dum spiro spero; for as long as we’re here, we remain alive.

the first time that haurchefant greystone dies, you do not mourn him. you do not even know his name. you do not know him and you do not care for him. you are not the warrior of light, and on this shard you never try to be. you witness the aftermath; not the funeral, just the consequences. the warrior of light chases after the archbishop at a velocity faster than air. << she charges through azys lla / it jumps from one platform to another / he spits vitriol and writhes against your coworkers >> mouth drenched in blood.

murderers. murderers. where is he? where’s the archbishop?!

i’m going to kill him. i’ll cut you both down if you don’t shut your mouths, and then i’ll come for him. it’s his fault that << my friend / my only family / my lover / my savior — >>

—— that haurchefant greystone is dead!

if the world were hale and whole again, the warrior would not need to mourn. the shard they wail for would live a million years, would not need to fight, would not need to bleed. he could spend a million years roaming the star before he chose to pass, to relieve his legacy to another in the cosmos, and they would carry that part of him as their own. the warrior of light would not need be bitter over a senseless death. his memory would always be a beautiful one.

but in this fractured world, even lahabrea and igeyorhm are susceptible to mortal fouling. the warrior banishes igeyorhm in an excess of light, and lahabrea is made fuel for a god-king’s ascension. the artificial islands that make up azys lla are bathed in the light of divinity and the blood of the ancients. then, the ascians and their accomplices are gone, with only the warrior of light left crushing their graves beneath their heel. the warrior drags << a sword / a staff / a boot / head and eyes >> over allagan tile and airship wood, returns to the scarred lands of coerthas, and ascends a mountain peak, lays a shattered shield to rest.

<< my friend, / my only family, / my lover, / my savior, — >>

in the end, the source is a fragment, and it is dying. the warrior of light presses their head to the snow and the stone and cries, and you watch all this at lightyears away, upon the mournful moon. this is a death; this was a loss. this loss was pointless. but death is not new to you and it will not be any longer. this is a death, a natural extension of mortality. this is a loss unexperienced to you.

but you do not care for it, so you forget it, like everything else.

the first time that haurchefant greystone dies, you do not mourn him. not even in this life do you care for him, though now you know him in part by name. he is haurchefant greystone, he is of ishgard, and, accordingly, he has a curious taste for cuisine. he knows estinien varlineau better than you know either of them.

estinien varlineau is also dead and you give this no heed. you do not mourn him either. you have talked to him far more, you have even worked with him before; still, that only entitles him a coworker, and that says little about him. you do not mourn him. you do not care for him. and, in this universe, death is pointless; death is transient. no one stays dead for long. even if it is minutes; hours; days; moons: all mortal metrics of time compare uselessly to their precedents.

they have experienced death before in one form or another. they will come back. knowledge of mortality dictates they will not appreciate the experience but be grateful for the next opportunity, even as the life tries to crawl out of them from the unholiness. the experience is not new, the same way it is to you.

so you do not mourn and you do not care. the only difference this time: you have the capacity to remember.

the second time that haurchefant greystone dies, you recognize something is wrong. not even twenty-four hours have passed, yet their souls are lost in the aetherial sea again. mortals are death-seekers, but not to this extent; you don’t remember your phone ringing this much in a while. each announcement pierces your ear, blinds your eye as you shut it off.

our condolences to haurchefant greystone of exo cosmia. our condolences to estinien varlineau of cata cosmia. what a shame that no one knows where your bodies lie. that is to say, if they are still there in the first place.

death is cheap and your health expendable. they put you through rifts and through the straight path to danger just because of this. even though you do not have the same strength you do of a full ancient, even though you are a fragment of your own in this world, you are still stronger than the people of these stars by that alone. each soul brought to the cosmias without their will can shed one vessel and join another anew. how funny that a boundary not even athena could circumvent is so simple to trespass here; how funny that it can be shaped to fulfill the most horrid achievements.

speaking of which, you remember: you, for this reason, were chosen by the stars to face this danger. and your phone says little of it, but it says danger lies in waiting for you. you do not mourn the possibility of death and you do not care—because you do not think it could happen to you. even as a shard of your former self, you have watched so many lives pass, slain them by your own hand, and rarely died in exchange. even on that accursed train ride home, you escaped with your life—even when ai minato did not.

so you do not care; you only remember. you remember what it seems like to die, how many others have died in front of your eyes, how many will pass before you. and all are mourned the same as the rest: in candlelit silence.

the third time you die is the only one that feels real.

