Devyn had absolutely failed to keep track of time while he was on his world. It had stormed for the first day or two or three, or–he didn’t know, he wasn’t going to bother trying to figure it out.

He had no windows to peer out of, no sleep schedule to guess time with, no schedule for his hunger.

Most days, he had simply existed there. It wasn’t until he’d been to Earth that he started keeping track again, but it was easier there.

He knew when it was night and day, and he had people there to talk to. Meals didn’t have set times, but they were structured throughout the day, and they slept at night so he knew when he should be sleeping–even if he didn’t, and kept to his own poor schedule.

Here, things were different.

He was exhausted, but sleep was fleeting. Be it caution from the shadows, or disruption from the storms, or just a general fear of forgotten things again, he didn’t sleep much. A few minutes here or there. He never felt refreshed, but he always had just enough energy to keep going.

He didn’t get hungry until what must have been a few days into his stay. He’d picked at the food but he hadn’t felt anything.

During one of his brief naps, he heard the whisper of Percy’s voice chastizing him. He couldn’t remember what he said, but he heard the heavy sigh, and the dramatic, ‘Dev.’

It was enough to get him off the ground. He ate at least one full serving. He could have probably eaten half of what Michael had shipped him off with, but he was being responsible.

He’d promised to go back, so he wasn’t worried about running out of supplies. Probably.

Devyn checked the Senshi phone he’d been given; the battery seemed as charged as when he’d left, but from what he gathered he didn’t have to worry about it dying on him. He pressed a few buttons just to make sure that it worked.

It was tempting to try the home button, just to see if it worked.

He knew he should see if he could get back to Earth before he ran out of supplies.

…He just wasn’t ready to go back yet.

He had to get new torches set up, had to make sure the beacons would stay lit in his absence. If he was leaving this world, he needed to make sure it could last another trip to Earth.

In his heart, he knew it wasn’t completely selfish, even if he had already grown to miss the comforts there.

He’d been alone for so long that the silence was almost painful, and when left with only himself he wondered how long it would take him to go mad.

He didn’t understand why he wasn’t already.

But, his chest still ached, and that must have meant the weather still hadn’t cleared, and it was just another reason to stay inside.

He sat down at his desk and took the opportunity to fix the locket Percy had given him so he could wear it again.

The whole process couldn’t have taken more than an hour, but it felt like so much longer. He’d held his breath for large parts of it, terrified of making a mistake and ruining a gift he couldn’t ever replace. At some point he’d had the bright idea to take pictures of it from his phone, but even after he’d done that it was still nerve wracking.

By the end of it, he’d fixed it up nicely; the bail had to be reinforced and he’d needed to twist a new piece of metal to secure it. He wasn’t confident about wearing it; he didn’t have all of the proper tools and he wasn’t going to risk losing it, so when he’d finished he slipped it into one of his treasure tins, and put that up in subspace, too.

He took a few minutes to poke his tools and try to convince the music box to open, but it was as stubborn as it had been the first time he set it out on his desk–only, this time he knew all the pieces inside should worked. It just wouldn’t open.

He wasn’t going to fight it, but he did scowl disapprovingly for a few moments to see if it changed its mind.

It didn’t, so he tucked it back in its safe little hiding spot and prepared supplies.

It was mechanical from that point out, and there was a sort of freedom he could reach in just letting himself go through the motions.

The storm had abated, so when he went outside he only had to deal with the wetness in the air. The sky was dark, but the yellow haze gave him enough light to see easily. He walked the inside of the wall, looking for structural weaknesses. He walked the outside of the wall looking for damages. There was water, a lot of water, but that was it. The river had grown again, and it never seemed to have enough time to thin out before the next storm.

He avoided it, just to be safe.

The doors were still holding, the windows were still sturdy. He was on the roof for a little while, even though he thought it was probably irresponsible to climb so high while he knew he was still exhausted.

At the highest peak, he could see everything–and nothing.

No distant fires, no villages growing. No smoke signals, no signs of life.

Just him, still.

He didn’t have the best supplies, but he repaired what he assumed to be the weaker points, and he hoped it was enough to stop water coming in during the next storm. Realistically he knew he was just delaying the inevitable; another hole would open up and he’d have to do this again in a few weeks–if he was even lucky to make it so long.

Maybe Earth had some secrets he could glean, or better tools to make this easier.

Devyn lingered at the tallest peak on the Hall of Shadows for a short while, partly to give himself time to rest, and partly just to observe.

Inevitably, his eyes found the enormous tree on the Hill, but he didn’t feel like he should be allowed to look at it.

