Sunny POV
"Sunny! I believe your friends are here!"
Noctis' voice shouted across the room from the entrance door.
'What is he talking about? Friends?'
Sunny looked around the room that he was in. To his left, sitting on a high, raised chair, was Effie. In the form of a child, she sat relaxed while fidgeting with something in her hand.
And to his left was a Kai. Now a soldier of the Ivory City, his skin was grafted with numerous patches of wood. Sat opposite to Effie, he was wearing a simple brown shirt that complemented his auburn-wooden skin.
His mind went to the three remaining people that joined the nightmare with him. A seer that he did not want to think about. A hunter and a prince that he would pay anything to never see again.
'That guy wouldn't show himself so soon. It must be those two.'
Images of a beautiful blind seer and a stalwart hunter came to his mind.
'What took them so long? It's nearly the start of the final battle.'
Sunny thought of the confrontation that had just occurred with the emissary of the Chain Lords. The Sun Prince in his ginormous iron body had come to acquire the knives in his possession. And in turn, Noctis retaliated with a strike centuries in the making. Concentrated soul essence that was stored within the shrine blew a hole through the golem, severing his giant iron arm. With a bluff, the prince retreated. And in doing so, signalled the start of the war.
The war that would determine the fate of the Kingdom of Hope and Hope herself.
And in all of that and in their battles beforehand; the attack on the Temple of the Chalice, his adventures in the Red Colosseum and everything in between. The scarcest of information available was that Cassie could have been sent around the vicinity of the Lady in the North.
But unknown to Sunny, Noctis had long known about Cassie and Aldric. In the communications, Alana had spoken about her two wards and how she had planned for them to journey to the sanctuary after her death.
Getting out of the large chair that Noctis had made for his large body, he began to walk to the door. The shadowspawn cast an enormous shadow as it stomped forward. Turning a corner, the afternoon sunlight shone upon him. Blinding him for a singular moment. And in that moment, he heard a voice. A familiar yet different voice that was grating to his ears all the same.
"I know the nightmare spell is supposed to be neutral, but my god, you look hideous. You need to make a complaint."
The voice spoke with a tone of half pity and half mockery.
In the blistering light, two figures stood at the doorstep. One, a young woman wearing a black dress with an auspicious blindfold covering her face. On her waist, a familiar rapier rested calmly.
And behind her was a much taller figure. The first thing that Sunny noticed was the heated gaze. Blistering red flames burned in their two eyes with a layer of black acting as the sclera. Black obsidian-like skin covered their face as their sharp features glistened as though they were a doll. Luscious black hair hung over the head, with its colour so dark that it looked closer to darkness.
Before Sunny continued to study the figure, something familiar was banging in his head.
'What the... Saint?!'
That's all that came to his mind. That appearance, that feeling. It was similar to Saint yet so much stronger and darker.
"Sunny! Greet your friends already! Or are you feeling shy?"
Noctis spoke, watching the shadow fiend stunned in silence.
Just as he was about to say something, a small figure darted in front of him.
"Cassie? Aldric? What took you guys so long?!"
The young voice identified as Effie shouted. With Noctis moving inside, the newcomers took the invitation to enter the house.
And it was in that moment that Sunny's shadow rumbled, and 'she' made her presence known.
---
Aldric POV
'To see this in real life, he looks like a genuine nightmare creature.'
Aldric thought as he looked up to Sunny's new form. Though the mockery left him as he remembered what the divine shadow went through in his time since the start of the nightmare. Compared to his own mental anguish, Sunny went through the suffering of being trapped like a Roman slave.
His eyes went to the young voice that just spoke out. A young child looked at him and Cassie with wide eyes and a facial expression that screamed familiar.
'I genuinely feel sorry for Effie. She always has some issue with her body, but this should be the last time.'
As he was about to greet the huntress stuck in the body of a child, a disturbance sounded from Sunny. The fiend's massive shadow expanded even more, and a figure formed out of shadow came alive. Blazing red eyes, stone-like plated skin and an ominous layer of darkness, Saint made her appearance.
