The sun lingers upon the horizon, paints the skies of Old Sharlayan in broad golden strokes. A cool breeze rises from the sea and sweeps gently through the roads of Journey's End. Ciardha had thought it an odd name once, now it felt fitting. She had stood here with Estinien and Alphinaud what felt like months as much as it did lifetimes ago, discussing a journey unto the stars.
Her paces follow idly the path they had traced back then. They had parted from Alphinaud before his estate, had walked this very path, draped in the sunset's light not so different from this very moment. The silence between them had never been uncomfortable, then. It had been an easy thing just to wrap herself in familiar presence and find the comfort in it.
Now the silence is a chill she needs brace herself against.
Ciardha rubs her arm and her fingers trace over the cord still tied about her wrist. Thavnarian weave, a simple thing and yet she has never removed it. It is the remnants of a promise, one made in this very place, that she would never want for someone at her side. The memory is crystal clear in her mind, each detailed haloed with such joy as she has never felt. Her heart fit to burst from her chest as she wraps her arms around his neck and all but weeps her joy into his shoulder.
She could never have asked for a more perfect moment, the prelude to the ideal tale's conclusion. From such a promise would she draw the strength she needed, from all of their strength and hope did she find the will do stand against despair itself and return home to tell of it. She fought with every dreg of her strength; every last ounce of her will and Ciardha emerged victorious that she might come home. To the people she loved, the friends she cherished…
The perfect ending.
Such was how she imagined it, and as she stands upon Sharlayan's streets alone watching the sunset, Ciardha wonders when it all fell apart. Was it with the disbanding of the Scions, even if it only to be in name? How quickly everyone had scattered across the star pursuing their own ends, not truly different than before and yet with no Rising Stones to return to feels far more permanent. She will not begrudge any this, she is a traveller as well, after all. Even if her steps into the future are tentative and uncertain, she takes each in stride.
Yet paths that should weave and intersect do so less and less. Estinien never returns after dispensing his duties in Radz-at-Han, Erenville brings with him new adventure and somehow in sailing across the sea, Ciardha feels as though something as been left behind. Across Tural's many paths, her friends feel distant, each with their own goals and desires that they chase with all the passion she knows they possess. She will ever support them how she can, but they have less need of her than Wuk Lamat or Sphene. They pursue thir own tasks and leave Ciardha to hers time and again.
What had she expected?
Ciardha has no name for what comprises this quiet hole in her chest, its edges small yet gnawing when she permits herself a moment to pause. She wants not for strength or victories, there is no shortage of possibilities in her future or paths she may explore. Even the weight of Calyx and his ilk cannot give form to this strange weight.
So long as you wish it, you shall never want for someone at your side.
She wished it, she wished it so fervently she could scream with it. A futile gesture; there are none close enough to hear her any longer.
She is alone all the same.
Silly of her to think things would end so cleanly. That all would wrap itself up in a bow, that the star would be saved and problems gone and she could indulge in any number of days happily with her friends at her side. She knows the truth of it, of this world and this life.
Fairy tale endings are only for stories.
Reality continues ever onward.
Tomorrow and tomorrow.
So she will seek a new one and find where her path will lead her.
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Themis trails them across the harpsicord's keys all the same, the smooth surface stirring some sensation in him that he cannot name. There is a small host of instruments in the empty room, meant no doubt to entertain gatherings and parties where the gossip more important than the music. Yet amongst them all it is this that holds his attention the firmest, something he would never have paused a moment to consider in his days as Elidibus.
"Are you familiar with the harpsicord?" Ciardha's voice queries, her soft tones nearly echo in the chamber.
Familiar…? Was that it? He knows of the instrument of course, imagines he has likely learned its keys in one of his many guises over the millenia; if so it lost to the tattered holes in his memory.
"Perhaps. If so… I do not recall."
Yet the pull remains, the same strange energy that thrums in his chest and hums between his fingers and trhe smoothness of the ivory. He presses one key down and its note fills the corners of the room.
Familiar.
Themis presses the key again, and this time follows with a second. The pair of notes stir something deep and ancient within him.
Yes… it was familiar, wasn't it?
He calls a third and fourth note into the air, and slowly the cautious exploration falls upon a more certain path. Themis cannot say how he know which key will evoke the notes he desires, nor can he even recall what sequence he is pressing. His ear already knows the melody that his mind does not and he chases it across the ivory.
