7. Supply Run
...
Another winter came to the island, and much to Tourmaline’s delight, it was a chilly one. The sea froze over just enough for him to walk on, and so, having spent the entire summer studying, he ventured out to take another crack at locating the big island. He had all winter to do it, and this time he had the stars to help him out.
For his first attempt, he went directly north, and went that way for about a week. He ended up finding nothing, so he went back directly south and tried again 45 degrees northeast. A week of walking later, and he still found nothing, so he went back and tried again, this time about 20 degrees up. Yeah, still nothing. About a month and a half into the winter, he was starting to get discouraged. He tried more and more angles, each for durations of about a week out and then another week spent heading back. It was good practice, though, and he became more and more confident each time that he’d be able to figure out where he was and how to get back, and more and more accustomed to the dim light of the cloudy season.
Finally, maybe three months into winter, he began to see a faint suggestion of an island on the horizon, and hustled towards it. It was night by the time he arrived, and yes, it was the right island. Home sweet home, covered in snow, featuring two tall cliffs on each end, and a great big stone dome in the middle of it. At this point he wasn’t actually sure what to do. It was winter, so everyone was asleep. If he wanted to wake someone up, he’d have to wake up everyone. Unless he wanted to track down the winter personnel to bring back, but Boracite wasn’t on Tourmaline’s Secret Island Hangout List. He could camp out until spring and pull Psilo and Gaspie aside while they were out patrolling, maybe. Or he could try and sneak into the hibernation room without anyone noticing. What was the floor made of? Maybe it was built on dirt and he could dig into it from below. No, the ground would probably be frozen this time of year. He made his way up to the building, and figured he’d use this as an opportunity to take some tools with him as well, or maybe take a sneak through the library to see if any listings in the geological encyclopedias fit the bill for a name for his spiky friend.
He only really had to worry about being caught by one guy, as opposed to all 20whatever of them. First, he made his way to the tailor’s workshop. He took a square of raw fabric, which he’d use as a bag. He also grabbed an extra change of clothes. Then, he snuck over to the infirmary, which wasn’t much of a room but literally just a section of the open atrium that had a few shelves on it, and grabbed a couple things he thought might be useful. Glue, a chisel, two eyeballs (one for him and one for his spiky friend), a sword (just in case), a couple of rudimentary timetelling devices, that sort of thing. Just the essentials, he didn’t want to rouse too much attention by stealing everything. He was about to take a jar of powder too, but then thought about it. He’d spent the past year-and-then-some without any of it on, and he had gotten used to how he looked without it. He figured that the spiky guy didn’t need any either, so he put it back onto the shelf. He then took a look around for a new foot in the spare materials cabinets. It looked like it’d been a thin couple of years, as there wasn’t much of anything to work with. Well, unless he wanted to fashion a foot out of the minute pieces of ten different stillborns.
His night raid was almost over, but he got the idea to take a look around and see if anyone had done anything to his quarters while he was gone. He quietly crept up the stairs, down the hall, and took a peek into what used to be his room. It was all empty. Bummer. It was at this point that it started to sink in that everyone back home must’ve thought that he’d been taken away, which sort of saddened him. He wondered how they all reacted, or if they looked long for him, or what anyone had to say at the morning meeting when Tiger would’ve announced that Tourmaline had been taken away. He went inside of his old room and sat on the bed. There wasn’t any bedding on it, so it was just a nook in the stone wall. It was conflicting. He could stay there and tell his peers that he was never taken to the moon at all, and that he was just lost in the sea, and was happy to have finally made it back home. But then again, he’d have to start fighting against the moon people again, and then he’d be just another average fighter. On the little volcanic island, with a population of two, he was a cool, special guy, and he and the spiky gem had something cool going on. Plus, his buddy would wonder when he’d come back, and he didn’t want to leave him hanging like that. The gig was just too good to leave behind.
So, he got up and began his walk back down the stairs, trying to be as quiet as one can be when one is trying to sneak around a stone building while also being made of stone, and as he rounded the corner into the stairwell he was grabbed from behind by a gloved hand and yanked backwards.
“EEK!” He cried and scrambled out of his capture, shedding sparks of static as he tumbled to the floor, and also dropped all of his stolen things. He took a good look at the guy that caught him, and it was…
Rainbow? In a white suit? He didn’t work winters. What was he doing up this time of year?
“Rainbow!" He said with a big, nervous grin. "You don't work winters... what are you doing here?"
“And YOU’VE been on the moon for the past fifty years! What are YOU doing here!?”
“Um, actually, I’ve been lost in the sea, if you couldn’t tell.” Tourmaline replied. “Wait, fifty years? That’s how long I’ve been gone?” He’d only been awake for less than two of those years. Was he serious?
“Fifty three, to be exact.”
Huh. Neither of them really knew what to say at this point. This kind of ruined his whole plan. He explicitly didn’t want Rainbow to know about his secret island, but now he’d been caught.
“Well… um… how’s it going? Why are you up this time of year? What’ve I missed?”
“Bora’s legs died again, so I’m filling in for him,” Rainbow said, “I need the time alone anyways.”
“Why? What’s wrong with Psilo and Gaspie?” Tourmaline asked.
“They’re both gone.”
“Oh.” Well, now his plan was double ruined.
