After a minute of walking, Cobalt reaches his hand into thin air, dragging his pointer finger downwards as though tracing an invisible spine. The white space opens up around them immediately and as the mist melts away, the world cracks open.
Ira squints, blinking her eyes against the brilliance. She feels her bare feet land on warm stone, and then…
She inhales the deepest, most pleasant breath of her life.
A lush valley stretches out ahead of her, its end beyond what she can see. Vibrant canopies rise on either side of the valley like green cathedrals, giving way to unthinkably large mountains. Trees older than memory spiral toward the sun, their branches braided with flowering vines that drip golden pollen into the breeze. The air smells like citrus, moss, and something sharp and wild — like ocean breeze and crushed blossoms. A sparkling turquoise river flows through the scene scape: fast, massive, and warm.
Waterfalls crash down distant cliffs into glistening clear pools. Ferns taller than the buildings of Noctreign sway like dancers. Bright birds dart overhead — their iridescent feathers catching the light — while on the forest floor, massive, antlered creatures graze peacefully alongside horned beasts and wild pigs with sharp tusks.
The natural beauty of the landscape is enhanced by the illumination of two white hot suns shining high in a brilliant blue sky.
Peace. Health. Wilderness.
A low tremor shivers through the ground beneath her feet, comforting, not frightening. It starts subtly — like a distant rolling thunder — and grows with each passing second until the very air seems to pulse with its rhythm.
Then, she sees them.
The jungle parts with reverence as a herd of dinosaurs amble through a sunlit clearing up ahead — majestic, towering creatures moving in deliberate, graceful harmony. Their footsteps land heavy but unhurried, shaking pollen loose from the branches overhead.
Brontosaurus-like creatures, at least a dozen of them, walk ahead, their bright green skin skin dappled by flowering vines along their backs and necks. Their long tails sweep the ferns behind them like pendulums, caressing them. Small birds flit in and out of the canopy above, following the herd like a living river of feathers and motion.
One of the younger ones — no smaller than a house — lets out a low, warbling call to its parents. It's answered by several others, soft and resonant, like whalesong carried through the air.
Ira's breath catches in her throat, tears of awe filling her eyes.
They aren't just animals — they're living monuments. Moving echoes of something sacred. Something she's never encountered before. Everything here seems to be.
She steps closer towards the dinosaurs, pulled towards this paradise instinctively. One of the elders— its eyes a vibrant shade of amber moving under the surface like honey — turns its head slightly toward her and nods.
Just once.
Then continues on.
The ground goes quiet again as the last of the herd cross the valley and disappear again into the trees.
Ira doesn't know how long she's been silent for. Doesn't care, either.
"What is this place?" She breathes.
"I told you," Cobalt says matter of factly from beside her. "You're in Hell."
Ira laughs to herself breathlessly. She doesn't know how to process what she's seeing.
"This doesn't seem like Hell to me."
Cobalt watches her intently, seeming to hesitate while he thinks something over. Then, after a beat, he says, "Come with me."
An ornate, intricate, beautiful staircase partially carved into the cliffside lays at her feet, one that Cobalt now begins to descend. Ira had been so enthralled with her new environment that she hadn't noticed the cliff they were standing on, the vantage that afforded them such a breathtaking view.
She follows, and they walk down a trail of stone steps dappled by soft moss. Her feet practically sigh with pleasure as they make contact with the ground.
As they climb down, Ira starts to notice structures peppering the landscape. They look ancient, the architecture much different than anything she's ever seen back home. Something about them looks grown, not built — houses woven from wood, clay, and stone. Rooftops blooming with flowering herbs and sun-catching glass. Gardens spilling over terraces. Fruit trees grow beside open verandas. Everything breathes with the rhythm of the land.
"Do you live here?" Ira asks as she holds the railing, descending down the steep steps.
"Sometimes." Cobalt answers from up ahead.
Ira doesn't reply to the vague response. She's too busy taking in her magical surroundings as they come closer into view.
Gardens spill over from every surface — vertical, suspended — bursting with fruit, medicine, and color. Trees bear crystalline pods that hum faintly, storing solar energy to share at night, their glow soft and golden. Everything here breathes in time with the light. There are no cables, no wires — only sun-fed life and intention.
Now that her eyes have adjusted more, Ira notices that the suns shining above are cradled by a massive arched dome of translucent stone and prismatic panels. It's not a construct of steel but of sculpted quartz and ancient resin — appearing to have been shaped by impossibly careful hands long ago. The dome bends the light gently, guiding heat and photosynthesis to specific groves and water channels with mathematical elegance. This isn't technology imposed on the land — it's technology grown from it.
"Solar power." Cobalt says from beside her.
Ira just stares. She's speechless.
"Who else lives here?" she finally whispers.
"My people," Cobalt says. "Guardians. Once Warriors, now more…keepers of memory."
Ira notices a shadow move across Cobalts' face. Disdain? Judgment? She can't tell.
Then, she notices them below. The people.
Children with vine-wrapped hair and glowing skin chase deer through tall grass. Elders sit in half-circle groves, weaving strands of bioluminescent filament harvested from the canopy into braids of intention. Animals Ira has never seen before pass between them as kin, without fear, their coats gleaming in the sunlight, their movements unhurried.
The gritty, oppressed reality of her day to day in Noctreign feels foreign here. A sick, twisted concept of a society in contrast to what is unfolding before her eyes.
Everywhere Ira looks, energy is being shaped — stored in polished stone, gathered in glass flowers, reflected through mirrored leaves that tilt gently on living hinges.
The entire place sings with a quiet intelligence — ancient, natural, and more alive than anything she's ever known.
Cobalt pauses, watching her.
"Still want to go home?"
Everything about her previous life feels like a distant memory. Here, she feels light, happy, vibrant. Her old, moldy mattress back in Noctreign feels like Hell, not this place.
Never this place.
Ira doesn't reply. She just watches everything keenly, taking it all in. She can sense that there is so much here to see, to learn, to know. She can feel something that feels like intelligence pulsating through the air like an electric current. Her mind feels stimulated, peaceful, alive.
"You can feel it, can't you?" Cobalt asks her, looking at her with those dark blue eyes, disbelief riddling his features.
"Feel what?" She asks him, though she knows what he's referring to.
He doesn't respond. Just looks at her a moment longer, then walks ahead.
"You coming?"
Ira sighs as she follows him. This walking ahead habit of his is getting old, quickly. She'll have to teach him some manners.
She notices, surprised, that in her heart there is a yearning hope that she has enough time here to do so.