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Beachcombing for Iron	By : dweller_of_roots Category: +G through L > Lighthouse: The Dark Being Views: 1025 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Lighthouse: The Dark Being, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 8
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For the first time since I had defeated the dark being and returned home alive - I had a dream.
... Not a good dream necessarily, nor a poor one. But a dream of iron and steel, entertwining serpent-like with the rusted out husks of buildings that looked as if they had been bleached as clean as bones. The rythmic pounding of forges echoed throughout my skull like a quarry of mechanical lovers, while the unending drone of klaxxons seemed to grow ever louder. Though I could not hear the waves over the cacophony... I could feel my feet growing soaked as I stood still. The tide would soon be here, and with it's arrival I would be gone.
People poured passed me in a grasping horde, their violent eyes glazed and skittering over one another as if each other single person was not another living being, but something to be feared and hated - a danger to be overcome. To my horror, I saw people pushed to the ground, beaten, trampled on. Those left were quickly forgotten or perhaps not even noticed at all, as more people cascaded onwards and forwards - and over them all, the droning roar of the sirens grew louder till, until it cut off in a halting crescendo.
My eyes turned skywards - but there was no sun, and no sky.
Above the plaza I stood in alone, save for the dying and the dead -
Waves taller than any skyscraper roiled against one another, before crashing down.
... I awoke to a start. Liryl had already started working, though I couldn't see what, exactly, she was working on. I must have made a sound or a cry of some kind, for she wheeled around in her chair, concern visible along the ocean-light of her eyes.
My hands had gone into the air unconsciously, trying to protect myself from something still vividly remembered.
"Are you.. All right? That was such - a horrifying sound - "
Liryl's voice was deep with concern, but all I managed was a weak nod of my head, and an even weaker smile.
"Definitely, yeah. Just -"
I grimaced. Hell, there was no reason to mince words with her - I trusted Liryl, and that dream had been...
"Actually, I still remember it. Vividly. I feel like it was a glimpse of... Well, at first I figured it was your world. The tides were relentless, but worse still were the people. They had no care for one another, nothing but resentment. Each one of them selfishly trod over one another, and in the end it was pointless. The wave must have hit with enough force to snap necks and break bones, and those that somehow survived the first were either hit by the subsequent waters or carried beneath them. But... More than that, I remember thinking it looked like the city I moved out of when I left for the coast..."
"That sounds... Awful. When I first - after recovering the accident, I often had... Similar dreams. Though in mine - I was being held... Beneath the waves, and no matter what I did, I - could not manage to bring myself to the waters above. There was - nothing, but the current, pulling me down..."
Liryl stared into space for several moments, than blew a strand of hair out of her face and smiled a little wryly.
"Dreams are not... So bad, however - even ones like ours. Perhaps it meant... You are worried about the future, or something to do with your... Home?"
"Not impossible, but the thing is - I'm not really, unless it's something really subconscious that I just can't see. It hit me more like a sucker-punch to the gut... Can I ask you a kind of odd question, Liryl?"
"You can ask me... Anything you like."
Liryl paused, and made an adorably mischievious face.
"Though I cannot promise... I'll answer you honestly!"
I was reminded of the song-rhymes the priests spoke in, and stifled my laughter - then gathered my thoughts before speaking once more.
"What do you plan to do here, Liryl?
She hummed to herself, as if she hadn't given it much thought before - the answer of someone who has thought about an issue perhaps every day, from the moment it occurred to them.
"... I will explore this world. I want to find... Every ruined city, every temple, every... Forest. To know all the animals still... Alive, and to see the burial lands of those now dead. To catalogue the stories of past and present that all who travel here... Might know. To grow old and die, surrounded by machines and the... Memories of my work, made by my own hand."
Her eyes shut, and a slight smile spread to her face.
"Is that really what you want, Liryl."
She opened her eyes - the blue lined with a steel more inflexible then that used in any of her machines.
"Yes."
"Then I'd like to you to visit my world, just for a day. I know you won't stay there - and circumstances... Might make it impossible for me to visit here again in the future."
My fingers tightened, both at my own greed, and at the reality of the idea that an untested portal designed by a - friendly, but eccentric - scientist was not the safest device to leave unleashed, especially with the world - my world - as it was now.
Liryl simply stared, shocked.
"You would not... Try to make me stay there? To leave this world behind..?"
My head shook, firmly.
"No. You mean a lot to me. As much as I might want it... You matter to me. What sort of person would I be if I treated the person I cherish like something to be caged and brought home?"
Her eyes shut again, eyelashes masking her smile - and serving only to highlight her few and unbidden tears.
"I - I would be... Honored to visit your world. In fact, I - Have been working on something, since before you returned... I thought it would be important... To have some way to travel around. Could you... Help me?"
Liryl beckoned to me, and it took me awhile to respond. Both to her, and the idea that she had asked me to help her. Nodding numbly and still smiling somewhat giddily, I stepped over - and finally caught sight of what she was working on.
