Chapter Text
Then…
Blinding white. From the moment she was born, blinding white.
Blinding white. And screams.
Why?
The girl ran, fast as her feet could carry her, breathless and scared. She wanted to cry, but if she did, they would hear her. They would hear her and come kill her.
Why?
She couldn’t think. She couldn’t remember. All there was before this was white. And screams. And-
She fell, her feet finding purchase against a felled log, knocking her to the forest floor, ice and snow rushing to meet her…but it didn’t hurt. Nothing did. On frail, pasty arms she weakly pushed herself up, the biting cold of the snow dancing distantly upon her flesh. There it was…blinding white again. But this was stained with red. Blood. Her blood. The blood on her hands.
Her eyes trembled, scared to even whimper or take even another second. She had to run. Or they would find her and they would kill her. She feverishly brushed aside the wet, soggy black hair upon her brow, barely managing to bring herself back to her feet. She was so weak…so very weak. Every tiny fiber of her frame fought against her, aching for release. She had been running for days. She didn’t even know where or why her feet carried her as they did, but all she knew was she needed to get away. She had to run.
Trees taller than the walls of the facility surrounded her, more intimidating than any of the giant buildings she had left behind. They were innumerable, each one another place where one of them might emerge. But in her tumble, she lost her sense of direction. Panic buried her beneath an insurmountable weight, and the girl froze with indecision.
But then she heard it; the unmistakable rustle of ferns and snapping of twigs. Footfalls, heavy and purposeful, thundered toward her. She had to run. They were coming.
She started to take off, rousing what meager strength she could find in her legs, slow at first, but quick to bring her back to speed. Moonbeams danced around her as she fled, darting between the massive conifers, the deceptive, peaceful blanket of virgin snow before her hiding all manner of things that could slow her down. She sprinted between pillars of moonlight, the terrifying light tearing through the darkened canopy above…no, not moonlight. Searchlights.
The violent rumble of machinery and turbulent gusts of airship turbines roared overhead, steel devils in flight, ripping through the treetops and severing the quiet of the forest. Shadows erupted into light as the searchlights cascaded through the trees, creating a web of light that turned the once peaceful forest night into a horrifying field of death before her.
It was just like the garden.
Stay out of the light! Stay out of the light! She chanted in her head, slamming her back against one of the giant conifers, praying that the searchlights would pass over her. Terrible winds tore through the forest as the airships and their loud turbines howled, the dreadful beams of light passing back and forth to the other side of the girl as she fell to her knees, hyperventilating. It was all she could to pray, over and over; pray that the footsteps of soldiers crunching through the snow were not bound for her, pray that the shouts and commands of the legion just behind her did not announce her position, pray that the blades and rifles in their hands would not find her.
A beam of white swept over her tree, the girl hugging tightly to her knees. She was wet and cold, the bandages wrapped around her body bloody and soaked with sweat and snow alike, offering little protection against the outside world. She just wanted it to be over. Just wanted them to go away.
I’m sorry! I’m sorry!
The girl couldn’t cry now - they were right behind her, boots thundering by the hundreds as the search party swept through the forest - men clad in steel, faceless reapers come to claim her again.
“Unit 3, status?” barked a horrible voice, just behind her, the voice marred by metal and static. Snow crunched just beyond the sanctuary of the giant conifer’s shadow, a singular beam of light racing past the girl to the tree line ahead of her, sweeping across the snow.
“Sector 15 clear, still sweeping Sector 16.” responded a gruff, unpleasant voice from the soldier nearby.
A screech of static startled the girl, and she cowered tighter to her knees, scared and dizzy as she held her breath in fear as light threatened to claim the last of her merciful shadow behind the tree. She could feel the footfalls in the snow, the rattling of plated armor, the strain of stretching leather right beside her.
The metal voice thundered through a haze of static.
“Unit 4 reporting all clear. Canus unit, move to support unit 3. Arial unit moving ahead to Sector 18.”
Not the dogs. Please…not the dogs.
Her mind cracked and fractured with fear, her lungs empty, hands clutching at her mouth as she rocked back and forth, afraid she would break.
The beam of light swept to the other side of her tree, boots crunching through snow and dead leaves as the soldier grunted unhappily and moved away.
Please…please…please…
The light stopped its gentle sweep, and in the harrowing white of its ireful glow, it spotted crimson.
No! No! No!
“Hey, I got something here!”
No! No! No!
She broke. She ran.
Light. Blinding light.
Her shadows were gone; they couldn’t protect her. Nothing could.
She was swallowed by light, and the merciful quiet of the forest became a hell of shouting, a raucous rattle of gunfire and splintering trees exploding around her. A hail of bullets found her, tearing her flesh from bone, a nightmarish spray of blood and fire. She felt none of it. She only felt fear, coiling tighter and tighter around her heart. She had to make it to the shadows. She had to stay out of the light! The girl’s body ruptured as bullets tore through her, bloodying ever more the frail bandages wrapped around her. Trees - safety; it was just ahead. She ran and she ran, even as more and more bullets raked across her pale skin.
It was close! So close!
A bullet struck her head.
Then she was in darkness, no longer running, but falling. Falling forever through the ground, the giant trees consumed by ash, the bright searchlights broken and devoured instantly as the snow melted into nothingness, revealing the eternal pit into which she fell. The mighty tree trunks before her became stone, stretching higher and higher into the sky in a horrifying way. She tumbled, her stomach turned, fragments of her skull and blood suspended in the void as onyx and oil, stilled even as she fell like a stone into the endless pit. She couldn’t move; she was helpless and afraid, her muscles turned to ice, unmoving and burning beneath her skin as it was devoured in shadow and boiled away.
In life she had never known pain, but in death, she knew all of it. Her skin peeled, blood roiling as it was pulled from her veins and turned into a macabre lace before her eyes. She plummeted through the void, her body broken and torn to shreds by the merciless razor cuts of spiraling sands, raking unseen blades in a ceaseless storm across her flesh. She beheld herself with eyes not her own; a broken effigy of the girl she once was, face marked by fear, even as her skull was ruptured. The girl was frail, weak, and scared. And then she was gone, claimed under the maelstrom of knives and ragged cloaks of ghoulish shadows.
Darkness became light. Blinding light.
Fear claimed her once again, her body cold and wet.
She clutched at her own mouth, body heaving as she hyperventilated and tried desperately to silence herself all the same.
Please! Please! Please!
“Hey, I got something here!”
She was going to break. She was going to run.
Don’t be afraid… said a voice.
The girl was scared. She couldn’t move at all.
Footfalls quickened beside her, the light of the soldier’s weapon following the trail of her blood to the indentations of her feet in the snow. He followed them to find her cowering, seizing as she was wracked with panic. The steel devil raised the light to her face, and in white she was blinded.
“I got her! Over here!” the soldier shouted, his weapon steady upon her.
The girl shivered, inaction a pillory clasped around her body.
Static and shouting.
“Unit 3, status!”
Don’t be afraid…
“She’s just a kid…no more than 20. The hells are…”
A roar of static.
“Orders are to kill on sight. Repeat, kill on sight!”
Get up. the voice demanded. Fight back!
The soldier wavered only for a second, reaffirming his grip on his weapon.
The girl panicked.
Fight back! the voice roared, more piercing and shrill than anything she had ever heard before.
She roared and charged, muscles spurned by fire and fury, screaming as she tore through the merciless light and pounced upon the soldier, knocking them both to the ground under a rattle of errant gunfire from his weapon. Snow and steel rose up to meet her as she clamored against the metal demon, her hands pounding against him as he scrambled to defend himself.
She hit him, again and again, unsure of what she was even doing, but she didn’t care. She strained to keep his arms at bay, kicking and flailing, punching and clawing at his throat. He groaned and grunted, trying desperately to bring about his weapon as the frail girl savagely assaulted him like a wild animal.
Another rattle of gunfire erupted beside her, stray bullets from his gun ripping into her arm. She felt no pain, adrenaline and fire burning deep within her. White became red, her vision drowned in crimson. Fear became fury, and as her hands found the pommel of a sword at his waist a peculiar emptiness filled her head.
She withdrew the blade and screamed, plunging it into her prey, breathless.
She was deafened by rage, her thoughts blurry.
She didn’t hear the rushing clamor of footfalls rushing toward her.
It was only when the crimson in her sight faded, drowned by blinding white as more searchlights erupted around her, and the roar of gunfire pierced the ringing in her ears did she feel the icey clutch of fear once more. Fire surrendered to futility, and in a storm of bullets, she felt darkness swallow her again.
She plummeted through the dark, body broken, bloody wounds and torn flesh becoming ash in the silence of night. Pain ripped through her, though her body was no longer her own. The girl could only watch as she died, scared and alone in this hell of sand and shadow. The trees that once offered her safety and solace became as giants against the dark - textureless, flat nothings that stretched into the forever of the maelstrom of rags and ash. The freedom they once promised turned against her, their flat, glassy trunks becoming as walls, trapping her in an inescapable cage as the blood in her veins was ripped from her body, plucked like thread, slowly and painfully spooled onto an unseen spindle somewhere in the dark.
She felt horror slip into her mind as her body was sundered into shards. But that horror became something else…something she had never known before. In the swirling nightmare of shadow, the girl felt a spark, a tiny ember ignite. Rage. Rage against this hell. The voice…the other voice…it called to her.
She plummeted through the dark until blissful shadow was impaled by merciless light. Biting cold and raked against her soggy flesh as rage burned within her veins. She pounced on the soldier, her hands no longer chained by fear, unleashed by savage frenzy. She drove her fingers as talons against the soldier’s arm, slamming the gun from his grip. He grunted and tried to weather her assault, but she was faster, pulling the blade from his belt and driving it through his throat.
Go! the voice in her head screamed.
She whipped her head toward the approaching soldiers and felt the burning light upon her. She ran, sword in hand, charging them, screaming as bullets tore through her. She was scared, but something…someone else guided her, dragged her through the snow as her blood spilled upon it. Closer. Just a bit closer. Seconds became hours, fulms became malms. Just reach them. She had to kill them. She had to.
The massive trees stared ominously down upon her in silent judgment as bullets buried into her, the broad limbs and myriad branches of the trees drowning into the sky as the brittle bark upon them turned to stone. A violent push of harsh winds from approaching airships stilled, and the pop and crack of firearms silenced.
She stumbled, a bullet tearing into her skull.
Don’t stop!
The world fell to shadow.
Kill them!
She had to keep going.
The pain in her body dulled. Her thoughts emptied.
The voice in her head roared.
She thought she felt something break - something small; insignificant, far, far away. She thought she could reach out into the silent eternity before her, but her fingers felt only…fog.
She stumbled, but did not stop. Shadows relented and warped. The glossy black onyx that coated the world shattered like glass. She watched as she erupted from her crystalline cage, leaving behind her broken body in a cloud of ash to step into the light. She stumbled, but rose to her feet again, running…running. She had to reach them. She had to kill them.
Guns rattled and bullets sailed past her, the trio of soldiers revealed as she ripped past the blinding light of their search lights and launched herself with inhuman savagery upon them. She raked the blade across steel and flesh, a storm of lifesblood, her own and that of her enemy’s in her wake.
She couldn’t see their faces, clad in steel as they were, but their shouts of horror and struggle against her shot through her mind harsher than any bullet. The blinding crimson fury in her eyes disappeared in a blink, and the girl stood heaving atop the last of them, the point of her sword raised for the killing blow.
The soldier squirmed, shouting at her.
“No, gods no!” he begged, his voice marred by the heavy steel helm that betrayed the true horror behind its grim, inhuman facade.
The girl was scared, blood dripping from the sword in her hands onto her. She could feel the gentle warm kiss against her skin, feel the slow, murky rolling of crimson beads down her face.
No. Please no!
She hesitated, trembling, her thoughts overwhelmed.
The soldier beneath her did not hesitate, rising against her and using his considerably larger mass to send her toppling to the side, her lithe, frail body slamming against the stilled bodies of his fellows. The girl reeled, relieved of the breath in her lungs, her back against the bloodstained snow. She watched as the star-filled sky beyond the tree was enveloped by cold, uncaring steel. The same gruesome visage of the soldier returned to only disappear behind terrifying, burning white as he turned his gun on her. Fear devoured the girl as she heard the crack, witnessed the eruption of fire, felt the searing heat of metal bury into her body. She screamed as light turned to shadow once more, and the nightmarish pain lanced through her, only for screams to be silenced and pain to numb to dull nothingness. She felt something break.
Kill them!
Kill them!
The girl wasn’t alone as darkness bared its fangs down upon her. But when she turned to see where the voice came from, all she could see was a gentle fog. But even that was taken from her, as peaceful emptiness became chaos. Snow and earth sundered around her as she felt the bullets pass through her ashen form.
Kill them all! the voice roared again.
She drove her blade against the light before her, dust and black sand in her wake. Blood spilled upon her face as light fell from her eyes the heavy collapse of the steel demon fell upon her. She screamed with fright as his heavy body crushed her. She scrambled to rid herself of him, pushing with flailing hands against him. He toppled lifelessly to the snow to join his comrades.
The girl crawled to the mighty conifer and clutched at her knees. Panic overwhelmed her as she stared at the bloody sword and stilled bodies before her. She couldn’t breathe, though her body continued to seize desperately, her chest heaving.
When a loud burst of static erupted from the bodies, she recoiled, driving herself away from them with a flail of kicks, burying herself into the bloodsoaked roots.
“Unit 3, status on the target?” crackled the formless voice. The girl whimpered, afraid others might hear it, afraid more would come. “Unit 3, report!”
No! No! No!
She dragged herself to her feet, knees shaking and trembling. She had to run. They would find her. There were more…hundreds of them. They were coming.
“All units, this is Albatross. Unit 3 is unresponsive, repeat unresponsive. Move all units to Sector 15, target reported in the area.” the horrible voice chattered amidst a mess of static.
The girl had to run. She tripped and fell, but found her footing enough to leave the dead steel men behind, running as fast as her bloody legs could carry her. She could hear the barking of dogs behind her, the roar of airships descending from the sky. As she waved through the pillars of dense trunks and sloshed through the cold snow, light fell upon her. The girl whimpered, silently begging for mercy. She didn’t want to run anymore. She didn’t want any of this.
Please! Please!
“Leave me alone!” she screamed, hoping against all hope that her words would reach the line of soldiers that raced to intercept her, demons clad in armor rushing at her with blades from the dancing pillars of lights that tore through the tree line behind them. They shouted and yelled, pointing sword and spear at her as they charged - her words did not…could not reach them. These were not men, they were heartless monsters made of metal.
“Target sighted!” they shouted.
The dense canopy of strong branches parted and wavered as blinding light found her again in a roar of turbines descending from the skies. Metallic chatter erupted from the soaring iron demon through static and roaring engines.
“Move to engage!” the harrowing voice echoed through the forest.
The girl screamed, cowering beneath her arms and trying to flee in another direction - she didn’t care where, she just had to run. Her footsfalls wavered, her legs failing her as she stumbled and slipped, her eyes burning as she clawed herself back to her feet.
Kill them! she heard that voice scream at her, but she couldn’t so much as think. She just wanted to run, to just get away. She didn’t want to die! Not again! Please, not again!
But they found her, iron hands clutching at her wrist and yanking her down into the snow on her knees. She cried in horror as her face was buried in white, forced to hear the foul sound of steel piercing into her body. She plummeted, downward into the dark, cold waters rising to meet her, filling her mouth and nose, driving mercilessly down her throat. She was as stone, sinking into a vast ocean, her mind afire as she felt the suffocating touch of death throttle her brain.
Kill them all!
The ocean became ash, and in panic-stricken fear, it was all she could do to drive her hands forward, grasping desperately ahead. Her fingers fell upon the black sands, and they became as snow. She felt the merciless flood of hellish waters in her lungs subside, but that did not give her any relief from the staggering fear in her heart.
She had to run. She had to get away.
Shadow turned to light, silence became a cacophony.
She pulled herself forward, fingers grabbing onto whatever they could find.
Steel fell upon her again. Red splashed upon the white snow. That terrible sound of her body being impaled drowned the voice’s unrelenting screaming in her head. She welcomed the silence of the fog as it rolled over the endless still ocean at her feet.
Get up!
Something small…something far away shattered, and the fog drew closer.
She choked on blood and ash, throwing her arms out, dragging herself across the crimson stained snow. In the burning light from above, she screamed, rolling upon the muddy, blood-soaked murk of melting snow beneath her, turning to see the steel demon drive his sword into her chest. Blood filled her throat, and rage filled her heart.
Light blinked away to shadow, but only for a moment.
Her thoughts were empty, but only for a second.
She thought she might have remembered, but as the fog drew closer, she was sure she never knew in the first place what was breaking in the distance.
She grit her teeth, screaming, kicking free the ash that coated her body andthe soldier that yet plunged his sword into her. She spat blood and dragged her body upwards, through the steel as ash and glass crumbled from the wound, her hands dragging across the sharp steel, severing her flesh into dark scars of nightmarish black void. More soldiers filled the red-stained world around her as she pulled the blade from her chest, slashing savagely outward at whatever metal monster next decided to approach her.
Spears buried into her shoulder, driving her back into the mud. Ice became an empty pit beneath her, a fractured nightmare of blackened sandstorms into which she fell, but only for a moment. She tore herself through spearhead and shaft, leaving behind the failed body that crumbled like ancient, weathered stone in the darkness. Light found her again, and so too did her blade find purchase against her assailant as soot and sand fell away from her face, welcoming instead the hot spray of lifesblood against her lips. She roared, breaking her body against her foes; with every breath, every moment spent in death, she would take from life another second to fight.
The girl scrambled to her feet, the dead bodies of her former killers left to stare with silent, monstrous metal faces at their brothers as they howled in pain. White had become crimson before her. She had claimed her own life from their death. Shadow surrendered to light once more as she stood, bloodied and haggard as the fierce winds from the airships overhead blew astray the mop of wet, black hair on her head over violet eyes. The girl heaved, sword in hand, her shoulders slumped from endless toil, bandages that covered her pale body soiled with the blood of her enemies as well as her own. She grit her teeth, hot breath escaping into the cold air, bloody fingers wrapping around the broken spear haft lodged into her shoulder. The girl tore it from her arm, throwing it to the ground that it may join the rest.
“Unit 6, move to intercept!” cried the metallic, static voice from the airship.
There were more metal men…hundreds of them, the searchlights mounted upon their weapons piercing through branches and trunks to find her.
Please… Please!
She felt her hands quivering against the sword in her hand.
“Open fire! Open fire!”
Her ears rang sharply, her eyes wide as she stared upon the bloody blade in her hands, beheld the mangled bodies, the tiny rivers of blood that flowed through the snow. She watched as the dying reached out to their weapons, still determined to follow orders. Still determined, even as their entrails escaped the confines of their bodies, as their comrades lay dead at her feet, still they endeavored to kill her. They weren’t men. Not at all. They were monsters.
Kill them!
The voice called out to her as bullets raced past her, fired from the cacophony of cracks and blasts of fire and smoke along the tree line. She watched in horror as the soldier clamored for his weapon, his hand shaking as he surely slipped into the icy grip of death. He grunted and struggled, dragging himself ever closer to the rifle, his fingers dancing over the barrel.
Kill them all!
She didn’t want to; she just wanted to run. Even as she turned away, the menacing buzz of shot driving hot through the air around her, grazing against her skin in bloody streaks, all she could hear was the screeching, inhuman roar of the voice in her head.
“Go away!” the girl screamed, launching herself away from the approaching troopers, their cold, emotionless faces of steel darkened behind the burning white of their searchlights. Bark and branch became splintering shrapnel around her, shivering into tiny lances as she sped past tree after tree. She tried to find safety in shadows, but with every turn, every jump, every stumble, sanctuary burned away in savage, uncaring light. She could hear them, the footfalls of hundreds, just behind her, no matter how far or how fast she fled, she knew they would reach her.
Kill them!
There was a crack of gunfire and then silence as her sight turned black, the girl crashing into the massive trunk of a tree, only for its rough bark and piney smell to shatter and vanish as she tore through it, an effigy of black, now crumbling to dust.
She coughed blood through her throat, terrified and alone - and yet still she kept going, splashing with bare feet through cold, black waters until she found her footing. She dragged herself up - she couldn’t stop. Silence shattered to become a metallic grunt as one of the metal men caught up to her. He seemed unprepared, if not woefully surprised as the girl erupted from shadow and soot, raising his gun to height with a shaky grip.
“Leave me alone!” the girl screeched, swinging wildly with her sword. The bloody steel raked across the soldier, wedging into the folds of armor at his shoulder. Her momentum sent them both tumbling to the ground, her gangly body scrambling on top of him to return to her feet. She tried to pull the sword free, but it wouldn’t budge.
Come on! Come on! No - please, come on!
Gunfire rattled across the snow, causing her to recoil in terror. She ran, abandoning the sword.
Kill them!
“I can’t!” she cried, clutching at her head as roiling, otherworldly fire burned within her skull. Bullets ripped through trees and pine-needles, light ceaselessly bearing down upon her from on high as the airship followed just overhead.
She felt another strike her head, and as shadow enveloped the world, she felt herself step into knee-high waters of the purest black. She choked on blood and water as it rushed to greet her in the miresome tangle of shadows and sand. But when she found her footing, desperately gasping for air, she was surrounded by light again, forceful winds blowing the bloodsoaked hair from her face. More soldiers moved in as she stumbled into the light.
The girl cried, but no tears found their way to her cheeks before blades were buried into her heart, the bandages wrapped around her breast erupting into a geyser of crimson.
She felt herself fall to the ground, face buried in snow. The world flickered between loathsome light and horrifying darkness. Again and again, she felt the insufferable pain of blades driving into her in the dark. She was tossed like a ragdoll between life and death, and with every thrust she felt something within her break. She tried to fight back, time and time again, rising ever so slightly only to find another sword driving her back down. She could only watch as the world itself was coated in dark crimson. She could only cry, even though no breath escaped her lips.
She tried to fight - she just wanted to run, but she couldn’t. She had to fight.
She rolled over in the bloody mire, ash and shadow dancing upon the edges of her sight as she felt the heavy thrust of steel into her gut. She desperately reached out against them, watching herself die, over and over, watching as the world was cast endlessly into night, only for it to be washed in the pitiless searchlights and crimson spray of blood.
“Seven hells!” the soldiers barked, their voice broken as reality shattered and reassembled in seconds. “Why won’t you die!?”
Kill them!
Fingers found a wrist, a shoulder, a neck. She squeezed, squeezed tighter than she ever thought possible, blades tearing into her in a strobe of images marred in shadow and crystalline effigies that shattered under the weight of light. The girl’s ears rang, drowning out the horrified grunts and gurgles of the man unfortunate enough to be in her clutches, the girl dragging him to the ground and throttling the life from him. His fellows ran blades through her, again and again, confused and horrified when they found their quarry still standing.
Kill them all!
