From the current chapter I’m editing - far into the future from the recent one I posted. (Will is dreaming.)
His fingers instinctively brushed over the crystal around his neck, emitting a faint azure glow.
The atmosphere shifted. The feeling of a breeze through his hair brought a sense of peace, …along with someone else.
Resting on one of the large white boulders nearby, bathed in the warm afternoon sun, sat a woman who looked to be Selka’s age. Faint iridescent azure light glowed from her long white hair and sharp blue eyes. She wore a long tunic of shades of green and gold bearing a large lotus-like flower wrapping around her side, and flowing, matching pants. She folded her bare feet to sit cross-legged on the rock and stared at him.
He got the feeling that she was there out of obligation. She had a skeptical sense about her of someone who had been hurt and wasn’t ready to trust yet. She wasn’t angry or malicious, but definitely cautious.
Her presence seemed familiar. He stepped forward, feeling the awkwardness melt away, ‘Hi.’
She slid off the rock, moving gracefully toward him. As she walked, her form shrank down with that same blue light to become a girl his age, standing at his head height, and dressed in a long sleeved white t-shirt and magenta capris with brown ankle boots, ‘Hi.’
He blinked in surprise. The form she took matched his initial interpretation of how she would look based on the vibration he picked up from her personality, ‘I know you. You helped me before. Why?’
Her voice lightened to that of a child’s, ‘That’s what I do. You were hurt.’ The susurration of winds through the green grasses carried her voice within a feeling of distrust and wariness that he felt and somehow understood.
Although he didn’t say the words aloud, she picked up the impression of thankfulness from him. When she spoke, the words bypassed his ears directly to his soul, ‘I don’t know if I can do this again. It’s been so long - so alone for so long.’
He felt her heartache. She had lost someone important to her as he had, and didn’t want to go through the pain and risk of bonding to someone just to lose them again.
‘But it’s you. I know you. You’re finally here,’ Her vibrant blue eyes met his, ‘I’ll help you, Will.’
In a gasp of realization, he immediately recognized her. She came from this crystal - it was her song he heard in the palace, and at the cave. But that would be impossible. Crystals were just rocks.
Impossible or not, that was the truth. He felt bonded to it - to her. He wanted her there. She belonged with him.
She quickly became familiar to him, like he had only been waiting to find her. How did he know that? How could he tell?
The thought of having this crystal taken away made him want to cry.
Her form disappeared, but he could still sense her presence. He clutched the crystal tightly. He had lost his twin. He couldn’t lose this too.