Conscious, Conscientious

The shimmering spectacle of light blue halted Zayza from her departure. As she stood frozen, the endless memory triangles drifted around her like lingering snowflakes.

There was something more relaxed about the way they coasted this time. Their chiming song filled the air.

But as more and more arrived, having exited her cave where her own memories rested, she realized they were passing her by.

She wasn’t their destination.

Zayza’s eyes widened: the chorus of memory triangles began orbiting around the floating blue flame before her.

No…she doubted outright.

But they drew closer, never speeding up, never wavering.

Many of the triangles rotated, their unique curves and edges connecting like an intricate puzzle. Even still, they closed in on the flame until Zayza couldn’t see it anymore.

She couldn’t help it any longer: Zayza’s heart pounded.

The memories joined and compressed fully around the flame. Zayza shielded her eyes— their brilliance was almost too much.

Then, with a flash she could see through her pressed eyelids, it was over.

Silence.

“Yep. Knew you were here,” came a coarse voice. “Weirdly, I could feel it somehow.”

Zayza’s chest went numb. Her gasping mouth dropped wide-open, tears bursting from her eyes before she even beheld the sight before her.

Hiroko laughed. “Hey, Zayza.”

She stood in place of the flame—or rather, as Zayza understood now: her body no longer was the flame. Head-to-toe, she was her full self, though her icy eyes now glistened with the same brilliance as the memory triangles.

The top to Hiroko’s signature fighting clothes had spawned in a different design than her typical purple and black stripes, instead featuring a pattern much like Zayza’s new Hidakalan dresses. But they showed off her many tattoos just the same.

Hiroko smirked. “What?”

Zayza darted forward, nearly blind from her glowing green tears. She wrapped herself around her friend, wailing. Hiroko’s continued laugh felt like home against her.

It was undeniable, though—she was still different.

Her body felt warm, but not in a real-world sense. It was more like sunlight against Zayza’s skin—like pure energy.

Like a Dream World body.

Zayza managed to blink away some of her tears. Against Hiroko’s firm shoulder, she could see the slightest hue of blue light, the same shade as those icy eyes.

It was Dreamer energy. She was Dreamer energy: formed fresh from her memories and the essence of her existence, this was Hiroko’s Dreamer body. Abnormal as it seemed, Zayza was certain.

Hiroko’s hand rose to cradle Zayza’s head against her.

“You pieced me back together, didn’t you?”

Zayza sniffed. “I…I didn’t understand what was happening, but…I suppose I did.”

“Ha. Zayza, you really can do anything.”

Zayza lifted her head and met Hiroko’s sparkling new eyes. The vague light’s outline continued across every short purple spike in her hair. Zayza guessed if she stepped back, Hiroko’s hue would hardly be noticeable—like any Dreamer’s body.

“But…h—how? How can this be possible…?”

“Well, I did take direct hit from a beam that’s supposed to steal powers and turn people into Dreamers,” Hiroko reasoned, casually observing her new form before gazing around at their surreal surroundings. “So this is the Dream World, huh? You weren’t kidding, it’s pretty strange. I like it.”

Zayza clutched her friend’s shoulders. “Then you’re alive?!”

“Not my body, that’s for sure,” Hiroko refuted. “I felt it get completely ripped apart.”

The sheer nonchalance in the recollection of her own destruction left Zayza speechless, only able to blink in bafflement. She always knew Hiroko to brush off injuries—but to see her do so at this level was downright dizzying.

Yet Zayza knew the seasoned fighter had to be right. She’d watched it happen; there was no body left.

“…But I guess I am alive…just in here,” Hiroko concluded.

“I suppose it’s possible…it was right at the start of Dreamwake—both worlds were merging…” Zayza pondered to herself. “Combine that with Proscious’s beam made with my father’s powers…which was also possibly beginning to draw from Layla…all perhaps coming together to—”

“Think you could show me all of those wild Dreamer attacks you used to tell me about?” Hiroko requested.

“Hey!!” Zayza snapped. “How are you taking this so well?!”

“What? This is better than being dead,” chuckled Hiroko. “It’s okay now, isn’t it?”

Zayza’s cheeks puffed in a royal pout. “You don’t know that. I haven’t even briefed you on what’s happened since then,” she rebuked matter-of-factly.

“Well, we obviously won,” Hiroko figured.

“Y—yes, but…be more concerned! You didn’t know!”

“Of course I did.” Hiroko’s eyes softened, her confidence unyielding. “I knew you guys would finish them. I believed in you the whole time,” she said. “You and Kotono are unbeatable, Zayza. Kotono still has no idea how true that is. Plus, the cousins…Skrili…your sister…Phillip…it’s not just strength; it’s heart. We were made to come together and stop those guys.”

