Sunny blinked.
'W-What?!'
He looked around, using his gaze to peer through the shadows and check if there was any harrowing nightmare creature messing with their minds. After making sure there was no mind hex on them, his mind went into shock.
He had never seen Nephis expose her feelings like this since her father died. On that day, she had bawled her eyes out, crying. Sunny had never seen her cry ever since. But now, he could see a small tear sliding down her cheeks.
His mind started churning. 'What got her to this stage? Did the blind girl —Cassie— tell her about a crazy prophecy?' Sunny's mind lingered on this for a moment, until he shook his head and discarded it. 'No! She trusts me enough to tell me.'
Maybe… seeing him again caused suppressed emotions to rise in her heart, forcing her to confront them. Sunny did not know what had made the usually stoic Changing Star open her heart to him like this, but he felt this was the answer.
Sunny moved towards Nephis with slow steps. She was clearly questioning everything. Her goals, her actions, maybe even her feelings.
When Sunny got close to Nephis, just a step away, he leaned down and placed his hand on her shoulders. Her bare shoulders were cold to the touch. Sunny could even feel it through the gloves of the puppeteer's shroud.
Nephis slowly tilted her head towards him. A silent meaning had lingered between them. Even if she could not gaze through the shadows like Sunny could, Nephis could still understand what his action was trying to relay.
She let go of her knees and stood up. When she did, Sunny immediately wrapped his hands around her and pulled her into a tight embrace. Inward, he was facing a dilemma.
'Should I say something to comfort her? What can I even say right now? Damnation! Did I have to be put on the spot like this?'
By the time he let go, he had already decided not to say anything. He did not know what to say, and felt like if he had not thought about his words, it would bring far more disaster than good. Sunny knew Nephis well. Maybe in some parts he knew her better than she knew herself, but he felt as if in this state, anything he could say would fall flat. He did not want his words to fall flat. 'Anything other than perfection won't cut it.' He snickered at himself, inwardly, but not showing it on his face.
When they finally separated, Sunny opened his mouth, breaking the silence for the first time since Neph's breakdown. He said:
"A- go to sleep. I'll take the watch for tonight."
Nephis nodded slightly, not protesting.
"Alright." She lingered for a moment that felt slightly too long. Then she added, "Thank you," and simply left. Going to sleep, as he had instructed.
Sunny sighed. 'That might have been the most stressful day of my life.' He transmitted to his shadow. 'I don't even think evading all those assassins got that stress-inducing.' His shadow simply glanced at him, made a scoffing movement, and started gliding towards the two girls sleeping. Of course, Sunny had given it a command to watch them.
'That Shadow is a weird one.' He thought. All his attempts of starting a conversation with him had been futile. 'It's my shadow for the spell's sake. Why does it hate me so much?! And he?! Am I picking up something from Cassie?! It's an it, not a he! Damn it, Sunny!'
Sunny had spent the entire night keeping watch. Fortunately, nothing happened, so to pass the time, he tried making small talk with his shadow again. He would transmit his thoughts to it, mostly jokes, and the shadow would scoff, sigh, or face-palm. It had never laughed once. Of course, Sunny was not using his shadow only for entertainment. Even while using it to keep an eye on the sleeping beauties, making sure nothing got close to them, he was trying to hone his shadow sense.
Every time his shadow made a movement, annoyed at him, he would pay close attention. Trying to catch every small change in its movement, getting as precise as he could. Sunny felt that this would help his progress with his aspect legacy —shadow dance.
By the time the sun had risen and the dreadful dark sea had drained, he had gotten much better at using his shadow sense. These were all quantitative changes, though, not qualitative. 'As expected. It would be much better if I got real battle experience. One real battle is as good as ten thousand training sessions. I should try using my shadow sense more in real fights.' He sighed.
Sunny stood up. Feeling that he had sighed too much since entering the Dream Realm, he pushed all his unnecessary worries aside, only focusing on one thing —surviving the Forgotten Shores.
