A Search for Nothing

[CherryStatic]

As it always did, always had and always would, the night wrapped itself about her like a shroud.

She drifted on the wind, toes whispering across the grass like a sigh, drowned out by the ambient crash of crickets and night birds, the lapping of waves against the shore of the Silver Lake. The breeze was only slight, but her silhouette nevertheless trailed behind her, fanning out like diaphanous silk against the backdrop of a landscape illuminated by nothing but starlight.

She was getting closer. She felt its pull, calling to her in the recesses of her mind. Beckoning her, patient and knowing, content to wait for her.

He was there as well, urging her on. Distracting her at times with the urgency in his voice, which filled her head with a thousand whispers, all of them insistent. His need to reach their destination was palpable, a necessity that influenced his actions, his reason for existing in the first place. His mind was fraying at the edges, and he seemed intent on dragging her into his madness.

She silenced him with soothing words, promising him that it would be alright, that they would find what they were looking for. His whispers died down, the insanity held at bay for a moment's time. His unconditional trust in her was something that she never knew how to react to. She didn't know if she found it comforting, alarming, or strange. She supposed that, in the end, she didn't need to feel any particular way about it; it was what it was, and she needed him as much as he needed her.

She neared the water's edge, the hem of her gown trailing a mere inch above the surface of the lake. Her eye, a pinprick of silver in the dark, scanned the depths as she hovered, remaining well clear of the amber glow of the lanterns on the docks. She felt it close at hand, slumbering in the murk of the lakebed.

She stilled, pondering her next course of action. She could not reach it. Not yet. Not without--

The key! He rasped tunelessly. The key the key the key the keeeeeeee--

She cut him off once more, her eye flicking to walls of the town. She cast out towards them, delicately probing for the faintest hint of that familiar sensation, and alighted on the faint glimmer of energy that suggested she had found what she was looking for.

Without a sound, she slipped across the water towards Myrkentown.