You're From The Isle If Anybody Asks

[missrecalled_mods]

First Awareness

Those used to this by now probably knew what it meant when they felt their magic return for a moment. For the rest, suddenly their powers were back. Just for a few minutes, but a lot could be done in a few minutes. If the person even noticed their powers were back, that is.

Of course those on the shore might have seen the hazy indistinct shape through the barrier coming closer, might have seen the moment the hole in the barrier opened. Might have seen King Ben leading people down a gangplank through the barrier with crates of supplies....

Unions, Re And Otherwise

Once the supplies were unloaded, the barrier was sealed up again. King Ben seemed to be in charge during the unloading, Once the barrier was closed again, by the green magic streaming from the Queen's finger, it was Mal who seemed to be in charge.

"Alright, listen up. We have 2 hours and the clock is ticking. I'm not FG but we're keeping to a deadline anyway. If you want to come to Auradon or know someone you want us to bring back, you have 2 hours to convince us. You and everyone else, sharing the same 2 hours. Along with anyone who has a supply request for our next visit, or updates. Those of you bringing supplies to the school, time to get cracking. Two hours passes faster than midnight at the ball."

Those Who Left

(Please TL Here for boat and Auradon Shenanigans. TY)

Those What Remain

Once those going back to Auradon had left and the barrier was back in place, it was for those who remained on the Isle to sort the supplies and figure out how to get done everything that needed to be done with the people that remained.

Comments

[mist_the_point]

Peace... A rare thing in Eorzea. But he hoped what Chell offered was true. The countless lost to Bahumt's wrath deserved that much at least.

As one memory flowed into another, images of another sort of fire in the sky took their place. Fireworks bursting in the starry sky above the Twelveswood, new fleeting constellations painted in every color. Blossoms and starbursts and showers of light, there one moment, gone the next. And people watching on the ground below in bittersweet remembrance. The Rising, he identified it. An annual festival to commemorate those lost to the Calamity... and to symbolize Eorzea's rebirth from its ashes.

"Though the continent be forever changed, life does go on," he said thoughtfully. "And so must we. Though whatever may come for Eorzea in the future, I won't be there to see it. Which is likely for the best."

[elvendryad]

A bit of curiosity, as the fireworks somewhat reminded him, vaguely, of something. That same absent memory from a moment before: the sense of once having had others nearby, laughter and warmth now faded to a blur.... He understood that it was a celebration, at least, the shape of it familiar even if the details no longer were.

His feelings about what Foulques said were more certain. Chell was taking it less as a statement about where Foulques had come from, and more simply that he would be here. And if Foulques was paying any attention at all, it would be easy to catch the very quiet, if warm, feeling... one that was more a kind of acceptance than pointed approval. That was why Chell was staying, after all -- because it was simply what ought to be done.

He could help here, on the Isle, where there was still so much to do... and that was simply the shape of what was, what ought to be -- it wasn't even so much an assertion as an understanding... a reflex, like closing one's eyes against a sudden bright light, or not thinking twice, simply passing someone something that they were reaching for, but was slightly too far away for them. It wasn't even a conscious choice on his part, exactly. They were hungry, so he'd stepped in to help with food; they needed wood for the fire, so he cut thorn branches to dry; the food needed flavor, so he was trying to grow something to improve it.... And he knew Foulques did likewise, working to help where he was needed as well.

A correct path, easily. A way things should be. Foulques might not have been looking for agreement, but he had it anyway, in a sense, even less examined than the reason behind it, something that simply was.

His thoughts turned back, briefly, to his own home -- his forest, the thousands of ents that had surrounded him, and the sense of their spread, their interconnectedness, with smaller lives throughout them, birds and mammals and insects, and occasional visitors, people. There had been someone else there, last he knew -- the notion of an us, of kin in some more definite sense... perhaps they were even of the same people as Chell had originally been born to? Perhaps not? It was a sort of familiarity that ran past mere physical shape, though there was that resemblance too. This one, whoever they were, had been about overwhelmed with happiness, on top of it. Chell had viewed this visitor to his forest through what seemed to be the unfocused muddle of having been at least half asleep at the time... perhaps the ents would remember better than Chell did, what this one had looked like? And them, a someone marked more by their mood than anything, who'd come, excited, and was only moreso at their meeting with those trees. They'd had something in mind... a dark castle of some sort, and open space, a place of home, and someone beloved waiting there... an invitation. They'd said something in Chell's language, bid the ents to follow them, and Chell had been amused, curious, drawn to do exactly that. After so long, and so much hurt -- a different someone else had been there before this one, quiet and sad and desperately lonely, but they'd left again already -- it had been a welcome change... and the forest moved, at Chell's encouragement, the ents letting go of the soil and rock below them, and with this new person up in an ent's branches, directing the forest's journey, it went....

Well, he didn't know quite what happened after that. He remembered that they'd been walking, though Chell didn't remember doing so himself. And then he had been walking, on his own legs again, somehow... and there was gold in the distance, and the landscape changed....

...To the dreamscapes they'd gone through, some time ago. Chell had found himself there, where everyone's realities had shifted around them, an entourage of memory, inner worlds made external. He seemed to wave away that part of things, though; the point was, his wandering left him here. Somehow. And he had no intention of leaving. Not yet, at any rate -- he trusted that his forest would be in good enough hands while he was away, led on a little adventure by that happy figure, that--

There, the reference to that one: that was what the language-magic was translating as brother.

Brother-in-arms. Cohort. Sibling? Maybe literal, maybe not, it didn't matter. Cousin? Friend. Peer. An Equal, in this context. Part of his society, part of his community, rare as they'd become. This one was of his kind, not even taking seemingly similar species into account, he was sure of that much. They'd spoken with Chell's language, that was the thing. They'd recognized the ents, they'd understood in a way that had become so rare....

More than that, there was Chell's amusement at how he'd left things, the other so enthusiastically saying to come, and the movement that followed.... It would all be fine without him. They didn't need him... not really, not for now. Not the way the Isle did.

For the best.