[ChicletPrime]

• again, absolutely stellar backdrop of a city market lane. its seeing stuff like this that makes me go crosseyed when they re-use backgrounds willy nilly where they don't actually make sense. hire three more background artists! you can afford them, every time somebody talks, there should be a new angle.
  
• well, i am OUT.  and i have no idea what i'm doing. if Rafayel just wanders off and leaves me here, am going to be ex-princess in no time flat. royalty-pancake.
  
• oh sweet... he won't even tell us his name because it irrelevant to the situation as we're not going to be acquainted long.
  
• HE WISHES
  
• he's my second-most important person, of course he must tell me his name (second most? what, we only know one other person? although.. that almost makes sense in a rather terrifying sort of way). my most cherished wish granting spirit.
  
• "Well, you appeared from the water. Perchance you are like the God of the Sea."
  
• /coughs up rum. mayyyybe, princess! maybe! 
  
• Hello, Rafayel. excuse me, Lord Ra'el. my gosh, am i naive or what. hopefully i'm of actual age here but she's got the personality of a sunny twelve year old. a pampered, spoiled little twelve year old with no money.
  
• Rafayel does have the patience of a god. i have to be a child, this is wild. 
  
• random worldbuilding: spirit lamps are implied to light when somebody dies.
  
• also, another mention of "gods".
  
• ah, i'm very lonely. nobody wants me for me, just for my heart and what it grants to everyone else.
  
• "If a god does exist, he should claim the heart himself!"
  
• /spit up more drink
  
• jesus lord, this game. some of these themes are railroad spikes
  
• ew, City Guard.  well, at least i got a whole lot farther this time. i even ate some gerbils.
  
• woooo! Rafayel grabs me and RUNS! 
  
• we hide. i love hiding. but oh man, his arrow wound still has a piece of arrow in it.  and there's a much closer shot of his earring, which has detailing matching the decorations on his belt.  that is absolutely gorgeous.
  
• owww. de-arrow-ectomy it is. i guess my heart is good for granting immortality but not wound healing. 
  
• ...where did we get medicine? 
  
• never mind, he turned to the side and he's got little black hoop earrings all up his ear. wound schmound. also some sort of flat ring on his right middle finger, if that has anything to do with anything which it probably doesn't.
  
• oops! i think the maid costume finally wore out its paltry disguise. how he didn't clue in when i dragged him all over First Street trying to get him to buy me everything, i don't know.
  
• "I am not the daughter of the Philos royal family. I am no one's child. I am a person who awoke from the depths of the planet."
  
• what the ... hell indeed.
  
• uh. okay. wut?
  
• i am.. the heart of Philos, not Xavier, which, okay, fair, that was reach and i knew it. my existence grants immortality. but then how does the forest / forest pool eat life if i am the life-giver?  alternate non-overlapping timelines? 
  
• "I always believed my existence and my heart were separate." and i guess they would be, if by "heart" we are really meaning "aether core". and possibly one of, or the strongest. that would certainly require a very special person to be able to withstand it.
  
• i... want to go to the sea.
  
• /oh maaan. of course i do.
  
• Rafayel, musing: "How many years? No one said they wanted to visit the sea since."  SINCE WHAT?  "Your Highness will see it in the future."  I WILL? how much future are we talking here? days? weeks? ten thousand years? asking for a friend. "I am in your highness' debt once more." SINCE WHEN?
  
• i awkwardly ask if he will come back to visit me in the palace, because i am terrible at asking for things that i want, probably because what i want will never be granted me, and "Am I not in Your Highness' memory at all?" 
• /popcorn
  
• "The little fish I gave. Is it well?"
  
• /clutches heart and dies a little. well, a lot. THE LITTLE FISH.
  
• there is honestly so much around and around and around of the things they do over and over and over again that its so fucking delightful to run across it again.
  
• Rafayel return to the alley and "Elder Amund" stands in a corner, waiting. I have heard the name "Elder Amund" before and not in this context / story.  i.. cannot remember, but its very familiar. I am guessing I was returned to the City Guard? 
  
• Amund: "I saw what happened. Was it her?"   "Yes."  oh beloved, you don't sound happy about it at all.  "Why did your Quintessence not do it?"   fuck, that was it. Amund was in the God of Tides storyline. good gravy, all the way from then to Philos?!  "The time is yet to come."  well, i AM only twelve. 
  
• "Your Quintessence is not one to hesitate."  excuse me. Rayafel is amazing at procrastination, how do you not know this after so unimaginably long? "Rafayel, she is no longer that girl. Your Quintessence is no longer God of the Sea either!"
  
• oh fuckity fuck, REALLY? hard to be a God of something that doesn't exist I guess, but I kind of get the impression he's not busted back to regular mortal either. Your Quintessence indeed. 
  
• Amund: "The fire is about to fade... how much time is left? Lemuria's final hope is within our reach." 
  
• i am So Confused and So Intrigued. this is just bombshell after confusing bombshell after watch the other two myths.
  
• oops. fireboy is fire. but.. wrong? "the fire is completely black, its center only carrying a bit of color."
  
• /covers face with one hand
  
• Zayne's ice is shot with black. what the everlovin' storyline is going on here?
  
• "Her powers still slumber. She is unaware of her true self. Acting now would only scare the nobles."
  
• do we... do we care if the nobles are scared? and what the hell ARE my powers if i'm asleep at the wheel apparently and have been through every reincarnation cycle for however long its been.
  
• "Don't forget, we require a complete Sea God's heart. It must also be offered willingly." 
  
• i am being played. 
  
• /claps enthusiastically. that was one HELL of a chapter!