[First Wonder visit backdated to July 19, 2020, immediately following awakening.]

He was deposited on a slab of stone as dark and sleek as obsidian, littered in dry, crackling leaves and surrounded on all sides by towering, looming, twisting dark trees. They blocked any traces of wind, leaving the air still, but it was frigid just the same.

It was not summer in Destiny City.

Sawtooth lurched back from where he stood, twisting about in a panic as his mind reeled over how and where and why. That sort of reassuring sensation that had brought him here felt diminished in the oppressive, dark forest. The air here felt heavy and bleak, and the chill stung the back of his throat with every breath.

"You made it." The voice was tinged with an accent he couldn't identify, silvery without sounding too effeminate.

Sawtooth turned to face the speaker to find a young woman with tanned skin, long, dark hair woven into dreads and dotted with feathers and beads. She was short, and the thick fabric of her clothes did little to hide the built tone of her shoulders underneath. She looked younger than him, perhaps by so much as a decade. Sawtooth stared in bewilderment. "Were you the one talking to me? Pulling me here?" He demanded.

"No. I don't have that power." She stared at him through shocked, widened eyes.

He thought she might be so gracious as to explain more, but such was not the case. He wasn't sure he'd be able to focus on her if she did. There was so much- too much. He could barely even comprehend what had happened in the city, and now, to be here- Sawtooth looked down to his hands again, still in those fingerless gloves. The cold stung his throat, but despite his bare fingers being aware of the chill, they didn't feel numb or debilitated by it. He plucked at the heavy sleeve of his duster, and then whipped around in a sharp circle to see if he could glean anything from where he stood.

But no.

"Where are we?" He asked softly, as if afraid something unpleasant might hear him.

The girl somehow managed to look impatient with his antics, but also amused by his confusion. She looked at him as if he were a small child, with a sort of exasperated fondness that Sawtooth wasn't sure was warranted from a stranger. "This is Saturn," she said, as if nothing could make so much sense. "The planet you are sworn-

"It can't possibly be. I would be dead-"

She didn't stop when he spoke, but her voice raised an octave to boom over his. "-to serve. And this," She turned from where she stood, gesturing high above the trees, to where dozens of spires jettisoned from the treeline, all of various heights. "Is Sawtooth. Your namesake. Your Wonder. When you will it, it will give you-"

"What the ******** are you-"

"Do not interrupt me," she spat, suddenly venomous and standing right before him in little more than a blink. "You asked a question. Listen to the answer if you want it. Otherwise, don't ask."

He felt a stab of petulance bubbling under his skin. This little girl snapped and barked at him, but the circumstances of being in a foreign and dangerous-looking place tempered the worst of his retort. He huffed derisively. "You can't really expect me to believe this is another planet. You can't expect me to believe I've just been- been teleported here sporadically."

"Not sporadically," she informed him flippantly. "You asked to come here. That 'thing' that spoke to you and pulled you here, it is a feeling you intrinsically have. Your starseed calls to this place, and Sawtooth answers."

"My what?"

"Your starseed. Your- your spirit, essentially. Your soul." She paused for a second, staring at him speculatively before asking tentatively. "How much do they teach you about nowadays? In my time, I had seasons to train on Earth before I even saw Sawtooth for the first time. You look... untried. And you're rude."

He bristled, shooting an aggressive glower at her. "I was taught enough. I'm not stupid, if that's what you're saying."

"No, I didn't mean to imply stupidity, so much as ignorance. But it has been... a long time since my time on Earth. Much, much longer than the time between my predecessor and I. I only wondered what their teaching practices were now. But you don't even believe you can be here... Am I to assume you know nothing of this place? Of our lineage?"

"I'm ready to go home."

"You will," she said dismissively as she turned, gesturing for Sawtooth to follow. "Let us walk for now."

She stepped forward without waiting to see if Sawtooth would follow, toward the gnarled, dark trees that entrenched the spires he could see looming over the canopies. Did he dare follow? The forest looked unforgiving, but the girl was the only other presence he saw, and the only source of information on what was happening that he had. Sawtooth warily stepped after her.

"I am Kaiah. I was Sawtooth's guardian- her knight- before you. And before me it was my grandmother. We are blood kin. Very distant blood kin, presumably. You wouldn't be here, otherwise. It has always been our family with starseeds that resonate with Sawtooth, and always us that serves as her protector. She is the one who called you."