In a moment that stunned everybody, the short shadow walked towards Aldric and raised her hand as if to caress his face. This was the only time that the others had seen the ever stoic saint have a change in facial expressions. An expression so out of place and so human formed on her face as if she was seeing a long-lost family member. But perhaps that was not too far from the truth.
Aldric was silent. The sudden move of the shadow made him feel uneasy, but his rational mind could understand it. In her rudimentary mind without will, Shadow Saint could at least recognise that she was the last of her kind. But to see one of her own people, not in the form of a corrupted creature or a shadow but their true form, she would be shocked.
"Saint!"
Sunny shouted in his mind. The intent reaching towards his shadow.
In a turn of her head, Saint looked to her master and realised the situation that she was in. Or at the best way a creature like herself could. Returning her hand, she returned back to her taciturn demeanour, but everyone noticed the way that she slightly glanced back as she returned to her master with a straighter than usual posture.
'What in the world is happening?!'
Sunny thought.
"It seems that we have a lot to catch up on."
Kai spoke out from behind them, having watched the whole thing.
---
"And after destroying the Temple of Chalice, the two of us returned with the glass knife and Effie. It has been a long time of preparations and training since then."
Sunny finished off. The group had been relaying everything that happened to each of them since the start of the nightmare. With Kai and Effie already saying their piece, it was Sunny's turn to speak.
"But by the gods, what took you so long? It has been more than a month since then, and you just arrived!"
Effie spoke from her relaxed position on a sofa.
"It seems that you guys have been through so much. I'm glad that you're all safe."
Cassie spoke out softly with smiles returning from Effie and Kai, but Sunny did not return one.
Taking a deep breath, she straightened her posture and placed the palms of her hands onto her lap like a noble woman.
"I'll start from the beginning. I entered the nightmare as one of the attendants of the Lady of the North. My days were simple. Glean what I could from the maidens around me and tend to my duties. It had been nearly a month before Aldric made his appearance, and we have been together ever since."
She spoke, with her eyes trailing to the man in question. Though it was normal, it seemed that only Kai picked something up. A weird energy that he could not put his finger on, telling him that something had changed regarding the young seer.
"And you, Aldric, where do you come in?"
Sunny asked with an untold amount of curiosity. In the time that Kai, Effie and he were speaking, questions sat in the back of his mind about the new form that Aldric took.
"Yeah! I thought Sunny would be the only one without a normal form. But I didn't expect this. You and Sunny's girlfriend look too similar. What are you, her older brother?"
Effie jumped in, laying out what was on her mind.
"I woke up in this form. It took me a very long time to get used to it, but I managed. After finding myself near the Night Temple, I was found by Lady Alana and in turn, met Cassie. We accomplished a lot in the meanwhile."
Aldric answered vaguely. With the lack of information, Sunny was clearly annoyed. There was simply too much left out, especially the strangeness he felt towards Aldric. His intuition was screaming at him that Aldric was not a simple Stone Saint, that something else was happening behind the scenes.
And so he asked.
"So where were you sent to? Was it near the Hollow Mountains."
And that was the question Aldric was worried about. It was not so much about the answer but more so what the answer entailed. How would he explain how he had escaped from the Ebony Tower without teleporting to the Ivory Tower where Hope was chained? And such, he could not tell the truth. After all, he lied to Cassie as well when she had asked the same question. With Kai present, it was time to take a page out of Sunny's book: to lie truthfully.
"It was near a village at the foot of the Hollow Mountains that I fully took on this form."
Aldric responded with nothing but truth ringing to Kai.
'Fully?'
Sunny knew that something was amiss with that response. But he would need more information to get to the bottom of it.
Just as he was about to ask another question, Noctis made his appearance.
Giving, from his perspective, the unlikely group of friends time to catch up, the divine scion entered the room. He walked slowly with each step until he stood above the hunter.
In a voice devoid of humour or eccentricity, he spoke.
"So, Singularity, how did it feel to kill an immortal?"
Wide eyes filled with shock met the young man in response. It seemed that Aldric had some explaining to do.
***
Thanks for reading.
Go check out the new chapters below in the auxiilary volume. Two new chapters uploaded on A moment in time. A collections of moments outside of the main story.
Baby Loki looks so ugly fr.
Till the next one.