@lungtienhsiang @glimmeringbone
Hella was having a strange day, though not necessarily a bad one, yet. She was missing her sword, and her friends, and she wasn’t quite sure where she was or how she got there, and Adelaide had been taunting her, but she had gotten to ride on the back of a dragon. That counted for a lot. Her genial new companion had flown her across the unfamiliar landscape, but apparently there were limits to how far he could go. After that, you had to take the train.
Given the oddities of this place, Hella hadn’t been quite sure what to expect from the train, but it was almost precisely the same as how Samol had described the one in Marielda - except instead of traversing the City of First Light, it plunged through a starry blackness. It seemed like they were high up in the night sky; Hella had pressed her nose to the window, trying to catch a glimpse of the land below, but couldn’t see even the suggestion of it. She wondered if this was some sort of void between stratum, an emptiness deep below Hieron, a section of this layer that the gods had neglected to fill. But then, what were the stars?
The darkness here was inert, lacking any flicker of the consuming energy of the Heat and the Dark. That was a small comfort, at least.
Before Hella could organize her thoughts enough to ask Temeraire about the void they were traveling through, they had passed through it, the starry landscape suddenly replaced by the trappings of a different train station. A mild voice welcomes them to the Sea of Nectar, and the handful of people aboard begin to file out. With a brief glance at Temeriare, Hella joins them, feeling resolute. This is where she’ll find her sword.
If only she knew where to start.