when you sacrificed yourself to zodiark’s heart, you did not die. you were revived; a second life without a gravestone. the archbishop’s coronation to god-king was feeble compared to your ascension. unlike you, a fragment laid him low, and his aether passed outside his domain: mournful, mortified, miserable. when you pass there is no one left to mourn your demise. you have shed the role of a savior and become the true warrior of light, and though that is not enough, you do not truly feel the pain, even as the auracite consumes you whole.

death within the crystal tower is cloudy, uncertain. it does not take minutes, hours, days, or moons: no mortal metrics of time can be used for comparison. when the warrior << begs you / screams at you / wakes you >> from endless dreams you cannot answer how long it has been since you last met. you cannot answer how long it has been since you and azem last met. a million years; a few seconds ago. in this way, it is like death; in the way you only know torment upon waking, it is different.

you are the last to be welcomed to the aetherial sea, and even that is not death. not yet. it is part of the cycle—then again, all things in nature are. you slumber as your aether dissolves into the sea, until athena takes some for her own. one eye open, watching behind the glass of the underworld, watching your shard, willed only part by your soul—watching the warrior of light << sob / roll her eyes / laugh >> in your final battle. you spill what little aether the flimsy vessel has; but because it is not all you, because this desire is a magnification of the truth, because you are still here, beneath the waves—though you are awake, you are not alive, you are not returned, and you do not die in another battle. your essence would not let you.

— — — when dragon-king thordan ascends, your essence lets you. you are no god here; you are no emissary; you are no juror. there are people here who do not even know what the title means. you are a fragment of your former self and this rift has made you falter. you are weak, you are tired, you are desperate—

and the dragon-king uses this against you.

gods feed upon aether. it matters not what form that aether takes. ascian souls are no exception.

ancient souls are no exception. interlopers are no exception.

wheresoever the seeds of chaos threaten to quicken,

i shall excise them with my divine blade and bring order to the world.

you chose wrong, you recognize, only in this memory. only in this fantasy. eons too late to understand—had the warrior not defeated him, the source was forfeit. had you stepped in to end his reign and restore the balance, you, too, would have been punished for transgressing.

in this way, in this moment, as the blade cleaves clean and bleeds your heart dry, you think now that you are. today, with eight first felled, the dragon-king has served justice to all.

— — — when you wake up at the axis radiant, choking for air beneath the smog, you don’t feel hollow. you don’t feel normal. you think you’re sick. your heart is drumming and your lungs are sliced open. based upon the results of that rift, you have blood again, and less than before. you don’t get to escape through another rift to avoid a mortal blow; you don’t get to share vessels, share souls. you are, for all intents and purposes, human.

( that is to say, as if you weren’t all along. )

this time, you are made to care. kirika akatsuki waits for you to return on prima, hugs you tight enough that your ribs break, and you remember you are alive. **a person is only alive for as long as they feel pain.** and, even if you wanted to try to do something about it, in xara cosmia, you remain alive.

( want. when did it turn to want? you want to live now. you want to be missed. you want—you’re wanting, now. you want something new, something different to the past, a fluttering light in your chest. but you don’t know if you want to return to the sea.

you long for and you miss the people you loved. dearly. horribly. more than anything.

the thing is, now, when you open your eyes, you realize you, yourself, themis, want to live. )

this time, you are made to remember. the neural link fulfills its promise. you use your phone sparingly, except when you replay, relive these new memories of ishgard, again and again and again. you remember the wails of dragons, the flight of the scarlet dragoon, the call of the azure knight. the blinding light of the knights of the round, the holy dawn of the climactic day.

you remember the archbishop’s stare before he looked away. you remember the glint in his eyes as the dragon-king brought the sword down on your party. you hear it in the madman’s grin. thank you, ascians—my mortal foes, my greatest friends. i am become a god because of you.

rewind, back to this. back to the knights. forward, to your murder. pause. replay. replay. replay. you care enough to right your wrongs, you make yourself remember. you will not die, you will only let the minimum die, and you will not be downed in silence. it is your duty; the balance falls to your hands. pause. rewind. replay. replay.

it can’t be anyone else but you.

the fourth time that haurchefant greystone dies, you do not mourn him. the blood shed by zephirin’s spear spills into the scarlet sky, the wound unmending. the blood of primals paints your hands red beneath dawn’s fading light. as goes the light, so goes a mortal life. and though death is transient in this universe, the memory unfolded before you appears all too real. you cannot turn your eyes away from the mourning, even as light leaves you.