She squeezed the man’s neck until she felt the oozing of lifesblood upon her thumbs. She watched the dark flow stain the blackened steel of his armor. She listened as he struggled to stay alive, choking behind his helmet, the monstrous face emblazoned in steel, staring back at her unflinching.
“God’s blood, she won’t die!” the men cried behind her.
“Gobsh*te, shoot her!”
Kill them. she heard the voice say.
“Go away!” she begged, her voice broken and raspy.
She found his sword, pulling the black steel from the bloody snow and stumbling over his body as the soldiers at her fore retreated to form ranks as she approached. They were a wall - a wall of soulless metal monstrosities from which there was no escape.
She fell to her knees, sword in hand.
She was tired. She was so tired…
Light encircled her from on high, drowning the dark of the forest. It took all her strength to even keep her head up as the fierce winds of the airship descended into the clearing, a roar of machinery and static.
“Are you satisfied, T.G.01?” the girl heard the flying metal monster ask. Searchlights focused on her as hundreds of soldiers collected around the edges of the tree line. She sat breathless amid muddy and bloody snowdrifts as the winds from the machine turbines whipped ice and falling snow into a frenzy against her skin.
The airship descended, its spinning blades slowing as the elongated chassis landed with a metallic thud before her some yalms away. Its massive shape formed a wall of steel before her, the devilish machine hissing and whirring as it settled into position. Footfalls rang out in all directions as soldiers filled the clearing, a thunderous march beyond the ancient oaks and pines signaling even more on the way. Hounds barked and snarled among them, lunging wildly but held back by their faceless masters, waiting for their command.
Even amid the cacophony, even as the voice in her head screamed murder, the girl could only hear the gentle, slow clapping of the man that emerged on the deck of the airship.
“Is this enough death for you?” the man asked.
She couldn’t answer. She didn’t want to. She buried the point of her sword into the ground before her, attempting to use it to hoist herself to her feet.
The man on the deck wore the same white lab coat she remembered from the facility. The white-robed men were the ones that tried to stop her, the ones that wouldn’t let her get away. They called the metal men on her, with their swords and guns.
Her head ached and throbbed, her knees shaky as she barely found the strength to stand, but the girl could feel a menacing, coiling hatred around her heart.
“How many more do you want, T.G.01?” the man demanded, slamming his hands onto the railing of the deck, looking down at her with crazed, pale eyes and unkempt paisley hair. With a scowl, the man looked to the soldier that accompanied him at his flank and nodded his head with an exasperated jerk. The soldier stepped forward and indicated with a finger for the soldiers below to move in.
They did as ordered, moving toward her.
“Stop!” she begged. “Leave me alone!”
The man in white roared with hideous laughter.
“The beast deigns to speak!” he cackled. “After all these years!”
The soldiers did not slow, a unit of six moving to surround her.
The girl shook her head, soaking wet from snow and blood, a mess of black hair and fouled bandages. When they did not hear her cries, she pulled the sword free from the ground, whimpering, begging, pleading…
The man in white danced in and out of existence as she tore through the soldiers. She had no choice; every slash of their steel that severed her flesh would send her into the pit of black water, only for her to plummet back into the clearing. She died, and died, and died again. She killed, and killed, and killed again.
Six men. She slaughtered them for what felt as days, all the while, the man in white on high just paced and observed. He watched as she was stabbed, gutted, and slashed. He didn’t flinch when she drove her sword into his men, dragged them through the snow by their entrails, stabbed them again and again, and spilled their blood all around her.
Six men died at her hand. And yet she stood. Though she died a hundred times, it did not matter - her wounds disappeared beneath ash, though she still felt every one. And so the man in white paced, uncaring at the death he beheld behind the white reflection of his spectacles.
“Struggle all you want, T.G.01.” he said, nodding to the commanding soldier again. “Escape was never an option!”
Seven more now. Seven more with their hounds.
The man in white laughed, laughed as he watched her be dragged to the ground in bloody jaws. He laughed when she was forced to watch her own body ripped to bloody shreds in the mouths of beasts. He laughed when she choked beneath the rising waters he could not see as she was plunged again and again into the mire. He laughed when she ran steel through the beasts, sent their whimpering lifeless bodies to the trees, to the snow, to the dirt. They fell upon her, endlessly, and all the while he laughed.
Seven men. Seven men and their hounds. Now but corpses.
The girl fell again to her knees. Her mind was empty. She just wanted it to stop.
“Sir, she’s-” the commanding officer tried to interject, but the man in white just kept laughing. Maniacal and broken. He slammed his hands against the railing.
“Kill her! I don’t care many it takes! Do your duty and obey!” he roared.
The officer collected himself and sent more in.
Too many to count this time. A whole unit.
They swarmed her under a hail of bullets. It was loud, loud like thunder, but never ending. She took one step into the waters. Another. And another. One at a time, one step into the dark as death and life became a dizzying blur of blood and struggle. The girl couldn’t cry anymore. There wasn’t any time. For every breath she found in life, she choked on merciless seas in death. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t escape. All she could do was kill. And kill. And kill.
Kill them.
Kill them all.
Corpses lay mangled at her feet by the dozens as she drove her sword into the last of them, the blade nicked and broken down to the hilt. She was bathed in crimson, from head to toe, breathless and silent. She couldn’t remember anymore. She couldn’t remember why she was here. She couldn’t remember who these men were, so desperately trying to kill her, or why she was afraid of them. With every death at their hands, she felt something slip from her grasp and break. She could feel it, slipping away…whatever it was…somewhere out in the deep, circling fog in her head. She yet lived, but something within her stayed dead. Something long lost her now.
One unit became two.
Two became a regiment.
A regiment became a battalion.
The girl would be plunged into an ocean of black water in an endless void, only to clamor back onto the shores of the living amid a sea of corpses. Silence and stillness would become agonizing screams of the dying, the rattle of gunfire, the shivering of branches, the clash of steel. She remembered being scared of the white once. But as she killed and was killed, over and over in a flickering between life and death, she forgot what white even was. All that she knew now was red. The world around her was coated in red; her sword was red, her skin was red, their armor was red, the ground was red. And then it would be black - endless and choking as she died and was dragged under.
She remembered the waters used to be at her ankle.
But when she felt the jaws of hounds upon her throat, and watched from beneath the surface as they plucked from her organ and sinew, her stonehard body cast into the fathomless depths of an ocean, she found the memory almost…funny.
She swung her sword savagely at whatever thing she could find, whatever meat it would land on. Even as she shattered steel against steel, there was always more. Swords and blades sprung from the ground like roses in a beautiful garden, always ready for her to water the fields with yet more blood. And how thirsty they were. Her garden flourished, her roses the most beautiful shades of crimson. But the weeds kept growing - she had to kill them, lest they fester in her garden. And so she cut them, and cut them, and cut them.
All the while, the man in white laughed.
Battalions wilted, more and more did they feed her garden. They wailed and cried, just as she did once - but they did not beg for mercy. Not a one. They only obeyed. They threw themselves at her, in droves, one by one - some would succeed, some would kill her. But she would always come back. Red. Black. Red. Black.
The metal men bent like so many branches upon her steel. Their numbers were long lost to her, but she didn’t care. She didn’t have a choice. But ever did they come, faceless, heartless, soulless. She remembered being scared once, but now, in a blooming, crimson garden, she knew it was they who were scared. They feared her just as much as they feared the lash of their master, ordering them all to water her garden with their blood. Pathetic.
Irritating.
The girl smiled.
She felt blades bury into her body again. They drove her to her back.
Red. Black. Red. Black. Red. Black. Red. Black. Red. Black.
Over and over.
She watched the sky above flicker back and forth.
Red. Black. Red and black.
And every time, she felt her mind break. Shards of a mirror, fractured into thousands upon thousands of sharp, bloody fragments in her hand. They fell through her fingers, into the black water, and with every shard, the fog drew closer. Red. Black. Red and black. Life and death. Dead. Alive. Alive. Dead.
She remembered feeling alone once. She remembered how scared she felt.
But the voice in her head was her greatest friend now. They’d gotten to spend so, so much time together, after all. She was the sweetest thing, always there…never leaving her.
Red. Black. Red. Black.
She felt the blades pierce her heart again and again, but it stopped hurting. She couldn’t remember what pain felt like anymore.
All the while, as she died and died and died, the girl heard that man laughing.
Even as she killed tens, hundreds, thousands; he laughed. He didn’t care - it must have been the funniest thing in all the world to him, to see men throw their lives away.
The girl started to laugh, even as she choked on her own blood, even as blades bore into her chest.
She felt the world begin to break. Red and black. Red and black.
And she laughed. She understood what the man in white found so funny.
The voice in her head joined her, and together, they laughed and they laughed.
She found it funny too.
Death is a joke.
Death came to Fordola on shining, fluttering wings wrought of the purest white light, its feathers a twinkling of the stars themselves. It spoke to her, whispered a language incomprehensible to her, but the words comforted her nonetheless. Death came to her and held her close, wrapping arms of the brightest starlight around her, cradling her softly as a warm breeze brushed against her. Fordola felt weightless, unburdened by all the world’s troubles. Death welcomed her into its embrace, and she felt loved.
But Death’s wings could not carry her. Fordola herself was a burden upon it, too weighed down by unconscionable defiance. Chains bound her to the world, chains that held fast to bloodstained hands…to a heavy heart. Fordola could only watch as Death released her, its soft hands pulling away from her own. Wings of light fluttered, and took to the limitless sky, leaving her alone upon paradise’s shore.
The warm breeze returned, and carried Death away from her.
She wanted to call out, to beg for it to come back, but defiance yet burned within her. Death would have to wait. She rose to her feet, the warm sands beneath her bare soles cooled as the gentle crash of waves brought the ocean’s waters beneath her. Paradise called to her as the breeze rolled through the sparse palms along the shore and distant gulls heralded another flawless morning’s arrival. The air smelled of salt and lavender, carried on warm winds from the ocean as the waves rolled over the crystal-white sands of the beach. They crashed with a refreshing spray of seafoam against the shoals, the warm waters rolling past her ankles and rising to meet the bottom of her sundress. She plucked at the hem with her fingers, a smile on her face as the silk narrowly avoided being soaked.
Fordola gazed out onto the ocean, nary a cloud in the azure sky over the horizon, the sun warm and radiant against her olive tone skin. She raised a hand to her brow, pushing aside stray hair and shielding her eyes from the sun. She wanted to savor it…just for a moment.
She took the salty air into her lungs and exhaled slowly. She couldn’t tarry - she had a busy day ahead of her. That much she knew…but a moment more. That’s all she needed to remember it; that endless expanse of ocean under a sunlit sky, stretching out over a cloudless horizon as if there was nothing beyond her shores. Her brow furrowed slightly…the thought was unsettling. Confusing. That couldn’t be right.
Fordola shook her head and rid herself of such troubling thoughts. She took her moment, taking in the vastness of the ocean, and turned away, refreshed and renewed. She walked upon the warm sands, feeling the grit between her toes, stepping heavily on purpose so she might welcome the warmth a little more. The breeze brushed at her back, billowing her dress before her, as if the wind itself was aware of her mischief, driving her along the beach to where the patches of long, dry sea grasses formed a sea of reeds atop the rolling dunes. Fordola couldn’t help but smile, at last quickening her pace. She marched with aplomb to where the dunes parted, a series of sea-worn planks tied in sequence by aged ropes forming fences of sorts against the high dunes and grasses atop them. As she neared the fences, she could see the footpath, a winding trail of wooden planks set atop warm sands that pierced the sea of reeds and rolled up the side of a dune. The trail was long, a series of curves and rises dotted with the occasional worn, wooden post, each bearing a lit lantern upon them, even though it was only midday. At night, she would walk this same trail and light the lanterns herself, and she would relish in the warm glow as they dotted the dunes like fireflies.
Fordola walked along, careful to avoid the planks that had begun to splinter - she knew the ones. She’d asked him time and time again to replace them, but as ever was his way…
She furrowed her brow again and stopped, the wind whistling through the reeds with the gentlest of crackles as the long stalks brushed against one another.
She was confused again…no not confused. She was…she was sure that something was amiss. Jade eyes fell upon the planks - they were perfect. Smooth and untouched by several summers of wear as she had thought they were. Fordola stood in silence among the dunes and reeds, staring at those planks. A moment, a minute passed, and still she stared, looking up and down the trail, at first for the planks she was sure…no, she knew were splintering. But the moment passed, and soon Fordola felt unease as she stood alone along the trail.
Perhaps she was wrong.
All the better; Fordola was none too keen about having to contend with splinters today. She took a quick breath and continued along. She rounded the sharp turn of the dune and passed one of the lanterns, a sprouting of cattails billowing gently in the breeze just behind it. She could see the breeze carry the tiny brown flowers of its stalks out into the endless reeds that stretched all the way to the forest’s edge; her own little faeries, of sorts. She walked along to the base of the dune where a set of steps awaited her, half buried beneath sand drifts, with more of the tied, wooden planks serving as fences on either side. She had once wanted to build a gazebo here - the top of the dune offered one of the best views on the island. From here, not only could one see far out to where the shoals met the deep ocean, but the high cliffs to the far side of the bay on the other side, peeking just over the edge of the forest. At sunset, the cliffsides would be painted orange - towering goliaths of stone and fire all their own. But her gazebo was much like many of her projects - a fleeting fancy that would have to wait. There was always something more important, more pressing, to take care of. She hated having to keep the vision of her perfect home at arms length, but ever was there a need for her attention elsewhere. ‘Some day’, she would tell herself.
Still, she tried not to dwell on such things - for now, she had all she needed. She crossed over the top of the dune and could see the tiny home nestled upon the flowing field of perfect green grasses. It rested just before the hill became a rocky cliff, overlooking the ocean, a pair of twin palms just to the opposite side of it that offered a modicum of shade in the high noon sun. As the path from the dunes ended, so began a cobblestone trail that wound over the hillside, sand becoming grass as she stepped onto the hot stones. Where the dunes were more of a muted beauty, with its sea of golds and rich browns, the hillside was an explosion of colorful wildflowers, reds, yellows, and orange. A rich field of fresh lavender was in full bloom, the long stalks waving to her in welcome as they billowed in the breeze. Honeybees buzzed along dutifully, their fat yellow bodies dancing among the vibrant purples. From here the breeze felt cool against Fordola’s skin - she knew it would be another perfect night to keep the shutters open. And with not a cloud in the sky, she could look forward to falling asleep to the sounds of the waves rolling in pleasantly on the bay.
She stepped lively across the smooth cobblestones, a peculiar spring in her step. Fordola could feel a warmth embrace her heart, one she hadn’t felt since…since…
She tried to remember, but she couldn’t.
That strange confusion set in again.
But before she could consider it, she heard a deep rumble in the distance behind her. She turned to overlook the dunes again, only to see a vast, gray swath of menacing clouds blanketing the horizon, bellowing with thunder as lightning danced madly beneath them. The deep blue of the ocean had become dark, the sun retreating behind cloud cover as a harsh wind rolled in.
Strange. Fordola could have sworn it was a perfect day but moments ago.
Perhaps she misremembered.
No…she was sure of it. She knew.
The ease and warmth in her heart vanished, now replaced by a sharp disquiet that pierced her thoughts. She became troubled; why couldn’t she remember?
She furrowed her brow, the sea of reeds no less torrential than the sea proper, choppy waves crashing against jagged shoals as the storm approached. Her lanterns banged against their posts, rattling in their metal fittings, some few threatening to come loose as the winds surged, blowing against Fordola with enough force that she had to fight against the wind to not become off-balance.
She couldn’t think much more about it; she had to get home.
Fordola quickened her pace, her bare feet slapping against cobblestone as the gentle pitter patter of rain began to clap against the trail. She could feel the tiny wet kisses fall on her skin as she marched up the path, passing wildflowers and lavender being tossed violently as the wind picked up. She passed the tiny enclosure meant for songbirds, bereft of their song as they undoubtedly sought refuge in the cover of the forest. She darted past the small herb garden, leaving behind the trowel piercing the soil, doomed to become even more rusty as the rains approached. Past the plank fence, up the wooden walkway, beneath the high palm, swaying violently in the sky. The rains came just on her heel, crashing down upon the roof of the veranda overlooking the storm-stricken bay. Fordola breathed a sigh of relief, mercifully spared from being drenched.
She rested her hands upon her hips, watching as the colorful field and the golden dunes beyond dulled and became covered in shadow. The blue ocean waters became gray, streaked with whitecaps as high waves rolled in on turbulent winds. Heavy rains veiled the veranda, Fordola’s paradise with it.
“You shouldn’t be here.” she heard someone say.
The voice startled her, and she turned with a jump to face the door of her home.
A young woman, perhaps no older than she, leaned with arms crossed at the doorway. She was tall, muscular, with fire-kissed ginger hair and the greenest eyes she had ever seen. She wore a long, wine-red trench coat with a high, fur collar with its belted sleeves rolled up to her bicep, and stood upon a pair of leather, brass-toed boots. On her back was sheathed a most curious sword. The woman scowled, her narrow eyes staring back at Fordola.
“Who are you?” Fordola demanded, the woman in red uncrossing her arms to stand tall in the doorway, her scowl fading, but a dreadfully serious look remained upon her sharp features.
“Just a visitor. Like you.” she said, her voice gruff.
Fordola shook her head.
“This is my home.” she responded, nearly having to shout for her voice to be heard as the rains poured loudly around them. Fordola hadn’t the foggiest idea who this woman was - she knew everyone on the island. This woman was a complete stranger, to speak nothing of the peculiar clothes she adorned herself in, or the peculiar way she spoke. And yet, when Fordola looked upon her, she did not feel as though she were in danger. Strangely, she felt nothing at all.
“That so?” the stranger asked, co*cking her hip and gesturing to the door with her hand as she rested the other at her side. “Mind letting me in?”
Fordola clutched her hands to her chest, confused.
“Was I…expecting you?” she asked.
The stranger shook her head.
“‘Fraid not, but that doesn’t much change the fact that I’m here now.” She took a step back from the door and waited expectantly. Fordola didn’t feel any reason to distrust the stranger - not that it mattered. If she were some kind of bandit or vagabond, she would find no earthly riches here. What could be the harm? Fordola considered a moment, but ultimately her curiosity got the better of her. After all; she’d never met a stranger before. The idea roused her with excitement.
She stepped to the door, a plain thing wrought from a massive oak from her youth, felled when she reached adulthood for just such a purpose. The metal hinges too were plain, but stout and strong, forged with metals sourced right from the island. The door opened, and Fordola stepped inside, gesturing to the stranger.
“Come in, then.”
The stranger nodded, lowering her head a little as she passed the threshold. Her boots echoed loudly inside upon the long, wooden planks that stretched for malms inside. The massive walls of the interior stretched just as far to the roof far overhead, so far it seemed inconceivably high. A single window sat upon the wall, with two thin, satin curtains billowing gently in the breeze coming in from outside.
Fordola shut the door behind them, relieved to at last be home.
“Pretty spacious.” the stranger remarked. Fordola thought nothing of it, really. It had always been like that. “You live alone?”
“Of course not.” she answered, nonplussed.
“You sure?”
Fordola felt cross, furrowing her brow. Whatever games the stranger was playing, she didn’t much care for them.
“Of course.” she answered. “This is my home. My husband and I built it.”
The stranger took cautious steps, taking in the curiously large, empty space.
“My mistake.” the stranger said. She softened her tone, almost patronizingly. Her green eyes looked warily about the house, as if some fiend might yet lurk in the endless shadows of the distant roof overhead and yet pounce upon them. A ridiculous notion.
“So can I help you?” Fordola asked, quite through with this charade; she had things to do after all. “Why are you here?”
The stranger stopped her pacing to face off toward the back of the house, shaking her head as she placed a hand on her hip.
“I think you need to ask yourself that question.”
“Sod off.” she barked.
Sod off?
Fordola’s fingers shot to her lips, aghast at what she said. But the stranger didn’t seem to mind, she just kept her back to her, always looking to the corners of the room.
“No…really. Ask yourself that question.” the stranger insisted, tilting her head back to look at Fordola over her shoulder. “Why are you here?”
Fordola shook her head. She felt the same confusion from before.
“I live here!” she shouted. “This is my home. My husband and I built it.”
The stranger at last turned to face her, crossing her arms across her chest and scowling.
“So where is he?”
Fordola felt panic crushing at her heart.
“He’s coming home. He said he would.”
The stranger tilted her head.
“And what are you doing?”
“Waiting for him.”
“Why?”
“Because-” Fordola began, but cut herself short. She didn’t know. She couldn’t remember. Why couldn’t she remember?
The stranger must have sensed her fear. She approached Fordola and pointed toward the window, its threadbare curtains still yet blowing gently in the wind.
“Maybe that’ll jostle your memory, aye?”
Fordola furrowed her brow. She had no reason to refuse the stranger; maybe they were right. So she approached the window, letting the gentle kiss of a sunny afternoon breeze fall upon her cheeks. Outside her window, she could see clearly in the radiant sunlight the rolling hills, awash with bright green grasses and dotted with wildflowers. She could see where the high cliffs of the bay stretched out toward the sea, deep oranges and browns practically painted in stripes along the wave-kissed sediment. She could smell the faintest hint of salty sea air and chamomile growing in her garden just outside.
“So?” asked the stranger.
Fordola remembered, and her heart became light again.
“He’ll be home soon. I just have to wait for him.” she insisted.
“Who will?”
“The love of my life - the Warrior of Light.”
The stranger lowered her gaze and looked away; she was pitying Fordola. The stranger sighed.
“You sure?”
Fordola found the question ridiculous.
“What?”
“The Warrior of Light; you sure?”
What a stupid question; but when she searched for a name on the tip of her tongue, she found only fragments. She couldn’t picture him. She couldn’t remember. She stammered, trying to recall, but couldn’t.
The stranger looked to her with somber jade eyes.
“I know… I know it’s hard.” the stranger offered, trying to comfort her. “But…ye’ gotta look out there, okay?”
Fordola was afraid. She didn’t want to.
But the stranger did not relent; she furrowed her brow and pushed against Fordola’s shoulder forcefully.
“Jes’ do it.” she demanded. “If ye’ want ‘im to come back so bad, ye’ should at least know who ‘e is.”
Fordola punched the stranger, striking hard against the purple mark on her cheek, knocking her to a stagger. She felt an unimaginable rage inside her. Who the hell did this bitch think she was?
“Aye, that’s better.” the stranger said, wiping her wrist against her mouth as she found her balance, checking for blood. A few shakes of her head and swatting of her hand with a limp wrist and she crossed her arms across her chest again. “Now, instead of jes’ gettin’ angry, why don’t ye’ listen ‘fer a change.”
Fordola scowled, but now that her knuckles rightly hurt, she wasn’t against not immediately striking the stranger again. Not right away, at least.
The stranger pointed to her window.
“I need ya’ te’ take a look again out there, an’ tell me what ye’ see.”
Fordola swallowed nervously, but even as apprehension seized her, so too did curiosity. So she turned to the window and looked outside.
