Alinyah came crashing out of the treeline, cradling her little captive by the collar of her shirt in her powerful jaws. At first, Ridley was worried that Crystal had been hurt; however, his concern was resolved when he realized she was squirming with delight as Alinyah dropped her to her feet. Yet, His mom did not share the little girl’s enthusiasm, and was instead focused and alert.

“Be quiet, I smell someone.” She growled, fur standing on end.

Crystal’s eyes went wide with shock, instantly obeying the command. A feeling of dread began to snake down Ridley’s spine in spite of himself. He knew he could rely on his mom to protect the three of them, but still wished there was something he could do to help. Both of them stepped behind Alinyah, whose fur was now on edge, as if she was puffing herself up to look more intimidating.

For several moments, nobody moved. Alinyah sniffed the air again, relaxing, but still kept guard. “I think it might be another family.” she said cautiously. “Sniff! I’m smelling four people. Sniff! One of them smells like they use too much oil for their hair. Another has Sniff! … a lot of food stains on their clothes. I mean, a lot of stains. I hope that one is a little one and not some teenager or adult.”

“That’ll be the Volstocks,” Ridley chimed in, visibly relieved. “Randal likes to mold his hair into funny shapes, and his toddler likes to hide food in his pockets.” After a moment he added, “If I remember correctly, I think Randal just applied for tenure a few months ago actually.”

“Oh, well in that case, let's say hi.”

Crystal exhaled, breathing heavily while Alinyah returned to her mundane form. Was she seriously holding her breath during this? Ridley wondered.

The three of them followed Alinyah’s nose, moving through the forest to a clearing where a park was constructed. Randal Volstock waved to them, sitting with his wife at one of the benches as they casually watched their children from a bench.

“Morning Oakley, morning Alinyah!” Randal boomed. “Now who is this little cutie with ya?”

“Howdy Randal, Eris,” Ridley greeted back. “This is Crystal. Alinyah is bringing her to Eclipse for the foreseeable future.”

“How do you do, Crystal?” Eris asked, smiling pleasantly.

“Honey, this is one of the teachers at Eclipse Academy,” Alinyah explained to Crystal, kneeling down to her level. “You’ll probably see him a lot more later.”

Ever brimming with confidence, Crystal walked right up to Randal and Eris, “Hi, I’m Cwystal. It’s nice to meet you!” She nearly shouted, extending her hand in greeting. “I’m four and a half years old!”

“She’s so polite,” Randal winced, adding in sotto voice, “and loud,”

That made him snort in amusement. “What’s so funny, Oak-ey!” Crystal demanded, whipping her attention back towards him. “Why are you laughing?” Ridley got ahold of himself. “Oh, I just remembered something funny someone told me once,” he lied. “Maybe I’ll tell you later.”

“Hmmph, nobody tells me anything!” Crystal whined.

“Why don’t you go play with Anthony and Stella?” Eris suggested. “Maybe they’ll be able to fill you in?”

Crystal looked like she enjoyed the idea of playing with someone more her age, and sprinted over towards the Volstock kids; it seemed like Stella had somehow buried Anthony up to his neck in the ground, who was laughing along like they had found a way to make their game more enjoyable.

“Is he alright?” Ridley asked with concern.

The Volstocks and Alinyah chuckled at his question. “Oh, it’s nothing to worry about,” Randal said easily. “Stella just learned she has an affinity for earth magyk, is all. They’ve been doing this all week. Children are surprisingly resilient.”

“It feels like half the time when they get hurt, they aren’t sure if they should laugh or cry,” Alinyah added. “So they’ll see how their parents' react before acting accordingly.”

Crystal and Stella began pulling Anthony out of the ground, roughly slapping the dirt off him. The little boy didn’t seem to mind, and was even hitting himself to try to get clean. Once they were all satisfied, the three kids migrated over towards a group of horses on springs.

“Do you know how she lost her parents?” Randal murmured. “I’m assuming she lost them, since she’s coming to Eclipse. If you don’t mind my asking, that is.”

“Their names were January and Jewel Light,” Alinyah answered, suddenly somber. “They enlisted around a year when they had Crystal; just after we figured out the Electorate were prioritizing our precogs in their attacks, so we made sure they were under the best protection possible. So Alister asked one of the Asura to look out for them personally, and she did; she took that responsibility very seriously. Everything was going great until two months ago, when everything went to hell.

