Look Into My Crystal Ball

There were so many sights, sounds, and scents around the museum that it was almost overwhelming, all layering on top of one another. Past, present, future. They were walking the same paths that humans had walked hundreds of thousands of times but instead of coming purely to bear witness to and learn about the events of the past, the islanders were here for something entirely new. Twisting, intermingling, tangling together in a way that might never have happened, except for this event. It was such a mess that it was difficult to see or even think clearly, but Tobias found it... beautiful, in a way.

The threads, the paths that brought them here, were not for anything devastating or dangerous. They were all here for fun. To see what wonders were being brought to the islands, to revel in the demonstrations and spectacles that festival-goers brought with them.

The Ringmaster was an Atlantean - something which soured Ghostlight’s initial opinion of the whole event. The underwater home of the Atlanteans had been saved and they had at least stopped fighting the islanders, but they had still claimed a portion of Isla Kela as their own. The consensus was that the islanders had given them the land to populate with their aggressive plants and gain a footing on the islands, but she suspected that was the polite way of saying that the islanders feared they would lose in an all-out battle against the citizens of Atlantis.

Rhys had even been so bold as to invite islanders to join her kingdom as subjects under her rule, as though she believed them lawless. That their way of living would be improved under her leadership. Ghostlight doubted that many would take up the invitation after the events of the bloody banquet, but there would always be those who believed the lies, or who the truth had not reached.

Perhaps it was for the better, this way. Not ideal, but better. There was ultimately less bloodshed than would have occurred with an all-out war if the Atlanteans were pushed for space.

And perhaps this festival was the Atlantean’s way of apologising for how they had treated the islanders. It was a start, at least, but some of those wounds would never fully mend. Some of her time with Tobias had been taken yet again.

She turned her head towards him, her lantern creaking quietly as it tilted and rocked with the movement. Tobias tilted his head towards her in return, his attention drawn from the mess of life that they walked through. His blank eyes flickered with a bit more life whenever he looked at her, and she felt peace knowing that he was with her.

Lost in one another as they were, neither was fully paying attention to their surroundings until their surroundings ran into them.

A solid wall of an acro glared down at the pair of cryos, a growl in Rime’s voice as she warned them, “Watch where you’re going.”

Ghostlight turned her blind gaze upwards towards the source of the voice. “Would it not be better if you were more conscious of those smaller than you?” she asked, her lantern swaying as she spoke.

Rime managed to hold her tongue, seeing herself reflected in the blind cryo’s eyes and affording Ghostlight some amount of respect for surviving as long as she had with her malady. In the Alpha facility, she might have been cared for by her kin, or eaten if she was not strong. Out here, that sort of care seemed less common - which meant she could only be strong.

The pale acro inhaled, then sighed deeply. It was not worth the effort to argue. This entire event put her off. She was only here because Gloam was curious about what the festival had brought with it.

Before Rime could leave, Tobias spoke up, his voice pained. “You’re hurting.”

Rime turned towards the spotted male, her gaze guarded as she debated how to respond. She recognised Tobias - he was the outsider who had convinced her to go down to Zone D and to haul that half-dead suchomimus up from below. They had not spoken much at all since then. Tobias was by no means an authority of the state of her heart, and had no right to comment on it.

“What’s going on?” Gloam stepped up beside her mate and the name that the pair of them had gained came to Tobias’s mind. The Roaming Teeth. Vicious hunters raised on the violence of the Alpha Lab, kill or be killed. It was something that they would one day pass on to their offspring, if any of them ever saw the light of day.

“Nothing,” Rime rumbled, and turned to leave and to encourage Gloam to do the same. There was more of this place to see before the stars fell, and that was the only thing to do with the event that Rime was really interested in.

“You thought there would be more,” Tobias continued as he took a step closer to her. He had no memory of encountering her once before, but still, it was so clear. All he had to do was focus and he could see it all - the path she had walked and all that she hoped to find. Her life, and Gloam’s, had been riddled with hardship, so much that it threatened to destroy him. It was only since the door had opened that it started to improve, but… still, her heart ached, and not even Gloam knew the full extent of how badly it hurt.

“You hoped that when Atlantis rose from the ocean floor, there would be more. You wanted to help them, as you had been helped. You wanted to feel connection to the ones who came before - “

“That’s enough,” Rime growled, her lip pulling back to show her teeth and the quills along her back slowly rising. Tobias blinked. He didn’t realise he had done anything wrong - but perhaps he had accidentally pried too deeply.

Gloam smoothed her chin over her mate’s back, rumbling quietly. With her head resting on Rime’s spine, she stared critically at the pair of cryos. Who were they, exactly? And what were they playing at? This was meant to be a peaceful event, and they were riling up the wrong pair of giants if they wanted to keep it that way.

Unconcerned about the tension in the air and the stillness of the watching crowd around them, Ghostlight spoke up after a few beats of silence. “There are no other pockets of your kin.” Her voice was much cooler than Tobias’s, calm, like the glassy surface of a lake which had never once been disturbed by wind or the ripple of a fish stirring just beneath the water.

