The Trouble with Time, Part 2.13 - Vast

The ocean is vast. Alice wants to say it's bigger than any body of water she has ever seen, even though standing on the shore she shouldn't be able to see that. Reality dictates she can't see farther than about five kilometers, no matter how big the ocean is. And even if the reality of Fey Wilds was different, her eyes can't tell how far they're seeing. Even so, Alice swears this is the biggest ocean she has ever seen. She just knows it.

The ocean is vast, and as far as she can see it's covered in thick black ice and drifts of bright white snow. She wonders idly what would happen is she started walking out there and simply kept walking. How far could she walk? Where would she find herself?

Not that it matters. She doesn't want to go walk out there, even if the ocean is calling to her. She wants to find Vanessa's heart, and she wants to go home, and she wants back the life she had before Kevin sent the two of them to this cursed place the first time.

Sam's staring out over the plain of smooth ice next to her.

"I swear this is the biggest thing I've ever seen," they say quietly. She's not sure if they're talking to her or to themself. She gives them a small smile anyway.

"Oh, good, I'm not the only one who feels that way."

After they found the ribbon yesterday the Sun was already setting, and they agreed it wouldn't make sense to come out here in the dark. Not only because Fey Wilds was especially unkind to humans after dark, but also because they didn't know what they were looking for, and finding it would probably be easier during the day. And so they had spent a restless evening in the company of Alsebah, who Alice is surprised hasn't thrown them out days ago. She isn't sure if that was because they had brought her the Orange or because she was Kevin's... something. Mentor, Kevin had called her. But that didn't really necessarily tell much about the details of their relationship. A mentor can be very close or very distant.

They have six days. Five nights. The need to do something is a constant in Alice's life now, but it gets the worst when she knows there is something she could be doing but isn't. Even if the reasons for not doing them at that moment were good ones. And she was tired. She hadn't had a good night's sleep since they got to the Fey Wilds. Or before, for that matter.

Watching the still sea, a wind blowing puffs of snow around on the ice, she finds herself relaxing. Not fully. But a little. It makes her feel a little bit better.

"You two seeing anything that helps us?" Kevin's voice pulls her back into herself, into the present, to the reason they're here. There's an odd edge to his voice, like he's uncomfortable. She shakes her head to clear it.

"No," she says. "The ocean is just.. relaxing, somehow."

There's a flicker of something in Kevin's eyes, but it's gone too fast for her to tell what it is.

"Come on," he says, and they turn to walk along the beach.

The snow is almost knee-deep and completely untouched. The only sign anything has been here since the snow fell is some animal tracks they walk across. Alice's eyes follow a set of fox-like tracks that head directly to the ice and disappear as they reach a snowless part.

They walk in silence for a while, watching closely for everything around them, hoping to find anything that seems like it could be there intentionally. That it would point them to something new. That could, maybe, be used to hold a heart inside.

"Why is this place called the Inky Beaches?" Sam finally asks Kevin.

"The sand is black," he crouches down, digs through the snow and brings up a handful of black sand.

"Why is it black?" 

Why does it matter? Knowing that won't help us find Vanessa's heart. Alice clenches her jaws and resists the urge to say it out loud. Curiosity is good, generally. She doesn't hold wanting to know against Sam. Especially since they're purely here to help. Kevin had some external pressure to come with her, considering he's the one who got them into this mess in the first place, but Sam is simply here because they want to be here. It's just the anger at the King and the sleepless nights and the feeling of urgency that comes with a much too-close deadline that are starting to wear her temper thin.

Kevin points towards inland. Alice follows his finger, but can't see anything that would explain black sand. Sam frowns.

"Volcanic sand isn't this black," they say.

And then Alice understands. The huge mountain beginning its slow rise towards the sky from the beach isn't just a mountain, it's a volcano.

"Maybe not in your world. This is the Fey Wilds, Sam," Kevin grins. "Everything is a little bit magical."