Seconds turn to minutes as the melody slowly rises and falls; it was a soft thing, meant to lull and to cradle and to hold something close. A weight lodges somewhere in his throat; but he persists all the same, grateful that he needn't speak amidst the swell of the music. The song is haloed in warmth, in the gilded hues of Amaurot and the smiling of a face whose features still blur against his mind and remain there long after the room has fallen silent.
"What a lovely melody." Ciardha's voice is barely a hushed whisper, as though she had somehow fallen under its spell. "I cannot say why, I'm certain I've never heard it but… it feels familiar somehow."
It is all the affirmation that Themis needs.
The reason he knew this melody so well his heart could recall it even when his mind could not.
"Azem played it once, long ago."
"And you still remember it?" Themis shakes his head, staring at the now silent harpsicord. Remembering wasn't quite right, yet how did he put it to words? That each note simply was the logical successor to the last, that his ear guided his hand in a way his mind had no power over.
"I could not have named or even conjured any semblance of it had you asked an hour ago." Themis rests his hand on the keys but does not press them. "I think… they played it for me once, and it remained with me, so much so I would play it for my own comfort. Their songs were fleeting things, they rarely played the same one twice; this one I think… I wanted to hold onto."
Why that was… Themis remained uncertain. There was a power in the melodies they wove that he could never fully understand, one that Azem was quite insistent did not exist. Yet they always stirred his heart in inexplicable ways.
"I am glad that you did."
"I am not certain I can claim as much."
"The mind is not the only way in which we remember things." She smiles with a knowing glimmer in her eyes. "Your heart still knew the right notes. It is clear they were very important to you."
"A very dear friend, yes."
"I would love to hear you play again sometime. It needn't be that piece if you do not wish; but it is clear you have quite the skill upon the harpsicord."
It is such a simple notion that it stalls him a moment. The very idea of filling his time with so idle an act as playing music seems nearly surreal. For so long even before the sundering he filled his every moment, his every thought with his duty, his purpose. He never truly stopped to simply indulge in something so simple. Never acted simply for the sake of it.
Themis smiles to himself.
"What is it?" Ciardha's head tilts, a curious blink.
"I think I understand what they were trying to tell me with this song." After all these years, after all this time…
For this moment, fleeting and ephemeral, be happy.
For no reason or purpose but your own.
A world of glass. It is a strange place the lopporits have chosen for their first destination upon the cosmic foray that has been their dream. Ciardha never expected to set foot into the sea of stars after returning from Ultima Thule. She had barely made it back, spent the return journey with her life hanging precariously in the balance. Ciardha doubted the Scions would think on the notion of departing again fondly, but not a one of them had asked or knew with what she has been filling her hours. Thus did she board the newly crafted vessel and depart without so much as a word.
It is quiet in a way Ciardha knows not how to describe. The slick surfaces she had first mistaken for ice until she ran her hands along them and found them warm beneath the sun. She has already surveyed what strange vegetation takes in a soil of glass dust and starlight, she has found water running beneath it like a frozen lake with fish to nibble at her lines. She had claimed strange and unique stones, finding variation after variation of the hardened glass this star has dressed itself in.
It is one such piece she turns over in her hand. It is weightier than others she has found, glistens and catches the light in a way she has never seen upon Etheirys. The lopporits have yet to find a use for it, but something inside of her catches when Ciardha attempts to return it to the soil
What could she make with something so unique at her disposal? It is a puzzle as much as it is a challenge. Ciardha has trained herself in nearly every crafting art that she has come across, at first that she might serve her lord, then later that she may provide for herself and not burden another with her needs. Tataru would give her anything without question, this she knows, but even so Ciardha would not take her away from the small empire she was building. Ciardha would continue to make what she needs.
And perhaps… she will now try to craft something she wants.
Glass is a tricky thing; it does not carve as one might wood, nor is it as soft as some gems might be. It does not bend or shape easily; is wont to shatter rather than give. Ciardha ponders her dilemma, even without a firm grasp of what she might turn it into. The most logical thing would be to stretch it thin; to make a pane of it for a window, or curl it into a glass or vase, but there is something about this idea that does not sit well with her. It's beauty was in how it remained condensed, layered. Smoky black tendrils that wove through it as ink through water, glimmering violet as easily as azure if the light caught this way or that. To stretch it out would dilute its essence, would pull it so thin it no longer remained what it once was.