you do not smile. you do not cry. you watch, lips pressed in a line, eyes aglow without a cause. for all your imitation, not even the reflections of the warrior of light follow your lead here. << he rushes to the knight’s side / they try to bandage the wound / one offers its own aether in exchange to save the other / two offer to turn time, to sacrifice stars and spells for the life slipping into the waves. >>

one life for one world. this is how things are meant to be. this is fate; this is only fair to the preservation of the star. one life for the salvation of mankind. there was no other way about it. you have never seen another path. not until now—and now you know it would not have been kind to anyone.

so you remain impartial. you do not mourn. you move on. you leave the others to do the mourning. and you help cut down the maddened god-king in light more blinding than his divinity, and you wrest nidhogg’s eyes from his wretched grasp. history will be written into stone as it should always have been, save for the scarlet dragoon’s grand entry. the eyes will still fall into the chasm, the eyes will still fall into your hands; you will get a second chance at sowing the seeds of chaos. the world will keep to turning. and you will die, and you will arrive here, as fate saw fit to torment you. the conjunction fulfills the cycle. the song can come to an end.

but you don’t know if it will ever leave you.

herein ends the cycle: all eight heroes are hale and whole again. the rift is closed, the damage bandaged over. this marks the end of the dragonsong war and the vicious time-loop that dragged man and dragon to the seventh hell.

this is the end. this is the end. this is…

your doing, in the end.

on the surface of prima cosmia, you stretch out your arms, turning the palms of your hands up to the heavens. the heavens cannot see you through tar and ash. you keep your eyes wide open through the screen of the explorer’s mask.

to your hands, a sphere falls: a ruby red spot, as strong as a storm. you stare down at the hollow recreation, focus on the veins and the jagged lines that connect to the dark, slit pupil of the core. thus creation magic weaves a pale reproduction of one of nidhogg’s eyes, possessing all but the fog of war.

you remember when you cast yourself to flesh and bone to pluck the eyes from the coerthan ravine. under that heavy cloak and worn-down mask, you passed one mortal’s fury unto another and gave cause to ravage the world. this was part of your role as an ascian: plant discord under the dirt and gravel; polarize one shard to balance another. the end would justify the means, even when every means violated your greatest vow.

it’s your fault ishgard had to endure this, even if, at the root, it isn’t. because you were not the first one to make the planet weep, but you added to its tears eventually. because it was not you who first betrayed all wyrms, but it was you who added to their suffering. you would not be the warden of the wailing moon if your hands were bloodless and empty. ( and you would not be fit to be an arbiter—but that is another issue entirely. )

nidhogg’s eye is the manifestation of your work. all the pain and all the longing of your kind stores inside. all the sorrows of mankind, of every being to walk the fourteen shards. the eye stains red with bloodshed, with anger, with passion, with lost love. and here you are holding a replica in your hands.

but this eye is too hollow; its rage does not course through your veins and all you feel is empty. you clench and it does not crumble, you squeeze and it does not pop. there is no air and there is no blood; the eye is made of thin layers of aether, and it bends beneath your fingers. your nails scratch the outer skin and loosen in one short breath; the eye rests in your palm, gives no rancor, grants no hate. and you feel all the emptier for it.

you hold fast again, and you step back and tug. a flash of memory; the eye looses from estinien’s left shoulder and falls upon your chest. like a stone pulled from a weighted trap, your action hangs heavy in your stomach. estinien warps beside you, and haurchefant returns to his side. the left eye hangs under your head until it dissipates alongside the rift and the only evidence of it are the chains and your memories. the chains weigh heavy in your hands, even once they, too, disappear.

and when you reach exo cosmia, you can only wonder why. why you did it. why you saved him. it doesn’t matter, knowing what you’ve done; it doesn’t matter, knowing you don’t care.

it doesn’t matter, asking these questions, when you’ll remember this forever.

but, still, as you let the eye fall to the surface of the dead star and let it crumble to aether to dust, you wonder.

…Tell me, honest, and cold, and considered,

with no kindness nor restraint.

Am I a good person?

<< Yes. / No. / … >>

>> I don’t know.

Neither do I.

<< I think you’re trying to be. /

I don’t know if you’ll ever be. >>

>> …

Am I at least a just one?

…

You are, Elidibus. You always are.

And I have no doubt your decisions shall always aim true.

@ktiseos. thank you for reading! ( pathologic 2: the marble nest and doctor who references #forthewin.)