Sawerigading stood frozen.
For a moment, time bent. The murmuring of the waves, the chants of the spirits in the forest, even the restless breath of Jantaka, all of it seemed to hush, as though the world itself bowed before her.
Walakina.
She emerged not in splendor but in stillness. Her veil shimmered like moonlight upon water, her hair swaying as if the sea winds belonged to her. And then,
She smiled.
Not the victorious smile of a queen. Not the sweet smile of long-awaited reunion.
It was something else.
A smile at a loss.
A smile with the edges touched by sadness.
A smile that seemed to ask why now?
Sawerigading felt his chest tighten.
"How… how can someone be as beautiful as her, and yet wear sorrow like a crown?" he thought, his throat refusing to yield the words.
They spoke softly, at first like whispers stolen by the sea breeze.
Sawerigading: "I searched through shadow, through storm, through the thorns of spirit and trickster alike… and now, I stand before you. Walakina."
Walakina: "And yet, why does fate bring you here only to remind us of what cannot be? Do you not see, Sawerigading? The threads of our lives have already been knotted apart."
Her words were calm, but each syllable struck like iron against his heart.
He wanted to deny it.
He wanted to beg the heavens to undo this cruel tapestry.
But the urgency of the moment did not permit.
Thunder rumbled in the east. The air grew heavy, the way it does when the barrier between realms begins to falter. From the shadows of the forest, faint echoes stirred, the same spirits they had outwitted, regrouping, searching for their quarry once more.
Walakina's eyes flickered. She knew. She had always known.
Walakina: "You must go. If you linger, the wrath of the guardians will not fall only on you… but on me."
Sawerigading: "Then let me stay, let me fight, "
Walakina: "No! To fight is to shatter what little peace remains. Leave, Sawerigading. If you truly love me… then leave me."
The words cut sharper than any blade.
Sawerigading's hand trembled, torn between defiance and surrender. He wanted to speak, to stretch their farewell into eternity. But the urgency pressed harder, trees quaked, the ground growled, and the voices of the spirits swelled closer.
Behind him, Jantaka yawned loudly, almost too casually, though his eyes gleamed with restless energy.
Jantaka: "Well… if the lady says go, maybe you'd better go, brother. Besides, standing here moping isn't really my style. Let's run headlong into the storm, eh? I'll tag along, sounds better than being bored to death in this forsaken forest."
Sawerigading clenched his jaw, his soul aching with a thousand unsaid words. His eyes locked with Walakina's one last time,
That sad, luminous smile seared into him like fire branded on spirit.
And then he turned.
The earth shook with the pounding of his feet, Jantaka at his side. The forest howled behind them, spirits stirring in rage, their whispers chasing through the trees.
Yet in his heart, Sawerigading knew this truth:
This was not an end.
It was a tearing.
And torn threads have ways of weaving back together, sometimes in ways the loom of destiny itself cannot predict.
The sky cracked with a blinding streak of light. The spirits shrieked in unison. And as Sawerigading and Jantaka vanished into the storm, Walakina whispered words only the sea could hear.
A secret.
A promise.
A foreshadowing of something greater than separation.