The color blue had always meant one of two things to Ren for most of his life. There was the calm crystal blue of the ocean that meant a day of warmth and sunshine as he went about his chores outside the lighthouse that was his childhood home, while the steel blue tipped in white signalled the onset of a storm and hours of making sure the flame illuminating the lighthouse beacon didn’t go out in the pounding rain.

That changed the night he looked at an old man’s face and into eyes as blue as his own. It was the day other shades of blue entered his life, changing it forever. The bright blue feathers of Niddler’s wings as the monkey bird carried the young teen off to the Maelstrom before they joined forces. The crystal blue beam, brighter than the water had ever been, emerging from the Compass as another Treasure of Rule is located, signalling the start of the race against the Pirate Lord Bloth and the Dark Water to claim the treasure. The crackling blue of Tula’s ecomancy powers as she learns more about them and her own limits. The deep blue of Ioz’s shirt as it flaps in the wind while he practices with his sword.

When Ren had been a simple lightkeeper’s ward, he had never dreamed that there could be so many shades of blue on Mer. Now, he fought to keep them in existence, not wanting to return to an existence without those shades of blue in his sights anymore.