the melody is different

al opens his eyes and sits up. his joints aren’t happy, but he’s rewarded by the sight of a clear night sky peppered with constellations he doesn’t recognize, partially obscured by the tallest treetops he’s ever seen. he’s in a forest. a campfire crackles not ten feet away from him, another teen boy hunched on the other side of it, poking at the logs with a long stick to make sure they burn.“alanna said you’d be out for at least another day,” the boy says. he has an eye-obscuring mask that al doesn’t understand wrapped around the top half of his face; the firelight glints and dances on the metal surface of it. “you’re exceeding expectations.”(or: if an alchemist crash-lands in the woods, who hears it?)