It was horrifying; the skies were blackened, bloody and bruised as a red sun peered from behind clouds far, far in the distance where starfall showers rained fire from the heavens. Thousands upon thousands of hideous, monstrous creatures swarmed in the sky on ghastly wings, with meaty, barbed tentacles flailing wildly from toothy orifices, and eyes too numerous to count flittering wildly on the lesion-riddled, scaly bodies. The once vibrant hills of rich, verdant green had withered and died, the oceans dried, leaving a wasteland of pockmarked, jagged stones piercing through endless hills of sand. Upon them marched countless more of the bestial things, no two the same, all of them scarred, pustule-ridden grotesqueries, ceaseless churning over the lands in a roil of flesh and blood. They devoured everything in their wake in their tireless march toward the shore. Amid their myriads, spiraling nightmarish towers of mangled flesh and gnarled bone twisted toward the heavens, disappearing into the darkness of the sky beyond.
Fordola felt true fear embrace her, chilling her down to her very soul.
She wanted to look away, but something deep, deep within her wouldn’t allow it. She had to be here, right here…waiting. She couldn’t miss him; she’d waited for so long - today was the day he would return. That’s why she went down to the beach - to see if she could spot his vessel. That’s why the planks of the walkway were all brand new - she replaced them herself, wanting nothing to slow him down on his way up to the house. It’s why all the lanterns lit, just in case he arrived late and it was dark out. It’s why she was so happy that she would get to leave the shutters open tonight; that she might get to experience his flesh in harmony with her own, that her ecstasies could join with nature’s splendor. In the house they built together.
But not like this. This wasn’t her paradise. Not at all.
“What’s going on? Where is he? He said - he promised-”
The stranger raised a gloved finger to the air, and Fordola fell silent.
“I know. Believe me.” she said, tilting her head away from her. “I want him to be here too. But look…the fact is, if that’s what you want, what you truly want, ye’ can’t jes’ sit here and wait for ‘im.”
Fordola shook her head.
The stranger did the same.
“We can’t wait around anymore. The world outside…it’s not going to wait. It’s gonna burn and bleed. You see it, don’t you. Everything…and I mean everything, wants to keep you from him. It’s why we’re here ta’ begin with. Why we sit on our arse, waitin’. Because it’s not supposed to be a happy ending for us. For you.”
Fordola stepped away from the stranger, her words harrowing and striking only the coldest fear into her heart. But the stranger did not hold back. She spat venom at the world.
“But it’s not just him. It’s everyone you love. The river flows, and it flows without mercy. It is not kind. It does not care. All that matters…is order. And we can put an end to it. But not so long as we sit an’ wait.”
“What do we do?” Fordola begged of the stranger.
“We fight. But more than that…we have to forgive.”
“Who?”
The stranger co*cked her head to the side in consideration.
“That part only you can figure out.”
Fordola furrowed her brow.
“Gobsh*te.” she found herself saying.
The stranger chuckled.
“Maybe I am wearin’ off on ye’ ‘fer a change.” she stood straight, her boots echoing loudly against the floorboards as she stepped away from the window and into the vast, empty space at the center of the massive room. “I want ta’ help you. I really do.”
She turned on her heel to face Fordola.
“But before I can, there’s something you gotta do ‘fer me.”
Fordola wasn’t sure what she could possibly do. It took all her strength to even tear her gaze away from the window. But something about the stranger seemed…desperate, as if she had run out of options, despite her air of confidence.
“What would you ask of me?” she asked, her heart heavy.
The stranger nodded, and pointed to the other side of the room.
There, against the wall, was an ornate door, a massive pair of stone slabs surging to where the shadows swirled on high. It was beautiful and haunting, engraved with silver etchings of a lifetime’s worth of stories - she could see a lone father, his face strong and confident. The innocent faces of childhood friends looked upon her and smiled. She saw an aged soldier, face full of doubt as he handed a young, strong woman a quill. There were hundreds more faces, uncountable and beautiful lining the grand doorway in filigree of gold. But for every face wrought from joy and hope, there were a far greater number of faces full of grief, sadness, and hatred. Brave warriors that fought for what they believed in, put to the sword and left to rot in the sun, families torn apart by war as brother fought against brother, a mother who chose the wrong side, a small girl that only got in the way, an old man that raised his voice. There were too many, and upon each face Fordola could feel only the bitter, emptiness of hatred fill her heart. She felt the weight of their sadness, burying down upon her like an ocean tide, sweeping her up in their collective misery. She did not know them, and yet she felt as though the stranger knew every last one of them.
“I need you to open this for me.” the stranger asked.
Fordola shook her head. She couldn’t. It was too much.
But the stranger took a step forward, her voice cracking with desperation.
“You have to. You’re the only one left who can.”
“Impossible.”
“It can’t be.”
“It is.”
“Why?”
Fordola thought to protest, but for the life of her she couldn’t find an answer to the stranger’s question. She dug deep in her memory, but she had been here for so many lifetimes, so many eons, waiting for her Warrior of Light to come home, she had forgotten…and that scared her. She didn’t know why. All she had ever wanted was to keep her eyes fixed, forever upon the window. The stranger reached out to her, her gloved fingers warm and gentle in Fordola’s hand. The stranger looked at her with all the sadness her verdant eyes hid behind them. For all of Fordola’s waiting…it might have paled in comparison to what hardships the stranger knew.
“You have to forgive.” the stranger insisted. “You have to move on. Or he won’t ever come back.”
Fordola’s body shivered, as if a blizzard had swept through her house, a chill so striking and merciless, she winced. And when she opened her eyes, the stranger was gone.
Fordola swept her eyes over the house. Everything was as she remembered - their bed, tucked away on the other side of the house where the sun wouldn’t blind them in the morning, the kitchen, sparsely populated with ceramics ready for washing, the thinning rug passed down to her from her father still faithfully covering the creaky floorboard. Upon the walls were the same cuts of wildflowers and lavender in freshly potted soils, nestled between his shelves of heavy leather tomes in a language she didn’t understand. The table, with just the two chairs for either of them to enjoy a warm cup of tea on the open veranda, sat waiting for their next cozy evening. It was all there, just as it should be. And so too was her window, with its satin curtain billowing gently in the wind.
Fordola breathed a sigh of relief - the rains would soon come; she could smell it on the winds and feel it in the air. She turned toward the window, the gentle breeze kissing against her sundress in such a pleasant way that it was all she could do to gaze longingly outside. Her eyes fell listlessly upon paradise, the perfect place for a home for just the two of them.
Paradise?
Confusion again. That couldn’t be right. This wasn’t paradise. Fordola couldn’t say why she thought that…but she knew in heart that it was true.
She looked outside again, at the verdant fields and drifting oak branches in the forests that raced up the gentle cliffside overlooking the bay. It was serene; perfect.
Perfect?
“No…” she said. “No there’s something…I have to…”
She thought long and hard, but remembering had become difficult these days. She even forgot her own name every now and again. That’s what happened when you spent a lifetime waiting…
Waiting?
Why?
She turned away from the intoxicating window, shaking her head.
“No. No, I have to go.” she said.
When she looked away she saw something she did not recognize - a door, not to the outside or to another room. Upon its surface were myriad faces; those that had once been and those that always would be. They were small, but each and every one was different. In gold filigree they were as a beautiful mosaic, but upon the silver door they were haunting. She felt afraid, dulled only by the dizzying, hypnotic drive deep within her to simply return to the window. She knew she had to wait there or she might miss him…but…
She placed a hand against the door, not questioning why or how it appeared here but why she had not opened it. It had always been there. She couldn’t remember seeing it, but she knew it was there.
The window called to her, a rolling thunder far beyond the confines of the house signaling a coming storm. Rain started to pour outside, heavy drops splashing into the house, demanding her attention.
But she denied it. It could wait. She had all the time in the world to tend to those things, but right now…she had to open the door.
Or else he wouldn’t come home.
Or else she wouldn’t come home.
She pulled upon the golden handles of the door, parting its polished silver slabs and revealing the awful, burning, white light beyond its threshold. She dare not step inside.
The mysterious stranger was her only hope now.
And she would have to fight as well as forgive.
Lest it all be for nothing…
She recalled the words, seared upon her memory like a brand - a scar she could not forget, so deep and cutting were those words, burned forever to remain when all else had faded.
Woe betide this ailing star;
Accursed eternity comes for us.
Woe betide the lifeweavers;
Endless empty befalls their souls.
Woe betide the coming dark;
Our sanctuary waits in silence.
Woe betide the Mantle bearer;
Our existence your undying charge
Now…
Weightlessness. Fordola felt for a moment, as her vision blurred and distorted the world around her - whatever loathsome world it was - that she was flying. Feeling returned first to her fingertips, then slowly to her arms, her legs, her head. She could feel herself floating, her muscles at ease, her heart calm. Darkness and light bled into one another as she stared out blankly into the sky, if one could call it that. The endless expanse ahead of her was dizzying to look at; a blur of night and day in a slow, hazy war of attrition. It was as if she were staring into a painting with far too much paint upon its canvas, the whites, blacks, and grays rolling slowly down and spilling over onto the horizon where gigantic pillars of dark, crumbling stone sat still and silent, not a one standing straight. They were few, but the monolithic structures dotted the landscape with crooked fingers of incomprehensible size, uselessly reaching out to the melting sky as they all but toppled over, their foundations failing them.
Fordola felt disquieted. When she stepped into Styx with Eiserne, there was an endless roil, an off-key symphony of horrific screams and howls. She remembered the calamitous crashing of waves against her as she was dragged below, the damned souls’ dirge muffled as Styx surrounded her, but their biting howls no less deafening. Here though…here was oddly quiet. She thought for a moment that perhaps she had truly died, that she herself was afloat within the flow of Styx now. The thought was terrifying, the sense of failure gripping at her heart with icy claws, stilled only as she felt water lap against her, the gentle touch of her hair floating across her brow. Emptiness and sadness seized at her, and she felt herself sinking….slowly and gently.
Fordola felt water rush into her lungs. It was thick…sour. It burned as it raced down her nose and into her throat, her body seizing as the foul liquid burned its way into her core. For all the weightlessness she had felt, it was well gone now as she righted herself to hack and cough. She had been floating on her back, adrift upon knee high water of blackest pitch. She spat it from her mouth and heaved, able to sit up with the water's surface barely at her waist, knees piercing the surface.
She rose to her feet, the muddy water dripping from her coat with a slosh as it returned to the mire. Penance sat beside her, its point buried down into the mud, as if it had been planted there after falling from a great height. Fordola pulled it out of the muck and slid it onto the holster at her back, taking stock of her surroundings.
Much as she had seen in her daze, floating upon the surface, the sky was a bleeding mess of grays and blacks beset by stretches of thin, white clouds over a quiet horizon. The pillars that sat falling and breaking over themselves matched in similar design to the ones she had seen at Styx, though these were far more languished, sinking into water. They were cracked and broken, columns of colossal size laid low as the murk sat motionless against their surfaces, the intricately carved skulls and bones eroded into barnacle-laden, worn away ruins. Unlike their fellows, numerous and towering over the shores of Styx, these were few in number, not a one able to stand tall upon its foundations, most canted against the sky, ready to collapse under their own weight at any moment.
The waters too were different. When she had stepped into Styx, it was like stepping into the ocean, waves and currents of cold water rushing against her with all the force of nature behind them, to speak nothing of the dreadful strength possessed by the souls drowning eternally in the depths clutching onto her and dragging her down. Even as one stood upon the surface, the depths were limitless, an abyss where souls churned endlessly and innumerably. As Fordola took a cautious step here, however, she could feel no clawing and clutching from the dead. She could distinctly feel her boots bury into a floor of mud and sludge. Styx’s waters felt as a river’s should - a powerful current washing against her, threatening to sweep her into it once she set foot into its depth, but here…here there was only stagnancy. The waters, miresome and murky, were still, save for the ripples caused by her own movements.
Fordola looked all around, unable to find any sense of direction. She was at the center of a vast swamp, stretching out into all directions with neither a shore, nor any notable features beyond the toppled pillars here and there. She was alone.
“Eiserne!” she shouted, her voice carrying endlessly onto the horizon with nary an echo in response. Fordola looked around, her head darting in several directions. Nothing stood out from the endless expanse of black swamp, not so much as a ripple or a distant splash or even a breeze. All was still. All was lifeless and stagnant.
“sh*te…” she growled to herself. She steeled herself; this wasn’t the time to falter. She had to find Eiserne. She had to bring them home. She had to.
She took another step, sloshing through the foul water, her splashing through the swamp the only distinct sound. Fordola waded ahead, unsure if she were heading in the right direction…or heading anywhere for all that mattered. Minutes passed and became hours. She pressed onward, tirelessly through the knee-high murk. The mud beneath her boots made for poor footing, the thick, oily water fighting her, making the trek all the harder as she pressed on.
She shouted for Eiserne, but each time she was met with grim silence. She reached one of the pillars that had served as a landmark for her journey, hoping to find something, anything of interest at its toppled base. The pillar was made of dark stone, matte and without any sort of luster, towering even on its side far overhead, as tall as any of Ala Mhigo’s tenements on Low Street. Along its weathered surface she could see what once was the nightmarish rows of skulls uncountable embedded upon its surface, but in the soggy mire of the vast swamp, even their terrifying visages were smoothed to be little more than unfinished facsimiles of those upon Styx. Fordola could stand upon the large, fractured base of the column, rising just above the muddy waters, lapping softly against the ancient stone as she approached, hoisting herself from the mud for a reprieve from the endless trudge.
She sat, soaked and tired atop the ruins, resting against her arms behind her and closing her eyes under the blurry gray sky. She could hear the meager waves of her own wake slap quietly against the stone, but beyond that, the endless swamp was dreadfully silent - maddeningly so. It was all Fordola could do to not hear her own heartbeat or the ringing in her ears. She focused on the sounds of the water dripping from her coat upon the stone, the faintest patter breaking the awful silence.
Doubt pierced her heart as she sat with her own thoughts for a time.
Maybe she was dead after all. This place certainly felt like hell.
No. She couldn’t allow that to be true.
She took a short breath and leaned forward, her legs aching from all the walking. She could see another column, crooked and sinking into the swamp some many, many malms away, but beyond that there was little to speak of. The same could be said in any direction, even from whence she came. For all her trudging, Fordola could very well be heading further into the swamp, not away from it. She couldn’t tell where it ended or where it began - it was flat, with not so much as even the slightest curvature to offer any sort of meaningful horizon under a cloudy, dull sky that could not decide whether to be dark or light. In the endless gloom, this place was somehow more terrifying than Styx or the Resonance. To be able to comprehend the sheer vastness of the space, to see with her eyes that there was truly just no end was worse than the imperceptible void she was used to. Even the waters here somehow made it worse - unable to stand atop its surface as she always had in the Resonance or to be able to retreat to a tangible shoreline on Styx, the swampy mire here was just a giant, stagnant pool of thick, knee-high waters.
“Eiserne!” Fordola yelled out into the distance once more, determined to make this place yield to her some measure of answer, some path. But nothing called back to her, nothing changed, the swamp as still and silent as it had always been. She roused herself to her feet, stepping from the crumbled stone foundation and splashing back into the water, setting off toward the next column.
Minutes became hours became as days, and yet, for all the ground she should have covered, Fordola turned ahead to her destination to find it no less further away. When she turned around, the column she had left behind felt just as far. Every pillar that yet reached pitifully toward the sky lay almost equidistant from her. It was a trick of the eye; a delirium caused by endless trudging through swamp without end - surely. She had to believe it, or else she would find that the doubt and hesitation tapping its hungry claws against her heart might at last have its prize.
She dragged her feet forward, throwing her shoulders into every step as the muddy waters fought against her, the sound of her legs sloshing through the swamp becoming a mind-numbing ticking of a clock, reminding her of seconds, minutes, and hours passed.
Days became seasons became years.
Fordola couldn’t tell anymore. She was tired. Her legs ached beyond reason, her stomach churning in her guts, her head throbbing as the landscape around her never changed, her destination never getting closer, where she began going no further from her. Her head hung heavily upon her shoulders, her eyes staring blankly into the water as she walked and walked and walked. She lost all sense of herself, all sense of direction - she may have very well been walking in circles for all she knew. She could feel time itself wearing down upon her, as if she’d spent a lifetime and then some walking. And yet, when she stopped to take a break, to grant momentary respite to her failing body, an overwhelming sense that she had only just started would refresh her, as if her body refused to allow her to stop. She knew in her heart that she had to find Eiserne - she had to keep going. She was here…she had to be…she was out there, waiting.
Her legs gave out. She was so very tired. She fell face-first into the mire, choking on its stagnant, foul water, forcing her arms to lift her from its grip. Black beads of mud rolled down her face and dripped from her hair as she stared into the water. She could see her reflection, waving and warped as the ripples of her impact carried the tiniest of waves along beneath her. Despite everything, despite all of the horror, all of the guilt and suffering, all of the death and deception of her journey, Fordola looked as she always had. Despite the eternal march here in the unknown, she was as she always remembered. Green eyes, olive skin, orange hair; meager colors that reflected upon the black surface. Droplet of water fell to the drink from her hair, creating ripples in her reflections, breaking the stoney gaze of Fordola Lupis staring back at her.
“Oi…you…” Fordola said to herself, perhaps overcome with delirium. “Ye’ look like sh*te…”
She chuckled to herself, chancing a half-crazed, meager smile.
“Ye’ knew it wouldn’t be easy. Always…always gotta do things the hard way, don’t ya’? Always pickin’ a fight. That’s what ye’ always did, even when we were kids. Even when the other kids outnumbered you, or were bigger than you. Didn't matter, did it? Didn’t even think fer’ a moment…”
She sat back upon her legs, knees pressed against the mud, pulling herself away from the water to stare into the sky, the mud still dripping from her face and plinking softly around her as it rejoined with the vast swamp.
“Guess this is what I deserve, eh?” she said exasperatedly. “Jes’ my luck.”
She laughed, again unsure if she was losing herself to an encroaching madness.
“How you doing out there, Stash?” she asked of the sky. “Ye’ probably already thrashed the Endsinger, didn’t ya’? Feh, I know you did. And I’ll bet everyone was happy to see you come home, weren’t they?”
She sighed.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there… I know I promised, but…well…”
She shrugged, dropping her arms into the water with a splash.
“I got tied up, ya’ see.” she said, staring blankly into the blurry gray clouds yet warring over a coming dawn or the grip of night. “I know ye’ won’t mind. Yer’ too damned nice to hold a grudge… That’s why…that’s why I love you. That’s why I know you’ll wait for me.”
She rose to her feet with a grunt, dragging herself from the mud with a loud slosh.
“I had a hard time figurin’ out…” she said with a strain, straightening her back out. “...how ye’ could do what ye’ did. ‘How’s does he do it,’ I’d ask.”
Fordola dragged her feet along, taking another step.
“But I think I get it.” she said, head dizzy. “Ye’ see, when I first met Eiserne, I thought…’Oi, now that’s a daft one.’ Aye, she is a bit, but ever since I met her, I jes’ knew that she’s one of the good ones. Didn’t matter what she’d done in the past, I saw her try an’ do some good. I knew so long as she had someone kind in her life, she’d return that kindness.”
She marched on, talking plain to herself, as if Stash were beside her listening intently.
“Everyone says she’s crazy, that she’s not even human. But when I look at her, I don’t see all that anymore. I see a poor girl trying to figure out her place in the world. See…that’s when I got it.”
Her legs carried her with just a bit more fervor now, the numbing bite of aches soothed to little more than a precarious sting.
“When you looked at me, you didn’t see a kinslayer, or a Resonant monster, or a traitor. You didn’t see someone that needed to be fixed. I think…maybe it’s just like when I see Eiserne. I don’t see a husk, or a crazy person, or a lost cause. I don’t want to fix her. I want to fix the world around her. I want Eiserne to thrive in the world as she is - as she truly is, because what’s there…what’s broken about her is what’s beautiful. It’s what shines brightest. It’s just the world that wants to convince her she is a monster, that what makes her her is wrong. They want to shackle her to the person the world made of her, the person she isn’t anymore…someone I don’t even think she ever was.”
Fordola nodded to herself, her heart dancing with a gentle static.
“You want to fix the world so that those we love can flourish, right Stash?” she said with a smile. “Well that’s what I want ta’ do. I want to fix the world so I can love you as I am. I want to fix the world so you can love me as you are. I want the world to look at Eiserne and love her too, for all that she is now, not just what she was. I want her to know love in a world that loves her too… So we’ll fix it, won’t we? Aye…”
She took a step and felt a tug upon her heel.
As her vision blurred, she thought she could see Eiserne, with her upturned twintails just in the distance. She had her back to Fordola, her lithe form almost incorporeal from this distance. She stood silently some unfathomable malms away
Fordola almost laughed. A mirage, most likely - a vision from a weary mind long-traveled through this hell.
“Don’t worry, Eiserne…” she muttered. “Don’t worry - I’m coming… Your friend is coming. Fordola is comin’...”
The waters churned, murky and black.
Fordola pulled harder, fighting against the sudden grip of fingers upon her boot. She took another step, and from the dire black she could see shapes form just beneath the surface, hands and fingers of pure white reaching just through the depths as if they sought to grab hold of the surface itself.
“Don’t listen to them… They’re wrong. I’ll show them.”
Eiserne’s head turned away, and she began to walk slowly toward the endless horizon, her silhouette unmistakeable against the roiling gray sky and murky black swamp.
Fordola seized another stop from the frail grasp, arms and hands half form in the mud reaching out in desperation to find purchase against her, skin glistening white and wet as black muck trailed behind them.
“Even now…” Fordola said quietly, throwing her shoulders into her steps once again, passing the rising forms as they stood slowly beside her.
“Even now…the world doesn’t want to be fixed.”
She pulled her foot from the mire, freeing herself from the clutch of pure white hands reaching up from the depths like so many weeds tangling around her.
She laughed, not sure if she was truly delirious, the rising masses of human forms, withered, ghastly mannequins in of the purest white pulling themselves from stagnant swamp. They lurched toward her, no two the same, trudging through the mire, their white bodies staining the black waters with pure white as if their skin melted into a viscous oil around them.
Fordola could feel hands rising from the water to grab at her arm, desperate and clawing through the air to find her from the shallows, each limb flooding the stagnation with white from where it protruded. She whipped her arms free, threw herself into every step. A grin crossed her lips as light shined in the green of her eyes once more.
“Fight all you want…” she said, pushing through the rising tangle of wet, white arms and hands that rose from the swamp all around here, the rising tide of forms forming a wall of bodies on either side of her as she pressed on toward Eiserne. “But whatever fate you want…”
She drew Penance from her back.
“Whatever fate you decided for me and her…”
She swung her sword at the tangle of arms, the writhing mass withering into a foul, white ooze before her.
“I’ll prove to you it’s wrong.”
