A Change in the Weather, Pt. 1

It had been... months since she'd last seen this island, the city of the Vandenreich. Months of introspection. Harsh truths. Harsh training. So much had to happen for her to reach the point where she now stood, at the end of the dock where her frustrations and disappointment had reached their peak. So much had changed for her...

Yet, this island was exactly the same.

The salty sea breeze tickled her senses, and elicited a grin from the young woman who stood in contemplation. Indeed, a lot had changed. She saw the word so much differently now than she had before, all thanks to Ghislain. She now saw not an infestation to be eradicated, but a thriving ecosystem that needed to be tended to. Protected. Sometimes, culled.

The Quincy breathed deeply, and the winds swelled and died as she did so. Holding her gloved hand aloft, she closed her eyes and felt outward. Down, down at the bottom of the dock, buried underneath months of sand and debris, was the item for which she searched. It was easy enough to find, actually, but the question was, did it still work?

Her fingers flexed, and many thin, nigh invisible against the empty backdrop of the sea strings of reishi plunged into the water. Down they reached, further and further, as the winds picked up once more around her, and only around the woman. Over the coming seconds, her wrist pulled, and her fingers twitched, but it was a slow process. Slow, but not impossible.

Slowly but surely, like a fisherman hauling in his catch, she raised the buried treasure to the surface and caught the glinting medallion in her outstretched hand. She peered at the thing closely, noting a few places where the sea had degraded the device, but smiling when she found its spiritual core still intact.

"Gut!" Sylvia Brauer, soldat of the Jagdarmee remarked aloud, and the winds returned to their usual pattern. For several minutes, that's how things remained, with her looking at the piece of once discarded jewelry with regret. Despite all of her fears and panic, and rising emotions and bad decisions, the item still worked, and it didn't hold a single particle of a Hollow's energy.

"Ich schulde ihr also eine Entschuldigung." Yes, an apology was owed. A strong one, as big as she could muster. With slow and methodical practice, she held the medallion near the hem of her top, where the threads unwound themselves and grasped hold of the new addition, anchoring it and holding it firmly in place.

She knew where she would have to go next, and the winds picked up once again as the Quincy's star appeared underfoot. "Oh Wodan, Lord of Asgard ~ Grant us power, thy merciless servants ~ The serpent devours the tree, your world Yggdrasil ~ Let us but serve you, purge the taint from this land ~ Upon your path ~" As she spoke, the sky darkened overhead, and lightning flashed out of time with its accompanying quakes of thunder. The shore underneath the dock fell eerily still, as though the water's edge knew not which direction it should flow.

"Weltbaumreisen!" With the final word, the dock was enveloped in a blinding flash of light and a deafening crack of thunder. When all this had subsided, the Quincy was gone. No trace of her presence, or of her return to the City of Light, could be found.