“Wait, what happened?”
“You were with Psilo when the two of you went missing. You should know.” Rainbow said.
“Um… well, I remember being with him on the beach, and then… yeah, I don’t have anything after that.”
“Were you two attacked?”
“Not that I remember.” Tourmaline scratched his head.
“Huh,” Rainbow said, “Maybe he isn’t on the moon, then. Was he there with you in the sea?”
“No, I woke up alone. I have no idea where he could be.”
“He could still be out there, then.”
“Maybe, yeah.” Tourmaline said.
“Well, it’ll be a good change of scenery for him. Six thousand years on this island has probably bored him to pieces.” He wasn’t really expecting Rainbow to say something like that, but he could see his point.
“Um… What about Gaspie?”
“We have… crumbs of him, and his eyes, and that’s really it. The rest… well, you know...”
Rainbow said nothing more. He was on the moon. He really wanted to have brought Gaspeite over to his cool secret island. He would’ve been really happy there, he knew it. And now, neither of them would be able to enjoy that. Truthfully, he knew that sooner or later Gaspie would’ve been kidnapped, because he wasn’t great at fighting. And if you’re not great at fighting, eventually your luck runs out. Maybe if Tourmaline were still around, he would’ve been able to defend him in whatever battle he got taken away during. But then again, if he were still around, he wouldn't have found his new island, so Gaspie would’ve still been taken away at some point. It was a real shame, but that’s just how it was.
This also meant that Rainbow truly had nobody, except maybe Tiger Iron, but he was in charge and had better things to do than console Rainbow, surely. He wasn’t really close with anyone else. Rainbow actually had a pretty poor track record when it came to his partners. Gaspeite was his tenth patrol pair, and he’d never broken up with his partners on mutual terms, they’d all been taken away. Rainbow himself was a fine fighter, he’d seen him in action, but it seems he was just unlucky. But this time, alone in the winter, having lost not just his trainee but also his close elder friend of many years, he seemed actually sad for once, which wasn’t something he was familiar with. He simply stood there, looking at nothing in particular.
“What will you do in the spring?” Tourmaline asked.
“I don’t know. I might aestivate. I have little else to do.”
Tourmaline then got an idea. It was a risky idea, but it was an idea. If Rainbow was so sullen and alone in the world, maybe he could bring him over. That way, no one will know that he came back and wasn’t on the moon after all, and the secret island would remain a secret.
“Why don’t you… come with me?”
“Into the sea? There’s nothing out there.”
“We could look for Psilo. Or, just putting it out there, you could come to my island that I found while I was in there.”
“Your island?”
“Yeah, I found a little volcano poking out of the sea. It’s got grass and bugs and snails and everything. There’s also another gem there, I don’t really want to leave him waiting on me. And, best of all, the moon people don’t go there.”
Rainbow squinted. “...Why didn’t you bring that up earlier?”
“You scared me, I didn’t have all my wits about me to explain the whole thing.”
“Okay, fair enough. Why don’t the moon people go there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they haven’t noticed us there yet, but I’ve never seen them. Not even once.”
“Not even once…”
“Yeah, it’s crazy. You should come with me. I was gonna ask Psilo and Gaspie if they wanted to come too, but I guess I was too late.”
“Well, I could bring his remains over, if that’s good enough for you.” Rainbow shrugged. “Wait, I can’t leave everyone out here, someone has to guard the school in the winter. And then I have to tell them I’m leaving.”
“Wait, no, don’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“Well, it’s a secret island. If too many of us go there, then the moon people will start to hunt us over there instead of here.”
“Hm. Am I to fake my kidnapping then?” Tourmaline was surprised at just how on board Rainbow was for this. Perhaps he really was tired of his poor luck.
“Sure, you can do that. Maybe in the spring, though, so you aren’t leaving the place unattended.”
“That’s reasonable. How do you get there?”
“Well, I just walked over the sea this time.”
“You can only do that in the winter, though.”
“Hm, you’re right. Maybe you could sneak out next winter when you’re hibernating instead of working.”
“Alright, I could do that.”
“Well, then, I’ll come back to pick you up next winter. Don’t tell anyone you saw me. It’s a secret island, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Bye.” Tourmaline said and picked up his stuff, the glue, the chisel, the eyes, the little sword and extra clothes.
“Wait, are you stealing all that?” Rainbow asked.
“Can I? We’ve got nothing over there.”
“Uh… yeah, whatever, sure.”
“Cool, thanks.” Tourmaline then made his way out of the building, through the snow, and back onto the ice, trying his very best to stay on track and at the right angle to get back home.
It would be another week on the ice, and Tourmaline just hoped that Rainbow wouldn’t spill the beans about his secret island. Rainbow was not his first choice to have come over, but it seemed he’d have to work with it. Otherwise if he allowed him to stay back home he might let the secret slip, and then the whole thing would be ruined. When Tourmaline made it back, with his little sack of stuff, he moseyed his way over to the shell and made sure to scrawl the angle he used to get there, and how long it took, so he’d never forget.
This winter, he’d neglected to build a snowball to block the opening with, so he went right inside and slept for the night. Maybe he’d make one tomorrow. For now, he was too tired, and the past several months spent sleeping on the hard ice had him wanting nothing other than curling up in a bed of dry grass.