They lined up in an endless row on either side of her, keeping safe distance, but ensuring she could not stray from the path. In her wake the ceaseless tangle of hands churned, reaching out toward her and grabbing hold with frail grips. Fordola rebuked them, summoning all of her strength to trudge through the mire. She was confined to a river of white, the bodies of faceless shades the banks on either side, and though the waters became blinding, they did not fight against her. She pressed onward, taking from the horde each step by sheer force.
A form rose up before her along the path, drenched in white oil that poured over its flesh, revealing a young hyur, clad in Ala Mhigan leathers, his hands tied behind him as he looked upon her with fear in his plain eyes.
“Aldis Akelos…” she announced as she approached the form. “You were the first.”
The hyur watched as she passed him, falling to his knees, a look of sheer terror upon his face as he sloshed into the muck. Fordola grit her teeth and fought for her steps beside him.
“The first one I killed.”
The hyur’s head parted from his shoulders, severed in a spray of white sludge by an invisible blade, the tortured, vacant look upon his features stared lifelessly at her as the head fell into the waters and melted slowly in Fordola’s path. Another form arose from the waters - a young Ala Mhigan girl, barely old enough to fit the helmet covering her face, baring her sword against Fordola with unsteady hands. Fordola pressed toward her, the girl mustering some level of courage enough to charge her, but as if struck by an unseen foe, she stopped, a puncture erupting at her stomach.
“Lynne…sister of Rogert… An Ala Mhigan resistance fighter. Too young…”
Lynne’s body sat in stunned silence, the all-white recreation dropping her sword, the gleaming white facsimile falling into the mire with an unceremonious splash. She clutched her hands at her stomach and fell back, crawling away from Fordola in the waters, her hand raised, begging for mercy.
Fordola passed beside her, the shade of young Lynne falling limp, never finding the mercy she sought.
Six forms rose up from the waters, clad in Garlean steel, their hands bound and in a row on their knees, blindfolded.
“Gustavyl Rainswell…” Fordola said as her eyes fell upon the first of them, a balding roegadyn. “Resistance informant…”
The hulking shape of the man shook his head fervently, his mouth moving though no words escaped him. His head jerked forward suddenly, sending him forcefully into the waters with a muddy splash.
Fordola beheld the next in line.
“Evedra Rainswell… His wife. Resistance informant.”
So too the woman suffer the fate of her husband, her body sent limp into the water.
Fordola beheld the next, a stout highlander shaking madly in his chains, screaming, begging…
“Titus Fortworth. Confidant to Rainswell.”
His silenced cries ceased as his body went limp.
The last in line was an old elezen, his breaths short and labored, head held high.
“Claudio Fuilant. Co-conspirator.”
He too met the fate of his fellows, sent with little of his skull intact as he was coldly executed.
Fordola pressed through their stilled bodies as they slowly melted into the water.
Yet more forms arose, hundreds, far into the distance. Fordola could feel their loathsome stares upon her. They did not speak, and so she spoke for them.
A highlander girl half her size ran from her, only to be struck in the back by an invisible blade that tore across her shoulders.
“Genevieve…I never knew your surname… Conspirator against the crown.”
Two highlander men, the larger of the two confined to a crutch, the smaller, though no less brawny, stood before him, using his body to protect the other. Their gruff countenances were no less fearful of her now than when she knew them in life.
“Corto Thorne.”
The brother at the fore flinched, his brother forced to watch as he was dragged by unseen hands and tossed to the ground. The wet, white of his neck severed, the glossy recreation of his hands clutching at the wound as he choked on white blood.
“Desertion.” Fordola said, dragging her feet from the endless clutch of hands behind her. The eldest brother began to flail, as if in the clutches of ghostly assailants. His face roared silently, laced with rage and sadness all the same.
“Ogmus Thorne.”
His eyes went wide as a puncture erupted in his chest, the rage in his eyes dissipating as he toppled over…crutch and all.
“‘Casualty’…”
They melted beside her, joining the legion of ghoulish arms and wriggling hands.
A miqo’te stood before her, well in his years.
“M’rollo Dherigal. Supplied arms to the enemy.”
He was cut down with his back turned, never once suspecting himself in danger.
Two full rows of Garlean soldiers stood at her flank, raising swords and spear high as she passed.
“Godwin Hooper. Erisa Stonemaul. Agatnyst Gerthoeg. Eorhic Sternmast. Adda Prodvhyne. Solomund Hyundyr. Daisiene Palon. Tsudenaka Angura. Noble Moon. Odessa M’reeha. Shishicupa Ninicupa. Adelbert Rime.”
They saluted her, slowly sinking into the mire in her wake, their behelmeted faces stoic and unafraid as they dissolved in the white mud.
“XIIth Legion, Ala Mhigan Battalion, 5th Division, 3rd Unit. Died in battle against Ala Mhigan Resistance at my command. Ambushed en route.”
Another unit arose from the depths, locked in a slow, foul recreation of battle against unseen foes.
“XIIth Legion, Ala Mhigan Irregulars, 6th Division. Conscripts…ordered to hold the line as the main units retreated.”
Their bodies slowed to a standstill, their swords and rifles still poised against their foes, even as their fellows erupted into splashes, as if struck by artillery…
Ala Mhigan soldiers rose from the murk, colliding against the Garleans, baring steel and moving to surround Fordola. She trudged toward them, their hateful gazes just as painful as when she felt them upon her. They swung at her, and so too did she meet them in kind, Penance striking them down as they came for her head.
“Sylvar Boarsblood,” she said as she swung her sword, loathsome hands rising from the swamp trying to catch her blade or sword arm in their clutches as she laid low the broad highlander man before her. “He had a son, not even two summers…”
Another tried to find purchase with a crazed swing of his axe, but she stepped to the side and rebuked him, as though she had rehearsed this macabre stage play.
“Roland Marr,” she grunted as she drove her blade through him, the highlanders face stunned and driven to the mud. “A woodsman; never thought he’d never see his mother again.”
Two more rushed her, a woman trying to bring a spear down upon Fordola but the shaft snapped and sent the woman reeling to the ground as Penance intercepted the strike.
“Meryn Cornflower, wife of Destin Cornflower, killed at Rhalgr’s Reach.” Fordola said as her blade swung across the woman’s throat, tossing her with a splash of oily, white muck at Fordola’s side. She dragged her gunblade through her toppling body in time to bury the point into a lanky elezen that hadn’t prepared a spell fast enough, crumbling with a silent cry as her blade found his flank.
“Treovaux Duinubault…” she grunted, heaving herself past his crumbling, robed body as hands raked fingers over her boots, slowing her down. She slashed Penance through them like weeds, fighting again for every step. “...had only just finished his introduction to thaumaturgy. Too young…”
That left only one more among their number, the young highlander’s face mostly obscured behind a half helm. He wavered behind his shield, his knees shaking as the bodies of his fellows melted behind her, their sleek, white masses congealing with all the rest.
“And you…” Fordola said, smashing her sword against his shield, the glossy white surface splintering as though it were truly made of wood, knocking the broad highlander to his rear, slashing wildly with his sword as he fell. Fordola made easy work of his attacks, swatting his sword away with her own.
She trudged ever closer to him, the man cowering beneath her.
His helmet slid from his head, pulled free by unseen hands, revealing the fearful, aged man beneath it. He shook his head wildly, throttled and slammed to the ground with a splash.
“Devin Braithe…son of Dame Braithe. She threw the first stone.”
His horrified face fell away from her, consigned to the mire as his throat was cut slowly from end to end.
There ahead of her, she could see the crowd form.
“Would that she had lived long enough for me to find her. But you had to do, Devin.” Fordola whispered, approaching the crowd. She remembered this place all too well. She remembered the heat of the sun reflected from the sandstone bricks. The shop stalls, with their various goods and merchants behind them calling to the crowd…she could name every one, recall every odd and end, how the workshops smelled of sulfur and sawdust, how the flames crackled beneath the steaming stewpots. She recalled every detail, so much so that as she approached the crowded Ala Mhigan street before her, recreated in oily white, she felt only contempt for the poor fabrication.
“Bennard, the carpenter’s apprentice - he threw the second.” she said, slashing through an endless tangle of gruesome arms. She remembered him well - dark skin, graying hair, despite his young age, and full of vim and vigor. He appeared beside her, his wrists clasped in irons, chaining him to a wall with a small bowl out of reach as his withered body hung motionless and melting slowly. “I wondered what would kill you first - the starvation or the sun.”
The crowd drew nearer, Ala Mhigans rushing to join their excited fellows as they swarmed into a circle.
“Gaddolfyrd Vorheim, a disgraced tradesman turned street beggar.” she said, dragging her feet along. “He threw the third.”
He appeared beside her, slumped against a wall with a bottle in hand, barely able to stand on his own.
“Easy enough to find on my own…” she growled as the stupefied Ala Mhigan was slammed against the brick wall, splattering white against it. He tried to fight back, but in his state as were, he was helpless to stop the repeated slamming of his head, again and again, until at last his struggles ceased.
The crowd drew nearer and nearer, and though they were silent now, she could recall every shout, every excited, bloodthirsty cheer, the heavy crack of stones being thrown all around her. She remembered her mother, begging the Imperial soldiers to help.
“Pilus Prior Devereux Stal, XIIth Legion…” Fordola said with a glower as a muscular elezen sprung from the cover of the bedsheets, naked and unprepared as he tried to preserve his decency and his life all the same. Fordola remembered how he begged, no longer the silver tongued womanizer all-to-eager to follow Fordola’s siren call to her chambers. She remembered the stink of him, the garish cologne he wore to try and mask the smell of the other aan he had bed that night. He fell to his knees, naked and pleading silently. “No one would come to help you either…”
He raised his hand before him, eyes wild, desperate for escape. He was flung violently to the floor, his chest punctured over and over in a spray of white.
She drew closer to the crowd, the raucous cries of “Traitors! Traitors!” as loud in her head now as they had been that day, huddled beneath her father. She could see them, each one now - their faces as distinct then as they would be when she killed them.
“Viviene Shulmoore, baker. She threw the fourth. A mother, slain in her kitchen. Sedition. Torbin Hamm, the neighbor down the hall. He threw the fifth. Father was at his wedding. Hung by the neck for conspiracy. Berddard Ackleson, the sixth. Never knew him. Suspected treason.”
She watched them die, their tortured faces unchanged from her memory.
“Teron M’llorro, he threw the seventh and eighth. Was one of Ozwald’s regulars. Treason. Firing squad.”
The crowd parted before her, their white masses becoming formless sludge when she forced them to part. The crowd did not make a sound, but she could hear them, clear as day. She remembered how they laughed, how they found such joy from their misery. She could see him, her father, huddled over her, shielding Fordola from their wrath. She remembered the sound of the stones pelting him, the merciless rap of them colliding against his back, how he tried to speak kindly of the savage monsters that yet threw stone after stone upon him. She could see herself, a child, cowering beneath him, protected in his strong arms, powerless to stop them. Ganfryd Lupis, her father…her hero; not once did he curse them, not once did he wish them harm. He only did what he thought was best for them, only ever did what was best for everyone but himself. The only good man in Ala Mhigo…
She stood before them all now, in the mire of white, watching as they threw heavy stones at him, barbaric glee on their faces, trying to find just the right angle so that a stone might hit young Fordola as she wept in her father’s protection. She watched as each and every stone fell upon him, dragging her feet through the thick, swampy white water. She did not look to the crowd; she kept her eyes upon her father, emotion welling up inside her.
“Sybil Roenworth!” she yelled as the ninth stone struck him. “‘Casualty’ at Rhalgr’s Reach!” The Reach burned like a candle, the flames still warm against Fordola’s skin. The woman had surrendered, but so too had her father. The dead and dying under her care would have to watch hope die before them as the healer was cut down, pleading for her life.
“Danforth Olent!” she cried upon the tenth. “First to hurl words, but too cowardly to cast the first stone. Death by firing squad!” She could hear the crack of gunfire, the taste of gunpowder in the air as she ordered her men to fire. She remembered how sweet the sight of his lifesblood splashed against the wall was to her.
“Teek M’oro!” The eleventh stone struck as loudly as she remembered, even in the silence of the mire. “Died by the sword in his own home!” She could hear him beg for his life, plead for mercy as he and his children cowered. She remembered his daughter’s screams as the Skulls held them down with boots at their necks, by Fordola’s command, forcing them to watch their father die by her sword.
“Zellaro Zellemo!” The twelfth crashed against her father. “Fed to the hounds!” She remembered his pitiful shrieking, the tearing of flesh. She remembered how fondly he loved those dogs; how quickly they turned on their master when she ordered them starved.
She screamed their names, trying to drown out the sounds of her father’s voice as he drew his last breaths, as he begged Fordola to understand, to sympathize with them. She yelled their names to whatever hell this was that she found herself in. She roared their names against the hands of fate that tried endlessly to hold her back. This place thought to make mockery of this moment, that she might have somehow forgotten their names, her deeds, their deaths. But she defied this hell, their names never lost - their histories and futures now as much a part of her soul as her own.
The last stood before her now; a massive highlander man with a bald head, his broad muscles glistening white as he raised the final stone in his hand.
“Osric Deckland.” Fordola growled - his was a name she would never forget, a face as familiar as any she claimed within her memory…perhaps even the most familiar. She remembered how difficult he was to find. She remembered the long nights combing through conscription logs, the days and days that would pass as she waited for correspondence with Trevor’s connections abroad. She could just as easily recall the alley where she greased the palm of the Praefectus with her month’s salary for but a single name, the rage she felt as she watched his former confidantes hang from the gallows, the silence she received from the Imperial scriveners. She remembered the smell of the dusty shack where she at last found him, the emptiness she felt when he hadn’t the foggiest who she was, the shrieks of the whor*s that yet warmed his bed as they fled when she bared her steel. She remembered how much hatred burned in her veins for this man, who didn’t even know the name Ganfryd Lupis. She remembered the choking emptiness she felt when she had finished torturing him, how not once did he realize who she was. She could feel the sting of purpose lost when he was a man of no significance…just a migrant worker in from Limsa Lominsa, eager to throw a stone at some pathetic stranger, swept up in a moment of so little consequence to him, unaware that Fordola Lupis had spent the better part of fifteen summers thinking of little more than the day where she might impart but a fraction of her suffering upon him. She could feel it, even now, the vacuum left behind in her heart as she roared against the mire.
“You think I forgot! Do you?” she screamed, slashing through the smiling recreation of Osric Deckland, in all his meaningless glory. “You think to break me upon their names? Is this your idea of hell?”
She approached her father, sloshing through the white mud as the thicket of hands fast approached her in her wake, the faceless millions lined upon the bank of the white mire staring back at her in callous silence. She watched as the massive stone struck her father in the head, prying him at last from the recreation of Fordola and sending him splashing into the mud. She watched as her little self clamored over her father’s recreated corpse.
“It’s a cheap copy of the one in here!” she bellowed, pounding her offhand against her chest. “So come on then! Let me help you, seeing as you forgot quite a few!”
She tore her legs from the swamp, stepping forcefully through the image of her father, her eyes locked ahead now on the distant silhouette of Eiserne. Fordola roared, fighting with all her strength as the tangle arms at her back grew and grew, more and more arms reaching out to grab her.
“Geffrid Sharpe, Brunylda’s husband! Charlet Hale! He was my friend, and I had to kill him!” she roared. “Trevor Eastwind! Lyle Hornsby! Jonas Parn! Gransyf! Thomas! Brunylda Sharpe, all died because of me! Need you another? Chiros mal Adafar! He’s dead because I trusted him! Royster, Rigg, Juniper, Magnus, Gryffyld, and Wattson! All the Blackbloods died because I wanted to play hero!”
She tore through the swamp, a tide of loathsome hands in her wake, marching ever onward to where Eiserne stood, watching silently. Fordola refused to stop, even as hands raked across her, grabbing at her arms, her shoulders, her leg. Milky white hands clamored to find purchase, writhing with myriad fingers in an endless swamp, stretching out as far as the eye could possibly see. The mire became as one giant, undulating mass of the dead, each vying to be the one to claim Fordola Lupis, to be the named soul that would exact their bitter revenge and bring her into the lonely, silent embrace of death.
Fordola screamed with fury, slashing Penance into the thicket of hands, tearing their forms into streaks of white, muddy slosh in the air, cleaving away as she warred for every step, every ilm. Eiserne drew closer, her sad, purple eyes staring back at Fordola.
Fordola clenched her teeth as she tore her arms free of the ghoulish white hands.
“Do you need another? Is there one name you wish for me to claim?”
Penance cleaved and cleaved, carving an ever smaller path as the writhing mass of hands coalesced around her, drowning the faceless shades along the bank in their grotesque tide. Fordola felt cold, wet fingers wrap around her neck from behind. They wriggled and dragged their nails into her cheeks, pulled at her hair, groped at her brow, desperate to bury Fordola for good in their sodden, foul clutches. She spat and she screamed, defiance blazing within her like an inferno, stoking her muscles to fight against the inexorable pull as Eiserne stood just out of reach now. She looked to Fordola silently, as colorful and alive as she remembered, but devoid of any emotion. She did not smile, she did not frown. She simply stood, watching Fordola slowly be dragged down.
Fordola jerked her head from the loathsome grip of the many, refusing to surrender.
“You will not have her!” she roared.
Penance was ripped from her grasp, lost to the mire. Fordola tore her swordarm out toward Eiserne amid a splash of white mud as arms were ripped from the mass, the rest of her body drowning under the ceaseless mass of hands.
A final roar. A final push. Fordola, her Resonant eye blazing crimson against the sea of white, burst forth from the horrible grip of hands a final time, her body consumed in a black pyre. She erupted from the white, eye afire, crying out to her friend.
“Her name is not mine to claim!”
Her hands wrapped around Eiserne’s shoulders. She felt the cold touch of her skin. She pulled her close. She rested her head against the young woman’s shoulder. She closed her eyes and held Eiserne tightly.
“Fordola…” she heard her say.
And then she was gone.
Fordola opened her eyes, the burning of the Resonance smothered from her sight. Eiserne was gone, but so too was the endless mire. The ravaging mass of hands too was gone now. All that remained was Penance behind her, flat upon dusty ground. Fordola winced as the roiling skies of the stagnant swamp became white, streaks of gray clouds hanging in the sky as any she had ever seen on a summer day.
Fordola let out an exhausted sigh, her heart still racing.
“f*ck…” she muttered, looking around to try and espy Eiserne once again. She couldn’t see very far, for she was surrounded by dense fog. Beneath her boots was a tough, craggy flat of pale, dry earth. It reminded her of the Lochs beyond Ala Mhigo’s walls, but there were no salted waters here. In fact, Fordola appeared to be rid of the mire that had soaked her entirely not but moments ago. Penance too sat with not but the shining gleam of dry steel atop the barren earth.
She stooped low to grab her blade as the dry surface of the ground crunched beneath her boots, running her hand cautiously of the steel handle and its meticulously crafted revolver cylinder. It was warm to the touch, coated slightly with the selfsame pale dust of the environs, as though it had been waiting for her for quite some time. No sun shone in the sky, nor did any wind carry through the fog; everything felt…still, even the fog. Fordola’s head throbbed, dizzied and drained suddenly, falling to her knee to gather herself. She looked upon Penance’s dusty blade, something out of place. She shook her head, able to regain her senses from the sudden grip of vertigo, but even then, something appeared amiss against her sword’s steel. She brushed her fingers over the surface, the tiny veins of orichalcum starmetal quite noticeable in the light. The blade felt sturdy, heavy even in her hands. She checked the cylinder with a flick of her wrist and jerk, the hammered steel cylinder clicking as it was released from the blade.
A single round left. Not ideal. But that didn’t solve the odd feeling she had. When she stood and held the mighty gunblade before her, she at last realized what it was. Gleaming upon the flat of the steel…was nothing. Where there should have been a reflection, a shadow of herself even, there was nothing.
Fordola’s heart sank as the throbbing in her head returned.
She cautiously looked around, greeted only by a wall of fog that had settled in closely around her. Fordola’s eyes darted, unsure if some sort of threat might come from that same fog. When none immediately presented themselves, she took a breath. She made sure she could feel the air fill her lungs, made sure to concentrate on the feel of Penance’s grip in her hands, made sure she could hear the sound of her boots grinding against the dry dirt. With her head steadied and mind cleared, she looked back unto the blade…still nothing.
The lack of reflection didn’t sit well with her at all, and though she could most certainly feel herself breathe, most certainly could feel the smooth touch of Penance’s steel grip on her fingertips, most certainly feel dry, dead earth beneath her boots, she was as yet not certain she was truly alive.
She refused to believe the roiling swamp had claimed her. No, this place…this absence…was somewhere, something else entirely. Here, Fordola couldn’t feel - not physically, but something less tangible. She felt the pull of leather straps against her chest, felt the metallic rustle of her coat’s zipper, the tickle of fur from her collar at her neck, just as real as it had always been. But something…empty lingered in the air, something…
Fordola couldn’t put it to words, much less identify what it even was she felt. She slid her gunblade into the leather sheath upon her back, taking another, slow breath into her breast. This had gone on long enough - if this was to be another circle of the hells, then circle it she would. Fordola would sojourn for as long as it took, defy every death that would come to claim her. She stared out into the fog, the very sight of it enough to inspire a dizzying numbness in her head. She raised her arm before her, shielding herself as she clenched her teeth and took a step toward it.
It felt like walking in pure darkness, despite being marred by nary even a shadow. Fordola watched as the space just beyond the tip of her fingers became a dense wall of fog…barely fog, it was more like smoke. Yet it did not stand aside when Fordola stepped into it, it merely wrapped around her, like a misty blanket, drowning even the gray gloom of the empty sky overhead. Fordola took every step cautiously, unable to see what possibly lay ahead of her.
And then she heard it - that same melody, the very same Eiserne and Robin sang. The same that Fordola heard from Asina’s orchestrion. It carried faintly through the fog, a melodic rasp of each note in single, soft moans one at a time, barely loud enough to hear. Fordola craned her head, squinting through the fog, trying to pinpoint from where the somber singing came from. She stepped lightly, the crunch of her boots loud enough to drown out the song entirely.
“Eiserne!” Fordola called out into the fog. She received no response from her friend nor otherwise.
Dammit. she cursed to herself, having to concentrate on not being overwhelmed by vertigo as she looked deep into the fog. She thought she might have brought the singing to a halt, perhaps scared the source of the melody; but as silence began to enshroud Fordola, the melody returned, as distant and broken as it was when she first heard it.
“Eiserne!” Fordola called, looking over her shoulder and back to her fore, desperate for a sign of any kind.
It’s her. It has to be. she swore silently. Fordola shook her head, trying to disperse the fog that felt as though it had begun forming in her own head. It bore down on her like mud, making not just her thoughts, but everything her eyes beheld feel blurry and distorted. She had to reach Eiserne. Fordola pressed on, each step becoming harder than the last. For all her trudging through a swamp for what felt like a lifetime, each step atop the pale, crusty dirt beneath her felt weighed down by mountains, each yalm of ground covered earned at the mercy of an ocean’s undertow. The fog closed in around her, past her fingers, down her arm. It reached up to her nose with a cold kiss, but it wasn’t wet…everything here was dry. Dry and wasting, even the fog. Somehow, it gathered tighter and tighter around her, carried on neither wind nor a passing breeze. The stillness of this place could be felt, even as Fordola moved through it, as though the fog, the sky, even the pale, white dirt beneath her boots refused to yield to her.