Alice is staring at the volcano, barely listening.

"Magic fairy volcano that's extra black?"

"Watch your words. I might be insulted on behalf of all Fey Wilds inhabitants if I didn't know you were joking."

"Vanessa loves volcanoes," Alice whispers, more to herself than anyone else. The sound draws the attention of the other two anyway.

"What did you say?"

"Vanessa loves volcanoes," she repeats, louder this time. "It's not the beach we need to search. It's the volcano."

"If we want to go out there, we should go get ourselves some better equipment," Kevin says. "That might not be a big mountain, but even small mountains are by definition big." He falls silent, thinking for a moment. "I don't think we can search the whole volcano on foot in six days. But I think I have something that can help."

Alice takes one last look at the volcano, time running out a weight that keeps getting heavier in her chest. They turn back towards Alsebah's door.

~x~

"You ready to head back out?"Alsebah asks as she and Kevin appear from some back room where they've again been doing some magic stuff they, again, won't explain.

Sam and Alice nod, their snowshoes ready and some more food packed in their packs, in case they're out there for the rest of the day.

Alsebah waves them a goodbye, grinning a little too widely, as Kevin leads the way through the door and they find themselves back at the beach. They don't get stuck staring over the vastness of the ice this time, but instead turn their backs to it and head towards the volcano looming over the beach.

Kevin is casting as they slowly approach to it. He throws something into the air that spreads out and disappears in the direction of the volcano, then digs out a monitor that looks very similar to the one he had when he was tracking Alice through the Golden Garden.

"What are you doing?" she asks him, trying to make sense of what's happening on the monitor.

"Surveying the area," Kevin shows her. "We should soon have here a detailed picture of the volcano here. Maybe that will give us some hint as to where to start looking and save us the trouble of searching the entire mountain."

They make their steady way towards the volcano until Kevin's monitor beeps. He looks over it thoughtfully for a while.

"Hmm. Nothing obvious coming up. There's an interesting-looking cliff on the South side. A huge hole at the site of the last eruption. A big entrance to a cave almost at the base..."

Alice draws in a quick breath.

"I'm there in the Dark," she says quietly. The other two turn to look at her.

"You think it's the cave?" Kevin asks after a moment. Alice nods, feeling a lot more confident than she probably should.

"Vanessa loves caves too?"

 "No. But what place is darker than a cave in a black mountain?"

They both look at her, clearly unconvinced. She sighs.

"Do either of you have a better idea?" They shake their heads

It takes them hours to get to the cave, even though they know exactly where it is. They have to stop and rest and eat once, slowing them down even further.

But finally they make it to the entrance of the cave. Kevin was right, it is a big entrance, ten meters high and almost as wide, the walls made of dark, dark black stone. The wind has blown snow far into the cave, and the snow here is as untouched as it was on the beach. The cave starts narrowing soon after the entrance, and there's a bend that makes it impossible to see any farther in than twenty meters.

"Uh. Are we sure we want to go into a cave? In an active volcano?" Sam asks. They sound nervous.

"Yes," Alice tells them. "Yes, yes I'm sure."

"Okay," they draw a breath, then nods. "Cool. From the vastness of the ocean to the very not vastness of a cave. Did anyone bring a light?"

"Of course," Kevin says, almost sounding insulted they thought he hadn't. He begins to dig into his bag, but stops as he sees the look on Alice's face.

"You simply need to find me," Alice says, determined. "A difference quite stark, When following on blindly."

She walks into the cave, the others following only a step behind.

________________________________________

I've been wanting to use a volcano sand beach in something since Ometepe (Nicaragua) quite exactly a year ago, so I was excited. And then I realised this beach kind of has to be covered in snow, or at least frozen, so I was sad. But I did it anyway. One day one of my stories will take me to a place with volcanic beaches that aren't frozen.

The topic for tomorrow is Pale.

~matleena