To make it into what other expect is to destroy what makes it beautiful.
To put it back onto this barren landscape felt too lonely.
Ciardha would not wish that fate on any other.
Perhaps instead she will just have to keep this small token with her. And that… was precisely the inspiration she needed.
******************
The flurry of crafting requests never seemed to cease; work upon the aptly named Phaenna has come into full swing. If Ciardha is not preparing food for the workers she is forging supplies, tinkering with batteries that empty too quickly or weaving comforts for the newly erected abodes. The hours are long but they keep her mind busy; craft after craft she hones herself, refines her skills against the challenges before her.
Just as she has always done. Be it on or off the battlefield, be it upon her home star or away from it, Ciardha's world turns all the same.
Save upon her wrist is a bracelet of glass beads, that sing softly as she works and keep the days from growing too quiet.
Mare Lamentorium's silence is as eternal as its Watcher.
Themis has never minded this, rather he relished the rarity of a place where he could so easily gather his thoughts. He takes an easy pace down the gentle slope towards the cradle, letting naught but the crunch of gravel beneath his boots fill his ears and the soft glow of Etheirys upon the horizon light his steps. The cage in which Lord Zodiark had dwelt is empty, and the last dregs of aether still drift from its depths.
He has not returned here since they had lost Him.
The guilt is still sharp in his chest when he regards the sight, still twists in his gut in all the manners he has failed his brethren. Themis doubts this will ever truly ease and he has accepted the burden of it. It is far less a price than they have paid; asleep for millennia and waking only to be released unto the Underworld. He has failed his promise to them; this will never change for all the years remaining to him.
"It has been some time since you have stood here, Emissary," the Watcher's voice is an easy thing, and Themis wonders if he is imagining that it sounds unburdened since he has last heard them speak.
Themis shakes his head. "No Convocation remains, I am Emissary no longer."
"Is that so?" The Watcher does not sound as though they believe him. "What brings you to this lovely place then?"
"I am… uncertain." Themis stares down the chasm. He was drawn here; what began as an idle thought of visiting proceeded to consume him until his steps led him here. Why had he come? What about his place still held such meaning in his heart. Here was where he lost everything he had left, his people, his duty… all of it dissipated with Zodiark's natural laws.
Yes… here was where everything had been lost.
"I wish only to offer my thoughts and my respects to my brethren." It feels right when the words find his lips. He has travelled to the very edge of the Sea of Stars, has seen in the fate of other worlds the end of the path they had chosen, and he has found for himself a new resolve. A means in which he will repay them for all the ways he has failed them.
Themis plucks a thread of aether from the air, weaves it into a reflection of the elpis flowers he witnessed in Ultima Thule; the edges of the petals shimmer in a pearlescent hue, the rainbow gleaming colour of hope. It is indistinct and will fade ere long with how weak his aether has become, but he will offer it to them all the same.
Here at their grave.
"And what of you? What will you do now that your vigil has ended?"
"How interesting a concept," the Watcher chuckles into their hand. "You know well my nature, just as I once knew yours. I will continue to do as I always have. I will watch. There is no longer a prisoner here, but things have become lively of late."
"I have heard of the lopporit's ambitions." The desire to explore other stars had garnished much interest from Ciardha and Themis had found himself lending a hand where he could. "I would be lying to deny some curiosity myself."
"Certainly not to be trifled with," the Watcher agrees. "My watch and records once consisted only of the prisoner, but perhaps it is time to expand them."
It stretches unto eternities to erode away the edges of will, yet when it so chooses, there are less than seconds to make choices that will impact eons. Euryphaessa has known the heaviness of its pressure when mountains would erupt and villages remained in the way, when storms rolled in and waves churned high enough to swallow the people in their wake. So too have they known the softness of its more idle paces, sunlit afternoons filled with laughter and friendship and the notes of their flute.
Never have they felt it like this.
The Convocation is silent, all eyes fixed upon the Fourteenth Throne. Eury's fists blanch white at their side, the tension in their shoulders tight as though they pushing back the burning of the sky. Hades had already warned them of the plan to be put forth, the 'solution' that the Convocation had devised to the sudden widespread chaos that has enveloped the star. They had already heard the whisperings of it, of a creation upon a scale never before attempted. A god that would shield them, would restore them… and would demand half the lives upon the star to do so.