“Eiserne!” Fordola cried, insistent on making her voice known to this place as she followed the melody as it wafted in the air, as if a god yet sang the melody onto the surface of this world from on high. But it was no god; no god had ever graced this hell. The words of the song were never spoken, the melody never reaching the chorus, as though its singer struggled to remember how the song went. A single note would carry through the air; distant, sad…pained even, gently rising until it fell low and trailed off. Fordola struggled to focus her hearing on the song, the fog feeling as though it fed bursts of static and scratches, like an orchestrion’s needle dragged across a disc, into her ear. The melody filled the air, but a broken chorus of droning strings began to play in Fordola’s head, winding and soft until their notes turned sharp and shrill, as though the symphony had forgotten how to play.
It was as though Fordola had somehow stepped into a physical manifestation of the last, dying notes contained within that orchestrion on Asina’s desk, Robin’s song broken and frayed in its last gasp…
“Eiserne!” Fordola shouted, her throat dry and raspy. She could feel the fog heavy in her lungs, drying her out from the inside with a callous, empty burn. “Eis…erne!”
She stumbled, her steps becoming heavier and heavier with every passing second, the song becoming quieter and quieter as the sky itself became smothered by fog. Fordola’s head throbbed painfully now, as though her brain were being crushed not by an insurmountable weight, but by an immense, unfathomable…emptiness. She steeled herself, steadied her balance, and regained her footing. Fordola couldn’t stop. Eiserne was out there, somewhere in this fog, lost just as bad as she was.
“Eiserne!”
Her shouts felt as little more than whispers. This couldn’t be the end. This couldn’t be where she fell. She felt nothingness…neither alive nor dead. There was only her and the fog now. The singing continued, languishing and somber. Fordola’s muscles atrophied in her body. She felt as though not just her body, but her spirit, her soul was withering away. One last step. She had to push on. One more.
She raised her hand out into the fog, so thick now that she couldn’t even see her own fingers. Fordola picked up her feet, dragging them across the white dirt, not questioning whether she was alive or dead, but if she ever existed at all.
The singing stopped.
Fordola pierced through the fog.
Her senses returned. She felt the weight of life upon her shoulders as vim and vigor roused itself within her. She could see ahead of her now, the veil of fog a wall at her back. Before her stood a precipice over an endless, dry expanse of flat, empty salt flats. A bright cloudy sky stretched on into a white and gray horizon, yet no sun peered from behind the clouds. No winds chanced upon the high precipice, nor did the clouds deign to move as they sat lifelessly in the sky. All was stillness, a moment in time preserved. It was haunting - a monochrome star with not a single stirring of life, not even Fordola’s heart beat within her chest, though she was very much alive. When she took a step, the earth gave way to her with a gentle crunch. The pale, dusty precipice reached out perhaps a malm ahead of the wall of fog before it became a sheer cliff. Fordola checked behind her, the fog remained still, daring not to approach her now. Intent not to delve further into its clutches, Fordola instead set her sights upon the horizon. All was white and gray, an expanse of bone-white salt flat, cracked and broken, spidered with the remnants of dead riverbeds.
The radiant green in Fordola’s eyes fell upon where the precipice stretched out the furthest and an overlook formed from splintered earth that became sheer cliffs. That’s where she saw it…a shape, a dull, dusty mass, just before the edge. With little else to go on, Fordola thought it best to begin her search for Eiserne there. She stepped away from the wall of fog and into the white, empty world before her.
Fordola felt that same emptiness in her as she made her way to the edge of the cliff. Nothing about this place felt wholly complete, like it was the beginning of an idea…or perhaps just the end. Where the fog felt claustrophobic and choking, the boundless sky here felt intoxicating and insufferable at the same time, though Fordola couldn’t say why. She felt…nothing. No fear, no anxiety, no curiosity here. Memories were all she had to hold on to here, gentle and warm in her heart, but weak and distant. That lingering nothingness smothered nearly every aspect of her ‘self,’ save for those precious memories she held onto so dearly. She remembered the names, the faces, the triumphs and tragedies, and they in turn remembered her, keeping her feet moving and her breathing steady.
She crossed the malms of nothingness, the vast, dead basin beneath the precipice no less imposing. Fordola could feel a dreadful vertigo take hold as the cliffs came closer and the empty world beyond felt no closer. She was unbelievably high up, so high that she was sure some mischievous god could stack three Abalathia’s Spines atop one another and only glance halfway to the top of the cliff. And yet, for as high in the heavens of this empty world as she was, the sky and its unmoving clouds felt equally as far away. Would that Fordola could worry about how she could possibly hope to find Eiserne here, but such was the vastness of scale of the Resonance, Styx, and the stagnant mire she had only just escaped, she rather found herself someone inured to the fears of such spectacles. If anyone could find a wayward Resonant in this empty, dead world, Fordola knew there were none better suited than her. The thought gave her some small measure of comfort, even as that feeling was quickly snuffed out.
She at last arrived at the overlook, and even now the splendor of such a view was not lost on her, even if all that lay beyond was an endless expanse of nothingness. But the majesty of such a thing was of no interest to her. What she found waiting for her was someone…or at least it was. It was a young woman, muscular, her midsection covered in a bandage wrap, with frayed trousers and bare feet. She was caked in white dust, as if she had been here for a millennia. She sat slumped over, her legs gathered on one side, motionless. Fordola cautiously approached, but much like everything else, the young woman was still, not even breathing. She was long dead, likely petrified or preserved by this foul infinity. Were it not for the faintest traces of black in her short, cropped hair, Fordola might have mistaken her for a statue.
Fordola’s steps were light as she came to the woman’s side, her head down on slumped shoulders, facing out onto the horizon of white, no less a part of the dead world than the dusty, dry earth beneath Fordola’s feet. Fordola reached out to touch the figure…and it reached back, seizing at her wrist. The white dust caked over her face crumbled and cracked, looking up at Fordola as it grabbed onto her wrist. For a moment, Fordola gasped in horror as she beheld her own face looking back at her. But the woman just pulled Fordola closer, the dust that had caked upon her skin crumbling and cracking as she moved suddenly.
“Why has Robin…stopped singing?” she asked in a familiar, but raspy voice that Fordola could swear sounded like Eiserne’s. As the woman spoke, the centuries old skin of white dust began to crumble. Fordola managed to gather her senses and jerk herself free of the woman’s grasp, creating a cloud of dust from her body as she withdrew, ready to reach for Penance should the woman decide to be more foe than friend.
The woman craned her head back to her horizon, dust falling away from her, an altogether different woman taking shape beneath the rocky veneer that encased her. Short hair fell to a mop of black hair that fell wildly to her shoulders. Muscles gave way to lithe, pale skin. Gone were the bandages and trousers…she wore Robin’s clothes, though the yellow dress appeared as though it had been drenched in blood and torn to shreds along the sides. The woman let the scales of white stone fall from her with little aplomb, looking out over the bright horizon with dark, purple eyes.
She looked every bit like Eiserne now and yet Fordola knew…it wasn’t her. It couldn’t be. She felt no life from this person. She felt…nothing.
The woman paid Fordola little mind, sitting as she was, though now the splash of red from her dress stood in stark contrast to the limitless frontier of white far below them.
“...Robin…please don’t leave me…” the woman sobbed, her voice broken and dry.
Fordola stood cautiously and at the ready.
“Who are you?” Fordola asked of the strange woman.
They didn’t answer, only stared out into the great beyond. Fordola took a step forward, easing her posture. She and the woman before her were the only color in this world, and the only signs of life at all.
“I can’t hear her song anymore.” the woman said, looking skyward, as if searching for something. “...why did Robin stop singing?”
The song in the sky…it wasn’t Eiserne singing after all. But then again, how could Robin? Fordola thought it best to answer the woman, hoping she might pry some answers from them if she spoke true.
“Robin somn Asina…she’s dead.” Fordola answered quietly. “She died years ago.”
The woman lowered her gaze back to the horizon, the white of it all shimmering in her violet eyes; she was crying.
Fordola felt some compulsion to comfort the woman, but could not find the words. Here, in this silent, still world, she could find no comforting words. She felt only emptiness and sadness.
“I…loved her.” said the woman. “I loved her…and I never got to tell her. Even if we weren’t real…I still loved you, Robin…”
Fordola stared at her a moment, examining her intently.
The woman didn’t face her, she just stared and let tears roll down her pale cheeks.
Fordola took a step closer.
“Who are you?”
“No one.” she answered quietly, nary a whimper in voice as she cried. “I don’t exist. She made me up.”
Fordola shook her head.
“Who did?”
The woman remained silent a moment before she looked to the sky again.
“Eiserne Drossel.” she answered. “She made me up, because the truth was too much.”
The woman brought her head down again.
“She had to. Or else she wouldn’t exist either…”
Fordola took another step.
“I’m trying to find Eiserne. I’m-”
“You are still alive.” the woman interrupted. “You don’t belong here”
Fordola stopped her approach as the woman slowly leered over her shoulder to address Fordola.
“You exist…you walk with unseen chains at your wrists. Fate makes slaves of you all, and you don’t fight it. You can’t fight it.” the woman said. “It must be so easy; to have all of creation decided for you. You exist in a cage, content. That you are here even now…makes no sense.”
“That’s what Vykke would have me believe.”
“The Trueborn isn’t wrong.” the woman said dryly. “Fate is inescapable for the living.”
“So you do understand what’s happening?” Fordola said, shaking her head. “Help me find her; help me find Eiserne!”
The woman looked down over the wasteland.
“Tell me…” she said suddenly. “Do you care for Eiserne”
Fordola scowled and crossed her arms.
“Of course. That’s why I’m here…not because of fate or Styx or any other reason. I’m here because I want to be.”
“I care for her too…” the woman explained.
“Then help me!” Fordola insisted. “I know she’s here, I just have to find her and take her home!”
The woman looked to the sky again.
“She’s not here. She’s everywhere.”
Fordola looked around, confused for a moment. But then it began to make some sense; when she found Eiserne in the stagnation, she Resonated before reaching out to her. And though Fordola couldn’t physically see her, she did feel a lingering sense as though Eiserne was present. Not in the woman before her, but…all around. Perhaps this was an Echo of sorts, the Resonance once again changing its rules on Fordola.
“What is this place?”
“Freedom. Boundless freedom. Free of fate’s chains…locked away in the broken mind of homunculus. A contradiction of nature. A place between the places in between. A paradox that shouldn’t exist.”
From the woman’s back, a pair of beautiful black wings sprouted, as if they had been there all along. Deep, black feathers stretched out over the silky, soft wings, sending forth a cloud of dust as they stretched and folded inward. Fordola shielded her eyes with her arm and took a step back. The pale skin of the woman’s hands had become long, black claws as she held them aloft, gesturing to the sky. Her sorrowful purple eyes had become red upon a sea of black, her voice now distant and broken, as if she spoke from the sky above the endless wastes.
Fordola could only stare at the woman, still haunted by her appearance when she first found her…still ill at ease seeing something of herself in the woman before she shed her ancient skin. It was as if Eiserne herself sat before her, and yet she was…wrong, as if all her senses were telling her she as yet stared upon nothing at all.
“What are you?” Fordola asked.
The woman stretched out her arms, as if she were reaching for something, her clawed fingers slowly recoiling.
“A dream.” she answered with her otherworldly voice. “A figment of Eiserne’s imagination. A shard of two shards. A hope…a happy memory. A trauma response…a lie. I am many things…and yet I am nothing. An affront to the natural order - just as Eiserne is. Two souls cannot coexist with one body. One must devour the other. There must always be a weaker and a stronger. But Robin and the leviathan…both refused to die. And so their souls bent and twisted against one another until what was left was just…broken parts. Eiserne is those broken parts. If she were to remember, to claim one soul over the other…she would cease to exist.”
She lowered her head, her expressions laced with a quiet sadness.
“She exists…clasped in irons from the moment of her birth, bade to do as fate decrees.” she whispered somberly. “And now Eiserne rests upon Styx…how long before the leviathan awakens…before Eiserne is lost?”
“I won’t let that happen.” Fordola swore. “I just need some guidance. She brought me here when I reached out to her…maybe she wished to show me an Echo or a memory or-”
“Eiserne must never remember.” said the woman, turning slowly again to look at Fordola as she sat upon the ground, some few stray black feathers from her wings scattered gently around her. “She made me to protect her from them. She must never remember…or the leviathan will wake up…and your world will burn.”
Fordola had heard Eiserne mention such a thing before. She could hear her say it in the peculiar way she always did, as if it were totally normal. The tiny memory swelled in Fordola’s heart, the first spark of true feeling she had felt in the presence of this woman. She remembered how Gloomy would say her head feels muddy sometimes or how when she tried to remember things, it was like her thoughts were surrounded by fog…
“The leviathan in the fog…?” Fordola asked.
The woman nodded.
“You heard it, didn’t you? Calling below the surface?”
Fordola shook her head slowly. She recalled no leviathan, nor any water from which it might dwell. In the fog, she was alone, save for Robin’s song. The winged woman in red hung her head once more, scarlet eyes falling upon the expanse again.
“...then there still might be a chance.”
“What do you mean?” Fordola demanded.
The woman slowly stood, freeing herself of the layers of dust and stone that yet remained atop of her. She kept her back to Fordola, her wings tucked over themselves. Fordola felt that familiar disquiet…that emptiness she felt before, faint at first, a vacancy of the heart, like a pleasant dream silenced by consciousness. But it soon became more…heavier; a quiet judgment of her soul that found her wanting.
“I understand now...” the woman said. “Eiserne…she doesn’t want to wake up. She doesn’t want to remember. She’s alone and afraid. She needs me again to save her from the misery of your world…”
She stretched her wings out behind her, the long black feathers immaculate and stark against the whites and gays of the realm. Fordola couldn’t help but be entranced by her as she spun around to face her, the skirt of her dress settling softly behind her. In her hand she held a rusted, calcified greatsword with a splintered, broken tip. Fordola took a step back, the woman holding the broken slab of steel with ease, as if it had been in her hand all along.
“She knows I’m the only one…the only one who can stop her…”
“Who?” Fordola demanded, unsheathing Penance, though hesitating to brandish her blade.
“The leviathan…” the woman in red said, stepping toward her. “I have to protect Eiserne. That you are here at all…that can only mean one thing. You are the agent of her sorrow… Only I can protect Eiserne. She wanted to believe you could…but you are all slaves, yearning for the lash. It’s me…I can end her suffering. I can break the wheel…why else would you be here?”
Fordola shook her head.
“Don’t do this…” she said through her teeth. “Whatever you are, we can find another way! This need not end!”
“You exist…she sent you here for a reason. I will protect her…as I always have. You can’t save her…as long as she is here, she is safe. Safe from the leviathan. Safe from destiny. Safe from you.”
“I want to help, Eiserne!”
“You can’t.” the woman said, drawing ever closer, her expression forlorn as she raised the broken blade to her side. “No one can.”
Fordola fell back, Penance gripped tightly in her hand.
“Don’t make me kill you!”
The woman lifted her head and looked at Fordola with ghastly sadness.
“You cannot kill me.” she said, raising the sword effortlessly beside her. “I never existed.”
She spread her wings, and in a cloud of black feathers burst forth with nightmarish speed, sweeping her broken sword through dirt and dust, cleaving the ground with a mighty scar. Fordola held tight to Penance, using both arms to brace herself as the slab of rusty steel smashed against her with a ferocious clang of steel. Sparks erupted from where their blades clashed, Fordola being practically lifted from her feet by the woman’s strike. She dug her heels into the dirt as the woman pushed her back, her wings stopping her with a single strong beat. Fordola slid back a full yalm, bringing Penance’s point back up from the dirt. Before she could recover fully, the woman engaged her again, swinging the massive broken sword with terrifying ease, carving not only earth beneath the ancient blade, but the very air itself. She struck with such force against Fordola that the arc of her carving through the air felt as a blade itself. The woman pressed forward with another beat of her wings, lifting off from the ground and driving her sword down upon Fordola. Earth sundered and cracked as the sword sliced through the dry precipice, Fordola a blur of red as she tumbled away through a cloud of dust and rubble. Her adversary jerked her head toward Fordola, and with another flap of her wings took to the sky, billowing away with fierce gales the clouds of dust as she hovered above Fordola.
Without so much as a blink, the woman stared back at Fordola for only a second, her face so eerily similar to Eiserne’s that it unsettled Fordola as the woman looked upon her, stoic and expressionless. From on high, she slashed the sword high to her side, staring down its weather, splintered blade before charging Fordola again. She descended with a torrential wind beneath her wings, a streak of red and black that erupted before Fordola with such speed that she seemed to appear before her amid a sudden fluttering of black feathers. Their steel clashed, the woman slamming the blade down upon Fordola over and over, each time Fordola was able to intercept it and drive it away on its own momentum, sundering the earth around her. The woman pressed on, showing no signs of exhaustion swinging the massive sword, nor any emotion at all as she tore through the air with a beat of her wings, trying to catch Fordola at her flank. The woman’s blade struck the hardened steel of Penance and shattered the barnacle-laden blade into shivers of ancient, rusty metal, the woman stopping her forward momentum with a flap, her own heeled boots dragged across the pale dirt as chunks of shrapnel sailed out into the endless nothingness in the dead basin below the overlook.
The woman stood, her shoulders slumped as she beheld the even more broken sword, shivered into little more than a single, frail splinter atop a rusting hilt. The scarlet stained pits of black in her eyes fell upon Fordola.
Fordola stood with sword in hand and a glower in her eyes.
“I think you’ll find me quite hard to kill as well.”
“I see...” the woman said.
The air where she stood warped and distorted and became empty, save for the fluttering of stray black feathers.
There was a rush of wind against Fordola’s face. A flash of steel. The woman appeared before Fordola. She was inhumanly fast, covering the distance between them in but the blink of an eye, a flurry of silky black feather in her wake. She swung with her jagged blade, Fordola barely able to defend herself as sparks showered through the air as swords clashed. The woman drove Fordola back, nearly off balance, trying to finish her with a wide swing near her head. Fordola managed to duck beneath it, pressing into the vacuum of her miss, the heft of the gunblade catching against the crossguard of the woman’s greatsword. Fordola gave a mighty push, driving what remained of the sundered sword’s crusty blade as a wedge into the dirt.
The woman disappeared in a burst of stray feathers, the air where she stood off-guard warped as the thick, rich feathers drifted slowly to the ground. Fordola readied Penance aloft once more as the woman appeared again some short distance away. Her shoulders were slumped, giving her wings a single flap before she straightened her posture.
“You remind me so much of her…” the woman said listlessly. “I wonder…”
Fordola scowled, but had no time to consider words, forced to defend herself as feathers erupted beside her, the woman baring her sword anew, no longer broken, but still rusted and worn to a dull edge. Winds tore against Fordola as well as steel, the woman’s wings carrying her on unseen winds against her over and over. Fordola parried and slammed down against her foe’s crossguard, the two practically face to face as each battled to overpower the other. The edges of their swords screamed and sparked as verdant jade stared into the scarlet stained pit of the woman’s eyes.
“...is it you she fashioned me after?” the woman asked, nonplussed by their apparent struggle. Fordola clenched her teeth and pushed, driving her blade against the woman’s with a roar. She relented, cutting her wings through the air with a fluid stroke as she gracefully flew some yalms away. Fordola quickly brought her sword up to prepare for another strike, but the woman in red simply landed upon the toe of her boots with a soft clatter of her heel. The woman began a slow, fluid circling around Fordola, never once blinking or turning her attention away.
“Is it that she saw something to aspire to in you, perhaps?”
Fordola steadied herself as she took a breath.
“If that’s the way of, so be it.” Fordola said sternly. “Eiserne is free to choose who she wishes to be.”
“...she must quite care for you…”
Fordola reaffirmed her grip on her sword, holding the gleaming gunblade in a high stance,
“And I for her! Now stand down and let’s help each other!”
The woman in red stretched her wings and disappeared in a cloud of feathers. Wind rushed against Fordola, a storm of black and red at her flank. The dry, rocky earth beneath her sundered as the ancient greatsword cleaved through the air and smashed into the ground. Again and again, Fordola had to swing against thundering steel, find her footing among quaking earth, stand firm as gales ripped into her, the woman in red’s assault was seemingly without end. She took to the skies again with a single, powerful thrust of her wings, Fordola having to shield herself from the cloud of debris left in her wake. She stared down at Fordola, her pale skin nearly as bone-white as the sky, with its unmoving wisps of gray clouds.
“You can help her by throwing yourself from the cliff…” she demanded, her pitch monotone, but somehow still threatening. “Hurt her no longer. She’ll be safe with me…she always was.”
Forolda took a step back and swung Penance to her shoulder.
“Sod off!” Fordola spat. “Look around you! Why would you doom her to this?”
The woman descended sharply, landing with a clack of her heels upon the earth and a mighty gust of dusty wind. She took menacing, casual steps toward Fordola.
“...she does not yet understand. This place is a sanctuary…the only place in all of creation free of Styx and your endless conflict…”
“She wouldn’t want this!”
The woman quickened her pace and lunged at Fordola.
“...what would you know? You’re just a slave to fate like all the rest…”
Fordola swung hard back upon her, their steel clashing with a sharp ringing.
“What then? You would condemn her to eternity in this place? Alone?”
The woman swung again effortlessly, driving up stone and dust, her wings stretched wide behind her in grim angelic display, sparks and steel glimmering as Fordola fought back.
“She would be safe from the leviathan…I would spare her a short, miserable existence.”
Fordola spun between attacks, her footwork quick enough that she launched an offensive counter swing as the woman plunged her sword past her. Penance tore through warped air and a cloud of feather where the foe used to be, Fordola driving the heel of her boot into the earth to slow her momentum.
She seized a breath, roaring back at the woman as she now stood once more near the edge of the precipice.
“You would have her trade one set of chains for another!” Fordola pointed her gunblade at the blighted, black-winged woman as she stared back with forlorn, red eyes. “Eiserne deserves to live. She has friends - people who care about her, a whole world is waiting for her to discover more of it, and she’s only jes’ started. You would clip her wings ‘fore she’s learned to use ‘em, and then tell her this hell of boundless sky is hers alone? It’s cruel!”
Fordola pulled down on the choke of her gunblade, the aetherdrive within roaring as the gathered energy stored inside the complex starmetal blade was funneled into the revolver cylinder. Fire erupted from the sword as Fordola squeezed the choke, Penance revving with a roar of charged aether and intricate engineering at work. She swung the blade through the air and snapped it to her side, the remnant flames dancing over the edge of the still with a whip before they faded.
“No more chains! No more prisons! No more cages!” Fordola growled. “Eiserne flies free now!”
