"Your wife? I see..." Nu looked away for a moment, hoping Van didn't see the disappointment flash across her face. She looked back at him with a smile and cocked her head slightly. "Is she not coming with us?"
"Trust me, I'd rather not have her here," Vandal said, his attention moving back to the pillar Ladnavia had jumped down from. "What is this?"
"I'm not sure," she admitted, "but we should take a moment to heal up."
There wasn't quite enough water in the bottle to fully heal both of them, so Nu healed Van first until his wounds scabbed over, then used the remainder on herself. Her arms still hurt, but at least the bleeding had stopped.
Discarding the empty bottle nearby, she focused her attention on the pillar, running her fingers over the engravings as she looked it up and down. It wasn't long before she noticed her fingers touched a portion of it that felt like it was made of a different material. "Van! Over here!"
Van scurried over as Nu banged on it. "I think it's hollow, like some kind of hidden compartment," she explained as Van crouched near her to see better.
"But how do we open it?"
Nu thought for a moment. "Back home," she explained, "there are these training things called a puzzle box and the only way to open them is by manipulating them with your powers. Like you'd have to splash one with water or a gust of wind or something. This kinda reminds me of those." She looked at the pillar again, scanning it for familiar symbols. "I bet there's a hint to what element is should be somewhere on here."
"Uh, Nu?"
She looked up to where Van was pointing and saw her own symbol etched into the stone.
She touched her birthmark tentatively. "It wants me to use the Aether?" With the exception of channeling her mother, Nu had never figured out how to do anything with her affinity.
"Try it," Van encouraged, and she found it hard to say no.
Stepping up to the hollow portion, she closed her eyes and placed her hand on it, summoning her affinity as if she was calling out to Mama. Nothing happened.
Nu gave a frustrated growl and tried again, but still nothing happened. "My powers are so useless," she said with a sigh, tears starting to well up.
She felt Van move around her and put both hands on her slender shoulders, gripping them gently. "You need to relax," he said, his calm voice soothing her frustration. "Just breathe and focus your energy into making something happen."
"But if I channel Mama, my affinity changes and it won't work," Nu tried to explain.
"So do something else."
Something else? Nu thought back to what Granna had told her about her affinity. She said the Aether ran through all the realms and ended in the Realm of the Dead, which explained why she could use it to contact Mama. Granna suggested there were other things Nu would be able to do once she was strong enough as well, like transporting things between the realms.
If this place was indeed the Realm of the Dead, as Nu suspected, then maybe her affinity was stronger here?
Nu concentrated hard, gathering her energies despite the burning of her birthmark, and focused her affinity on the mysterious pillar as if trying to send it across the Realms. There was a slight rumbling.
"You've got this." Van's hands on her shoulders and his encouraging words helped Nu greatly, and she gave the pillar one final nudge.
She opened her eyes to see that the engravings on the pillar were lit up, emitting a bright red glow, and the compartment that Nu had found was opened.
"I... I did it!" Nu exclaimed, practically jumping for joy. She turned around before Vandal could react and grabbed him in a hug. "Thank you," she said.
She sank into his embrace as his strong arms wrapped around her. Van was such a good hugger, she always felt so safe in his arms. Nu knew he would protect her against anything or anyone, and she felt like she could stay forever like this.
My wife.
His words echoed in the back of her mind and she immediately felt guilty. Van was married, and Nu had to respect their relationship, just like with Mag and Ike.
Besides, she thought with a little pout, Van could never like someone as useless as me. He was so strong and cool, and Nu was tiny and weak. She could barely use the tooth to defend herself, and even her powers were basic at best.
Nu pulled away from their embrace rather abruptly. "Let's see what's inside it," she suggested, promptly changing the mood as she craned forward to see inside the compartment.
"What is it?" Van asked, crouching behind her and trying to see over her shoulder.
"Some kind of stone?"
Nu reached in, her hands grabbing around a palm-sized stone that was wet to the touch despite the dry air inside the pillar. She pulled it out and held it so that Van could see. It was bright blue like the colour of the sea, and water covered it in a thin layer.
"It's... a wet stone? A whetstone?" Van chuckled at his own joke.
"It's a water stone," Nu explained, his play on words going straight over her head, "and it generates water. Water-users can use it to carry infinite water with them."
"So you can use this to heal us?"
"Without carrying that awkward bottle, yeah." Nu smiled and held it in both hands, accessing her affinity and letting the water flow over her still painful cuts. It worked better than the bottled water, being already enchanted, and it wasn't long before her wounds scarred over nicely.
Freshly healed and with a cool new item, Nu still felt slightly disappointed as she thought about Van's wife being here. Everyone seemed to have someone they knew from their world with them: Cordis, Ladnavia, and even Senshi's been having some kind of flashbacks. But even though Nu's Mama is dead like them, why is she not here? Why isn't anyone here?
At least Nu could be thankful that the masked man wasn't there. If he found Nu here, helpless as she was, he could prove a real issue. She doubted even her companions could put up much of a fight to rescue her from him, though they undoubtedly would try. She couldn't allow that to happen. Especially not to Van.
After all, he's got his wife now.
"So, now what?" she asked, hoping Van wouldn't want to follow the mysterious Ladnavia wherever she had disappeared to. "Shall we go find the others?"
Suddenly there was a great rumbling in the distance, and plumes of dust flew as a building collapsed.446Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgOnclL7ESf
"What now?" Nu asked, inching closer towards Van as she watched another great building get erased from the skyline.
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