Maybe it was the rush of being revived into an otherworldly form, but Hiroko’s encouragement was more spiritual than usual. Zayza smiled.

“So…how is she?” Hiroko finally implored.

The Dream World seemed to hush around them.

“Okay. Grieving.” Zayza knew Hiroko wouldn’t need further elaboration to get it. “She’s with the others. Proscious stole that sweet girl Pang away—it seems they’re much bigger and more ambitious than we realized—so the team is off on a mission to rescue her. The head of the League himself is overseeing it.”

Hiroko crossed her arms in confidence. “Wow. If Kotono’s doing that, she’s doing well,” she gathered in a sigh of relief. “Good. She’ll be safe with that group. But…you’re not with them?”

Zayza shook her head. “We all agreed to hide me here, while Layla and Fewpar work to clear my name. It’s been weeks.”

“I was about to ask where ‘here’ was, but…” started Hiroko, “does this happen a lot?”

She gazed down at the ground. Zayza thought she’d felt its sensation transform beneath her: the green and purple grass underneath them, and as far as she could see, had changed to a new substance.

“I missed these sands,” Hiroko uttered. “Let me guess: my mother is making Chiwawo watch over you out there?”

Zayza laughed in confirmation. “Your brother is about as strong and sweet as you.”

“Eh, he tries to be.”

“He…misses you dearly,” Zayza told her. “But I’m certain he won’t believe me if I tell him you’re alive in here.”

“I know what you should say—we’ll sort him out,” Hiroko brushed off with a wink.

Zayza savored the laugh they shared together, as if there was no knowing when they would share it again. But unlike the other souls she lost, Hiroko was here again. It still didn’t feel like it, but she wasn’t fading away. Everything in Zayza’s heart prayed that would remain true.

“It’s so odd…” commented her warrior companion.

“Becoming a Dream World being?”

“No—this is awesome,” chuckled Hiroko. “I just mean…when you said the war wasn’t over against Proscious, I…already knew that somehow.”

Zayza’s attention sharpened.

“That white beam hit me, and I felt it for a split second—then, I felt nothing. I just saw white,” Hiroko retraced. “And I heard voices…but I can’t remember what they said. The next thing I understood was feeling your presence.”

Zayza thought back to the final memory triangle. “Those voices…were they…? OH!”

A spark suddenly blocked her vision—some sort of lights had just popped out from her forehead.

As they floated away from her, their shape became clear: the final memory triangles she’d received, bright but tainted with hints of blackness. Like a magnetic pull, the memories departed from her head and drew straight towards Hiroko’s, where they flashed away to become one with her mind.

Zayza could still remember their contents: those unknown, unseen people debating an attempt to stop Proscious’s rise. She remembered the hurt and confusion from the first voice. However, it was no longer a lived experience—it was a simple thought, like somebody had told her about it.

As instantly as the memory triangles ejected from her, the memories themselves became secondhand.

“Whoa.” Hiroko blinked to recover her vision. A sudden light beneath her caught Zayza’s eye, and she gasped.

To her shock, she noticed Hiroko’s body had been incomplete this whole time: in a glow of blue, her apparently missing feet began filling in against the sand like a drawing in progress. They glittered with the same glow of the triangles for a moment before matching the rest of her form.

The final memories returned, Zayza gathered. Now, she’s truly pieced back together.

“Oh—there we go. I remember what I saw after the blast,” Hiroko noticed calmly. “Okay, this is starting to make sense.”

“Is it…?” doubted Zayza. “I couldn’t gather any logic from those memories.”

“Well, those voices talked about stopping Proscious before they started. That means, for some reason, we saw a vision from a long time ago. Maybe an extremely long time ago,” Hiroko expressed. “Because the vision before that was full of images from Hidakala, but…”

Zayza watched her eyebrows furrow in perplexity—a rare expression for seasoned Predictors.

“…I’ve never seen those Hidakalan faces before…or even some of those places,” she explained. “There was a cave with Hidakalan drawings, but I’ve only ever heard of caves like that in stories. They were myths even to my great-great grandparents.”

“The visions are that old?!”

Hiroko nodded in thought. “Zayza…I think Proscious might be that old—or at least, the power source they’re drawing from.”

Zayza felt a chill. Finally, it was beginning to click.

“So if those visions are true, Proscious’ history intersected with Hidakala long ago,” she pieced together. “Which means…”

“Exactly. We might be able to find clues to their secrets right here in the village,” concluded Hiroko. “And if that ‘power to stop them’ still exists, like those voices said, then—”

“Then we might find that, too!” Zayza finished.

‘The truth you seek is in our way…in our history…’

“It’s just as the Tribe Father said,” Zayza breathed. “The answer has been right under our noses this whole time…before we even knew we were seeking it?”