They so fervently hoped that this folly would be dismissed as the ludicrous idea that it was. Surely Themis would never entertain such an idea for even a moment! Half of them? Half of the children who danced about them while they played, half of the warm souls who coaxed the bonfires high and drew the feasts well into the night. Half f all the laughter, he joy, the love that these people knew? How could anyone… even conceive of sacrificing that?
Yet here they were.
That could not be the only answer; they refused to accept that. They have spent every hour they can spare, every second that their sword is not brandished against some nightmarish beast in search of it. There had to be some reason this was happening, some cause that could be remedied— if they could but find it,eliminate it then surely, surely there was a future in which everyone could live. Something better to bring before the Convocation this day that was not soaked in the blood of their brethren. Several have asked their thoughts on the matter, and Eury has given vague answers without commitment. Such a drastic course of action… the votes would need be unanimous.
They can sit on the fence no longer.
"No." Eury's answer echoes from each silent corner of the room. "I cannot put my support behind such a plan that demands this sacrifice."
"And what would you do then?" It is Hades's voice that answers, sharp with an edge that Eury knows speaks of hurt. He has been a particularly strong advocate for this course, but how can Euryphaessa blame him, when his underworld is all but overflowing with the deaths these beasts have caused?
"Not something that will add to the death toll," Eury shakes their head. "There is a cause to these phenomena, and if we can find and eliminate it then such action should be unnecessary."
"And what is this cause?" Altima speaks in an even tone. "Have you found its location? Learned its nature and how to neutralize it?"
"No." Eury answers, swallowing the sharp barb of the words.
"Then what concrete plan are you suggesting in its stead? Every member of this Convocation has but the extent of their fields to work in search of what you describe and have come up with nothing. The longer we wait, the more people die. If we permit this to continue we will not even have enough souls to summon Zodiark at all."
"We cannot simply destroy half the lives on this star!" Euryphaessa loses the tenous hold upon the rising fury. "How can you not see that? We are destroying the very people we wish to save!"
"Azem." Elidibus firm voice stills the entire room. "I understand that this aspect of the plan concerns you. However, know that this sacrifice is a temporary one, once enough life is refostered from the star, it can be given to Zodiark to replace the lives given to him, and then those souls will be returned to us. In addition, there will be no mandate. Any souls given to this will be done so freely."
"That is no better! You would give all those lives so that you would need turn and give more? When does it end?"
"Lest you forget, Azem," Lahabrea's voice is harsh. "It is not your place to decide how another chooses to use their life in service to this star. If they wish to offer themselves to creation that the star will know salvation, you have no authority to stop them."
Eury bites their lip so hard they taste the copper at the back of their mouths and they swallow the bitterness of it. When had these people grown so callous? When had they forgotten it? The beauty of their beloved star, the glimmer of the lives that dwelt upon it? How could they look at losing so many souls and feel nothing?
"In the absence of any alternatives, and in the interest of saving as many people as we can from those beasts, will you not reconsider your vote, Azem?" Elidibus asks.
"Absolutely not."
"You are sentencing this star to die then!" Nabriales interjects.
"I would never." Euryphaessa's gaze narrows upon him so sharply that Nabriales shifts back upon his throne. "There is nothing more important to me than the future of this star and the lives upon it. You all know this; you all know my duty. If it is my job to advise and guide the people of this star I will not watch you all walk a path to ruin."
"Yet it remains that you have no alternative path to offer us," Mitron points out. "Your answer is for us to stand here and be pummelled by this disaster? To loop around again searching the same archives we already have reviewed a hundred times in hopes some different answer will suddenly manifest? Your brethren have poured their cumulative expertise into this plan, many souls have already sacrificed to get us this far. Will you betray us all now at this crucial juncture?"
"If you will see this as a betrayal… then there is little I can do to change that. I have laboured these years for love of this star, of my brethren, and I will not see you cast yourselves into fire for fear of another. This is not the answer."
Elidibus lets out a slow breath, and there is a murmur between the remaining members of the Convocation.
"Very well Azem, your position on the matter is noted." Elidbus speaks calmly, but his voice is distant. There is a sense of knowing in the chamber, as if the rother Thirteen of them had anticipated this outcome, had a contingency for it and Euryphaessa suspects they know what it is. After all…
"I will ask you to step out of these chambers. We have an additional matter to discuss that you may not participate in."
