Uriel willfully sat down beside his buddy, with the glimmer fish still in his palm flapping more slowly now. The blonde boy tilted his head, waiting for Seawatcher to talk.
His hooded friend turned his head toward Uriel, then looked up at the starry night. "There once was a Gloom Knight that served as the Nihility Emperor's royal guards hundreds — no, thousands of years ago. He was loyal, fighting in the purpose war, protecting the emperor... and yet..."
Uriel's gaze followed Seawatcher's hand when he extended it toward one of the bigger stars in the dark firmament. His palm opened up, and the giant star looked like it was hovering just above the watcher's palm. "And yet..." His deep voice began trembling with a hint of weakness inside it. "That wretched emperor threw me into the Gloom Sea, leaving me to die in this forsaken sea!"
He visually crushed the star with his palm, as the same hand plopped lazily onto Ossythe's rough skin, making the creature purr. "Wait, so you're telling me you were once a knight, Seawatcher?" He looked toward the shocked blondie and simply nodded.
"But that was all a past I've abandoned long ago. Now I only roam this sea with my partner over here!" He rubbed the rough skin of Ossythe, making the oval-shaped creature sing in a beautiful euphony.
Uriel was left speechless by Seawatcher's background. He also didn't expect Nihigloo to have such an interesting history in it. "Say... how did you two meet?" After asking that question, Ossythe under them suddenly wailed, as if answering Uriel's question.
While the boy was confused, Seawatcher couldn't help but chuckle a bit inside that hood. "Hahaha... that's funny, Ossythe!" Uriel tilted his head a bit, his face displaying genuine confusion. "Hey, don't leave me out of this!" He exclaimed while Ossythe kept wailing, making Seawatcher laugh even more.
"Sorry, sorry!" The mantle man reached out his hand to tap the blondie's shoulder. "I met this oddly shaped guy when I was first banished inside the Gloom Sea. He kept singing in pain when there was an arrow pierced deeply in his back. We just bonded after I patched up his wound." Seawatcher took his hand off Uriel's shoulder to rub the creature's skin again.
Uriel noticed the sudden change in his voice when talking about his Ossythe. The usual rough and deep voice of the ex-royal knight was replaced by a weak and soft tone.
"Back when I first met him, he was so small. Barely the same size as me... And now, he's big enough to save other witchers. Despite me not being one..." That last sentence from Seawatcher made Uriel's whole body freeze. The blondie blinked a few times, his mind racing with many questions.
He's not a witcher?
But how can he know all about the system if he isn't one?
What really is a witcher, then?
As if Seawatcher could read the blondie's mind, he answered the piled-up questions inside the boy. "Witchers are people that are not from God's Grave." The cloaked man reached for his walking stick beside him and hauled himself up with the help of the rod.
He stared at the empty ocean, body unmoving. Taking in all of the Gloom Sea's natural environment before finally continuing his words. "Like you, my son, you're not from this world, right? You may or may not have heard of God's Grave before back in your world. Here is where the last remnants from countless gods have all been buried under the present." He suddenly turned his head toward Uriel, his voice becoming deeper with every sentence.
"Nihigloo is just a small region in God's Grave. Out there—"
Seawatcher extended his hand, palm open, and swept it across the black horizon. His fingers traced the darkness like a painter revealing an invisible canvas. He gestured to the east. Then the west. Then to the vast, empty space where the sea met the starless sky.
"Beyond this hollow water... there are lands I have only read about. Kingdoms swallowed by the color maidens. A colosseum built on the bones of a dead god. Forests that sing at midnight and deserts made of crushed starlight."
His hand fell back to his side. "Lands I and Ossythe will never reach." It was a shallow silence between them. Uriel was going to open his mouth, until Seawatcher suddenly leaped toward him and grabbed him by the wrist. His hood, still covering his face, was only a few inches away from the blondie.
"Uriel... I'm sorry if I'm asking for too much, but—"
Seawatcher's hood dipped. His gaze fell to Ossythe's rough skin beneath them—the same skin he had rubbed, sung to, and leaned against for years. He stared at the creature's bones as if seeing them for the first time. As if saying goodbye to something he had never truly left.
When he looked back up, his voice was different. It was shaking and filled with vulnerability. "—I need you to see something for me. Out there. Beyond this sea. Things I've only read about. Things I'll never..." His voice cracked. Then his grip tightened, before loosening it.
"Out there, I read a book back when I was still a Gloom Knight. It was about the world outside Nihigloo. So many wonders. Kingdoms floating on clouds. Forests where the trees whispered. Oceans so clear you could see the bottom from a ship's deck."
His voice grew distant, almost dreamlike.
"But one place... one place caught my attention more than all the others."
He paused, his grip on Uriel's wrist still firm.
"It's a vast sea called the Red Sea. Its waters didn't reflect the sun; instead, they glowed from within. The crimson color was terrifying, yet so beautiful."
His voice dropped lower. "It served as both a border and a bridge to the Dysart Desert. A wasteland of sand and stone where only the strong survived. And somewhere beyond that desert... buried under centuries of heat... lies the Dysart Empire."
He let out a slow breath.
"I read about it in that book. Just a few pages. But I've thought about it every day since." Uriel was paralyzed the whole time Seawatcher was talking. He didn't understand what any of that meant. Especially the way Seawatcher was talking like this made the blondie scared.
"Seawatcher... Instead of me going there, wouldn't you want to go yourself?" Uriel's naive question made the hood of his friend drop. "I want to, but I doubt I'll live long enough... After roaming this sea for millennia, I've lost all of my purpose for existing... Just like Nihility."
Without any warning, Uriel lunged forward.
He wrapped his arms around Seawatcher's cloaked frame, squeezing tightly like he was afraid the man would dissolve into mist if he let go. The hooded figure went rigid. His breath hitched. His walking stick clattered against Ossythe's skin.
Uriel didn't care. He kept holding on.
Then he pulled back, just enough to look his friend in the hood. His amber eyes caught the lantern's light, burning with something fierce and unbreakable.
"Don't fall into the pit of Nihility yet." His voice was low, steady, and absolute. "We'll go to the Red Sea together. You, me, and Ossythe."