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The cove was silent.

No. That felt wrong, even before Pendour opened her eyes. She'd grown used to the soft echo of the waterfalls that filled every corner of the Wonder. It was a sign of the Wonder coming back to life. It felt like breath. Without it, everything stagnated. It reminded Pendour of the beginning, when everything here had been dust and bones.

When she did open her eyes, she found that she and the others were right by the water's edge, not near the grand staircase in something of a crossroads, the place that she had appeared every other time that she'd visited her Wonder over the past several years.

"Oh," she breathed, brow furrowing as she glanced around the area. "Oh no. Something did happen."

Nothing immediately looked damaged, but just a short glanced confirmed that the waterfalls had stopped. The cove itself wasn't dry, but the water level had fallen by several feet.

Even with all that meditation, she hadn't been able to know what was happening here.

Basiluzzo looked around, clasped hands resting on the back of his neck. "I mean, I would imagine if this waterfall is supposed to be flowing, the fact that it's not should be a pretty big hint, y'know?" Unclasping his hands, he headed toward the nearest expanse of the dry falls at a light jog. The worst thing that could happen is he'd see a bunch of wet rocks, right? Once he reached the rocks, he began to climb them, looking for any symbols or anything out of place.

Seeing Basiluzzo clambering over the falls gave Stromboli pause, but he forced a sigh of exasperation. "I hope he's not going to hurt anything--or himself--by doing that." He glanced to Pendour. "Let me know if I should yell at him." Maybe it was a good idea! Maybe Basiluzzo was just being presumptuous!

That was a fair point. She was at the cove often enough that there was no way she didn't notice it unless it was especially hidden. Abzu supposed that possibility existed, but it was unlikely. Either way, they needed to get closer to the cove, or at least closer to what was near it. Abzu shrugged his shoulders, offered, "Fair enough," and was on his way.

He was minutely amused by Stromboli saying he could yell at Basiluzzo if necessary-

"Does he rock climb on the regular?" asked Abzu, shifting his weight to his back leg. "Because getting up there is kinda impressive."

Why were they headed to his favourite room? As much as he would have liked to take a nap right then, he was fairly sure it wasn't really an option. They were trying to get their wonders fixed. That required being awake. Even though meditation mostly just felt like falling asleep. He, for a moment, thought he was about to fall asleep. (How the ******** did Zoltan do this meditation nonsense with any regularity?)

... Ah.

"Irving must've kept something hidden in here, then," Abzu glanced toward the room she was opening up access to. "You need a flashlight, or is it lit down there?"

Was it just the Code piece that gave this equally unnatural place its importance, or were there other things down there that Abzu should be wary of? Considering who Irving was, he didn't necessarily appreciate the concept of the second one--

"It's not dark," said Pendour, already starting down the ladder in a practiced motion. The glass dome that surrounded the rest of the Wonder extended down to this level as well, and after only a brief climb through the floor of the chamber, everything opened up into a large space where the walls were more like windows. It was a little more shaded than the upper levels, with the full dome, of course, but it was certainly enough to see by, at least in this area.

Without looking down, Pendour dropped down from the last few rungs. She landed with a splash.

"What?" she murmured aloud. It wasn't supposed to be wet down here. This was a maintenance area. "Oh," she said as she turned, and looked around. "I, um, found where all the water went."

There were pipes on the ceiling. There were pipes on the floor. There were pipes to the side, that she would have to duck to get around. There were pipes deeper in the center of the Wonder that she hadn't even really had to look at so much, before.

A good half of them had burst. Luckily, nothing was spurting water, but some of them were dripping, and some were simply delivering their supply of water directly to the basement. It was ankle deep. The smell was questionable. The pump near one of the glass walls was making a slight noise. Pendour couldn't tell if that was broken, too, but it didn't keep her attention.

As if everything else wasn't stressful enough, she saw that she wasn't alone down here. The ghostly figure of Irving was inspecting one of the broken pipes, although he turned when he heard Pendour splash down.

"Oh," he said, distinctly unimpressed, as he looked over her. "You are alive. I wondered, with all the commotion down here, and then, it's not like you to stay away for so long."