The legs of the mechanical birdman had been removed, stripped, rebuilt, stripped again, and modified so many times as to be all but unrecognizable; lithe, with 'legs' that tapered off into feet similar to cloven talons. Wires and connectors of what looked to be plant fibers yet had a tensile strength as strong as any metal ran along the interior, tightly packed. Liryl grinned at me in pride.
"There is still a lot to be done. I am... Uncertain these will be complete before we visit, but - I feel that if you are willing to help me then, everything will be fine... And this way you know that I - will manage on my own. Though I do not think I would want... To wear these all the time-"
Liryl stopped, stammering, as I kissed her passionately. Her arms went to her sides for a moment before embracing me as she bit my lip gently, her tongue running over it and tickling mine as our lips interlocked.
Panting for breath as I drew back, I remembered something and tried my best to look less disheveled and more presentable.
"... That test you mentioned, Liryl. I'd like to take it."
She blinked several times, then nodded - slowly and with a great deal of solemnity I had yet to see. She circled me several times, her chair creaking against the floor - the only noise for a whole minute. I could almost feel her eyes boring into my skin.
"You are... Ready, I think. I cannot help you, however. Will you be..."
"I know you will be... Fine on your own."
She smiled as the thought occurred to her without a word from me - and then, with surprising speed, she reache forward and toussled my hair. It had admittedly grown a little bit shaggier than expected, but I laughed even though it felt nice to feel her return the favor - both the little gesture, and her confidence.
"Show me the way, then. I'll return after I've either succeeded - or failed terribly."
Grinning widely with a purpose I was surprised to actually feel, Liryl once again took my hand - and led me upwards, to the same chamber that possessed most of the communications equipment. She fiddled with several settings for a moment, and after a moment, several holograms blurred into being - I was suprised, though not very, to notice that they wore clothes similar to mine - that of my world, though somewhat worn from saltwater and heat. Their expressions were haggard - but hopeful.
The first of the three figures - two women, one man - spoke. Her voice was reedy and quiet, as if she gave a great deal of thought to every word she said. My eyes slid to my side - but like smoke, Liryl had disappeared. Nodding and steeling myself, I listened.
"This world is composed of endless possibilities, each possibility a world all it's own. Though we have witnessed the fall of our ruins we have withstood the ravaging tides, and as the spring beckons towards us we will sow our hopes to grow. What then, do you seek to repereset you as you take the mantle of priest?"
None of the figures judged me as I took my time to answer; they did not repeat the same motion endlessly, but occasionally shuffled or looked around as I thought, and then spoke. The questions and answers continued for some time, and I found myself growing more certain as I spoke.
I told the figures of my desires to write - to create new worlds, even if they only existed in fiction. To record the things around me and embellish them with fiction, or memorialize them as fact; or close as my mind would allow me to recognize any subjective thing as fact. Perhaps, even as I grew tired from standing and speaking, I imagined them laughing quietly at my answers - or perhaps they were still and silent, only listening patiently as I spoke also of the love that had grown for this world, dying as it was yet so rich with life - and of my love for Liryl.
She was not here to hear me, and so my words spilled out inelegantly. I also recognized that it was a love perhaps existing only to be fragmented once more as our worlds disentangled through whatever science had let me cross from the portal on earth to this realm of Planet; but that then, I wanted to create some memory of it, something so that even if I never set foot on the warm sands of these beaches, never once more spoke with her in conversation... There would be memory of our time together that perhaps she might find.
My words fell on ears long-dead and lost to time, and yet I cold not shake the feeling that the digitized priests understood what I said - or the emotion behind it. As I finally stopped, unable to say anymore and feeling exhausted, the second woman held up her hand. She did not smile, but neither did she frown.
"You have passed. Consider yourself a priest then, and our kin. Uphold your duty - to love Nature and preserve those you love, to see the world around you grow and flourish - to not repeat, for in repetition lies the mistakes we have made. Go now, and learn and in learning pass on all that you may. And eventually, we shall meet once more."
The figures smiled - then disappeared in a twang of old machinery as the simulation, if that had been what it was, ground to a halt.
My vision swam in and out of focus as I rose to my feet, blood pumping irregularly to my head. I felt dizzy - and at the same time exhilerated.
Outside the sun had risen... Again, as I realized just how long I had been speaking to the priests. Rushing into Liryl's room only to find her missing, I bolted from room to room in the temple then finally made my way to the beach in something of a confused haze, my elation depleting as I realized how tired and hungry I had grown.
... That feeling too, dispersed as my mouth nearly hit the ground. Liryl was lounging around outside, and talking with the familiar face of Doctor Krick. Slowly, my surprise turned into a smile and I stepped forward to speak with them - the sun belting down upon me as another thought entered my mind, terrifying as it was unavoidable.
Today had been my last day.
- 8
- 9
- 10
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Beachcombing for Iron