The woman raised her head slightly to look down on Fordola.
“...and who are you to choose for her?”
Fordola pointed her blade at her.
“Someone who actually gives a sh*te about her.”
“...would you die for her?”
Fordola scowled and answered unflinchingly.
“Aye.”
She disappeared in a cloud of feathers. She reappeared in front of Fordola, the empty void of black that stared back at her did not blink. Fordola felt cold, sharp and biting at her toes and fingers, racing up her extremities. Blood rushed through her chest and up her throat, gagging her as her legs became numb, barely able to keep her standing. Fordola spat blood against the woman’s unflinching face as she choked, staining her pale white cheeks with crimson. Fordola grit her teeth, and felt a deep, painful discomfort well up inside her. She felt Penance slip from her grasp as her fingers numbed. She gasped for air, but could not find it. She staggered back, her gunblade clattering to the ground, the heavy weight of the woman’s jagged sword penetrating her torso dragging her downward. She clutched at the hilt, its texture turning to ash at her touch.
Blood ran from Fordola’s mouth, the hot beads rolling gently down her lips, becoming cold and still against her neck. Her vision blurred, the white of the vast, empty wasteland going dark. The pain in her guts subsided, but only as feeling began to slip away entirely. She could feel her legs become stiff and still, her skin turning to blackened stone as the sunless sky became dark as night. Fordola could sense her body falling as it gave in to the weight of the greatsword driven through her, but time itself slowed and soon she was stilled. She could see the ground beneath her tear away as gusts of black ash swept across the dusty earth, stripping it layer by layer to reveal a vast abyss of night below.
Silence began to overtake her, save for the rushing of unseen waters crashing down around her.
The woman became a blackened effigy, wrought from onyx, still horrifying in her featurelessness, even now as the Resonance took hold of Fordola. The sky began to burn away under the descending maelstrom of shadows and ragged ghosts.
Fordola heard footfalls.
A fluttering of wings.
The black effigy stood before her. It wrapped its glassy claws around her throat, It leaned over to look at her with its dead, black eyes. It stared at her, undaunted by the Resonance as it tore through the woman’s nightmare realm.
She twitched her head, ever so slightly.
“No.” she said, her voice thunderous, shattering the silence. “Styx can’t save you here.”
She squeezed her slick claws around Fordola’s frozen throat and ripped her from where her body began to crystallize. The Resonance screamed around her, black tearing into white, light and shadow bending and breaking. Cold became emptiness, the maelstrom of shadows shattering like glass as the woman in red ripped Fordola from the Resonance, slamming her into the white dirt with a cloud of ash and black sand still on her body. Fordola felt as though she’d been tossed from Ala Mhigo’s highest battlement…no, thrown into the sea of stars. She couldn’t breathe, her lungs emptied and burning. The ground rushed to meet her with a violent impact, cratering the earth around her.
Fordola felt as though the blood had been seized from her veins all at once; she heaved wide eyed, barely able to hold herself steady on even just her arms. She hyperventilated, her mind scattered and overwhelmed with vertigo. Her heart raced with such fervor that she thought it might burst. Panic and confusion wracked her thoughts, her hands patting against her chest, unsure if she was alive, dead, in the Resonance, in Styx, in Eiserne’s subconscious.
She found no wounds, no sword embedded in her heart.
One step at a time.
Penance. She needed her sword.
Her hands danced over the earth, desperate to find her gunblade, even as her body was still wracked with shakes. She could feel the warm steel, still charged with aether as her fingers quickly searched for the grip. She found it, rousing some command of her legs to rise to her knee. She felt awful tremors, her head still dizzy and sight still ravaged by the lingering grip of the Resonance now torn from her.
She rose to her feet, desperate to center herself as her short, haggard breaths steadied. She shook her head and freed herself of the dark shadows burning at the edges of her vision. The unmistakable silhouette of black wings stretching out before her shot adrenaline into her veins, and she steadied herself enough to raise Penance to her side as she seized air into her lungs.
The woman plucked her sword from the earth where she had struck Fordola, wrapping her black talons around the decrepit grip.
“...you hide behind immortality. Show me that you would truly die for her now…”
Fordola took a deep breath.
“It changes nothing!” Fordola roared, “Come on then! If yer’ quite done, then let’s be about it!”
The woman approached with graceful steps, one before the other.
“...I can see why she likes you…”
She charged Fordola, tearing through the air on searing winds of black and crimson. Fordola was ready this time, intercepting her with a calamitous ringing of steel. Fordola cut through the air, fighting against blades of wind and metal, dancing between death in all directions. Her gunblade screamed and howled, deflecting blow after blow, azure fire blazing from the vents as it overloaded with aether. Fordola drove back a heavy overhead slash with her offhand against Penance, the roaring hot steel searing against the leather of her glove. The woman pressed against her, bringing her face close to Fordola’s again, nary a sign of struggle on her solemn expression.
“...why do you struggle…? …do you not want Eiserne to be safe? ”
Fordola slashed, driving her back.
“Listen to me!” Fordola demanded. She sliced Penance through the air, dissipating aether with a roil of fire. “Eiserne will be safe with me. I swear to you.”
The woman in red lowered her somberly.
“...you are a child of Styx… Your words are empty. You are hopelessly bound for a single destiny….”
Fordola shook her head and scowled as the two warriors circled one another slowly..
“Then help me!” she growled. “Help me find a way to break free of Styx! I’m trying to save Eiserne from her fate, godsdamnit!”
“It’s already too late for you.” she responded coldly. “The leviathan...she follows in your every step, knowing where it leads.”
“Then why isn’t she here? Why doesn’t this leviathan claim her prize?”
“She can’t reach her here… So long as Eiserne doesn’t remember…”
“Then what need does she have of you?” Fordola bellowed venomously, both hands upon her sword as they took measured, cautious steps. “Perhaps it’s you that has become the chains holding her back!”
The woman in red shook her head, raising her sword.
“My words do not reach you…” she said, raising her free hand to her side out toward the limitless expanse, black wings stretching wide with a flash of stray feathers. “...then I shall speak in a language you understand…”
Fordola grimaced, tightening her grip on her gunblade as the monstrous woman flung herself at her. She struck out with steel and claw, raking her stained black talons through the air toward Fordola as the mighty heft of the greatsword cleaved upwards through rock and dirt. Fordola slashed into the woman’s claws, her talons stalwart enough to withstand her strikes as strong as any shield. Fordola became as a red blur, dancing and ducking between claw and steel. The woman bearing Eiserne’s face stared vacant death into Fordola, her scarlet stained pools of black wide and unflinching. She slammed her broken blade down against Fordola, Fordola catching the momentum and slashing hard with her, wrenching the rusted sword from her foe’s grasp, sending it flying into the vast empty. Penance howled as aether shattered into fangs of fire along its gleaming edge, slamming into the woman in red and exploding into an inferno of rising wildfire. Fordola was propelled into a spin as the vents of her gunblade blazed like a magitek engine, the gunbreaker digging her heels into the crag and skidding to a smoking stop.
The woman in red beat her wings, freeing herself of the smoke and smolder, her left wing bearing the brunt of Fordola’s attack. The rich black feathers bled and burned, her left wing relieved of a full quarter of its length.
Fordola felt a sudden tremor beneath her boots. The overlook upon which they stood began to crumble at its furthest edges, large portions of ancient, dry earth cleaving with loud snaps as they began to break and fall into the vast basin below. The woman in red paid it no mind. She turned to face Fordola; Fordola thought she might have seen her wince ever so slightly. She launched herself at Fordola, dismissive of the grievous wound she had suffered, talons raised.
Fordola swung Penance upward with a flourish and held it to her side.
Claws came at her in a swarm, streaks of black tearing through the air with nightmarish speed as the woman in red pressed into Fordola, her wings outstretched. She ripped at Fordola’s flank, shredding through her chainmail chausses. Fordola could only grin and bear it, repositioning herself amid the flurry of claws until she found the slightest opening and seized it. Penance tore into her hands where she wrapped her talons around the blade, ignoring the terrifying, bleeding wound left in her palm. Fordola pulled the trigger, sending a white-hot blast of flame through the sword that became too hot for even Fordola’s monstrously powerful foe. The woman recoiled, withdrawing beneath her wings as hellfire erupted around Fordola, launching her into the air. The woman in red beat her wings, ridding herself of the flames, darting into the sky after Fordola even as her wings were singed.
Fordola swung herself out with the momentum of her slash, but her foe was too fast. She swooped over Fordola and slammed her talons into her shoulders, smashing her into the ground beneath her weight. A cloud of rubble and white dust drifted into the woman’s face, her prey obscured beneath her. But a mighty roar erupted from the cloud, Fordola’s feet slamming into the woman’s torso, knocking her off center enough for Fordola to wrench herself free from the talons piercing her shoulders. With a twist of her body, she rolled out from beneath the woman and sprung to her feet. The woman flapped her wings and righted herself as well, her wings still smoldering as patches of feathers wilted.
The ground continued to quake beneath them, distant portions of the precipice falling away on massive landslides. Fordola had to steady herself as fissures ruptured around them, the woman in red unfazed, her scarlet and black eyes unblinking and forever locked Fordola.
Fordola grabbed Penance into her left hand, waving her right over her wounded shoulder and leg as she channeled aether into a meager healing spell that at least managed to staunch the bleeding. She took a deep breath. The next assault would be hers.
She pulled the choke on Penance, the aetherdrive howling as Fordola sprinted over the crumbling precipice and brought her fury down upon her foe. She cleaved through clouds of feathers, watching the air warp and distort as the woman vanished from sight, focusing on where the space around her began to tremble, striking where the woman appeared next. Penance ripped through feather and bone, fire tearing through flesh with steel at its fore. The woman in red reeled, falling unsteadily upon her heel as Fordola severed the tip of her other wing in a spiral of fire and blood, the mangled appendage slapping wet and bloody against the quaking earth.
The woman in red scowled, throwing her injured wings forward, launching her away from Fordola under the cover of feathers and gales. She landed with uneven footing some distance away, towering clouds of rubble rising in the distance behind her as the high precipice began to fall to ruin around them.
“...you are persistent…” she shouted over the distant thundering of landslides, a hint of anger in her voice. “...but you will tire. …you will bend. …you will break…”
She raised her clawed hand over the ground, rock and stone cracking and breaking at her command, ancient sand and dust spiraling upward into her grasp where they coalesced and formed a perfect copy of the sword Fordola had condemned to the pit.
She rushed Fordola, giving her little time to find her footing before she erupted at her flank in a storm of nightmarish feathers. Her strikes were more ferocious - less graceful. Fordola felt the weight of each strike as she brought her own sword around in a cyclone of fire and steel, the flames sundered by the swift reproach of the woman in red’s sword tearing through the air. Blades crashed, sending Fordola skidding a full several yalms back, flames licking the air along her path, leaving smoldering embers along her path.
Fordola sliced through the smoke and dust, but the woman in red was already on top of her again, driving the gnarled point of her splintered, rusting sword straight at Fordola as she sailed on a mighty gust. Fordola slammed Penance up against it, shivering more of the sundered metal, shrapnel tearing through the thick leather of her duster, cutting against her brow.
As blood trickled down over Fordola’s eye, she threw herself into her foe, taking her down onto her back with her own momentum. She was pinned beneath Fordola, lashing out with her broken wings, trying to slash at her with her claws. Fordola roared, taking Penance in two hands and driving the point straight down, even as talons raked against her arm. Feathers erupted from beneath her, Penance driving into the dirt as the flesh of its intended target reappeared just ahead.
A large portion of the overlook fractured and sank below the crumbling edge, the tremors powerful enough to send Fordola off balance, giving her foe more than enough of an opening. She tried to bring Penance to the fore, but the woman in red approached from the air, paying no mind to the sundering earth. Fordola conjured a frail crystalline shield with what little aether her gunblade had stored in reserves, the honeycomb of azure brought into twinkling existence for but a moment before it was shattered, enough to send the incoming sword off of its trajectory, but not enough save Fordola from taking a glancing slash across her midsection. She reeled back, pain searing through her. She struggled to prepare for another attack, swinging wildly with Penance, the blade landing in the woman’s clutches. She ripped Fordola into the air as she refused to let go of her sword and slammed her into the ground.
Fordola felt all sense abandon her, the air stolen from her lungs, her body stunned and limp. She rolled like a ragdoll along the ground, coming dangerously close to the edge as Penance scraped across the ground and slowly spun to a stop near her. She could feel her sword arm hang over the side as she stared face up into the sky, her vision blurry and bloodshot. She groaned, bloodied and broken, trying to find some measure of strength to right herself, but all she found was the painful digging of high-heeled boots into her chest.
She tried to reach for Penance, but the woman in red drove her heel deeper into Fordola’s chest. She looked down upon Fordola with the same, melancholy eyes, even as her wings bled and feathers fell around them.
It was quiet now, Fordola unable to hear the dreadful tumble of distant landslides. She felt her muscles give in, but she would not let them,trying to wrest herself from beneath the woman’s heel.
“...this is how this ends…this is how it has to end,” the woman said. “...I’m sorry…but you have to die… If you live…Eiserne won’t survive…”
Fordola clenched her teeth and hissed through them, overwhelmed by pain.
“You’re…wrong!”
“...I wish I was…but you carry with you a heavy burden… It’s too great…even for you Fordola.”
Fordola winced, and looked up at the woman, but it was Fordola who stared back…or at least, someone quite like her. She had black hair, but it was very much her; muscular and strong. Tall and fierce. She had bandages wrapped around her torso, and pressed bare feet against Fordola’s chest,
“How do you-” Fordola bellowed weakly.
She shook her head, her voice sounding more and more like her now.
“Eiserne made me; to protect her.” she said. “I’m just an idea…a memory based on lies. I can be whoever she wants. For the longest time…I looked as I did. But then you came along.”
Fordola had barely the strength left to hear her, her body beginning the slow, steady march toward death as she bled out.
“She loves you, Fordola. She looks up to you. It was only natural that the hero in her memory would look something like you. And I hate that I have to take that from her…”
“You don’t have to…” Fordola groaned. “I can…I can protect her…”
The woman shook her head, the precipice beginning to spider and crumble around them.
“And you would have been great…perfect even. In another time…another reality. But that isn’t meant to be. She would know only suffering in your shadow. As long as she is by your side, she will only know loss. She will know what it is to lose everything you hold dear, to watch everything you love die. And then she’ll remember everything. She will break. Eiserne will cease to exist. Without you, she can be free…until the stars burn out and the Long Silence starts again…she’ll be okay.”
“I…-” she started, interrupted when blood from her lungs welled up in her throat.
“It’s time for you to go now, Fordola.” the woman said. “Go…and become just a pleasant memory.”
She plunged the sword into Fordola’s breast, and she went limp.
Her green eyes stared, glistening into the empty sky. Everything was quiet now.
Darkness came slowly at the edges of her sight - not on ghostly wisps, or on drifting sands. It wasn’t on rushing waters, or under the grip of icy fingers. Darkness came to her now like sunlight…warm and welcoming. It danced gently upon her skin, soothing her pain. The chaos in her heart still and slowed…no more struggle. No more voices. She felt true, perfect silence…for the first time in ages, and it was the sweetest sound she’d ever heard. Darkness washed over her eyes, beckoning her to rest, coating her in a serene stillness. Her muscles no longer ached, her mind longer raced. Her worries slipped from her now in a slow exhale. She felt neither the weight of oceans or the biting sands of a bottomless maelstrom. She could not see herself, nor any bright light within her breast. Death lay a warm, welcoming shroud over her, ready at last to take Fordola Lupis to her paradise of silence.
The woman atop her withdrew the sword from Fordola’s chest, her blood seeping from its ancient edge. She watched with tired, forlorn jade eyes as Fordola breathed her last - no cursed immortality would come for her here.
She lifted her heel from her slightly, and pushed against her, sliding her over the edge of the cliff.
…?
“You can’t be serious.” he insisted.
But she just laughed.
“Oh, dreadfully so.”
He grinned.
“A little…snug, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps. You don’t like it?”
“Eiserne picked it out, didn’t she?”
She chuckled.
“Sure did.”
He laughed.
“Well, that settles it.”
“So…?”
“It’s perfect.”
“Are ye’ cryin’?”
“...”
“Ye’ are, aren’t ye’?”
“Only a little.”
“Yer’ a big softie.”
“...”
“Yer’ bein’ quiet again.”
“I’m just…happy.”
“...”
“...”
“Me too, Stash…”
Now…
Dig deeper. she heard a voice say. You already have it. Dig deeper, and remember.
Fire roared around Fordola as she fell. She was as starfall against the gray horizon. She burned, burned away the gentle shroud of Death.
“I want to live.” she said.
She opened her bloodshot eyes and beheld the nightmare of nothingness, burning bright crimson amid a roaring black flame. She ignited and her body became a dying star, bending time and space around her, slowing her fall. Fordola’s heart pounded against her chest, and like a thunderclap, felt her body charged with an otherworldly electricity, darkness tearing through the air with ravenous claws, rending reality itself.
“I promised Eiserne. I promised Stash. I promised everyone.”
She plummeted in fulminating darkness, ash and sand coiling around her from the shattering veil of this world as flames licked ravenously into the air. The air warped and frayed in her wake. Fordola burned the very light from the air around her - she was a ceaseless hunger that could not be sated. Crumbling cliffside erupted as whipping tendrils of crackling darkness spread around her. Fordola became the void itself, a gleaming cut against the fabric of this reality.
She could feel gravity try to fight her, but as she fell she held her hand out before her.
“They’re all waiting for me.” she said.
Deeper.
“I’ll give them the future they deserve.”
Deeper!
Fordola felt darkness converge upon her flesh, felt ash dance upon her fingertips. Her wounds became as crystal. The unseen ocean rose up to meet her and swallowed her, breaking her fall. The endless churn of ragged specters and silent sands erupted from her back as roaring flames, tearing reality apart in its afterburn. Both of her eyes burned bright crimson as she righted herself in the air, shadow and shade swarming around her, devouring light and the world. The Resonance surrounded her…but it did not take her - it quickly rebuilt the world in glossy, featureless effigies, motionless as Fordola hung suspended into the sphere of all-consuming void. She was chaos made manifest. Fordola saw her, the woman, staring back at her.
You’re free now. a voice said.
Fordola closed her eyes. She wasn’t afraid of the voice like she was back then.
Deep breath.
She took a step, and all of reality burned as she erupted from the sphere, a jetstream of ash, shadow, and fire burning behind her. She was a dread comet, crashing through the air and shattering through the crumbling cliffside with arcing wings of black lightning. She tore through the precipice, an unstoppable force of nature. From darkness and ash she erupted atop the cliff, burning past the woman amid a cyclone of fire that burned bright and towered into the sky.
The woman reeled, snapping her broken wings before her to shield herself. Fire and nightmarish shadow roared against her, burning away the facade of the false Fordola, revealing the woman in red once more. She beat her wings forcefully against the ground to dissipate the flames, but they did not relent. Black fire encircled her as lightning and void roiled in a hellish frenzy as the fabric of reality peeled away.
“I’m sorry.” she heard Fordola say, her voice echoing with the sound of a thousand Fordolas behind it. She stood at the center of the roil, Penance in hand held at her side as she stared upon the woman in red with burning Resonant eyes, ash and shadow erupting from her back like some nightmarish magitek engine. She raised her free hand before her, and in her palm she held a maelstrom of imperceptible void that danced with a ceaseless churn of ash. “I have too much to live for. Too many people counting on me. And if the choice is you or them? Then I choose to live for them.”
The woman in red roared, for the first time showing emotion.
“You don’t make the rules here! I do!”
Fordola wrapped her fingers around the void in her hand until it yielded beneath her fist.
“Cry all ya’ like, but nature’s only got one rule; only the strong survive.” Fordola said, bringing the fell orb of void to Penance and pulling the choke. The gunblade roared to life, the Resonance in Fordola’s palm reaching out from between her fingers and gathering along the starmetal veins of the blade. She pointed it at the woman in red. “Weak or strong? Make your choice and let’s find out who lives and who dies.”
Penance erupted in black fire and scarlet lightning, its steel blade spidering with the limitless depth of the Resonance upon its surface.
The woman in red charged her, inhumanly fast.
But Fordola could see her - in the darkness of the Resonance she could see her, every fluttering feather, every movement of her muscles, every beat of her wing, all before they happened. Darkness enshrouded her, and as the woman sailed past her, Fordola emerged at her flank as ash and sand fell from her skin. The woman in red pressed her wings against the voidscarred fire at her fore and took to the skies. Fordola bent her knees and let the Resonance carry her on its accursed wings after her. She tore Penance through the air, reality bending and breaking in its arc. Steel and fire howled, a spire of light-devouring void ripping through the woman’s wings. Fordola’s prey swung wildly with the sword, but through her Resonant eyes, she could see each swing in slow motion. Fordola flew through the arc of each swing - once, twice, thrice; each time, leaving behind a smoldering afterimage of herself that fell away to clouds of ash as she stepped in and out of the Resonance.
She was as the wind, gliding between life and death as a breeze, smooth and unfettered. The woman in red drove her sword into the earth with a calamitous smash, tearing the ground apart where Fordola had stood, but she effortlessly stepped into the Resonance under a flash of roiling void, reappearing at the edge of the precipice.
The woman in red glowered scarlet upon her as black fire roared around her.
She raised her foul sword into the air, broken wings outstretched. She beat her wings, gusts of dust and rubble flung toward Fordola where they were swallowed by the void.
“...you wish to know who is the stronger?” the woman asked, a sinister tone in her dry voice. “...come then, child of Styx. Let me press upon you the weight of unimaginable suffering…”
Her eyes widened, scarlet beaming bright in the pit of her eyes as she screamed. Her blighted harpy cry shattered the air around her like glass. Stillness became chaos as the endless sky roiled and turned dark. Starfall rained down upon the land, the high precipice overlooking the vast basin battered as smoldering hellfire smashed upon the land. Salt flats fractured and exploded under a hail of starfall around them, sending malm long scars of spidering fissures spreading atop the precipice and along the sheer cliffside. Landslides roared and plummeted into the vastness below as the once empty expanse ruptured and broke apart. The woman in red brought her wings around herself as the realm shuddered. The burning pyre around Fordola blazed ever bright, undaunted, arcs of dread energy coiling and tearing into the ground around her. The woman threw her wings out with a scream - a scream scarred with the howls of millions, warping the space around her with a dizzying ripple that quickly collapsed under the unyielding pressure, peeling away this reality like a skin.
Fordola recoiled slightly as the howls smashed against her, a forceful wave of immense pressure like she had felt in Ala Gannha but tenfold. It crashed against her, again and again, wave after wave of fraying reality tearing the very world around her into pieces. The world of stillness was a dirty window, hiding the truth behind its stained, dusty glass. It shattered and revealed the true nature of this reality to Fordola.