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The destruction of Doma has been absolute. Outside of the enclave there is no building that has been spared, no structure that has weathered the garleans or the elements. Once bustling streets are now haunted by wildlife that have moved into the ruins. Ciardha moves like a ghost, stepping over rubble and twisting down one alley then the next. The years she has been away is not long enough for her to forget these paths.
She can still hear the rabble of the midday crowds, the whispers of the ladies and the housewives as they shared their gossip, the harking at the markets. She can still hear Suzu's laughter as they skitter through these hidden paths, pretending that they are grown and already shinobi and samurai both, investigating the rumours for their honoured lord. They would share fishcakes from the markets and dream of all the missions they would conquer together.
The future turned out quite differently.
Ciardha walks until she is beyond the city's limits, pauses before a devastated plot that is larger than the rest. It has been shown no greater mercy than any other, what few walls remain crumbling into the earth. The yard in which she once practiced her sword work is overgrown with bamboo and weeds; the well she drew water from each day is long dried and any remnants of the house itself has lost any semblance of recognition. She is but a stone's throw away from the place she had once called home, but she cannot take another step closer.
There was no other outcome, she knows this in her mind, yet the sight of it stills her all the same. Perhaps in a corner of her heart she has held out hope. That they had fought back, that they had endured despite all odds. That perhaps this one place may have been spared. She had been forced to flee from it, had watched all she loved turn upon her, but still she never wished upon them such a fate.
"You linger in strange places, my friend." A familiar voice should be comforting, but instead it stills her as a frozen lake. Lord Hien's steps are light and easy and Ciardha swallows the gnawing twist in her chest.
"This place seemed bigger than the rest," she points out, willing her features into a quiet smile. "I was curious about it, if it had any particular significance."
"And what did you discover?" he asks.
"Nothing my eye can discern." Ciardha shakes her head. There is a flash of something in Hien's eyes but it is too quick for her to discern. He stops before her, his shadow adding to hers as they cast in the slowly setting sun.
"This was once the house of a great samurai clan, one of the greatest, and most loyal, to my father." Hien explains. "You can see their name carved there." He gestured to the stone pillar upon which the Imagasha name had once been so proudly displayed. Ciardha can still feel the indentations of the stone beneath her fingers for how often she had traced it as a child.
"It is very worn." And it was, nearly scoured away entirely by wind and rain and filled in with mosses. "And in doman, if I'm not mistaken." Ciardha adds almost too hastily.
"Imagasha." Hien's voice remains steady but there is a softness absent from it when he speaks. "It is quite the tale, this house. You see, when the garleans first invaded, they were the cornerstone of the first resistance. Not only in their forces and battle prowess, but Lord Imagasha's tactical warfare was without peer. Even with such a disadvantage in number as we had, he would claim victory after victory."
She both knows and does not know this. She knew Lord Imagasha was held highly, that his skill was said to be equal to the great legends. She knew he brought honour to their house, and strength to Doma. Yet this is the first she has ever heard another speak of him in such a way. Lord Sadayo had so rarely spoken of his father and grown sour when she had done the same. Had that been the reason he…?
"What happened to them?" Ciardha asks quietly.
"They were betrayed, by a single woman."
Ciardha's heart stops.
"The young lord's retainer fed the Garleans intelligence for months. On the house, on the rebellion's movements, the names and families of its key members." Hien ticks each off in slow succession, each landing upon Ciardha as a blow to the gut. "Then, once they were satisfied, they moved upon the house itself. In a single afternoon the entire clan was obliterated. The others came after, and in less than a week the entire rebellion unravelled." Hien turns, his stare hard and piercing. "Do you really not know this?"
"No." Ciardha shakes her head and scrambles to strip the trembling from her voice. "I'm not familiar with many tales from—"
"Do not lie to me." Hien rarely wields the weight of authority, so much so that it is easy to forget he holds it. Yet the power in his voice crashes over her and stills the very words in her throat. "I have seen you many times, Warrior of Light. Seen the way you nearly respond to our customs before halting yourself, the way you feign ignorance in our language and our letters but understand all the same."
How can she deny this? How can she hold up the veil that is Ciardha when he so clearly sees through her? This is the very moment she has feared since setting foot upon Carvallein's ship. She has run from her past, but not fast enough to evade it entirely.