It should have been more beautiful, he felt like he was letting it down. It needed more sunlight, and less water.

Probably needed a little more love, too.

He would make time for that before he left.

But, every time he thought he might be inching closer to leaving, something else came up. In a practical movement, he made a list of everything he needed to do, and having something to focus on gave him the stability and drive to work it. He needed time to himself, but after the first few days he’d settled into a steady ritual.

He didn’t try to forget that Percy was gone but he didn’t really succeed in making plans for what to do now that he knew he was gone.

‘Finish the list’ was the best plan he had, but he kept adding things to it.

It was more than just secure the Hall, change the torches, stoke the beacons.

It started to become long term–things he couldn’t do this trip, but maybe things he could do in the next one.

‘Figure out lights’ was vague, but he knew what it meant. He’d collected sap from trees to make long burning candles and torches, and he used the remnants of what hadn’t burned out to keep the beacons going. Even scraps could get a day or so for the beacons, but trees weren’t healthy enough to produce what he needed to keep on in the long run. He had a stock, but it was dwindling, and the trees were getting worse. He had less than a bucket of sap between all six trees within the wall, and the constant storming was weakening their roots and making the sap too watery to be of much use without excessive processing. The lack of sunlight made them brittle and, devoid of nutrients, it was losing its most desirable properties.

Earth had bright lights everywhere, constantly. They could keep them on all night if they wanted, and they burned brighter than his flames. They didn’t seem affected by wind or weather, and if Devyn could figure out how to do that, maybe he could push back the shadows further. He couldn’t chase away the clouds, but if he could find some way to mimic the light of the sun? Maybe he could grow things, or give himself a chance to keep on fighting.

‘Roof Repair’ was another long term goal, he didn’t know if Peter or Michael would be able to advise him on better resources or techniques, but the structures on Earth were different from what he was used to, and in the time he was there he’d seen a house go from a flat foundation to the bones of a building, roof and all. They’d had a team of men, but if he worked hard enough he could carry that weight. Probably. He just needed to know their secrets.

Rocks weren’t falling out of the sky currently, but any time a dark shadow passed overhead, he wondered. Percy’s technology used to work, but Devyn didn’t know exactly how. He hadn’t needed t know, he just trusted Percy and it worked. Now, he wasn’t sure that the storms hadn’t been kicking things back up into the atmosphere. Sometimes the ground shook for no reason he could find, and sometimes there was a large hole where there hadn’t been one before. It was safe to assume the things were related–how long before one crashed into the Hall? Or damaged the wall?

‘Shadows’ was on his list, but that was because they were Chaos and he didn’t understand. He knew what it was at its core, but he didn’t know how or why. Its history was important only to know how to destroy it, and he’d have skipped the backstory if he could go right to the end, anyway.

He wanted them gone. He wanted the Chaos off of his world, off of every world.

It would have been so much easier to be on Earth, where you could just hit it.

Here, confronting it would have been the equivalent of jumping into a raging whirlpool in the middle of the ocean. You’d expect to go down but you wouldn't expect to come back up again.

Devyn wasn’t done fighting. He needed to regain his strength.

He promised he’d leave this world better than when he’d found it, and sickly and covered in Chaos and dying didn’t meet that criteria.

He’d been alive for so long–he needed to figure that one out, but he hadn’t even realized what time had passed.

‘Find Others’ was on the list, but he wasn’t going to be able to do that until he found a way to push back the shadows, and that likely involved going out to confront them but he couldn't do that until he knew that the Hall would be fortified in his absence–long term.

He couldn’t let the Chaos into the Core of his world, and the only way into it was a secret corridor deep within the Hall.

It had been risky to leave it once before, but it had worked to his favor.

He’d met allies on Earth. There were resources there that he could only dream of–more than just food and shelter, but information, too.

And hope.

So, he hoped there were others out there–resilient. Maybe on some faraway, isolated island, where the shadows couldn’t reach. Maybe it was still sunny there. Maybe life was thriving there.

Maybe there were parts of his world that were still untouched by the Chaos–he didn't know.

He’d have to go looking. It wasn’t at the top of his list, but it was on the list.

The longer he thought about it, the more things he needed to do–but he wasn’t going to make much progress until he made it to Earth.

So, he needed to prepare for that.

He was homesick for a lot of things. For the life he used to have. For the world he used to have. For Sessrumnir. For a little town in the mountains that he remembered more in his imagination than his memory.

And strangely, for Earth.

But then, maybe he was just lonely.