It turned out that her initial worries were valid. Though before there had been a crowd of fourteen, now she found herself completely alone, feeling very alone. Her feet were now grounded, the landscape stretching far into the distance. It was as chilling as it was beautiful, familiar in some ways and yet totally foreign upon closer inspection.
Snow was falling softly, pulled along by a frigid wind that rustled her skirt and bow. After a long moment of wandering eyes Polaris finally realized she was shivering and began to move. Forests of evergreen trees lay to one side of her, a huge seemingly unending field to the other side. In the end she chose to head towards the hills in the distance, drawn by something and seemingly nothing at all. She gave thanks for her boots the further she trudged.
The trees she neared were given a through inspection, admiring with awe and confusion the fact that both evergreen and leafed trees seemed still alive under their shimmering icy coating. Even some small flowers and hardy vines seemed to pop up from the snow itself, seemingly unaffected by the blanket or cold. In the distance she could hear the sound of water being carried on the wind. Cold ushered her on again, and atop the hill another strange sight met her.
-Towers of metal shot up from the snow and rock, glittering in the light of the day. For a split moment it almost appeared to be alive, warm lights glowing from the windows, steam billowing, movement across the ground. But it must have been a trick of her eyes, because as soon as she blinked it was no longer there. The buildings were dark and dead, some looking weakened by time and tragedy, like giant metal skeletons looming over the landscape.
The path was easy enough to follow thanks to the few ancient posts still remained upright that dotted the pass. By the time she had reached the actual city she was completely engulfed in the sheer largeness of it all. It was a city capable of housing hundreds.. maybe even thousands, every bit of it a hard and cold metal. The city was cold.. both in temperature and feeling and Polaris' steps began to linger and falter. The voices she'd heard once before she could hear again, but instead of insistance this time she heard sorrow.
She slipped inside one of the buildings both out of curiousity and to flee the wind, finding it not much warmer inside. What had once been an elegant and beautiful interior was a ransacked mess. Tables were overturned, pictures shattered, one hallway even looked as if it'd been darkened by fire. Shelves of bookcases left piles of torn and wilted pages. When she reached down to glance at them, she found the writing undechiperable, both faded from time and in a scrawling style that made no sense to her.
The cold was beginning to wear on her.. the overwhelming feelings of sadness beginning to drown her. Ascending a large staircase she found a room left for the most part intact, perhaps because of it's sheer barrenness already. It appeared to be an observatory of sorts, a gigantic and beautiful telescope pushing through a hole in the ceiling, old deteriorating charts of the stars dangling from the curved ceilings. She made her way to scope, crouching to peer through it, her heart nearly stopping as she saw what it was focused on.
The familiar green and blue mass of her new home. It was so far away now that only this huge telescope could see it. Why had they even been looking at earth? She lingered for a long moment, letting herself settle into the seat behind her.
She didn't like this cold world, this cold dead world. It was beautiful certainly... like a snow globe. But what had happened to it...? Was it something she had done to make it like this?
A sensation tickled her back, and she turned from her thoughts, noticing the cloak that had been hanging from the back of the chair. It was old, certainly, something reminescent of fine silk lined with some sort of fur, the shoulders covered in a fur softer and nicer then anything she'd ever seen. She pulled it over her cold body almost immediately, holding the edges closed at her chest. It was so warm... so comforting...
The grumbling of her stomach convinced her upwards, heading back towards the stairs she'd climbed, only this time when she reached it something had changed.
She could hear the crackle of electricity.. smell the scent of burning candles. Light and warmth flooded the now beautiful room. The sound of voices in other rooms could be heard, and suddenly two small figures darted out across the room, doning capes and a skintone very similiar to her own. It was the laughter of mischevious children.. and just a moment after came another figure.. clearly an adult.. sophisticated.. regal. Her cloak carried an clasp of some sort, elaborate and beautiful.
"Quit fooling around, you know very well that you're supposed to be in class. You are Polarians after all, not little Mars mongrels" Her voice chided the children, shooing them off through a doorway across the hallway. She didn't seem to notice Polaris even as her eyes crossed the place she was standing. And as soon as she left the room the lights faded, leaving Polaris once again in the cold and dark.
She couldn't take it.. the moment of life and light had been too much for her to bare being in that dead world any longer. Withdrawing her phone she tapped the numbers in, departing for a home more familar..
The cloak a firm reminder that she'd eventually have to come back again.-