"Tell me." Hien speaks, his doman as refined as she would expect from one of his stature. "Who are you."
Ciardha lowers herself to one knee, the perfect practiced ease of someone who has known the gesture their entire lives. Of one well enough versed in their customs to know the signs of respect, the expectations of a vassal to their lord. "I am Ciardha, my lord."
Her doman is spoken perfectly.
"Strange that you should answer so," Hien remarks, the edge to his words as real as the blade at his side. "Yugiri had the shinobi in Mor Dhona investigate on her behalf. Did you know there is no record of any woman named Ciardha until just a few short years ago? Until one day she registered at the adventurer's guild in Limsa Lomisa, there is no trace of her at all. Not so much as a whisper in the markets. Unusual would you not say?"
She is trapped, wholly and truly. If the shinobi discovered as much, they knew as well she disembarked from a ship, and they knew from where that ship had come. There is no need to question that Hien has already uncovered the answer he wishes to hear; she betrayed herself the moment she took he back road through the alleys.
Ciardha lowers her head further, the black hair tumbling forward and parting to reveal he smooth skin of her neck. She knows the punishment that awaits her, the fate of all traitors. Was this the reason she had been permitted to flee as long as she had? Were the kami waiting for her to return here, to this place, that she might die where she ought to have all those years ago? Perhaps… this has always been her fate.
Perhaps that is why… she has never found the place she is meant to serve in this world.
there never was one for her to begin with.
"You asked who I am, my lord. You did not ask who I was." She answers quietly.
"Why did you return?" Hien's demand fires straight to the only question she does not have an answer for. One that she must consider in the careful silence of her final sunset. Why had she come back? Why had she not found some reason to remain in Eorzea? Surely Lyse and Alisaie could have handled matters here, she could have helped tend Y'shtola, helped the Ala Mhigan resistance recover…
She could have stayed away and held onto her life.
"Because… it is my duty." She finally answers, and perhaps that is the real heart of it. Whether she lived or died was irrelevant; that is what she has always known. All that mattered was that one fulfilled their duty in the end. This place is where she learned this truth, and this truth is what will guide her to rest here.
"To whom?"
"I… do not know. The Scions, I suppose, and to Doma itself." The sound of Hien's sword sliding from its sheathe nearly roars in her ears amidst the quiet of the evening.
"You claim duty to Doma, even after betraying it?"
"I am aware there is no making amends for my actions, that those killed will never find forgiveness. Yet if my actions might improve things for those who remained… then I could not fail to act."
Hien lets out a long and slow breath. "I have watched you; you are no friend to Garlemald. Is it because they betrayed you?"
Ciardha's throat tightens. It was never her intent to betray the family at all, never her desire to side with Garlemald. Yet therein lay the rub, it was not her place to have desires at all. Only those of her lord could dwell within her heart.
"The fault is mine." For never questioning him, for never wondering what use Lord Sadayo had for in the information he had her gather, never thinking as to what the messages she retrieved for him entailed or the packages she delivered might be. She had been his perfect tool and he had used her to rip the seams of the entire house.
Ciardha feels the icy chill of Hien's steel against her neck and she swallows. To die for one's duty… that is her truth, her reason for existing so why…?
Why did she feel so afraid?
"You did not answer the question."
"I cannot."
She has no reason to remain loyal; Sadayo cast her aside the moment it suited him, pinned his intentions upon her and left her at the mercy of Lord Imagasha. Had the Garleans not attacked when they had, she'd have died then and there. Yet even so she cannot bring herself to—
She braces instead for the blow, the sharp cut of a blade and the icy embrace of oblivion.
Second after second passes and nothing comes.
"You owe him nothing."
"My lord?"
"Stand, my friend."
Ciardha rises as she is bid, light-headed with confusion.
"I knew him, your lord. I always thought it strange that it was his retainer that betrayed everyone. Strange that a retainer even had half the information that was leaked. I suspect I know the reason you will not speak, and I will not ask for confirmation or denial. It does not matter now, anyways." Hien turns to regard the rubble of the Imagasha estate.
"Everyone died in that attack. Even the traitorous retainer."
"But my lord—" No, she too was at fault. She had done the wrongs without questioning, had murdered and betrayed at a command for a lord who would discard her. Surely he saw that—!