Their tenacious gazes locked to each other. Somehow, a runaway princess and a nonconforming desert warrior had found their lives interwoven—and now, it brought them here: about to unearth a truth perhaps bigger than either of their own realities.

It seemed the Tribe Father’s words weren’t meant just for Hiroko when she was deciding whether or not to leave Hidakala, or for Zayza to help her find Hiroko’s memories.

They were—perhaps this whole time—meant for this moment.

Hiroko chuckled. “You’re already thinking like a Hidakalan,” she noticed.

Zayza blushed. The realization felt so natural, she’d forgotten Hiroko’s skepticism towards her people’s beliefs.

“But I think you’re right,” Hiroko finished. “I know Hidakala. I can guide you from in here. You’ll have to go do the searching.”

Nahutala will help, too, Zayza knew. And maybe Chiwawo…if I can win back his trust….

“So go back out there, tell my family I say hi, and come back for brainstorming,” instructed Hiroko. “But I’ll only help on one condition…”

“I know, I know. I’ll teach you Dreamer combat techniques.”

“Awesome. Thanks.”

Upon Hiroko’s insistence, Zayza began backing away. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to depart, her watery eyes fixated on her newly reborn friend.

“Hey, stop that. I’m not going anywhere,” Hiroko said tenderly. “When you get back, I’ll be standing right here.”

Zayza nodded. “Okay…Promise.”

“I do, I promise.”

Sighing, Zayza managed to close her eyes. She began centering herself to cross into the other realm.

“Wait.”

This time, it was Hiroko’s hesitation that stopped her. Zayza’s reopening eyes found Hiroko a step closer.

“Zayza…I need you to promise me something, too,” she uttered. “Don’t let Kotono know I’m alive yet.”

“What? But why…?”

“I know, it sounds crazy. But…”

Hiroko’s focus moved from her, and her face warmed with an unspeakable depth as she looked off into the horizon.

“I think this will be good for her.”

Though no less confused, Zayza couldn’t resist her friend’s hope. “Alright…then I suppose I’ll await your permission.”

With that, the time had come once again. Tugging against her urge to simply stay and hold Hiroko close as long as possible, Zayza assumed the formation to leave the Dream World.

“Oh—and if Chiwawo gives you a hard time and doesn’t want to help,” Hiroko recalled, her voice beginning to echo with distance, “just tell him this…”

~

Once again, Zayza’s steps flung the desert sand behind her like dust clouds.

It was just like Hiroko to jump straight into the matter at hand. But now that their interaction was over, it finally hit Zayza:

Hiroko was back.

She was actually back.

And endless more conversations, laughter, and life awaited them.

The sheer elation converted into adrenaline, propelling Zayza from the village and out into the broader Mainland Desert. If anyone had seen her sprinting by, they would have undoubtedly dubbed her insane. She ran with a booming smile, even giggling to herself as she kicked up sand with an occasional skip.

I must tell him. It can’t wait.

Zayza cleared the outer slopes and found herself in the vast, open darkness. Had she first visited this terrain at night, she would’ve assumed only the stars and Worlds above existed beyond this point. She continued on, her steps slightly more cautious.

I can’t leave things the way they are—not with what I know now.

“Chiwawo!” she called out.

Many more attempts would follow, until Zayza realized she’d stopped keeping track of her steps. The way back to the tribe was long gone, shrouded in the night.

But the desert remained silent all the while, and nothing changed besides her gradually depleting stamina. Clearly, beginning this search in such a vigorous sprint wasn’t her wisest decision.

“…Chiwawo!”

Zayza shivered at the increasing chill. Even seeking through her feet, she couldn’t sense any presence out here other than here own.

No—there was something.

A vibration had just begun below the ground, not far ahead of her path. It seemed to swirl as it moved—a pattern nothing like the Sand Dragons she’d sensed before.

But it was increasing, slowly approaching her.

Slowly…and then all at once.

Faster than Zayza could prepare, an attack was upon her.

Sand exploded all around, and a long, shadowy creature sprung out from underground before her feet. The force flung Zayza onto her back.

The apparent monster unleashed a screech, freezing her in place. Its sulfuric breath gusted through her hair, and its countless teeth reflected just enough of the moonlight to communicate just how cruel her death would be.

But then, nothing happened.

Zayza blinked. It took a full moment before she realized the monster’s scream was one of pain. Some sort of spear was lodged deep into its snakelike neck.

With a thud, the beast crashed onto the sand and tumbled all around. And while she couldn’t make out much of its form under this light, she saw a frame she recognized much better:

Chiwawo wrestled it across the ground, locking up some of its many limbs. At last, Zayza could make out the spear’s familiar shape. It was Chiwawo’s pointed staff—he must have thrown it just before the animal could claim Zayza’s life.

