"It's alright, my...well I'm not exactly an exciting person either...forgetting what you saw." David tried to give a laugh as he consciously stumbled over which words he should say it, almost blurting out that he was a boring person as well, which could have some unpleasant implications, especially in front of Rowan. She was a pleasant person to be around with, despite having not interacted much with.
@JumbusThankfully, the child they needed to escort was of the Hoar's family, and knowing their position among the town, and their role in the festival, it was not difficult to locate them out of the growing crowds that were attracted by. David followed Rowan to the point where the Hoar patriarch waved for her to come forward with Stig, at which point David simply enjoyed the comfortable position in the crowd to watch the performance. It is not the first time he had participated in this...ritual of sort, but he never got tired of the spectacles. The cane slam to unleash a dome of sky lanterns to create something that could easily be engraved in myths and legends, weaving with the
highways of stars above and below them. It was mesmerizing, just as much as the dance being performed on the raft by Freyja.
For a time, he felt his troubles and worries slowly exorcised from his body, as the cool chilly air blew on his face, the stars and moon illuminated him, the sound of the gone washing away the cobwebs. David's eyes closed as to bask in the moment, as the final gong sounded before everything quiet down...
It was not long before David realized that the tranquil had gone on for a bit too long. He opened his eyes again only to realize that the lanterns had frozen still. He looked around to see everyone also remained still, as if time had stopped. But the lake continued to waltz. It would have been just a weird anomaly, until Freyja's panic alerted David that it was not an illusion, not long before a column of water engulfed her whole.
A cacophony of trepidation mixed with a strange sense of curiosity surged within him. His first instinct was to immediately step back, but he couldn't. The lake surface had risen to his ankle, and around each were vortexes that sucked his feet firmly in place. As David struggled in vain to get out, he was forced to witness what was happening. It was not a horrifying experience that he expected, but a genuinely beautiful display of luminescence to the tune of a song. He could not determine where the voice was coming from, seemingly like it was all around him, if such a phenomena was even possible. It was in neither his second language nor his mother's tongue, yet he could understand it perfectly.
His last sight in the realm of the physical was a glimpse of an otherworldly place: a city on water, both upside down and downside up, shining in a momentarily calm water before it began to animate again with tendrils bearing down on the stone-bearing witnesses. One tendril immediately headed for David, as he raised both hands bracing for the force that knocked him out cold.
By the time he was awake, he was no longer in the warm place he called home, but as the air rushed through his nostrils, a surge of life coursed through his veins...or what his veins equivalated to. Colours overwhelmed his sensors, him sluggish to register what he had never seen before in him, and also what had become of his body. As his chest laid flat in the shallow surface of the lake, it came to a shock that he could not hear his heartbeat anymore. Was he dead?
But he could still feel his limbs, to some extent. It was a weird sensation though, indescribable to his current state. As he opened his eyes and sat up above the water level, he saw the dizzying island that humbled an insignificant being like himself, before noticing what he had become. His clothes changed for certain, now he donned a dark blue tunic covering all but his foot, hand and head, layered behind a white wide-shouldered half coat with gold outlines. But the most dramatic change was his body. His hand was covered in a weird amalgamation of treated wood, tin and metal. The wood covered most of his palms and fingers on the front side, while the tin covered the backside, along with the joints also made of metal. And were there springs beneath the tin layer he saw?
Beneath his hands were his reflection. David's face had also been covered in tin, his hair solidified, but thankfully the facial features still looked just like the original David. His right eye had turned sapphire blue, the iris turned into a four-pointed star. It did not seem to affect anything with his vision, as he was still seeing just normally, but it was still quite a change. He was not the only one as well, everybody else seemed to be scattered but within proximity of one another.
David finally was comfortable enough to stand up, the clanking sound of rudimentary mechanical work still rattled him a bit. Nearby was Freyja, who now also had antlers and furs. Odaya too, a weird combination of crows and humans. And in the distance were the familiar faces of his school friends.
As Freyja also awakened, the now robotic-like David gave her a helping hand up. Despite the impression that everybody was engulfed by the beastly water, not everybody was here.
"Everybody alright?" He asked, his voice seemed to still be normal, though a lot clearer.
"Who are we missing?" @Fading Memory