There's always a lighthouse

[wheremst]

And just like that, you wake up in the basement of a lighthouse in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There's a circle of 25 pods in the middle of the room, and two more in a room off to the side, and you can imagine who is in which.

An elevator to the side of the room leads up to the ground floor (or to the first sub-basement, if you want to check out the machine that brought you here), where you can for the first time in weeks look out a window and see the sky. Its a beautiful sunny day, with a strong breeze on the grassy ground of the island where the lighthouse stands. Have you ever been this happy to hear seagulls?

You're free. Whatever comes next, you're free and you won. Take some time to relish your victory, won't you? Reunite with friends you thought you had lost, go forth and just... well, enjoy this.

Comments

[pimpplan]

Sounds like you got a full schedule ahead of you, then, even without the problem solving thing. Lot of people are lucky to have you as their brother, from the way it sounds.

[ When she asks the same to him, he sighs, leaning forward. ] Yeah, at least for now. I've got a few messes that I've made that I gotta start working on fixing. [ beat ] And apologizing for, I guess. After that... I dunno, I guess it depends on whether I'm alive after that.

[ Hey, at least he's not from the Kratos route! ]

[shieldsister]

[The first part earns a pleased smile from her, but she settles as Zelos continues.]

You'd better be alive after that. I want to hear from you at some point, and I won't be happy if you manage to die so soon after returning from this place.

[thank god it's not the kratos route!!!]

[pimpplan]

[ He's sort of caught off guard about that. He knows she's always pretty serious about that kind of stuff, but... it's still kind of a weird concept to him. ]

Aela, you do care! Ah, I think I'm falling in love all over again! Don't you worry, I'll be sure to write to you every day, if that's what you want!

[ He's not deflecting, at least! ]

[shieldsister]

The couriers will hate you.

[That's not exactly a "no", though.]

Of course I care. You try to deflect from it, but I see no sense in lying about it. You're an interesting person and someone I've grown rather fond of. I want to make sure you don't go running off to do anything stupid.

[...she's just kind of rough in how she cares about people...]