"You are loyal to a fault, my friend, but there are worse qualities to have. When Doma needed you most, you came to her aid, even at the cost of your life. That tells me all I need know."
Ciardha's eyes burn, the image of Lord Hien against the bright orange sky blurs in and out of focus as she tried to swallow her emotion. It swirls in a tempest of things she cannot name. Her fear has clutched her so tightly for every step into this land that she feels weightless without it upon her shoulders. That she— that she should be forgiven?
Surely she was dreaming.
"Though, if I might make a suggestion."
"Anything, my lord."
“Do not live in service to another, you are destined for far greater things, my friend."
It takes her from her guard; the very notion seemed ludicrous. Service was all she knew, all she had ever lived for. Every skill she has honed, every trial she has faced has always been so that she might best serve. How else does one even live? She does not know. Hien must see the confusion upon her face for his smile widens.
"If it truly is in service that you find your happiness, well… I will be much surprised. Happy for you, of course, but surprised alt he same.” Hien lets out a laugh. “If I am wrong, I do wish to meet them, for they shall be the envy of every lord in Doma to have one such as you at their side.”
She does not need to open the shutters to know what she will find.
Ciardha can feel the hum of the light all the way down into her bones. The smothering presence that paints the skies of the First makes something deep and untapped within her sing. It wants to reach out and taste it, wants to swim amidst the radiance and shed the weight of the skin that it wears. The lightwarden's power rattles against the cage in which Ciardha holds it, spindling cracks along the wall of a soul that will only hold for so much longer.
Legs give way from beneath her and Ciardha sinks to the floor of her lonely room in the Pendants. She chokes back the sob that tries to bubble up but her shoulders shake with it all the same. Why? Why should her body and her emotions betray her so? She has known this to be the outcome, known it well before she heard Y'shtola and Urianger whispering behind the closed doors of the Greatwood. To take in the lightwarden's power was to accept a single inevitable outcome.
It would kill her.
But who else could perform the task? This world could not remain bathed in perpetual light. Though its people put up a resistance to be proud of, it could not last forever. They needed a real solution, a permanent one, and in her ability to contain the light had they found it. What weight could her singular life hold against an entire world? Against a world filled with people that she cherishes, that she would give anything to protect. She has known since she was old enough to understand that it is her duty to give her life for the one that she serves. To die in such a way was not to be feared, it was an honour.
Yet now that the moment has come, now when her time is measured in a handful of days… she doesn't want to die.
It is a shameful thought, one that would have gotten her struck in her youth. A selfish ugly thing that has rooted in her mind but that will not let go. There is so much she would yet do, so many things she would yet see! The notion that she will never see her friends again, not the Scions here nor those she has left behind upon the Source is enough to halt her breath. She cannot. This light will corrupt them and if she is to be destroyed by it she cannot let it destroy any other as well. She is to protect them with her life— the perfect retainer she was always meant to be.
Save that she doesn't want to. When all else fell to the wayside, that singular truth remains.
"I want to live." The words are small and bubble out with a small cry. The echo in a room that is both too big and too small all at once. Even Fray has been silent for some time, smothered in equal measure by a light too blinding to leave even shadow.
"Then you should." It is Ardbert's rough voice that answers instead, his presence shimmering in her periphery. For a blessing he does not seem to have been touched by the polluted light within her, but she worries for how long it may remain so. "Don't tell me you're giving up already? That hardly seems like you."
Ciardha wishes it were so simple as that. As simply deciding that she would live and it would be so.
"For me to live… others must die. And I cannot condemn them to that." Ciardha's reply is barely a whisper, but she is certain Arbert can hear her all the same. "There is no easy answer, no panacea to fix all this. I can only contain it for as long as I can and then—"
Then what? Have someone kill her before she turns? So that they might become the lightwarden instead? With the Exarch taken— with G'raha gone— she cannot even ask to be banished into the rift where the light can simply disperse amidst the space between reflections.
"I'll find some means to take it with me when time is up."
"Don't be ridiculous," Ardbert retorts. "That's hardly a solution."
"You did the same, did you not? Give your lives so that this world might have a future?"
"And look where it got us! We became pawns to Elidibus, sowed chaos upon the Source. We gave our lives for the chance to trade your world's life for ours."
