Story Reader / Floating Record / ER04 The Floating Reverie / Story
How does one describe the wind?
That which carries the fallen leaf and that which ripples the water.
But it might not be the wind that carries the fallen leaf or rippled the water.
So this... is the world beyond the Gate.
The Gate Keeper looks up into the dancing leaves in front of the giant maple tree.
Have you never been here yourself?
I am the Gate Keeper. What's behind the Gate is not my business.
I have never turned to look at the Gate behind me.
Or maybe... there was no Gate to begin with.
No, the Gate has always been there.
You are the Gate. You were the one keeping all of this behind the Gate.
I am... the Gate?
But this tree is not a dream that belongs to me. I am just a fragment.
Maybe this dream belongs to the human "you."
You mean "him"? No, this dream does not belong to "him," either.
"He" only wanted to take one last look at Kowloong, at that ship, and at "his" friends.
Were you a passenger on the Nighter?
Who isn't?
To find the truth, we died on the Nighter and were born again on the Nighter.
For the same truth, we became the Gate Keeper, or the Gate itself...
Maybe you could tell me your name and the names of your friends.
You might not... be able to make it out alive, but I could still say hi to them for you.
I could tell them your story.
Ha, names are not important. I am no longer in that dream.
Do you know whom this dream belongs to?
I don't know. All I know is that this tree is the dream of a seed.
A seed?
Hanying searches for the seed but cannot find it.
This is a wish.
A wish that can only be realized in a dream...
The old man's dream?
I told you. I don't know.
This dream is just a wish. It is not even a real dream.
It's too shattered and incomplete to even have a proper entrance.
My existence is no longer needed since you have passed through the Gate.
Will you awaken from the dream?
No, because we are already part of this mountain.
The Gate Keeper picks up a leaf—which, a moment later, drifts back down to the water's surface with the breeze.
These autumn leaves that blanket the heavens mark the end of our journey.
