Melchior’s Grand Tour: the lost kiss [11]

They are all sitting under a tree, looking at the tower.
Trina puts out a little container with an indigo pigment. The girl paints some runes with her finger where once there was Melchior’s mouth. Those magic symbols should help him keep the mental link with the other once she is gone. It is an intimate and heartbreaking moment: they soon must part.

Once the sun comes out, they will go to a pond Lady Nightmare told them will lead back to Trina’s homeland.
It was a hard decision, but Melchior’s present situation needs to be addressed as soon as possible. The alchemist improvised a feeding apparatus, able to give him a nutrient mix of a healing potion, water, and sugar. That should work for a couple of days, but Melchior needs a new mouth, and it’s unlikely he will find it in the land of the Horizon. Trina insisted to stay with them, but she risks staying in that hemisphere for a long time if not forever.

After their meeting in the tower, it was clear that Lady Nightmare’s presence “overexcited” the portals. They just sensed it, and that’s why they asked her to leave: she and her tower were something unnatural, warping the mana field and the material reality alike. With her gone, it’s probable the portals will close, and unclear how they could be opened again.
Trina said she wanted to stay, but Melchior and the rest of the group were so connected that they knew she missed home and had heart-wrenching worry for her family.

The lady’s tower is slowly absorbing its entrails, sucking them back inside the black solid, fixed into the air. Six Tentacle Monsters with a statue for heads arrive, one after the other, ready to embark.
The Chief was at first furious about the decision to send the Nightmare away, without any boon or treasure, but the more the time passed the more I become connected to the group and just understood. As a consolation, they got some sort of trophies: some small black polyhedra, filled with amorphous flesh, scattered around the tower, debris probably, some kind of trash, apparently useless but a testimony of their experience non the less.

As the first light of dawn appears the tower is now reduced to only the black solid: it takes off silently, just moving without effort in the sky, disappearing quickly in the distance.
The group gets on and goes to their next stop. For all the time they were together they tried to tell each other everything they could about their respective lands, cultures, societies, and languages. Now they walk silently, enjoying the landscape for the first time.

They are now near the pond that shimmers with a sliver of the Second Horizon. Trina arrived from here, beyond the light there’s her home. There is still her small boat. One at a time, they say goodbye to the girl. Simple gestures, like a glance or a caress, communicate in a crystal clear manner what they feel.
Melchior is the last. He cries silently and Trina kisses his cheek, where the tear run down. Not being able to kiss her back it devastating for him. He hugs her in a hug he wishes eternal. She hugs him back, and at that moment is like their minds are perfectly one, in unison.

The group pushes the boat and Trina, waiting for her to disappear in the light.

The sun is now up and they start their journey back. They follow the trail left by the ranger, which will lead them to the portal to the cyclops’ skull. Once there, they’ll quickly home.
They just walk, in silence, wondering what will await them now.