Sunny had moved closer to the girls. They were still sleeping. Sunny waited for a while, but they had not woken up. Sunny even thought about waking them forcefully, but shook his head at the idea. He did not want to disturb Nephis. Gods knew she needed the rest. As for Cassie, waking her up would have no point. It was harsh, but Sunny and Nephis were carrying her on their backs. With her abilities, she had no use to them. It was better if she kept resting. Sunny did not mind having Cassie with them. On the contrary, he had enjoyed the blind girl's company, but disturbing her sleep for no reason did not sit right with him.
Eventually, one of them stirred, darting up from their makeshift resting place. Unexpectedly, it was Cassie. Sunny was expecting Nephis to wake up first, so he was surprised.
Cassie was sweating all over. Her face was pale. She was panicking. Eventually, she summoned her ornate glass bottle and took a few sips, calming down. Sunny did not stay silent for long.
"Cassie! What's wrong?"
Cassie quickly turned her head towards him… or at least where she thought he was. The blind girl had overshot her target by a wide margin, but Sunny did not mind. She started speaking in a hurried tone.
"Sunny! Is- Is Nephis awake?"
Sunny shook his head.
"No. What is it?"
Cassie had turned his head towards him, this time she was spot on. She slowed down her speaking, calming her tone.
"I- I saw a vision."
Sunny's eyes widened. A vision. The blind girl had mentioned that occasionally she would see visions of the future or the past. This was how she knew about his birthday, actually, but outside of some small visions Nephis had filled him in on, he had not known the true extent of this ability.
"W-What?! A vision? Care to share?" he spoke in a shocked tone.
Cassie shook his head slightly.
"We should wake up Neph first."
Sunny glanced at Nephis, seeing her sleep calmly, with a small, sweet smile on her face. He could not bring himself to intervene.
"No. We should just wait for her to wake up. I- she needs the rest."
Cassie nodded.
When Nephis woke up, Cassie started describing her vision to them. Nephis looked different. It was almost like an imperceptible weight was slightly lifted off her shoulders. She had not even realized that she was smiling until Sunny pointed it out.
"You- you are unusually happy today." He said. When Nephis realized this, she hurriedly returned to her usual stoic expression. After that, he started scolding himself. 'Damn it! Damn it, Sunny! You just had to go and ruin it, didn't you!?'
Sunny felt that he was not going to recover from this blunder. Ever!
After Nephis got ready, the three of them sat around the extinguished campsite. Waiting for Cassie to share her findings.
"People! I saw People! A castle full of them!" Her voice was trembling slightly. From excitement, or from something else she chose not to share with them, Sunny did not know.
"It! It was that way!" She had raised her petite hand, pointing her index finger towards one direction. It was the direction Sunny had come from. It was west.
Nephis and Sunny remained silent, but a feeling of sudden tension started to emanate from Sunny.
"Sunny. Something Wrong?" Nephis was the first to ask.
"No, nothing. It's just that, that was the direction I came from yesterday. You know. With the shark monster. There are many carapace scavengers grouped there. Eating its corpse." He spoke in a firm tone.
Upon hearing this, Cassie yelled out.
"But! But! I also saw." She had slowly calmed down in the middle of her speech, saying the next words in her usual, delicate tone. "I saw Sunny leading me through the gates of the castle. That- that means we'll survive."
Sunny had noticed a small detail in the vision Cassie was describing. It was that Nephis was nowhere to be found in it. If they went west, would Nephis die? Perhaps to the group of scavengers? Sunny did not want to risk it, but unfortunately, he did not even get a chance.
Nephis stood up with haste and said in a firm tone. "Good. It's decided then. We are going west."
'What?!' Sunny fell into a stupor. Did she not notice the detail he had noticed? No! She definitely did. Nephis was not someone who would miss a detail like that, so what was it?
Sunny stood up after him. Throwing out.
"But! Neph! It's dangerous. What if you die? The vision-"
Sunny did not get to finish his Dialogue, though. Nephis had cut him off.
"Sunny. Do you trust me?" she had said the last part in a slower, quieter tone. Sunny did not say anything after that. With that, Nephis got her answer. They were heading west.