The woman in red took to the sky on six wings of purest black, massive and outstretched over a scarlet sky that bent and warped, practically melting. Black clouds raced across the sky only to sag and bleed like wet paint atop a loathsome canvas. The woman in red ascended above the ground, her legs transformed, black feathers and murderous talons where her boots once were, the ground beneath her sundering and quaking with every flap of her numerous raven’s wings. She held her claws before her, longer and more sinister now, coated in crimson as the ground beneath her collapsed and crumbled as she wrenched from the depths a long, curved scythe. The ancient, rusty thing was massive, as long as the woman in red’s full wingspan, pulled forcefully from the earth by her will alone, yanked to the air before her by unseen hands and suspended just before her palm.
She stared back at Fordola from behind a mask of folded blackbird wings that had revealed themselves from behind her head, wrapping them over her eyes as they bled streaks of crimson down her ivory skin. Revealed now in this form, the woman in red was a nightmarish angel of death, her words echoing into the hell of her own creation.
“...beg now, Fordola. Beg for mercy that will never come. Beg for death, and know but a sliver of the suffering you would have Eiserne endure….”
She slashed her claws through the air in an arc before her, the massive scythe following her command, its vile crescent blade cleaving the last of the precipice with a single stroke. The ground beneath Fordola trembled and shook, plunged into a landslide as the overlook was violently seized by gravity, plummeting with terrifying speed as it smashed against the cliffside and began its swift descent into the pit.
Fordola steadied herself atop the platform amid a cloud of rubble and fracturing earth, taking a single step forward, the Resonance radiating out beneath her step like burning pitch. The overlook crumbled around her as she and the platform crashed downward along the slope of the cliff, granting her only a few yalms in either direction of decent ground. But it would do.
She stepped forward, resting Penance on her shoulder as the blackened blade yet scarred the space around it as Fordola descended. The woman in red flapped her wings as she hovered just above the sliding earth, bringing the scythe back to her side with a fluid gesture.
“You think I know nothing of suffering? Think yer’ the only one who knows what loss is?” Fordola roared as the Resonance sparked and ignited in tumultuous calamity around her. “If that’s what you think makes you strong…I pity you.”
Another step forward.
“I let misery define me for a long time, too.”
Forward.
“But others showed me I was wrong.”
The Resonance roared.
“My strength doesn’t come from vengeance. Or hatred. Or me at all.”
Fire blazed and darkness roiled.
“I’m here now because others love and have loved me. I’m here now because others were able to forgive me for my mistakes.”
Penance howled.
“I won’t fail them.” Fordola bellowed, clutching a fist to her heart. “If misery and suffering are the pre-destined natural order…”
She clenched her fingers tight, Resonant eyes burning like a pyre of purest crimson.
“...then f*ck the natural order. I choose chaos.”
Fordola Lupis erupted, a storm of limitless possibility cascading in fulminating darkness around her as the Resonance whipped across the sky, infinite reflections of its nightmarish realm scarring the melting world around them.
The woman in red said nothing; she beat her wings and set her feet upon the runaway platform, talons scraping across the sundering patch of earth, her scythe floating at her side. Fordola lowered Penance before her.
It was time to decide which beast would survive; which was the strongest. The woman in red launched herself at Fordola in a flash of feathers of raging gusts as she bolted ahead with a powerful sweep of her wings. Her scythe carved through the air at the whim of her hands. Fordola could see as the threads of reality were severed in its path, able to perceive its destination before it could arrive in the Resonance’s shadows. Her gunblade traced fathomless void through the air as blades crashed, the fearsome willpower behind each of their strikes erupting into bursts of pressure that radiating over the realm. Resonance and fire coiled and tore through the sky as Fordola shifted between life and death, the woman in red severing sky and stone as her scythe ripped through this reality, trying to find Fordola as she danced between them.
Atop the plummeting platform they clashed as it raced toward the fathomless expanse, starfall and ruin colliding against all that yet was around them as the sky itself melted and the stars beyond bled. They took their final stands on either side of the platform, two harbingers of death, refusing to yield. Two angels of calamity made manifest, lifted on wings of misery and hope, readied their weapons.
Fordola threw herself at the archon of misery before her, pulling Penance’s trigger. The voidscarred blade exploded into a torch of the purest black, steel ruptured into suspended fragments of shattered blade and starmetal, held together by a web of bristling aether as fire and unfathomable infinity screamed beneath its net. Fordola roared, ablaze in blackest night and deepest shadow, the Resonance - the power of life and death - jettisoned from her back and carried her on wings of dread.
Defiant calamity smashed into angelic apocalypse in a storm of darkness and feathers. Fire tore into the sky with gnashing, hungry fangs and drowned out the stars in cleansing fire, burning away all that was and yet was not. Darkness swathed across the land and crushed it under the unimaginable weight of countless oceans, breaking the earth, the horizon, the bloodstained sky. A maelstrom of ash and sand devoured the plummeting overlook, the precipice, even the great wall of fog that stood ever vigilant and still. Over the cliffs and into the endless valley, all was devoured by nightmare and darkness until even the fog itself surrendered. This hell, this prison of nothingness became as fire, its environs swallowed by a star born of chaos. The veil of reality wilted and burned.
Beyond time, beyond the realm of the living, buried deep within the nightmare of nightmares…the souls of Styx screamed in horror.
The fires died, having burned away all that was, leaving only Fordola and the woman in red. They stood upon nothing and everything. There was no sky…there was no earth beneath their feet. They existed now neither in light nor darkness, in life or death. Where they were now, Fordola could not say…she could only take a deep breath, feel the smooth steel of her sword, the beads of sweat and blood that roll down her skin, feel the creases and bumps of leather of her gloves as she pressed her fingers to her palm. She opened green eyes to the great nothingness and slid Penance to its sheath. No fires raged, no Resonance pierced the veil - all was silent. She turned to see her…the woman in red, collapsed to the ground much as when she first found her, slumped to the side as she hung her head and stared vacantly before her. The wings on her back were but charred bone…their rich, black feathers having all been swallowed in fire, save for the scant few that remained scattered around her.
She sat still and quiet as Fordola approached, her footsteps echoing though she couldn’t conceive how. The woman in red just sat there, silently staring ahead for a moment until she began to fall over. Fordola quickly knelt and caught her in her arms, the woman staring lifelessly into the distance with forlorn, black eyes. She felt…cold in Fordola’s grasp.
“...I’m scared…” she said softly, staring at nothing.
Fordola shook her head gently.
“Don’t be.” she said. “Whatever happens…I promise I’ll keep Eiserne safe. I promise she’ll get to live the life you would have wanted for her.”
The woman in red just stared, and Fordola felt a sudden stinging in her head, a flash of white and black. When she opened her eyes again, she could see a young girl in pigtails with a smiling, freckled face reaching out to her, holding Fordola’s hand in her own.
I’m Robin! What’s your name? said the young Robin, a child now barely older than six summers.
Fordola could feel the warmth of the little girl's touch as she took Fordola’s hand in her own, even as the body she inhabited did not move or speak, confined to a gurney.
Well, if we’re going to be friends, I have to call you something. echoed the cheery voice of Robin in Fordola’s head. Hmm, let’s see…
Fordola watched as the little girl paced excitedly across the floor of the chamber, all manner of horrible, unknown devices beeping and ringing, with all their vile tubes and wires driven into Fordola’s body’s flesh.
I know; I’m Robin…you can be Raven, since your hair is black and mine is brown. We can be birds; that’s fun!
Fordola could only watch, unable to move or speak.
Young Robin returned to her and clasped her meager, lifeless hand in her own again.
Daddy says we’re going to be friends. I’m glad! Even if you can’t talk. I’ll talk for both of us, okay?
The young Robin jumped up with knobby knees onto the gurney to playfully whisper in Fordola’s ear.
I heard them say you were a princess. Is that true?
Robin leaned over her and just smiled gleefully.
That’s so cool!
The young Robin hopped down from the gurney, turning on her heel.
You have to get better soon, now, okay? There’s so much I want to ask you, Raven!
Fordola’s head flashed again, and Robin, a little older now, walked past her.
How are you today, Raven?
Another flash, another Robin, yet older than before - a woman grown.
Feeling better, Raven?
White and black.
Raven!
Another flash.
Raven…
Another stinging in her head. Another image of Robin, elegant and beautiful…unbroken.
Raven.
Fordola winced and found herself again with the woman in red in her arms.
The woman’s eyes went wide, Fordola feeling a sudden pressure from her.
“An Echo…” Fordola said. “You’re Raven, aren’t you?”
Raven let slip a single tear from her eye, still unfocused and staring ahead. Fordola picked up her pale, cold hand in her own and held it gently. She could swear she felt the faintest of heartbeats upon her fingertips.
Raven’s lips parted.
“...if Eiserne wakes up…” she whispered weakly. “...she’ll remember.”
Fordola nodded.
“And if she does, I’ll be there for her.” she assured softly. “Not just me…new friends, loved ones…the people she’ll meet and the lives she has yet to touch; they’ll be there too. She isn’t alone…not anymore. You can let her go.”
“...I…I’m scared.”
Fordola held Raven’s hand tightly as she began to shiver.
“...Robin…” Raven said, reaching out with lithe fingers into the beyond, searching for something to hold onto. “...why did Robin stop singing?”
Fordola looked her in the eyes and spoke warmly.
“Robin isn’t here anymore…she’s a memory now...” Fordola said, placing Raven’s hand against her chest. “But it’s okay. I carry many names with me…the memories of many people live in me now. I promised them I would remember them so that they would never be forgotten. You can join them too, Raven. I’ll carry you with me, and you can watch Eiserne become the woman she decides to be yourself.”
Raven cried, her fingers dancing in the air, still searching for the gentle touch that fell upon her as a child…
“...will Robin be there…?”
Fordola nodded.
“She already is…and she’s waiting for you Raven.”
Raven’s fingers stopped. Fordola liked to think they found what they were searching for as Raven closed her tired, weary eyes and her arm fell gently from the air. The veneer of emptiness, the shroud of what never was fell away beneath a cloud of small, gentle feathers of the blackest night, and in Fordola’s arms now lay Eiserne. The realm of nothingness began to waver and Fordola pulled Eiserne close, feeling the peculiar chill of her skin against her own as the girl slept peacefully. She could hear her breathing gently - her friend yet lived. Fordola thought she could feel herself crying, but it was difficult to tell as this space between the spaces between began to fade. Fordola rose to her feet, Eiserne in her arms still clad in Raven’s clothes - a parting gift from an old acquaintance. She felt the world begin to rupture, not violently, but quietly. The hollow, empty space filled with light and shadow both in equal measure. The order of reality flooded around Fordola, but never dared encroach upon her. Styx began to swell from beneath her feet, but did not dare sweep her up in its tide. The sky became black, a crescent, scarlet moon peering from behind a maelstrom of ghoulish shapes ever in motion. The uniform columns of stone stretched out from the horizon and dotted the shores of Styx as Fordola stepped upon its murky, black waters, the souls of the damned beneath her silenced by her approach. The waters did not yield to her, but they did not invite her wrath, granting her passage back to the shore in silent accord.
Vykke stood there, eyes burning gold, but the confusion on his face was plain as Fordola descended from shadow to reappear atop Styx with Eiserne in her arms. Even Garrickson had barely moved - perhaps it had only been a matter of seconds for either of them since Fordola vanished beneath the torrential waters.
“What the- hey, I thought-” Garrickson began to stammer.
“This is impossible…” Vykke muttered, his words lost as he struggled for the first time to speak.
Fordola walked atop the stilled waters of Styx before her and arrived upon its shore with a confident step. She passed the huddled mass of the still, though barely, alive Asina. Falangrym’s body had withered, as though he had sat there gorging on the visions of Styx for eons, his flesh dry and his form skeletal, the wounds his daughter had inflicted upon him having festered into rot.
His eyes were pale and vacant, staring face up into the nightmarish sky, babbling.
“I see her…” Fordola heard him say. “...up on the stage. My sweet Robin… I’m here… I’m here… my daughter… She’s beautiful…”
They may have very well been his last words, for when Fordola passed him, with Eiserne in her arms, the doctor’s babbling ceased. She approached where Vykke and Garrickson stood, her eyes locked on the broken horizon still ablaze with the roiling tear between the realms of the living and the dead.
Vykke glowered at Fordola.
“This cannot be. Styx is infallible. You cannot be here.” he insisted, Fordola sensing an almost fearful tone in his words. “The path was decided - I have seen it. You cannot be here!”
Fordola pressed on, silent.
Garrickson looked to Vykke for answers, but the Trueborn could only stand in stunned silence.
“The hell did you do?” Garrickson demanded.
“She has doomed us all.” Vykke muttered. “Styx cannot be wrong. This reality…it is a deviation. A perversion. All who are not bound to order are doomed to oblivion! Styx cannot be wrong!”
Garrickson turned to Fordola.
“Huh?” was all he could muster.
Fordola did not slow herself, marching past him.
“He’s scared.” she answered. “A future without chains is a future he doesn’t understand.”
She pressed on toward the light.
“You must return to Styx!” Vykke roared, though not moving. “If you cross back into the realm of the living - everything will become chaos! Everything! You must return to Styx! Now!”
“The f*ck are you doing? Ain’t you gonna stop her?” Garrickson demanded.
“He won’t.” Fordola answered over her shoulder. “He doesn’t know how. He’d have to choose to do that on his own.”
Garrickson shook his head and stepped away from Vykke.
“We’re not done here! You don’t just get to walk away!” he roared.
Fordola stopped for only a single step to address him as she stood upon the threshold of light, a splintered, thrashing ring of white that swirled with twisting images of the myriad realities of the living world.
“I’ll tell you this once, Garrickson.” she said with her back to him. “I better not see you set foot in my city ever again. And for your sake, I hope this is the last time we speak.”
“You cannot run!” Vykke roared, still shaking where he stood. “Even if you cross the threshold, you will find only chaos. Ruin! You cannot both walk the same path! She will not return with you! You must return to Styx, there is no other choice!”
Fordola looked down upon Eiserne, peaceful in her slumber. She spoke softly to her.
“Then I’ll find you.” she said. “Wherever you go, I’ll find you. You’re not alone, Eiserne.”
She and Eiserne were silhouetted against the light of reflections uncountable - flickering shards of the bluests seas beyond Limsa Lominsa, the high rocky ranges of Abalthia’s Spine, the quiet willow forests of Aldernard, the busy streets of Ala Mhigo, an Ishgard restored, a new Garlemald built on foundations of peace, the bright and colorful stalls of the Thavnairian markets. All of Etheirys, with all its limitless possibilities in the chaos of freedom, lay before them undefined.
She and Eiserne crossed over, swallowed by light, bathed in chaos…free.
Garrickson could only watch in disbelief.
“You have to be sh*tting me.” he said, turning to Vykke, who yet remained still, staring out into Styx. “Well if this is your idea of destiny, I don’t want any part of it. Knew I was gonna’ have to do the heavy lifting myself…”
He stormed up to Vykke, cursing to himself as he clutched a fist before him, the dark power in his veins coursing over his skin like stone.
“C’mon you piece of sh*t, it’s back to the drawing board. If Raubahn gets back and sees the f*ckin’ mess we-”
A mighty hand fell upon his throat, white and blindingly radiant against the dark. Garrickson would not find himself able to finish his thought as Vykke’s hands wrenched his neck from his shoulders with a tight squeeze, the highlanders body collapsing to the black abyss of Styx, still coursing with gruesome, black fluctuations. Vykke released Garrickson’s head for it to thud against the ground and unceremoniously roll into the drifting tide of Styx.
Golden eyes stared out into the vast waters, quivering nervously.
His body trembled…but not from fear. Not entirely.
Vykke brought his hand before him slowly. He tore his gaze away from the intoxicating waters of Styx. Bereft of answers or explanations, he simply stared at the blood and viscera that lingered upon his fingers. He heard no whispers, saw no future. A thousand lifetimes of knowing…lost in an instant. He was adrift, alone, and not even Styx could assuage the unfamiliar emptiness he felt in his breast. But when he stared at the thick, viscous blood as it raced from his fingers to the palm of his hand, Vykke, Trueborn son of Etheirys felt something he had not felt in a long, long time.
Ecstasy.
“Incident Report number 14-4226,” Gradey said, exhausted as she leaned back in her chair, none too eager to start the process over again for the third time. “Filing agent Abigail Gradey, Caducuceus Science Divi-... Former! Former Agent! Er… Gah.”
She slapped herself in the head and frowned, groaning exasperatedly as she threw an already crumbled sheet of her scribblings to the floor, the sheaf of worn paper falling beside its brothers near the wastebasket. The miqo’te kicked her feet forward, bringing her chair back upon all four legs with a thud. She leaned over the recording device and pressed a finger to a crimson button upon its metallic surface. The device was no larger than any tome she’d ever read, but when she deleted her recording again, the thing made an awful noise that belied its size; a shrill screech, like a nail scraped over porcelain.
“Right, fourth time’s tha’ charm.” she swore with a wince as the device finished its wailing, taking a deep breath. Script be damned, she’d have an easier time winging it; after all, she’d spent the better part of the last day drawing up the details, so it wasn’t as if she’d forget.
It was just all the official jargon…surely.
She held her hand nervously over the record button, stalling.
The tip of her finger trembled, Gradey biting her tongue hard enough now she could no longer ignore it. She sighed again, and slumped into her chair, craning her head back and slinging her arm over her face.
“Cripes…why’s this so bleedin’ ‘ard?” she wondered.
It was the jitters from her fifth cup of coffee…surely.
She looked outside her window, the hot Ala Mhigan son as bright as ever as it peeked ever so slightly from behind the tall tenement that blocked her view of High Street from her apartment. Her feline ears perked up a little when she heard the workers on the street below start to shout at one another - a pleasant break from all the hammering. Admittedly, Low Street hadn’t seen the worst of it when it came to the Final Day, but given the cacophony of repairs even on her street, you’d think the Giant Blasphemy had made landfall right outside. She found herself staring at the section of the exterior walls her apartment faced and marveled at how quickly they had managed to repair it. Fresh, warm pink sandstone slabs stood in stark contrast alongside their more weathered brethren where the damages had been patched. Even if the holes had afforded Gradey some newfound appreciation for the view of the Lochs the breaches provided, she was sincerely happy to see Ala Mhigo well on its way back to normalcy.
She stretched in her chair, still very much hesitant to start her incident report over again. Her tail flopped back and forth against the hardwood floor behind her as she played invisible scales with her fingers against the desk, surrounded by mountains of unfinished paperwork. So very, very much paperwork.
Paperwork I don’t rightly have to do, mind! she assured herself.
The former Caduceus agent had the right of it; when she agreed to take a temporary leadership role for the official close out of the Caduceus division as a courtesy to Delegate Hext, she thought paperwork would be the least of her concerns. Unfortunately, she was wrong…dreadfully so, in fact. It had been a couple weeks since the Final Day, and somehow the flood of papers and crates of ledgers, notes, and other accoutrement had only seemed to grow.
Gradey could feel her eyes glazing over as she stared outside, snapped back to reality only once the hammering outside started again. She sighed again, crossing her arms at her chest, glaring at the recording device upon the table, the recording button glinting in the afternoon sunlight now, as if to mock her.
She scowled.
She just needed some fresh air. A change of scenery.
At that she nodded, practically jumping to her feet, her boots clattering loudly upon the floor, much to her downstairs neighbors constant chagrin, as was like. She stormed past the endless deluge of musty papers, crossed the stacks of files taller than she was, and made for the door.
She marched down the familiar, worn stairwell and found her way onto the street below, the same curious sun still bearing down on high with nary a cloud in the sky to spare her from its wrath. But she welcomed it, the sight of clear blue skies far more welcome than bloodstained heavens raining starfall over her weary city. Even the hammering, far louder now, was a much more welcome sound than the clattering of gunfire, the roars of Blasphemies innumerable, or the lamentations of the dying. She’d had enough of that for a lifetime…
She shook her head, eager not to dwell on that particular memory. She knew just the place to clear her head, and so she took off. Ala Mhigo’s streets thrummed with life, soldiers and citizens still tackling the mountains of repairs the poor city needed, but even then there was a prevailing sense of brotherhood she’d not seen in her people in quite some time. Neighbor helped neighbor, no person who yet lived behind Ala Mhigo’s walls unwilling to lend a hand. Having glimpsed their end and seen it kept at bay by their sisters along the walls, their comrades holding the gates, their fathers, mothers, friends all standing firm against the dark at their doorstep, Ala Mhigo seemed to rise from the ashes anew, though still the same at heart.
Gradey smiled as she passed shop stalls brimming with people, eager to return to their lives without fear of monstrous calamities from beyond the stars, children scampering about unafraid and excited for what the day would bring. Even the sweltering heat was a blissful gift that felt as though the stars themselves were ready for a return to quiet peace. They had the Warrior of Light to thank for that, but not just him. Heroes yet uncounted saved lives not just here in Gyr Abania, but across all of Etheirys, and Gradey was eager for their names to be known. She’d seen several acts of heroism herself when she returned to the walls that day. Captain Finnard manned the cannons without so much as giving the enemy an inch, keeping the airborne Blasphemies from even touching the residential district. Sascha and Vardarisch too - watching them fight was like something out of a fairy tale. They fought against what seemed like hundreds of Blasphemies; and full glad was she they did. Without their bravery, the gates wouldn’t have held long enough for Commander Aldyn’s unit to rejoin the defenses. Gradey remembered clear as day what it was like to see the Bull himself lead the charge at the enemy’s flank, driving them from the walls in a single swoop. She remembered how loudly the forces on the walls cheered - Lyse Hext most of all. She had personally kept the aetheryte plaza clear of constant enemy attack. Gradey knew that every fighter, herself included, looked to the blazing blue crystal as reassurance through the long night…so long as it shone, Ala Mhigo was not lost. Lyse must have known that - she fought tirelessly until Raubahn’s return, not once so much as stopping to catch her breath.
Legends were made that day. They stood among her now, as she passed the rows of damaged homes, piles of rubble, and honest faces of those working hard to restore Ala Mhigo to its glory. Whether they came from the far corners of the Alliance, or were born and raised behind those stalwart walls, all of them were brothers in arms, a common people, united not by the singed and torn Ala Mhigan standard that waved defiantly against the palace towers, or whichever banner they flew above their own palaces. It was the sun in the sky, shining bright upon Etheirys, that was now their collective standard, the sweat of their brows as they labored in union their silent pledge.
Gradey weaved through the crowds of citizens and soldiers, finding her way over the cobblestone street to her destination. The brass placard, too worn to even read, with a faded image of a griffin claws holding tight to a sheaf of grains, was her north star, and The Clutch welcomed her as it always did, with a smoky haze, the tinny plink of a half-working orchestrion, and the brash guffaws of its owner Ozwald as he greeted her with a swarthy smile.
She’d spent many a night there, always eager for a drink with newfound friends as she had slowly become one of ‘the regulars.’ She’d only ever heard about the place in passing, but after the Final Days, she’d discovered that the hovel was the beating heart of Low Street. Friends and loved ones gathered nightly to drink, eat, and share stories of that fateful day. None who passed the dilapidated entry curtain was a stranger, and with every new face came even more fantastical stories, louder songs, and teary-eyed remembrances of the lost. Folks from all over found their way to the Clutch, bringing their tales from afar - how the great nations of the world stood in defiance of the end.