Pendour didn't know if she should apologize for surviving. With Irving's gaze digging into her, the instinct was there to say something to soften it, but she knew that the others behind her wouldn't want her to be ashamed of existing. These three, especially, had all been there for the close call. They knew how tenuous her relationship with existing could be, sometimes.

Which meant that she didn't know if there was something she could say here, something that would make everybody happy.

"Something happened with the Code," she told him. "It got, um, damaged, maybe?" It sounded weak coming from her lips, but she really didn't know the details. The Code had been vague, when they'd gone up to speak to it, and she hadn't pressed it.

"I couldn't get up. I've been trying, but now I'm here. I think if I can resonate with the Code piece here, it should fix things?" She met his gaze while he stared at her in what she could only assume was some kind of silent judgement. "Can you, um, can you show me where it is?"

There was another long moment of silence, but eventually, Irving nodded. Pendour knew that he thought she was an awful heir, but he would at least go through the motions of being a mentor for the most important things.

"You had the right idea," he told her. "It's not far. Come, now. I'd hate to see the damage get worse."

Pendour hadn't been anxious about not being able to fix things until this exact moment, but now that fear crept up her spine. She followed Irving, though, as he led her towards the center of the Wonder, where the lights from the edges didn't reach as well and the pipes snaked around each other, labyrinthine. "Here," he said, gesturing towards something that she hadn't noticed before. It was a small, round chamber in the middle of the room, with walls of plain stone that were positively unassuming by Neptunian standards. Irving pointed at a simple door that was half-hidden by the shadows. "Your ring should open it."

There was an impression in the door handle that looked like her ring should fit, and as Pendour slid the pieces together, the door clicked and swung open.

The inside of the chamber was much more reminiscent of the upstairs. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all covered in shades of blue mosaic tiles that curved like waves. In the center of the room was a small pedestal, and on it, the ball of light that she'd been searching for.

So, the Code had never been in the cove, she realized. It had been underneath.

"It's beautiful," she breathed. She stepped forwards, walking to cradle the Code in her hands, to lean down so that her forehead brushed its warmth. "Hello," she told it, as if she was talking to an old friend. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she felt that warmth surround her.


---

Irving shifted under silken sheets. He reached over to put a hand on the shoulder of the woman next to him, shaking gently as he pressed his lips to the curve of her ear. "Good morning, beautiful," he whispered.

It had been about a week ago that she'd arrived on her getaway to the cove, and it hadn't taken long for her to start expressing interest in the Knight of Pendour. Irving had, of course, been happy to exchange pleasantries with her, and more than willing when those pleasantries had become invitations for something a bit more intimate. Part of his job was making sure that everyone who came to his Wonder was satisfied with their stay, in whatever way that meant.

He was able to meet many people this way, and of course he enjoyed it himself when beauties like her spent a few nights in his bedchamber.

Dark, sleepy eyes opened to regard him, and she brushed her auburn hair out of her face as she propped herself up on an elbow. "Is it time?" she asked. With one exception, these relationships were short lived. Vacations ended. People left to their other lives. This woman had a ship to catch on the surface that left in a few hours. That meant it was time for the unpleasant business of a goodbye.

"Almost," he said, pressing a kiss to her temple, "But we can take the long way and walk by the cove on the way to get the rest of your things, if you'd like." She nodded, and smiled at him, even though it was a clearly a struggle for her to shake off the rest of the sleep and pull herself the rest of the way from the blankets.

Under other circumstances, Irving might have been charmed. As it was, he was just rolling over in his mind the fact that this goodbye was going to have to be one of the more unpleasant variety.

He was sad about it. He had liked her at first, but ultimately, his loyalty was to his Wonder, not his entanglements. Around the time that she'd arrived, a few gems had gone missing. Thieves were not unheard of on Pendour, but this one had been rather unsubtle, chipping several priceless gems out of where they decorated the base of one of the statues in the gardens.

Irving had closed down the Wonder with a story about the passage to the surface needing maintenance. He'd made sure to throw a nice party, and while his guests were occupied, he'd had his cleaning staff subtly but thoroughly check their things. This was standard procedure.