"How did you do it?" Ciardha asks quietly, her slumped form even smaller than her usual stature. "How could you give up your life? I always thought myself strong enough, resolute enough. That when the moment came I wouldn't hesitate." And maybe she would not have, once. Young and foolish and determined to please, she might have easily made this sacrifice. But that was before- before her journey, before meeting so many people and experiencing so many things. Before her journey had changed her. It is a horrible selfishness that has spawned within her and yet...
It is perhaps the first truth she has felt of her very own.
Ardbert lets out a long and slow breath, though she doubts he needs to take any at all. "We had no other choice," he finally answers, his own tones quiet. "It was our fault the light had grown as it did, our doing that the world was on the brink of collapsing. Don't get me wrong, we were all terrified but… We also had too many people we wanted to protect."
It was comforting… to hear Ardbert felt the same.
"Were that I were as brave as you."
"It wasn't bravery, it was desperation," Ardbert counters. "And for us, the flood had already been unleashed there was no time and no options. It's not the same for you, not yet."
"Isn't it?"
"You still have a chance to look for another answer. Don't repeat our mistakes, don't play into those damned Ascian's hands! For what it's worth, I'm here to help you every step of the way."
Ciardha lets out a breath but her arms still tremble when she tries to rise. She should accept her fate, accept her honourable death. Hasn't she already been granted far more time than she ought? Lived for years as Ciardha when she should have died as Mizuki? She had been raised not to fear dying, to give her life when it was required to protect what was more important. She had prided herself on this!
Yet Ardbert's words ring the clearest in her mind.
You still have a chance to look for another answer.
She still has a chance to fight; for the most difficult banner she has ever taken up.
For the first time, she must learn to fight for her own life.
They have lost count of the days, but such a number is meaningless anyways.
Eurypheassa stands before a small pond. It is silent and still and reflects the starlight overhead and in that alone is it strange in this place. No body of water had she crafted ever lay so quiet. Each one would teem with life; ripple of fish swimming and the sway of aquatic plants, creatures they had never seen but delighted in all the same all at home within each miniature ocean. Mnemosyne could never resist a blank canvas.
That was why all of this was wrong; she was not here to paint it.
Not as she should be.
Eury can sense here aether within these waters. It is neither formless nor has it fully taken shape but even their senses can tell it is not whole. The fracturing of their world has already destroyed them; the breaking of their partner is the last fraying thread of their sanity. Eury knows how these shards work, know that when Mnemosyne's aether finally emerges from this pond it may well not even be her anymore. That it may be a new life, devoid of memory of all the adventures they once shared, the times spent. A soul that does not even know this place that had been so painstakingly carved into all that made her smile.
They know when she emerges, they may have to accept that she is gone.
And that may well be the fatal blow to what remains of their heart.
It should have been them.
It was they who had so foolheartedly opposed the Convocaton's plans, that insisted they had a better answer, they who refused Themis, refused Venat and vanished in their search of better answers. If they had been strong enough to find one, if they'd been more than just bluster then—
But Hydaelyn had sundered the star all the same.
Eury still remembers that moment with painful clarity, the split second of acceptance of their fate, before the sharp yank of Emet-Selch's aether. He had reversed their summoning spell, pulled them forcibly through the rift into which he had escaped with Themis and Lahabrea. But Mnemosyne… Mnemosyne who had hidden herself away so carefully had evaded his search a second too long.
They should have been with her, they should have tried to help her!
Now she paid the price.
Colour drains from this place each and every day. Eury tries their utmost to upkeep it, but their aether will not take as hers once did. They have access to this hidden sanctuary but it knows its master and it is not they. So they wait, and they watch. Watch each day as the sun overhead fades to night, as the grasses and the flowers turn a monochrome pall and the warm winds give way to stagnant air.
"I'm so sorry." Euryphaessa's whisper is the only thing to stir the water. They do not know if she can hear them, they expect she can't. "I was so determined to help you, to find a better way for everyone, that I failed to realize all I ever did was abandon you. I left you alone in this place we once shared and you endured everything by yourself. I'm sorry."
They have no means to atone, no penance that is worthy of all the ways that she has suffered. But they tell themselves, just as they tell her each and every time they come here, in the space between the heartbeats that echo in this place.
"Whenever you are ready to emerge, whenever you come back…" Whether she remembers them or not, whether she forgives them or not—