“Chiwawo?!”

Preoccupied as he was, the hunter said nothing. But Zayza’s concern diminished as he made quick work of his prey, rising with his spear to deliver the killing blow to its head. Zayza averted her gaze from the gruesome aftermath. But she peered back when he stood victorious, the tension in his broad shoulders clear due to his now-tattered, dampened shirt.

She beheld the hardness of his stance. He was as a painting under the stars, a lifetime of tussles like this having sculpted his titanic frame—a beauty born from need.

“Princess, what are you doing out here?!” the titan boomed.

Zayza blinked.

“You are lucky I noticed you before any of the guards did,” he said. “They would be much more suspicious of your wandering.”

While Zayza caught her breath, Chiwawo turned to the corpse to reap the reward of his labor in silence. His words felt cold, lacking any familiarity as if all their time together had never occurred. She was a naïve guest he needed to babysit.

No: she could still see it. He avoided her eyes as he spoke, like he knew his act would let up if he didn’t. Their connection wasn’t yet severed.

“Thank y—” Zayza finally tried.

“Go back. This place is unfit for you…for an—an outsider,” Chiwawo interrupted. He hesitated, seeming to assume the same thought Zayza had: even if she could manage to navigate her way back, she wasn’t fit to fend off another ambush.

“Follow me,” he sighed.

Squatting low, he lifted the dead beast on his shoulder and walked past her like she was a ghost.

But while Zayza turned, she didn’t take a step.

“Chiwawo,” she called. “She’s alive.”

“Enough.”

“She is.”

“Enough.”

Zayza tensed. She didn’t come all the way out here in the dead of night, and almost perish, just for him to shut her down again.

“Please…you want to believe, don’t you?” she persisted. “I know you can’t see her yourself, but is that any different than believing in the Gods below? Have faith, like you already do.”

Chiwawo slowed, but only because he noticed she wasn’t yet following.

Fine…Zayza lamented.

Huffing in a deep breath, she pointed off into the distance.

“Then Chiwawo: I challenge you!” she declared.

“…Huh?”

Zayza slammed her eyes shut like a brace for impact, cheeks flushing. “Last one to the Curving Peak has to…moon the Tribe Father’s guard!!”

Her voice reverberated for a moment, and nothing but dreadful silence followed.

Somehow, the phrase sounded even more ludicrous out loud.

She only dared reopen her eyes when she sensed Chiwawo’s steps returning. He set the beast aside, his face unreadable.

Then, he simply took hold of Zayza’s still-pointing hand, and redirected it to a further angle.

“The Curving Peak is that way,” he said plainly.

“…Oh.”

Chiwawo still avoided her eyes. “So, that is what she said would convince me?”

Zayza shrugged. “I resisted, but she promised it would—”

She caught herself.

Wait…it worked!

Zayza would’ve picked essentially any other memory if it were up to her—but that was probably why it succeeded: it wasn’t up to her.

Memories were finite on their own, but a sibling’s bond was unmistakable.

Chiwawo’s hand separated from hers and patted her head.

“She is truly in there, huh?”

“The blast she took on…Dreamer power was blended into it, and that must have preserved her mind. Her memories finally led me to her,” Zayza confirmed. “And just like me…she is counting on your help.”

“For what, to pull her out of your brain?” judged Chiwawo. “I swear…she cannot even give me a moment to celebrate the news before putting me to work.”

Zayza tried—and then tried not—to picture what such an attempt would entail. She debated if should explain that wasn’t how the Dream World worked.

But to her relief, Chiwawo ensuing chuckle proved he was joking. It ascended into a full-bellied laugh, until evening into sigh like a wave on the Azvaylen Sea.

“Hirokyauta is alive.”

Zayza’s heart fluttered at the warmth of his affirmation.

“We found strange visions mixed into the powers that caused her Dreamer form,” Zayza said. “…Visions that hint our enemies’ origin once overlapped with Hidakalan history.”

“So you plan to explore for evidence of that,” Chiwawo gathered.

“Yes. You…Nahutala…me…and Hiroko,” uttered Zayza. “I see it now, what your Gods below have called the four of us to do—what they have been preparing us for.”

“Mm. Then this is our quest.”

Zayza nodded. “Chiwawo…if we succeed, this might help our friends save entire realities.”

Chiwawo’s reply didn’t waste a beat. “Then be sure to do as Nahutala said.”

Zayza felt him brush her locks from her cheek. But his eyes were fixed on what lay ahead of them: utter darkness, and beyond that, the tribe.

“Princess. Dreamer. Fellow Hidakalan: wear that triangle tattoo proud,” he encouraged. “And I will not leave your side again. Tell my sister, ‘I accept.’”