“You would do better to focus on what you have before you. Whatever comes next, you will find no others of your kin that have yet to see daylight.” There was nothing for Ghostlight to guide her towards. They were alone.

Despite Ghostlight’s soothing tone, it did little more than agitate Rime further. “You don’t know that!” Rime roared.

The boom of her voice rattled the glass housing some of the surrounding exhibits (crystals and different kinds of rock in this section of the museum), and for a moment, it also silenced the surrounding conversations. Dinosaurs shifted their feet uneasily, unsure of what would happen next.

Gloam narrowed her eyes, the spring-green unusually venomous as she stared down at them. It was cruel of these strangers to try to kill Rime’s faith. She drew back and touched her muzzle gently to Rime’s shoulder. They should step outside for a while. The stars would not fall for some time yet, but maybe they would get lucky and see a stray one fall early.

Rime wordlessly agreed, a growl rumbling deep in her chest as she turned, again, to leave with her mate.

Tobias watched the pair of them leave, the sadness slowly leaving his heart with them as they retreated. The uncomfortable silence remained, hanging over the surrounding crowd as dinosaurs shared uncertain glances.

He glanced out towards them, picking out another - a grey utahraptor that was night-touched, with her mate and their unusual child. “Your heart hurts as well. Your path has taken you beyond the comforts of home and brought you here, where you hope that your paths will cross. Yours and your brother’s.”

Callahan’s feathers slowly puffed, discomfort and irritation making her prickly. She had not asked to be singled out, let alone by Tobias. The strange cryo’s dead voice had haunted her for weeks after their encounter, and hearing it again and speaking about her and her brother was deeply unsettling.

Petrichor, beside her, snorted. She had her doubts about Tobias just knowing that they were here searching for Dullahan. Callahan had been searching Isla Pera for Dullahan long before they visited Kela, word had likely just spread and reached him, and now he was choosing for some reason to air it out to the crowd.

Tar looked uncertainly towards Callahan. She never mentioned that she had a brother - or that he had an uncle, for that matter. Was that really what they were here for?

Ghostlight stared unblinkingly ahead, somehow focused exactly on where Callahan was standing despite not being able to see her. Callahan’s reflection in the old lamp that the cryo carried everywhere with her was unsettlingly inverted and slightly distorted, to the point that it almost looked like Dullahan was looking back towards her from within the glass. She shook her feathers, trying to rid herself of the feeling. They should follow Rime’s example and just leave the odd pair to the festival, but again, before she could usher Tar to turn and leave, Ghostlight spoke up.

“You’re closer to him than you realise.” She might even see him, though they would not get a chance to speak.

“You know where he is?” There was a faint edge of hopefulness in Callahan’s voice that made Petrichor’s heart give an unexpected twinge. If it was cruel to crush Rime’s faith, it was cruel again to give Callahan false hope that she would find her twin who was, in all likelihood, probably gone from this world.

“She’s making things up,” Petrichor scoffed, defensive of Callahan and what this might do to her emotional state. “They just overheard that a night-touched raptor was looking for her twin and guessed.”

But why? Why would they? There was no obvious benefit or detriment to them if they were telling the truth or lying. Callahan wilted slightly

“What about mine?” Another voice from further back in the crowd and when the crowd parted, there stood an older utahraptor, riddled with scars and half-blinded as the result of a particularly damaging one.

The cryos turned towards the speaker, and Shred gazed back at them with an equally level look. The three of them all knew the answer to this question. Tobias could see the old ache of Shred’s loss, and Ghostlight knew that there was nowhere she could guide Shred that would reunite her with her sibling. This time, though, their paths had never crossed. Shred didn’t spread word that she was looking for her sibling, never made it anyone’s business but her own. There were very few that knew the truth of it.

“Gone,” Ghostlight and Tobias replied at the same time, their voices a discordant and unsettling symphony of grief and acceptance.

Whatever else the cryos said, that much was true. Her sibling was long gone now, and permanently. She didn’t know how they knew, and didn’t care to guess. Shred held their gaze before she dipped her head and turned to continue on her way through the festival.

“My turn!” Felix sang as he swooped down from the sky and perched on a dacen’s head spike, only to flutter onto a strawberry-coloured cryo’s crest when the dacen irritably shook him off.

“Can you do us too?” Flycatcher asked, excited and curious what the pair of other cryos would have to say about their histories and futures.

Ghostlight withheld a sigh as she turned her sightless gaze towards the waiting crowd. They were not a spectacle to be gawked at in awe and amazement like the actual acts that lay scattered across the museum, but Tobias’s shift in energy was palpable. The chance to untangle some of the threads lay before them and if Ghostlight could help some of them find peace or answers that gave them hope for the future… was there really any harm?

Fine. Ghostlight turned her snout towards the waiting pair of colourful crested cryos and the small tapejara perched atop June, her lantern squeaking quietly in such a rhythmic fashion that it almost seemed like whispers. Step right up to listen to what the seers have to say.