Kaiah glanced to him, scrutinizing from the corner of large, brown eyes as Sawtooth picked his way through the brambles and foliage with far more difficulty than she did.

"An inanimate place asked me to come to it? Why?"

She made a sound that wasn't exactly convincing. "More or less," Kaiah said with a shrug. "And why, after so many years? I couldn't say. It's enough to know that even in this state, she can still call her knight to her. I'd wondered... I'd worried... I wish you were more well-suited to protect this place, but I suppose it's not for me to choose. You already have the magic, even," she said, gesturing to him with a hint of excitement creeping into her tone. "If you couldn't feel the truth of it in your heart, your soul, you wouldn't be here."

She snorted. "The mind is just more difficult to convince, sometimes."

They had appeared through the trees at the base of one of the spires. Sawtooth had to practically break his neck to look toward the summit of it, where it pierced through rolling grey clouds. Kaiah continued on through an ornate doorway without a second thought.

Sawtooth was still wary as he followed.

It was too dark to see inside. No windows, no lights. But he had the impression it was an open room, and spiraling along the edge, up into what may as well have been infinity: a staircase, that Kaiah had very casually begun to ascend.

"Where are you going?"

"You said you wanted to go home, didn't you? You won't be able to if you can't climb to the top."

"The top of this? It's pitch black! And it looks to go on forever."

"I didn't have the magic when I first climbed," Kaiah huffed. "If I wanted everything I trained for to come to fruition, I had to earn it. You are a spoiled, clueless brat. It should be easy- easy- to make it to the top if you already have Sawtooth's power," the girl snapped. With a pointed glare in his direction, she took very measured, careful steps as she continued to ascend the stairs.

Sawtooth gaped at her. "You wanted this, though!" At least that's what it sounded like. "You knew what you were doing, and I don't. I don't understand why this is going on or what purpose it's supposed to serve. I don't get it."

Kaiah let out an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes. "Look, I don't want to overwhelm you if you really are stupid, ignorant, clueless, or whichever. Just understand that you have this power, and it's not something you can simply decline. Sawtooth needs a protector, always, and for better or worse that's you. I can and will help you. But can you please just show me a little morale?"

"I have a family. I need to go home."

"And you will. As soon as you do this one thing for me. The speedier you are, the quicker we will be done. Shut up and let's go already."

What a snooty, bossy, insulting little thing. As Sawtooth stepped after her, he found himself cattily mimicking her words in a high-pitched lilt. 'The speedier you are-' He scoffed.

The stairs wound up and up. While everything had been shadowed at the base, it was nearly pitch after only a story or two. "I would have lit the sconces, but it's not exactly easy," the girl hummed. There probably were hundreds, though Sawtooth couldn't make out a single one in the darkness. Even Kaiah, despite his certainty that she was near, was completely invisible. Her steps completely silent.

He had no idea how many stories they climbed in complete darkness. He had no idea how much time had passed. His feet ached in that way that reminded him of a child groaning about doing a chore: not from explicit pain or inability, but from inconvenience.

"It's amazing..." He murmured softly. "I'm tired, but it isn't the same thing as being exhausted from a workout. It's not the same as doing something unbearably strenuous."

"It is amazing," Kaiah agreed. "When you are here, the very seat of Sawtooth's power, it feels like your body can do anything. She will replenish you in ways that nothing on Earth can. Run. It'll feel good. I'll wait for you at the top."

Nothing happened that made Sawtooth think she'd bolted ahead. It was as silent as ever, but he believed her when she said she'd gone.

So he ran.

As Kaiah had predicted, it did feel good. He still needed to take care in the pitch darkness. A misstep could send him plummeting down to the base of the staircase. But despite the obvious danger, his body didn't have the same mangled steps as if he was frightened. There was something about this place that made his steps confident, even in the blackness. There was something that propelled him beyond just his own desire to leave. He should be here. These were steps he'd ascended countless times. His soul knew this place, and when he ran, discarding all thought to the wind, he could feel the soothing wash of security around him-

His head cracked against the top of a metal hatch as he bolted forward. A mangled cry slipped out of him, and his feet skidded down a few stairs as he tried to recover. It was a ceiling. It was a wall. All this climb for-!

"Kaiah!" He roared, though there must have been something like fear propelling his tone.

