Desert Kings

Welcome Back to Reality (it's just as bad as when you left)

Blue mist slowly floated away sneaking back into the corners of the cavern. Nya looked over to Lloyd who was staring at the ground with his mouth agape, still processing everything they had just seen. Nya wasn't even sure she was done processing yet but she has something more important sitting in front of her.

Kai sat on his knees with his arms hanging limply at his sides. His eyes were blown and open and streaming with tears, zoned out staring at the ceiling while he gasped and panted in an effort to regain his breath.

Gently she took shaking hands into her own.

"Kai?"

His eyes turned to her but his stance didn't change, still heaving and shaking. She scooted closer and carefully wrapped her older brother in her arms. He didn't hug back, but that was okay he didn't need to hug back for her to know he felt it.

First master that was- she didn't even have to words. It was like she just lived ten years of her life as someone else. Like watching the characters on a TV show live their life in minutes. Except this was a reality show and the reality was horrifying.

Jay was... Gone. He was gone, sacrificed himself and he wasn't ever coming back.

A new body joined their hug and she looked to see her little brother had added himself to the pile. Lloyd had a haunted look on his face staring into the distance with tears flowing steadily and silent.

Lloyd never cried.

And yet here he was. And she couldn't blame him.

For the first time in so, so long the master of water held both of her brothers close to her and fell into an exhausted sleep.

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Sunlight was burning her eyes when she woke up.

It was shocking actually, the first time she really slept in over a year and it was after one of the most horrifying things she's ever experienced in her life.

She sat staring at nothing for a very long time just trying to wrap her head around everything.

She had watched Jay die. She had watched her brother tear himself apart and put himself back together again after losing Jay. She had watched her brother and one of her best friends finally admit they liked each other only for them to get torn apart. She watched her traumatized brother slowly dissolve into complete hopelessness and bounce back.

She watched him give up on her.

And she isn't even sure how to feel about all of this. It was like she was being handing several different emotions at once and being told to sort through them and the result was just stunned overwhelmed nothingness.

She felt sad and upset and all these others things at once and she just wasn't even sure anymore.

Not to mention she still had some questions.

For example, where the fuck was she?

Lloyd was at her side still asleep in what could only be described as an enormous hammock. Like you took a bed sheet and hung it from the ceiling from each corner. The small lizard he had found still curled up in his jacket.

She could feel the steady motion shaking the interior so obviously they were back in a caravan wagon. She looked around the room again.

Lots of different things were scattered around, popper bags, small blue crystals, a few blueprints, a lot of bandages, and- oh.

Yeah this was Kai's room. She thought when she looked over to see the cabinet full of spices, miscellaneous rocks, and aloe gel.

In retrospect that made a lot of sense.