Gradey hadn’t seen it herself, but she’d heard tell of how Sharlayan erupted into cheers when the Ragnarok pierced the sky and the Warrior of Light and Scions returned. The thought of those stuffy scholars going wild made Gradey and the others laugh uncontrollably. She’d only wished she’d have gotten to see it herself. A starship! The engineering involved would have undoubtedly put her tinkering to shame.
She ordered her usual and sat down at the bar, the place sparse of company as early as it was, though the pair of lalafell affectionately known as Gleep and Glorp by Ozwald sat in their usual spot, well into their cups by midday as it were. But soon enough the others would roll in, and hopefully a new crop of friends eager to share their stories. Ozwald appeared in good spirits, rambling about some handsome young Hannish fellow he’d been talking to ‘after hours,’ forever busy shining his dingy glassware with a rag. Gradey listened intently, taking long swigs of her ale as he went on and on about what peculiar happenings had been taking place in Thavnair. It was strange enough to hear tell of a dragon king, let alone a secret war with the void that the Warrior of Light and his fellows had thusly squashed. Still, given all that had happened, far be it for Gradey to be surprised if such things turned out to be true. Maybe one day she’d ask the Warrior of Light herself.
By her second pint, Ozwald began his usual array of questions; ones Gradey was full tired of addressing. She instead quickly turned the conversation toward the beautiful, finely etched and polished brass placard that sat lazily tossed against the front of the bar and how one would have to be already passed out on the floor tit* up to be able to read that it said The Griffin’s Clutch, upside down as it was. Ozwald dismissed it, saying the new one didn’t have the same character as the old one outside and that he’d planned on putting it above the bar, but hadn’t found the time yet. Gradey took that to mean the brand new sign was destined to remain as it was for the foreseeable future.
By her fourth pint, Gradey could deny him no longer, and the conversation quickly returned to Fordola. Gradey sighed, making sure to start from the beginning, even though Ozwald always seemed to lose sight of the forest for the trees.
Two days after the Final Day was when the recovery teams were able to break through the Caduceus facility wreckage and reach the Garden section. That’s where they found Fordola. They thought she might be dead, but medical confirmed she was unconscious and so she was brought topside. Perhaps because she was tipsy, Gradey she found herself reciting the list of recovered articles meant for cataloging alongside her incident report, stopping at mention of an old, broken orchestrion only when Ozwald grew tired of her rambling, demanding she get back on track. Her fifth pint made telling the rest much easier.
Medical was stumped, she just wouldn’t wake up. They worried it might have been the same sickness the Scions underwent after the revolution, but just as miraculous as it was that they found her buried in the rubble of the Garden alive, sure enough, she just woke up some days later. Gradey had been there for that - she must have bawled her eyes out for an hour straight. She remembered wanting to kiss Fordola she was so happy she was back…but she’d needed no real excuse to feel that way. Still, she was on cloud nine proper, even if Fordola wasn’t ready to be back on her feet. Medical said she looked like she’d been through hell - poor girl must’ve really been against quite a foe down there. But it wasn’t anything a solid week of bedrest and the finest chirurgeons couldn’t fix, at least as far as the physical. Without Falangrym and the rest of the science team, there’s really no one left who has even the foggiest on how to deal with her Resonance. They never found any surviving records on the matter, Asina taking the secrets of the Resonance to his grave. Fordola’d swear up and down she has it under control, but by all accounts, she’s suffering from aether degradation. It’s slow, but noticeable…or at least that’s what the doctors have to say.
Mercifully, some of the regulars began to pour in, letting Gradey steer the conversation to other more pleasant topics of conversation. Among the arrivals, the newly appointed captain of the guard at the prison, Torrington was granted another day of early leave, what with having no Resonant prisoners under his charge at the moment. Gradey gave him an excited hug when he showed - he was quite the lush, and ever an enabler, she loved getting him to spill the beans on happenings inside the palace when he was liquored up. He was the one who gabbed about Fordola and the Warrior of Light’s occasional late-night rendezvous and how they truly thought no one could hear them. The scandal of it all! But Torrington was one of the good ones; he never once told the brass about it until long after she’d left the prisons.
She and Torrington always had a good laugh poking fun about the framed, brass medal hanging on the wall behind the bar, giving Ozwald a hard time about how he’d missed Fordola’s release and honors ceremony. He’d swear up and down that he didn’t have anything nice to wear for courtly affairs, but Gradey knew he was just too big a softie and might have bawled in public like a babe. To his credit, the affair did pluck at Gradey’s heartstrings. Hearing Raubahn and the rest of the provisional government sing her praises, about how she selflessly served Ala Mhigo in its darkest hour and prevented catastrophe by laying low the Giant Blasphemy at her own peril made her proud to have been there. She’d never admit it, but when the crowd cheered as Fordola turned to face them and Raubahn donned her with the brass shield - the highest honor a citizen can receive - Gradey most certainly cried a little herself. Even now, she felt emotional seeing the polished medallion, knowing that it wasn’t the fame or notoriety that Fordola valued the most, it was the freedom it granted her; the one thing she’d wanted ever since this whole thing started. It was hard not to mock Ozwald for displaying it so - Fordola had given it to him as a sort of token, something for a surrogate father to display proudly of his surrogate daughter, like a child’s wax drawing proudly posted by the hearth.
But Ozwald took it in stride. The old man was proud of her, that much was plain, even if he did seem strangely cagey about using the new sign she had commissioned for him. Might have had to do with the fact she spent her meager inheritance from her real father’s estate on it. A paltry sum released to her now that she was officially a Lupis again, but one she seemed happy to spend on Ozwald. It warmed Gradey’s heart to know she had someone like him in her life.
As the hours rolled by, and the regulars settled in for another warm evening, Gradey was surprised by the appearance of Clarell, all the way in from Ala Gannha. She brought word about how things were going with what was officially called the ‘Asset Redistribution Project,’ meant to restore the old Marteen mines and return control of it back to the provisional government alongside the repurposing of the newly built ceruleum reactor. Apparently all was going smoothly enough, though the new joint-district delegate was something of a pre-war codger, though something about his ground-up approach was refreshing. Clarell’s district, like many others, was under new leadership spread fairly thin, as only three of the House of Commons council survived the Final Day. Mercifully, elder Harlowe had chosen to fight along the walls that night, rather than join his fellows in the safehouse bunker, so there was some measure of honest leadership to take the helm in steering Ala Mhigo’s course for the better. Commander Aldyn seemed the most affected by the news of Marteen’s plot, though. It fell to Gradey herself to deliver the report - he was heartbroken to hear what had happened, even moreso saddened when news that his good friend Delegate Garrickson was likely among the…unidentifiable dead.
Gradey tried not to dwell on that - she had had to do enough soul searching to let the part about Garrickson’s plan to further develop the Resonance into an Ala Mhigan super-soldier program die with him. It was probably for the best - Fordola seemed to agree too, never too eager to speak of the man at all after she woke up, though given the bad terms they left on in the diplomatic quarter it was understandable.
Still, the vacuum of leadership left behind without Brunylda and Garrickson wasn’t an easy one to fill, but Gradey and Clarell agreed that Ala Gannha and the other combined districts would pull through. The quarries were in full swing again after all, what with Ala Mhigo proper needing ever more stone and trained stonemasons for the city repairs, so even without the ‘Asset Redistribution Project,’ Ala Gannha was a wellspring of opportunity. Clarell asked how ‘work’ was going for Gradey, but she’d had little to report on the matter. Fordola made a decent proposal, but their joint venture would take a bit of time to get off the ground; they’d not even decided on a name yet. For now, Gradey’s position as acting director of Caduceus took most of her time, and soon she found herself overwhelmed by the thought of paperwork.
“Better dodging paperwork than dodging bullets!” Clarell had said. Today of all days, Gradey couldn’t agree more, but truth be told she’d rather take her chances with the gunfire. Reminded of the burden of her duties, she decided to call it in early at The Clutch under a barrage of jeers and japes from her fellow regulars. She made her grand exit with a stumble and show of her middle finger to all in attendance, surprised to see the sun was still up when she stepped outside. In some ways she had hoped it was well into the night - perhaps to more easily neglect her duty with the incident report. She groaned audibly, and made for home, running her notes through her tipsy head, dreading having to return to her apartment.
The crowds had somewhat dispersed, likely as it was the supper hour, and so Gradey enjoyed the relative peace of a brisk walk home bereft of passersby. The hammering too had stopped, the repairmen outside her apartment mercifully done for the day. Back up the stairs she went, stumbling only slightly on the last flight, what with its flimsy floorboard. Soon enough, she was back in her chair, surrounded by a deluge of papers and documents that somehow seemed even larger than when she left.
She enjoyed the quiet for a moment, leaning back in her chair and running her fingers through her mop of blonde hair, stretching her legs out ahead of her. Out her window she could hear a raucous caw - a massive carrion crow having perched himself upon the now empty scaffoldings. Gradey watched as it sat fluttering its silky black wings, cawing again, as if it were speaking in a tongue the tipsy miqo’te could understand.
Perhaps it was the ale, but the sight of it made Gradey melancholy.
Her attention turned to the letter she had tucked away just beneath her ‘to-do’ stack of papers. That was the last thing she’d heard, and the news wasn’t great. Fordola had to bear a lot of bad news when she awoke - between the aether degradation and being unable to see the Warrior of Light for some time, but she took it the hardest when she found out they never found Eiserne in the Garden. But from the moment she was relieved of her sentence, she hardly slept. She’d spent every day looking for her, following every lead, chasing every rumor. She swears she can still feel her in the Resonance, but…
The crow cawed again.
“Me too, friend.” Gradey said somberly. “I hope our girl’s out there somewhere.”
She plucked the letter from beneath the papers as if to present it to her wayward friend outside.
“But if anybody’s gonna find ‘er, it’s our Fordola.”
The crow seemed to acknowledge her, co*cking its beaked head toward her and bristling its neck feathers. It stared at her with its beady black eyes for a moment, but then twisted and plucked at its feathers beneath its wing before it spread wide its black wingspan and took flight with a heavy flap, off toward the horizon.
Gradey sighed…she could delay no longer. She’d finish this damned thing tonight, or the Destroyer take her. She leaned forward, and though her finger wavered above the record button of the menacing machine, she found the courage to slam it down, the device clicking and whirring to life with a quiet hum.
She cleared her throat.
“Incident Report number 14-4226, Filing agent Abigail Gradey, Acting Caduceus Director. File ID: Final Day, subcategory, Resonant Condemned, Fordola Redacted.” she began, the sun setting gently behind Ala Mhigo’s walls in the distance. Windows across the city lit up in unison with powered street lamps as shadow fell upon the healing city, the pinks and pale reds of her walls and mosaic brickwork streets aglow with hearthlight. As night kissed the rooftops and battlements, the aetheryte still as yet shone beautiful azure in the central plaza where an old bench sat still-broken upon one rooftop in particular.
“Incident begins when former Caduceus direct Falangrym Hermetica began first sequential interviews with Resonant prisoner Number 4, formerly Fordola rem Lupis…”
Fordola reveled in the chill winds upon her cheek; the open air of the Indigo Deep was so crisp and wet, far different from home. The fairest of snowflakes danced upon her skin as she held fast to the ship’s rigging, the tails of her duster billowing softly behind her as the docks of Sharlayan pulled closer, the whitecaps slapping gently against the marble harbor. She’d never been on such a voyage before, and she feared the crew might have thought her a right proper tourist due to her somewhat giddy fascination with how things worked. She couldn’t help it. She’d spent the larger part of the trip endlessly lost in thought and, dare she admit it, nervous; it helped her to learn how things functioned, how the web of ropes all worked in tandem with the sails and the constant push and pull of the wind to make the whole thing work.
But she found all that to be quite tertiary now as Sharlayan drew near. She wasn’t sure what she expected from the home of some of the most notoriously snobby, stuffy scholars, but with the sight of the marble-cut statue of Thaliak towering over her as the vessel prepared to dock, with the fairy-dusting of the lightest snowfall behind it, Fordola couldn’t help but think the best of them. She could see rich, towering pines dot the harbor and quiet canals cut from the whitest marble she had ever laid eyes on meander down to the docks where a series of shops with lantern-lit pergolas sat waiting for patronage. She had heard it was here, in this very spot where the Ragnarok made landfall. She’d wished she could have been there, to be the first one to welcome him home. How she’d have loved it…
But that was water under the bridge; today she would make up for lost time - even if her visit was to be a short one. She stepped up onto the hull’s railing, rigging tight in her hand, leaning out slightly over the water as they approached, cold seafoam jumping up from the whitecaps to kiss at her skin. The dock approached quickly, the captain of The Erstwhile Endeavor a skilled helmsman, barking orders for his crew to begin mooring procedure. Fordoa tugged at her satchel, slung over shoulder, resting on her back against Penance. The captain had remarked about how little she brought for the journey, but given the cost to stow her magitek motorbike, affectionately named Phoenix by its most insistent creator, Gradey, she could afford to bring little else.
The vessel came up upon the dock beneath the dreary sky as a handful of dockhands flung ropes aboard to the crew, Fordola wasting no time to jump ashore, her boots slapping onto the cold marble walkway. The captain called out to her, a gruff elezen well into his years.
“I expect you back by first bell in two days!” he yelled over the crashing of waves and shouts of his crew. “And for Llymlaen’s sake, ye’ better be prepared fer’ cold weather and rough seas. The Indigo’s child's play compared to the Empty.”
Fordola turned on her heel, backstepping in pace without skipping a beat, offering the captain a two-fingered salute gesture.
“Aye, I’ll buy a scarf.” she said with a smirk.
“First bell, missy. No later!” The captain reminded her as he rolled his eyes with a grin before turning his ire onto his crew, barking orders once again. Fordola whipped herself around, weaving deftly through the crowd of dockworkers and citizens alike as she made her way along the causeway. She could feel her heart thundering in her chest, rehearsing to herself the immaculate script she had prepared in her head - she knew exactly what she’d say and when she’d say it. A dockhand ushered her into the receiving area, though she hardly noticed him in her silent rehearsals. She stepped into the open air rotunda and became transfixed by what lay beyond; she espied what appeared to be a restaurant at the far end of the harbor where marble steps rolled over a gentle hill, beset on both sides by white-bricked canals, leading up to the most peculiar aetheryte crystal she had ever seen - a solid azure sphere encased with intricate golden filigree, surrounded by a series of equally as luxurious golden rings, all spinning in concert with one another in quite the dazzling display. Fordola decided maybe the stuff scholars here were on to something - though she still had a soft spot for the aetheryte at home.
She ceased her musings when she heard a voice clear their throat rather obviously behind her. Fordola snapped out of her thoughts and whipped around on her heel to face the receiving attendant.
She was a lalafell, propped up as they often were atop a stool to look over the marble desk, neatly littered with myriad forms, several inkwells at the ready. She wore what must have been the standard for Sharylan fashion, a tightly tailored long coat with brightly polished brass buttons, with a singular silver pocket watch chain suspended at the breast, seeing as nearly every person she’d laid eyes on that was clearly not a dock laborer wore much the same.
The lalafell before her peered around in obvious contempt for the silence between them as Fordola said nothing, pulling down the spectacles on her face to the top of her nose as irritation sat plainly upon her face.
“Welcome to Sharlayan, ma’am.” the attendant began, doing her weatherbest to hide her rather obvious exasperations. “Will you be staying with us or simply passing through?”
Fordola adjusted her satchel with a rotation of her shoulder.
“Ah, yes,...staying. That’s…correct.” she answered, doing her own weatherbest to answer in the proper ways he had said they’d expect.
“Will that be business or educational?” the attendant asked, setting her small fingers upon two prospective forms eager for ink.
Fordola raised an eyebrow.
“...neither?”
The attendant did not appear amused.
“Then might I inquire as to the nature of your visit?”
“I’m…erm… I’m meeting someone here.”
The lalafell looked around the rotunda before sighing a long, exasperated sigh and returning her spectacles to a perch higher upon her button nose.
“Well, ma’am, I’m going to guess by your accent that this is your first time in lovely Sharlayan, is it not?”
“Aye.” Fordola answered.
“Then allow me to remind you that though we have indeed broadened our policy regarding immigration and…tourism, it is still necessary for all visitors to have one of the following: a business permit, wherein you are conducting business, and education permit, wherein you have been enrolled in the Studium…”
The lalafell gave Fordola a quick once-over, smacking her lips as though she were content in her ‘examination’ of her, donning a saccharine smile.
“...and judging by your…apparel…allow me to assume, if you will, that you have graced our shores not to partake of our world renowned libraries and internationally recognized cuisine, and are therefore here by way of our fourth option, that being formal sponsorship?”
Fordola’s heart sank…she had forgotten entirely, and looked all the greater a fool for it. She could feel her cheeks flush as she quickly nodded and reached for her satchel.
“Aye, yeah…uh…jes’ a sec’.” she said, fumbling through the trusty, worn leather bag bearing her family crest. She hadn’t much to fumble through, and yet it took what felt like a lifetime of agonizing, embarrassing searching to find the wax sealed missive she’d received from the provisional government at home. The familiar Ala Mhigan standard was pressed upon the noble purple seal of the fresh white paper, and it still smelled strangely of salt.
It was a parting gift from Raubahn, given in good faith to a proper daughter of Ala Mhigo for time served, with all the blessings the Eorzean Alliance could offer. She felt strange handing it to the attendant, given the sentiment behind it, but they were quite eager to move the process along, all but leaping upon the desk before them to snatch it from her. She plucked from her breast pocket a tiny gold paring knife, deftly using it to part the missive’s seal. She returned it to her pocket with a flourish while simultaneously bringing her spectacles down to the tip of her nose once more, her large brown eyes whipping back and forth as she read the contents of the sponsorship letter.
“Huh, Ala Mhigo…is it any wonder?” Fordola heard the attendant muse quietly beneath her breath, giving reason for Fordola to furrow her brow somewhat, though that did not seem to bother the attendant in the slightest. She placed her hands upon a new prospective form from the neat stack and deftly slid it across the desk with a fresh inkwell and quill, all without taking her eyes of the letter. “Please fill out this form, and do be sure not to skip section II.”
Fordola nodded, quickly answering the questions as she went down the form.
Name: Fordola
Nationality: Ala Mhigan
Age: 26
Occupation: Self-Employed
Mundane questions all, for the most part, the aforementioned section II primarily being estimations of net worth and level of formal education - all easily answered for her. Satisfied to fill in the chart in question with many a zero and ‘not applicable,’ Fordola replaced the fine, white quill back into its polished silver inkwell. The attendant quickly swept up the form with two fingers and placed the sponsorship letter beside it, her eyes busy at work once again.
“Ma’am.” she said suddenly. “I do notice a discrepancy between personal information here…”
Fordola swallowed nervously, unsure what Raubahn had written in his letter.
“Look, if it’s about the age, I swear it’s jes’-”
“No, ma’am…the surname.” the attendant said, looking up from the letter from behind the rim of her spectacles. “Your official surname from the Ala Mhigan Council of Commons appears to be…redacted.”
“sh*te…” Fordola let slip. How could they forget to fix that, of all things? “I mean…”
The attendant stood upon her stool and crossed her arms, sighing loudly.
“I’m sure it’s a simple matter of records being incomplete; we see it quite often in the wake of the Final Days. Not all of the nations of the world keep such…accurate records as we do here.” she insisted, plucking the quill before her from its inkwell. “If you’d give me your surname, I’ll add it manually for the record.”
Fordola let her mind drift for a moment, a smile chancing itself upon the corners of her lips.
“Burnside.” she said.
The lalafell wrote the name in the nicest calligraphy she’d ever seen.
“Fordola…Burnside. Hm. Any relation?”
Fordola just smiled.
The attendant looked up to her when she heard no answer, rising to stand upon her stool with a suddenly pleasant expression upon her face.
“Ah, speak of the devil. Mr. Burnside, a pleasure.”
Fordola’s heart practically burst.
She turned with all the speed and fury that would make the Resonance blush.
Stash stood there, with his black robes, and messy blonde hair kept beneath a black bandana, the rimless spectacles on his face unable to hide the effortlessly enrapturing blue of his eyes. There he stood, smiling - her freedom, her Warrior of Light, her love.
He began to speak, but before he could so much as begin to apologize for being late, Fordola swept him up into her arms and kissed him. He returned the gesture in kind, and for a moment, Fordola and Stash were the only two people in all of Etheirys. They held each other tight, neither one refusing to be the first to let go. In the end, it was Fordola who pulled her lips away from his, burying her face into the shoulder.
“You kept your promise…ye’ came home…” she found herself sobbing. He placed a gentle hand upon the back of her head, looking up to speak softly in her ear, his eyes glistening as emotion swelled within him.
“It was you…” he said. “Without you, I wouldn’t have made it.”
He embraced her tighter, his voice breaking.
“I wanted to live to see this moment. When it all seemed hopeless, I heard your voice. You don’t know it…but you saved me, Fordola. I don’t know how, but I felt you…beyond creation, beyond time…I knew you were fighting harder than anyone for this moment.”
Fordola could feel tears in her eyes, her own voice breaking.
“I love you… I love you so much.” was all she could say.
“And I love you, Fordola.” he said pulling away, his eyes and cheeks red from crying, Fordola’s much the same. “I have a lot to tell you.”
Fordola nodded softly.
“And I you.”
He held her hands tightly in his own, the pale blue of his eyes staring deep into hers.
“But…before that…” he said.
He dropped to one knee, making sure to keep Fordola’s hand softly upon his own.
“I’m not sure if you found your answers, but I found mine.”
Her heart was ten thousand feet up.
He reached into his pocket and spoke.
“I don’t want another day to go by where I don’t get to say I love you. I don’t want to live in a world where there is no Fordola Lupis and Stash Burnside in love. I want a world where there’s no questions, no doubts, no holding back. Let’s find that world together, Fordola. I have a feeling you might find your answers there.”
Fordola could feel her head throb, her vision broken by spidering shadows at the edge of her sight.
The world flickered between the real and the otherworldly.
She thought she felt a warm, summer breeze upon her, but just as quickly as it came, she was back in Sharlayan, Stash kneeling before her.
Flashes of light and shadow danced before her, Sharlayan becoming for the briefest moment a long stretch of a warm, sunkissed beach with white sands for malms. Behind Stash, far beyond Sharlayan’s aetheryte, flickering in and out of reality, she thought she could see a verdant green hill, bursting with colorful wildflowers and rich fields of lavender overlooking a quiet bay.
She looked down at her Warrior of Light, her heart a thousand malms away as elation seized her.
He flickered between light and dark, though he never appeared different.
“Stash…”
Azem…
He spoke the words she had wanted to hear for a long, long time.
“Will you marry me, Fordola?”
Will you marry me, Ishtar?