“It was supposed to be a simple scouting expedition, nothing they hadn’t done before,” she added grimly, her voice starting to shake. Ridley noticed she was playing with the folds of her dress, “Jewel was in the middle of divining the future, to see if the area was safe, or if the Electorate had any weaknesses, I don’t know, but the area was suddenly overwhelmed with technowarriors. They killed the Lights first then everyone else, and captured the Asura. We had to stage a rescue just to get her back. It was horrible.”

“By the Divine,” Randal and Eris gasped.

Alinyah shivered. “We lost almost an entire regiment just to get an Asura back. One person.”

Randal swore. “Are you alright?” They gasped in shock. “That must have been terrifying. And this just happened two months ago? Why didn’t we hear about any of this?”

“I wasn’t captured, it… it was Venus,” Alinyah reluctantly clarified. “She got injured during the escape, and I’m not supposed to tell any of you this, but has formally withdrawn from both the war, and from her position at Eclipse. I think she found her nephew and is trying to train him as her replacement, but I haven’t seen her since the incident. And I’m not surprised you haven’t heard any of this. The Military’s Information Bureau has been very selective about what developments the public gets to learn about the war. A captured Asura and losing a regiment would never become public information. As much as I hate all this obscurity, I have to admit, letting the Republic dissolve into chaos wouldn’t help if they knew what was really happening out there.”

“Everyone would panic and then the military would have to crack down on their own people,” Ridley added. “We need to be focused on repelling the Electorate and forcing a surrender or armistice or something before we blow each other into extinction.”

“I feel like a coup is the only way to reach peace,” Randal offered. “Argo is adamant on expansion. I don’t think he’ll ever stop. He needs to be replaced with someone more willing to negotiate any kind of ceasefire.”

“Are you talking about the robots?”

All four of them jumped. Without their notice, the kids had joined them and had listened in to the conversation. Each of them glanced at one another uneasily, until Alinyah finally knelt down to their level, putting on a big smile. “Yes, we are,” she admitted

“Are the robots going to win?” Stella followed up with, “What’ll happen to us if they win?”

For one brief moment, Ridley allowed himself to ponder the implications of the Unimus winning. Publicly, the TechnoKing claims that he started this war to hold the human race accountable for his people’s mistreatment at their hands in ages past. That the people today would become the icons for Unimus-kind for generations. Everyone had collectively puzzled how he would accomplish such a feat. And moments later, understood with horrifying certainty that the TechnoKing would uphold his promise when he had somehow harnessed the full force of the sun to glass an entire city near the Electorate. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people, immolated and perfectly preserved in their final moments of despair and agony. And it had been broadcasted to the entire Republic. Although whatever weapon King Argo had used to accomplish such a feat hadn’t been used again to Ridley’s knowledge, the thought that the TechnoKing could and would use it again chilled the old man to his core.

“I don’t think robots will win,” Alinyah said evasively. “But if they do, there’s no way they would do anything to hurt any of you. You three are too cute!” She nuzzled Stella’s hair, who giggled. “Is there something you need, sweetie?”

“We wanted to ask dad if he could push us on the swing!” Anthony blurted out.

“He knows how to push us really high!” Stella added, throwing a big stink eye towards her little brother.

Randal chuckled, “Of course, honey. Let’s go.”

The two kids were practically dragging their mom and dad over to the swing set. Ridley noticed that Crystal stayed with them instead of joining the other kids this time. “Is everything alright, Crystal?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t think so.” Crystal sniffed as tears started to well in her eyes. She refused to look away from the swinging Volstocks. “I just miss my dad.”

The pain Ridley felt the night before returned. Beside him, Alinyah shared his grief as he joined her to kneel and look at the little girl at eye level. “I know, and that must hurt a lot, in here,” he touched about where her heart should be. “That kind of hurt is a lot harder to heal.”

“Can we go home?”

Ridley and Alinyah exchanged glances. “Of course, sweetie,” Alinyah agreed. “Let’s go home.”

Their hike was over, and once again, Ridley thought he would be terrible at parenting.