In total, Nis and Meric had been on the airship for nearly the entire day. The airship had landed briefly to let Tun and Fel off before taking flight once again. They flew on for a few more hours before finally landing in Quet’tzos. Lesch strode back to where Nis and Meric were seated and motioned for them to get up.

“We have arrived,” Lesch said as she opened the hatch.

Nis and Meric stretched and stood up before joining Lesch at the doorway. It was chilly and already dark outside, the sun having set a while ago, but there were countless pools of light, dotted all around and rising up towards the sky. It seemed to just keep going as far as Nis could see and the scale that those lights suggested led Nis to wonder at just how large this city was.

“Welcome to Quet’tzos,” Lesch said to them.

“There’s no dock,” Nis remarked as she noticed how the airship was on solid ground.

“This airship can use both land or water for its runway,” Lesch explained. “Though most of our airship are too large for a water runway.”

“Too large?” Nis asked. “This one’s already much bigger than Mel’s airship.”

“Well, that was over two hundred years ago,” Lesch replied as she led them out of the airship and towards a nearby building, it’s windows lit up from within with the same sort of bright lights as the airship. “Technology has progressed significantly since that time.”

“Not in Dural,” Meric said.

A strange mixture of pride and frustration that had nothing to Nis’ own feelings welled up inside of her.

“No one here wants to make contact with Dural, or Sentle, or any of those other places, do they?” Nis asked

“The general consensus,” Lesch replied carefully, “is that keeping ourselves separate from the lands south is in everyone’s best interests. From what has been reported by those who have returned to us from the south is that technologies like the combustion engine and electricity were abandoned in favor of a simpler way of life.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Meric asked, sounding somewhat offended.

“Not at all,” Lesch assured her. “Many of our own people prefer life that way. That’s part of the reason why the villages in the Shards of Patience remain today. It’s why I chose to live there. Technology can be wonderful, but there’s always a trade off. These lights, for instance, allow us to see much better at night but,” she trailed off and looked upward.

Nis followed her gaze and was shocked at how black and empty the sky was.

“Your lights are made from the stars?” Nis gasped which caused Lesch to laugh.

“Oh, no no no, Nis, not at all. The stars are all still there but the lights down here make it difficult to see the stars. It’s like trying to spot a candle’s light in the middle of the day.”

They reached the building and stepped inside. The slight chill of the evening went away at once even though Nis couldn’t see or smell any sign of a fireplace. The inside of the building was wide open and tall, with metal beams supporting the ceiling. In the middle of the space was a large cart, although it wasn’t like any cart she had ever seen. It looked to be made almost entirely out of metal and glass and there were no obvious points where a person could take hold of or where an animal could be attached to it. A man stood beside the cart and nodded to Lesch when he saw her.

“How was your flight?” he asked.

“Long and tiring,” Lesch replied.

The man nodded and began opening doors, two on either side, of the cart. They swung outward like a normal door and both Nis and Meric braced themselves against one of them, ready to push the cart.

“That won’t be necessary,” Lesch told them as she sat down onto one of the seats at the front of the cart. “Come on inside.”

“He can’t push it on his own,” Meric protested.

“He won’t need to push it.”

Nis and Meric shrugged and climbed inside. The man was last to get in and soon the cart began making the same grumbling noise as the airship, although much quieter, and the cart began to move on its own.

“I’m Kerchek,” the man said as they moved out of the building and onto a roadway. “I was Kro’or when Mel came and settled here. Quet’tzos was a pretty small place back then. I understand one of you was Mel?”

“I was Mel,” Nis said with a halfhearted wave. There was a small mirror near the Kerchek’s head and he could look into it and see Nis and Meric seated behind him.

“It’s an honor to meet you,” he said, making Nis blush. “As far as we know, none of Mel’s later lives have ever come back here.”

“Really?” Nis asked.

“Yes, although we weren’t too surprised since Mel isn’t originally from here,” Kerchek said. “With only one life living here, there wasn’t much reason for her, er, for you to come back.”

“Lesch said I had a home here, though,” Nis said.

“You do,” both Lesch and Kerchek replied.

“Why?” Nis asked. “If I’ve been gone for so long, why would I still have a home here? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to do something with it? Sell it to someone else or build something new in its place? Is it even still livable?”

“You don’t need to worry,” Kerchek assured her. “The homes of the absent are rented out and maintained, rebuilt if needed, so your home has not been left empty in your absence. The rent money is yours, by the way, and after a couple hundred years I would expect it to be a respectable amount.”

“What about the people who are living there right now?” Nis asked, ignoring the hint at some potential fortune that awaited her. “I don’t want to kick someone out of their home.”

“You won’t be kicking anyone out. You will stay in temporary housing while they look for another place to live. It usually takes a few weeks, maybe a month, before you’ll be moving into your home.”

“Oh, okay then. And what about Meric?”

“I completely forgot,” Lesch gasped and placing her hand to her head. “I am so sorry Meric, I completely forgot to ask you about your lives so we could –

“It’s okay,” Meric interrupted, “I just thought I’d be staying with Nis.”

“That’s entirely up to Nis,” Lesch replied. “But in either case we should identify your lives. Do you remember any of their names?”

“Yes, but, well I remember the lives but not the names,” Meric cast an uncomfortable sideways glance at Nis, her face growing pale.

“What’s wrong?” Nis asked.

“I was living by the southern coast,” Meric said. “My family had moved to a fishing village but the people there couldn’t have children anymore and…and they didn’t know why. They grew old and were dying off. In a later life, I was born somewhere near Dural. I got in trouble when I started talking about my past life. People were upset by what I told them. Some wanted me to tell everyone but others wanted me dead and…

She trailed off and Nis’ felt her eyes grow wide as she began to understand what Meric was saying.

“You were Tique?” Nis asked and Meric nodded.

“I think so. I don’t have many memories of it, but when I heard about the dream you had about Mel and the airship and the girl, well, one of the very first dreams I remember having about that life was as a little girl in an airship with a woman named Mel. We crashed but survived and eventually made our way here.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Nis asked.

“I don’t know,” Meric admitted. “It just felt…

“I think I understand why you were willing to come all this way,” Nis said.

Meric shrugged and remained silent.

In the seats ahead of them, both Lesch and Kerchek had looks of shock on their faces.

“Well say something,” Meric finally said.

“It’s just,” Lesch stammered, “neither of you have returned to us since then. Both Tique and Mel were believed to have been lost to the lands south. With Mel it was more understandable since she was from there but Tique had only lived one short life in the south. She ought to have been able to return to us but didn’t.”

“Until now,” Kerchek added.

“Yes,” Lesch agreed. “Until now.”

The rest of the ride was in silence and although Lesch and Kerchek, and even Nis were all clearly excited by this revelation, Nis couldn’t help but notice the discomfort Meric was feeling. It didn’t make sense to Nis, why she would be feeling that way, but knowing just how uncomfortable it could be to have people asking you questions about things you’d rather not discuss just then, she decided to leave Meric alone for the time being.