It had been disappointing when the gems had shown up among the woman's things. It wasn't necessarily unexpected, though. Irving tried his best to keep his guests on their best behavior, he did. He let the rumors circulate that sometimes, people came to Pendour and didn't leave. Perhaps some of those rumors had caught up with him, as it was rare for him to be able to host political targets, these days, but at least it generally kept people from doing things that would earn his bad side.

Generally.

Some people just couldn't keep their hands off of his things.

She'd tried to disguise the gems among her own jewelry. Clever. It was not clever enough.

Now she would join the others at the bottom of the cove.

Pendour was always quiet in the early mornings, with people sleeping off the various concerts or festivities that often went late into the evenings, but last night, Irving had laced the food and drink with sleeping potions to make sure that he and his acquaintance would have their privacy. He climbed the steps with her, taking breaks to listen to the waterfall, to talk about her beauty and laugh at her jokes.

Eventually, they made it up to the overlook at the top of the largest waterfall, and Irving took the chance to look out across his Wonder, his home, at the reason he had to get his hands dirty from time to time.

Then he turned back to her, a slick smile on his lips. "I'm going to miss you."

Her smile was sharper. Her blade was sharp, too, as she pulled it from where it had been hidden and plunged it into his chest.

"I won't miss you," she told him, as he weakly grabbed for the blade, sputtering and choking, first on air and then on his own blood. She twisted the knife, and his strength failed, arms flopping to his side as he gave one last weak, wordless scream. "You killed my brother. You deserve however much this hurts."

With a huff, she pulled the knife free, and then shoved his dying body over the railing.

---

Pendour gasped, and sunk to the floor away from the pedestal, clutching her hands to her chest. It hadn't been her own memory, but she'd still felt it. She was still breathing heavily as she turned around, and saw Irving staring at her with a pallor on his ghostly face that made her think he knew exactly what she'd seen.

At least the Code was steady, now, and if the others were around, they might have seen that the broken pipes had fixed themselves.

Basiluzzo and Stromboli had stayed above the trap door, not wanting to crowd down into the subfloor space. But they'd left the door open and now Basiluzzo leaned his head down through the opening. "Hey, how's it going down there? Things changed, so I'm going to guess it went okay?" At least, the pipes were no longer leaking. That was a pretty large improvement, honestly. But it wasn't hard, even from his vantage point, to see how Pendour was sitting on the floor. "Pen, you alright?"

Like magic, Stromboli's face also appeared, next to Basiluzzo's at the top of the ladder. "Is everything okay down there?" He'd climb down there if he had to, and he had half a mind to anyway--

Something was gratifying to Irving just vanishing and not trying to say anything needling. There was something else, though, that made him wonder if any of that explained any of Irving's behaviours these days.

... Maybe he was being too generous.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, in turn, letting her go ahead of him before he followed her. "I can't quite imagine what it'd be like to experience someone dying." What he had was the experience of him killing someone else, instead. It was a murder that had felt considerably more justified on top of all of that-

The wonder did seem to be doing better, at least, and that was what they were there for, right?

Would have been ideal if they could have done that without the death memory experiences-

Abzu didn't need to be asked twice to hug her, though. He just needed a second to get back up this damn ladder-- "Yeah, just a minute." Would give plenty of time for Basiluzzo and Stromboli to hug her, anyway. One foot in front of the other... or on top of... why did they invent ladders in the first place--

Once he was back on solid land and not climbing up accursed ladders, he did hug her.

With a quiet laugh, he offered, "Well, guess we're done with Neptune now."

... Maybe Uranus would be a little nicer to them. He didn't know. Considering Stromboli had still never been to his damn wonder, he didn't know!

Her friends helped more than they knew. Basiluzzo was the first one to get to him, and her breathing steadied as she hugged him back. Abzu was often a source of comfort for her, and there was something warm about the way Stromboli embraced both of them, about how he tried to comfort everyone even now, that made her smile despite everything.

It reminded her that she was here, solid, alive. The memory felt fresh, but it was something that had happened a thousand years ago.

It wasn't about her.

It was still going to be something to think about, later. It might even haunt her. She might have to use Caedus's crystal for a few days so it didn't follow her into her dreams.

Right now, though, she was here, with her friends around her, listening to the way she could hear the waterfalls outside of the chamber doors again.

She was ready to be there for them in whatever came next.

"Let's go to Uranus, then," she said.