Love is a much more vicious motivator.

It was the 331st year. Every day was a battle after the Goddess died.

Hope thought, as he geared up for another skirmish, that it didn't matter. Lightning fought an endless battle in Valhalla. She probably felt the same way.

That day he was pulled by an unseen force. He fell into shadow.

As he floated beyond time and space, he wondered if this was the same place she was brought to when she disappeared by the crystal pillar.

There was nothing. No voice spoke to him in this perfect isolation. Yet he felt a divine light within. It coaxed him to reveal his heart.

He asked himself whether she believed in the divine, if Etro ever spoke to her, and if she submitted herself willingly as her knight.

Then came the pain. Pain that seared through his flesh and bones, breaking and unbreaking him in a maddening rhythm. Visions of his mother falling over, and over, and over. A rose-tinted dream of everyone being together eaten by a nightmare of chaos and death. Faces of the nameless demanding atonement. He was taunted and adored all at once.

He worried that she might have endured the same to serve a god.

169 years passed thinking, wondering, questioning, and worrying until it numbed him. Until Hope felt himself fading away.

When the last of his strength left him, he heard a voice. A voice that sounded familiar. He realized that the voice was his own.

It promised a final act of kindness. That he shall see her again and fight with her 13 days before the world ends.