#teraphany

When a stray fireball from Balthazar takes out half of the wooden stairway, Teraphany summons wings of light to bring her up instead, just barely making it onto the next ledge. “You’re fucking dead when I get back!” Her hands dig straight into the rotting wood, and she pulls herself up before continuing her reckless sprint. “I’ll never forgive you! I’ll--!” The whole world shakes around Teraphany, nearly knocking her back off the edge. Balthazar lets out a loud, rippling laugh, and it’s enough to set Teraphany on fire alone. “I’m the one who gets to decide if I want to fight,” she rasps, and even as the desert itself quakes under Balthazar’s wrath, she continues to drag herself up the steps, then the rocks, carelessly cutting her palms on the jagged cliff face. “I’m the one who decides if I want to put my life on the line! NO ONE tells me what to do! I’m not under anyone’s control but myself! I’m doing this duty with you because there’s nowhere else in this stupid, godforsaken world that I’d choose to be!” She leaps across a final gap in the bridge, and finally, she pulls herself up onto the top of the spire. “Do you hear me, Erin?! I’m--” There’s nothing left on the peak except clear desert skies and a burnt corpse. Teraphany doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t even realise what she’s doing until a bird perches onto Erin’s broken body, landing as gracefully as snowfall. Her hands fly to her greatbow to shoot it out of the sky, because she can’t-- no fucking desert scavenger is going to pick at Erin when she’s-- "What are you doing?” When Raven speaks to her, voice as cold as the snowstorm where Erin found him, Teraphany knows that there is no more playing pretend. “She’s already dead.”

Path of Fire, huh.

Truthfully, there are quite a lot of things she wants to know, but none of those questions are any that she would dare to say aloud. Not just for the consequences of interrogating her Mother Tree while she is still barely conscious-- but the consequences of knowing the answer. Why did you give Caladbolg to Trahearne? Am I as similar to Riannoc as he thought I was? Was I meant to be Riannoc’s replacement? Have you already meant to replace me, too? You were Mordremoth’s creation, does that make you similar to Glint to Kralkatorrik? Does that make us sylvari similar to Aurene? Would you have liked to meet Aurene? Would Riannoc? Would Trahearne? Can you read the thoughts in my mind? Do they seep into the Dream as they crawl into my nightmares? Would you still care for me if you could read these thoughts in my head, Mother? Would anyone? The cowardice, the disgrace, all this playing pretend. This destiny you’ve given me is too heavy a burden to bear. I understand, you know. I finally understand what they’d felt back then. Caithe, Trahearne, Riannoc... it was all too much, what you put us all through was too much, and now, I no longer want to know. “I give you this,” the Pale Tree breathes, and her Avatar cups Teraphany’s palm so gently that the sylvari nearly forgets that she ever hated her Mother at all. A small, round thing falls into the lines of Teraphany’s hand. It’s a memory seed, she realises. Just like the ones they had been given for Caithe. “This seed contains Trahearne’s most precious memory with you.” “His…?” Teraphany doesn’t know what to think. Seed as it is, the memory still thrums in her hand, and it feels warm, almost homely. Indescribably precious. “I… why would you give this to me, Mother?” “I am sorry,” her Mother Tree weeps, and Teraphany doesn’t know what she’s apologising for, but, gods, there are so many things, so, so many. “My beautiful child. I already ask so much. Hold onto the memory. I hope that it helps you… more than it may hurt.”

The girls do Living Season 3 and suffer for it: the chapter

Teraphany's look for core game > end of HoT!

PoF - LS4-4

LS4-5 - IBS

Lyka bows her head, as though she were somehow ashamed. “Yes. That’s why I was looking for you two. Or, Teraphany, actually…” She looks up, and the flash of fear in her single golden eye is so torturously familiar that Teraphany could almost imagine someone else standing in Lyka’s place. “My Wyld Hunt is to kill the Elder Dragons.” “Oh.” Teraphany says it before Carys can stop her. “You’re my replacement.” Perhaps there are some things that can still faze her, after all.

Covers the time post-HoT and before LS3.

This chapter is 20k words long! Which makes it the shortest one so far! What's wrong with me!