[ChicletPrime]

• okay... this next chapter starts out immediately with:
  Lemurians who seeketh Absolute Power
  Combat the treacherous tides
  Dive into The Deep for pearls
  Find a true love
  When blessed with a true love's kiss,
  claim her heart by your own hand.
  A heart pure, flawless - and filled with love. It is the best offering humans can give Lemurians. - something something from the Tome of the Sea God
  
• kinda wish i'd manage to get to Golden Sands before City of Mirrors showed up, but alas. Because those parts would have hit a whole lot different if i'd already read this!
  
• okay, time skip - Half A Month Later 
  
• i have now figured out the secret combination of Getting The Hell Out Of The Palace apparently, because i'm sitting on the edge of town in a stable, wearing my Water People clothes and a cloak for extra disguise
  
• sand storm has uncovered something? 
  
• and Our Boy shows up with waterskins. i guess i am not as good at getting out of the palace as i thought if he still has to come fetch me out of it every now and again.
  
•  when i ask how far we're going, he says its someplace i wished to see. ooooh! off we go to The Sea, or whatever remains of it, i guess. little dust filled pond in a tiny oasis? 
  
• hey, another Water People person! only this one is buff apparently. oh. eh. its just Amund. hi Amund. and here i was hoping for a jealousy side plot.
  
• "If his eyes were weapons, I'd be gravely wounded." muahah! yeah Amund, i know, i know. sorry. in her defense, she doesn't know what she did either. 
  
• "You dare speak the name of the God of the Sea?"   my reaction: "!?"   spoilers!
  
• he bows right to the floor, i hide behind Rafayel before i get flayed alive or something, Rafe demurs being anything and that Amund should not be listened to and my conclusion is: "Lemurians are rather weird."  yas, girlfriend. but they are weird with very sharp knives so, you know. be careful?
  
• A-camel-back we go. aww, we're on the same camel! with my arms wrapped around his waist.
  
• innocently questions: "Amund called you the God of the Sea. Are you the strongest Lemurian?"
  
• "A god of war would be a more apt title for that."   soooo, is that a yes? 
  
• tales say the God of the Sea died long ago, or "slumber"ed, so how can there still be one. Rafe wants to know if i know why he perished.  ... testing out what we know? or don't know as the case may be.
  
• "His heart was stolen by humans."
  
• but he... he gave it away. admittedly, we ran with it afterwards, but he definitely gave it to us.
  
• hah! love it. we stick a hand on his chest to check for a heartbeat.
  
• he snatches our hand away with "Don't... touch me," as only Rafayel's voice actor could manage to say it. 
  
• interesting. i'm struggling to walk in the sand but Rafayel isn't.  i guess walking on any sort of wave is just inherent to the guy. 
  
• i am a very, very, VERY demanding princess.
  
• "Does your Highness require me to a hold a parasol?" ... now that you mention it.
  
• we walk until the sun goes down and then sit in the sand around a fire. "The black flames don't flicker. They burn silently like the man who lit them. No energy, no warmth and no hope in sight."   that's very evocative and poetic.
  
• i am feeling the distance, the farther we go. huddle for warmth? mebbe? 
  
• oh. blanket. well, if needs must.
  
• i am SUCH a naive fool. "Can you sing for me? I've never heard a Lemurian sing before."  i just have a death wish, it seems, no matter what the timeline i'm in.
  
• "Ask for something else."   kiss!
  
• "Did you say we shared a bond? Why aren't you fulfilling my requests?"  because you're a BRAT.
  
• "Bonds can change." 
  
• huh. huh huh huh. what does THAT mean.
  
• we ask him about his past, he says naught can be said. so... he doesn't have a past? no memory? 
  
• we ask him for something we don't know and he says "such as an intruder committing murders?"
  
• well, that took a sudden dark turn
  
• i ask if he kills humans for revenge and he says both he and i know that revenge is meaningless.
  
• IS IT RAFAYEL? IS IT REALLY? 
  
• Ah, there's the thing you spoilered for me several pages ago on a different thread.. that the seas have been sand for 30k years, and that "we" (i assume he means Lemurians) only want one thing. To go home.
  
• "We must awaken the seas and return to our homeland."  uh.  /stares around the miles upon miles upon MILES of dunes. 
  
• we arrive wherever we're going to and it seems like the sands are silvery white in the moonlight "similar to the waves in my dream." and... ruins! 
  
• The Island of Songs.  now just crumbled masonry buried in the dunes.
  
• nice! "Something is calling out to me. Not waiting for Rafayel, I hurry and run into the ruins."