The Abandon Lighthouse

[Guest]

Afar, standing high over the southern water, stood a beautiful lighthouse. The rays streak across the water, directing sailors and those lost at sea a way home. For many humans, a light house was a symbol of hope. After a long voyage in the roaring ocean, seeing the rays of light brought a sense of security to those hopeless. The wind stirs around the sandy beach, stirring pebbles around. The beach went on for miles on either direction, leaving the lighthouse to stand alone, surrounded by the vast waters. The waves crash against the rocky cliffs on the rainy day. Splash by splash the water broke against the rocks, splattering in every which direction.

Planted around the lighthouse were small blossoms. However, now that winter was creeping around the corner, mother earth was taking it's toll. The dying flowers surrounding the lighthouse wrestle back and forth on the chilling fall day from fighting with the breeze.

Inside the lighthouse was a narrow but grand staircase that lead up to the tippy top of the house. Each step one took, creeked, alarming those high above someone was approaching. Overall, the house wasn't huge. Some would call it cozy, or petite. The house was dark around the ground, with a single light near the entrance to the house. As one journeyed higher up the stairs, the light from the house shined through brightly, illuminating the darkness.

Right before the top floor, was a small bedroom. Inside was a single window, a small fireplace, and a bed with a nightstand. A small candle sat beside her, giving a faint light to the gloomy room. The sheets were jumbled about from her nights sleep before. Currently she was sitting in a small window seat looking over the might ocean. Her hair was in a messy ponytail, and had the slightest touch of makeup. She wore a large, oversized grey sweatshirt, leggings and long comfy socks. The cloudy day was just what she needed, time away from it all. Time away from Central, from the other Homunculi, and mostly, time away from anyone who knew her. Alena spent most of her days here in this lighthouse, it was a safe-haven for her. It was a place that no one knew, it was her get away place. This old lighthouse provided enough breathing room for the homunculus from her busy schedule.

[Shula Brighton]

For all its breadth and depth, South Lake might as well have been its own inland sea, despite technically being man-made and having no outlet to the oceans that kissed Aerugo's shores. The waters spanned as far as the eye could see in either direction, encompassing the hundred miles that had been the whole of the city where Shula was born and lived as a child, and where she'd returned as a budding soldier. South was home before and after its destruction, and now in its rebuilding that the little Ishvallan would oversee and tend to personally, nurturing and doing anything she could to make this area into an oasis of hope for the country. The first cold breaths of winter raced over the water's edge to push waves that carried downward and lapped against the lake's edges, higher in some places than others. The gray skies overhead promised a chilly night, Shula frowning up at the sunless sky. South was the warmest of Amestris' focal areas, but even though this wasn't the sort of area that would ever dream of snow flakes, it had its chilly days, and there was nothing like cold fall rain. The little boat rocked heavily as it plodded across the lake, Shula's grip on the rudder as tight as it had been in Drachma holding onto Spade's wires. As the wind kicked up, Shula slowed the boat down, wanting to avoid tipping over. Work was nonstop in South, and she seemed to be trying to orchestrate far too much all at once; the hydroponic gardens and alchemically-assisted crop fields were doing well, but with winter coming and Amestris still deeply-wounded, Shula had been out going over new plans to boost vegetation production and testing, not to mention overseeing the things in the city still under construction, namely Pirate Island.

While in North City those few days, she'd spoken to the pirates and they'd all agreed to come to South as security. Shula had promised them their own island so that they'd have some privacy and freedom, and today she'd gone out to the island herself to look it over and make sure that everything was in order for them to move in. It was busywork, but she liked it- it gave her mind something to focus on. Work was an escape for the tiny General, and being alone while tending projects gave her time to sort her head, her problems, her feelings, and most of all, her heart. For all the books she'd read and as much as she'd studied, nothing seemed to make it clear or easy about choices and love. Since they'd returned from their defeat, Shula had kept herself as busy as possible, tending her city and friends, and slowly accepting that she was surrendering her heart to the one she'd been hiding it from under stacks of paperwork. Spade would go at her pace and let her wade into it slowly, but every step was something done hesitantly, everything around her at the moment feeling far more overwhelming and threatening to drown her at any moment. Even as she buried and hid herself more and more in the dark research commanded of her, there was no moment that Shula's heart didn't seem to be afraid of misstepping.

Shula let out a bright yelp as the little boat bounced upward and came back down against the water hard, the motor starting to slow even more, but not by choice. She gave a panicked look to the gauge. Fuck this hundred mile lake. Even keeping it close to the water's edge, getting around took ages and little boats like this had pretty small gas tanks. As fa few cold, hard drops pattered down against Shula, she groaned loudly, cranking the little throttle to boost her to shore as fast as possible. Raining and running out of gas, and nowhere near HQ. Fantastic. Up ahead was a small lighthouse, even though the majority of the settlements were more concentrated nearer to HQ. The lighthouses around the lake had been hastily built after South's reclamation, but the project of manning them abandoned just as fast as the lake proved to be so vast that for now nobody wanted to live in them so far out and cut off from the rest of the people. But it was the closest building, and even if there was nobody there she could still dry off and call HQ to drive over and give her a lift back to the office. The motor sputtered and finally died, the force of water pushing Shula in close enough to hop out and drag the boat onto the pebbly shore. The house was dark, but there was a light at the entrance. Had someone taken the post after all? From what she'd been told until people would the lights were operated from outside the building. The door opened without a struggle, though, and despite Shula giving a few good knocks to it, she let herself in just to get out of the rain. Empty property didn't care about that sort of thing, and if someone had taken the building up, she'd simply explain herself.

The stairs wrapped in a spiral around the center inside, and Shula could only look upward as she leaned against the door, digging through her red coat's pocket for her cell phone. It was dry and charged, but didn't seem to get any signal from here. It was a day out of uniform, the red wool coat strapped shut against her flat chest and belling out like a dress at her knees over tight black jeans and boots. Damp white hair matted and clung to her face, her bun unraveling entirely and hanging limply as a long white braid. The good news was no water would ever be as cold as that drenching wave in Drachma, but cold and wet were still at the top of Shula's shit list. Looking at her phone again, she sighed. Maybe... further upstairs she'd get a signal? She made her way to the stairs, climbing them carefully, noticing the creak in many of them; they really had hurried to build this, hadn't they? "Hello," she called out, up into stairwell as what seemed to be a light became more clear. It could have been the residual light from the revolving lantern at top, but the areas around South where people were settling were vast, and it wasn't always easy to know for sure when so much was going on. [color=green]"Does anyone live here? I'm sorry to just barge in, but I was trying to get out of the rain."[/color[



((If I need to adjust anything, let me know. Since this is a flashback and you said winter, I was going with the only winter she'd have been at South for so far, so let me know? :3 ))

[Shula Brighton]

{BUMP}

[Sponsored content]