The Tides

The dragon falls from the tower. The old symbol. The wild one. They flew from infinity towards the vast empty. Just another dance, once and forward, creeping at the edge of darkness, all within the old watchtower, the old spirit. The old god. The scales reflect the evening light, an afternoon bath in the bay of despair, dreaming, its fangs tearing through and pouring the black liquid. Ink staining the canvas, dissolving in the salt water. Someone knocks. Oroa wakes up from the dream. Once again… Once again she feels the cold drizzle of the summer rain on her skin.. The night is young… and full of dread.

Charlotte drifts through the streets with a purpose. With intent, she gets closer and closer to the old clock tower. The streetlights died slowly as if she’s extinguishing them by her mere presence. One.. two.. six.. Two at a time, as she’s walking in this never-ending alley without ever stopping, like in a trance. The ruins of an old asylum are sitting in the base of the all-watching eye of the clock tower. Decrepit, almost dead, finally shut down. The vestiges of the old way of doing things. The city’s administration closed the old institution twenty years ago, after the last veteran of the orchid wars finally died. More than a general hospice, it was dedicated to care for the old warriors, the Rosarian thorns… And now, the city expects the demolition of the old building soon enough.

Charlotte looks up. The hour is nigh… This weird dream, the sequence.. The old ways.. She feels weirdly dazed. She steps through the doorway, and then goes up the moldy — creaking through her feet — stairs towards the observation bay, two stories under the old clock, slowly ticking through the night. The night was young. Is still young. Charlotte walks an eager step. This is fine. But where does she go? It feels like she’s slowly ascending towards heaven. A weird, dissociating feeling that she cannot shake.. That she’s about to die? A graceful fate, full of beauty, enchanted by some kind of devilish wizardry, full of pleasure. Illusions all the way creeping into her brain.. Is the old clock tower even real? She courses her hand along the guardrail of the stairs that spiral upwards. As she’s getting closer and closer to the top, the smell of wild flowers — dried then crushed and used as tea — gets more and more potent. Again and again with every step she’s hit with a breeze that carries the air of the sea and earth’s fragrance. When she finally opens the door of the observation deck, she’s struck with a beauty you could only see in the stars reflecting on the sea at night.

First, the view. The light drizzle outside sliding on the glass panels is hit by moonlight at the perfect angle for a show of surreal technicolor piece of art, reflecting the rainbow everywhere in the dimly lit room. Of course, it’s not the only thing to admire outside the room. There’s also the city, breathing slowly with each of its inhabitants ; in their homes, outside laughing, crying, sleeping under the stars, loving each other, dying under the pale oppression of the celestial sea… There’s a whole universe to be accessed here, the kind that you can only contemplate whenever you feel like a god, visiting each and every life with a pulse of infinity. The clouds seem to part ways, their long drifting arms slowly separating like lovers longing for the day when the weather’s caprice will reunite them. But inside is the true beauty. More enchanting, more dazzling than the entire living city, more alluring than the stars, the weather or even the whole world was Oroa. The entirety of the room seems to fill with void, nothing, no sound and no air could reach Charlotte at this exact moment, for she was to be struck with lightning. The world’s energy. Its power and its curse.