Because the voice that greeted him was impatient. "Just open it, for gods' sake." She was on the other side. Her voice carried through as he fumbled blind hands over his head until he felt the latch to lift and pushed the hatch up and open into cold, grey air.

Sawtooth stepped out onto a balcony, a small cutout from the side of the spire. If he peered over the guarded edge, he could look around and up to see the last few feet at the top of the spire. He had really climbed all this way. The ground had completely disappeared behind a fog of clouds, he was so high in the sky. A howl of laughter erupted from his throat, and he called over the edge of the balcony to the great expanse beyond.

"Kaiah! Kaiah, we actually climbed all the way up here!"

He whirled to face her, only to see the young girl seated with her legs crossed, sitting beside a pile of very worn and tattered bones. It didn't fully compute in his mind what he was looking at, but Kaiah extended a hand toward him, as if asking that he help her up.

He tried.

His hand passed through hers as if it was nothing. Sawtooth's eyes widened, and he glanced first to Kaiah, then to the small cluster of decomposed bones, tucked concealed beneath the hatch of the spire. He couldn't touch her.

The silence of her footsteps, the ease with which she traversed the brambles... "H-how many years did you say...?"

"I have been here for a millennia," Kaiah murmured. "During my last years, I thought I would meet the one who would take my place after my passing. I waited here, looking out to see who would appear to take my mantle. But none came. Even so, I fell to rest thinking that once I'd departed, there would be another soon, almost immediately. Sawtooth always has a protector. Again, none came. I awoke as this apparition, something unheard of. I waited and waited. None ever came. I feared I had done something to ruin our line, and my punishment was to watch our world degrade for an eternity."

Her tone broke just a little. "But you're here. I wasn't the end of us. Even if you are untrained and clueless, you're here. Sawtooth still called to you, and you came."

Every ghost movie he'd ever seen sent a stab of paranoia lancing through him, and Sawtooth's tone turned icy. "I will not be trapped here like you-"

"No, you won't be. You only have to ask to be sent home, and you will go. Feel it in your spirit, as you did when you were brought here. Sawtooth is your security as much as you are hers. When you dispel your fear of this place, you should find that she is still there, waiting for your wish. Ask her to let you leave, and she will."

He opened his mouth to demand why she'd said he had to come all the way up here. Why she hadn't just told him he could go if he- If he what? Just calmed down enough to feel it?

The climb was exhilarating, thrilling. His body felt awake but not terrified, not drowning in confusion, despite how little he really understood.

"Here," Kaiah whispered. She lay her hand toward the ground, very near to the bone pile. "The ring. Take it. During my time, knights used their rings to communicate. It bound us. Brothers and sisters in arms serving their planets, no matter how distant. Finding your Wonder's ring was like... accepting the burden of knighthood." He gaze lifted to his. "You aren't trapped here, but Sawtooth's power goes with you, whether you want it or not. So you may as well just..."

He couldn't help the trepidation as he inched closer, couldn't stop the uncertainty as he knelt down to Kaiah's level and gently dusted away some of the aged debris that littered the bones. The silver of the ring stuck out.

"I don't know if I should," he admitted. "I still don't understand. I still don't know what it means to be this protector."

"I'll teach you," she murmured. "I'll help you. I'll still be here..."

Trapped alone on a desolate world for eternity...

Elias was selfish, but could he abandon an ages-old spirit, one of his relatives, like that? He slid the ring from its tangle of bones. It fit to him like it was made for him, taking the place of another band he'd only recently stopped wearing on the same finger...

"You only have to will yourself home, and you will go. Similarly, when you are ready to return here from Earth, speak the pledge again, like you did this time. I'll be waiting. And I'll try and- and think of all the things I need to share with you, someone who doesn't know s**t. And you'll tell me about Earth next time. Just don't keep me waiting very long."

"Kaiah." Was any of this real? Was anything that had happened in the city real? He needed to... sleep. Sleep seemed like what he needed more than anything else. "I'll come back." He didn't know when. Sawtooth wasn't prepared to promise soon.

He stood, glanced down to the apparition still seated near her own corpse, then thought longingly of home. Of the parking lot he'd left, of his daughter waiting for him to come get her, of his mother probably worried sick and pacing her house wondering why he was so late.

He took a breath, and willed his Wonder to send him back.

So it did.

(2776)