"...the well of wishes"
Sunny stared at Cassie with a incredulus expression, he was struggling to understand what she meant
'What is she talking about...'
Then his expression changed, into what seemed to be disbelief.
"The children's story? the fairy tale about a magical well that grants the most precious wish of anyone who reaches it? have you gone insane?"
Sunny took a step back barely avoiding falling out of the ketch.
His thoughts were in pure chaos, he was bewildered and outraged.
"Come on! You can't possibly be serious about this?!"
That was the fairy tale Ananke had told him, not long before her death. Sunny remembered it well... but he had never expected to hear Cassie, someone so smart and pragmatic, put her hopes in a children's story about a magic well!
The blind seer, however, did not seem affected by his emotional outburst.
She faced sunny calmly, her face somber. After a while,Cassie gritted her teeth and said, her voice steady and calm: "It might not be true for anyone else. But it's true for you, Sunny. If you reach the Estuary...your wish will be granted and you will be free. Free of shadow bond, free of choice, to live your life however you want and most importantly free of fate itself"
She lingered for a moment, then rose to her feet, too, and walked closer, stopping mere steps away from him.
"But, Sunny... you can't have both. You can reach the Estuary from here, but once the Nightmare is over, your chance will be gone. The moment Nephis destroys the First Seeker, your chance would have slipped away."
She smiled bitterly and raised the Guiding Light, offering it to him.
"That was what you were truly angry about, wasn't it? That I took the choice away from you."
Cassie pushed the sacred relic into his hands and took a step back.
Sunny was perplexed by what Cassie had said to him, he was shocked.
He slowly sat down on the ketch and looked at the sacred relic in his hands while he was deep in thought, he was tempted to go and seek out the freedom of everything. But he wasn't dumb or ignorant, not anymore atleast.
So he slowly looked up and looked at the blind seer and slowly asked: "Cassie, I know there's a price to be paid for being free, so tell me, will it be as bad as being enslaved or even worse?"
Cassie spoke with a solemn voice:"the price for the very act of escaping and destroying fate and shadow bond.."
She paused, she started trembling and slowly sat down infront of sunny.
The blind seer looked at him trying not to creep him out and slowly said: "...You will be forgotten."
Sunny looked at the seer with a confused expression and he asked, his voice steady:" What do you mean by that?"
Cassie tried speaking and stopped, she resolved herself and said with a saddened voice: "You will be forgotten by fate, the world, the nightmare spell, and everyone who knows of you..."
As sunny began thinking and understanding the gravity of the words that Cassie said to him.
He then looked at Cassie with a pained look, a look of disappointment and a look of helplessness and he spoke to Cassie in a almost trembling voice: "Cassie, do you know why I wanted to be free, free if shadow bond, free of the world, free of my Fate?"
Cassie looked at him with a unreadable expression, maybe sunny would've seen her expression if he wasn't that saddened at the realization of what his deepest wish would cost him
The blind seer saw all this unfold and was confused why he was saying this and she was just confused about everything he was doing. It was completely different from her vision and what she planned
She decided to answer and did so with a steady voice:"I don't fully know why, but i have an idea."
Sunny then asked of her to tell him the idea.
And she told him: "because you want to be equal to nephis and actually love her not like a slave who begins to love his master, but instead like a partner - an equal."
Sunny looked at the blind seer with a little happiness in his eyes and said: "You're half right. One of the biggest reasons is nephis of course, but she's not the only one, I don't want to be equal to her. I want to be equal to everyone in the cohort, even though modret hasn't officially joined us, I want to be equal even to him"
Sunny then stood up and walked over to Cassie and placed the sacred relic on her hands and the walked back and sat down.
They sat in silence for a while and then sunny started talking with a more steady voice than before: "Cassie as much as I appreciate you doing all this as an apology, I can't accept this. The very reason I want to be free is gonna be lost in the process and I don't want that. I'm a Greedy treacherous shadow but even i have my limits."
Soon after Cassie answered him and said with a happy voice: "Sunny, I'm so happy that you choose us over your freedom. I'm very sorry for what I did to you back then and this was the only way I could possibly apologize, but i still wanted you to stay with us..."
This news surprised sunny and helped him lift his mood but before he could respond the sin of solace spoke: "You treacherous bastard, finally started getting some human decency. In millions of cycles, this is the first time you thought to ask about the consequences and still chose your cohort"
"Congratulations wretch, you choose to be a slave. You're the most pathetic being i could ever gaze my eyes upon, you were the one who said 'there's nothing more pathetic than a slave who begins to trust his slaver'. Look at you now, forgiving Cassie for enslaving you.." Then sin of solace started clapping with a smile on his face and said "Bravo! Marvelous even"
He then abruptly stopped and slowly walked away.
After sunny saw what happened he looked at Cassie's direction and Cassie looked at his and they had the same thought 'im too tired for this, let's go back and rest'. Sunny then stood up and moved the ketch in the direction of the chain breaker.
*****
After a while he was done putting the ketch back onto its place as the lifeboat and went into his room and went to sleep.