Where Hope Abides
Twentieth Day of the Ninth Month 293 AC
It's been four years almost to the day since that fateful night in Braavos when you first glimpsed dreams older than mankind, four years since you thought the worst of the world was thugs and killers or the Usurper atop his stolen throne. Standing here before the wreck of Heaven beholding an angel's Fall, a devil's sympathy for all the world has lost, you truly understand—there is no hope to be gifted from above, no grace of higher purpose to mend the world.
Yet even in these shadows there is purpose to be found, to guard what remains as Yrael had said, but also to build anew. "You are my vassal, Yrael, but you are also my friend.
Grander, I spoke, if you remember it. And grander,
you said. Let destruction not be
our monument. I swear to you I will see this righted one day."
"This cannot be restored." Mereth's words could easily have been derisive, yet now they are just weary with the weight of centuries uncounted.
"In that you are right, too much has been lost to piece together the past, but a new house may yet be raised on the foundations of the old while there is the will to attempt it," you reply, the words spoken aloud as much for your own sake as for any others. To speak them in the first step to making them true, the first push however ephemeral against the despair that looms in the broken sky.
Yrael nods, his brow raised a little higher, his wings unfurling slightly. "I know that you will try, Your Grace, and even as I am still I hope that you will triumph."
"That
we will triumph," you correct, looking between the Fallen Archon and the Baatezu, both in their own way as determined as you.
***
You had thought of all the ways you might lessen the blow for your companions. To your shame you had also briefly considered not telling them the truth at all, to spare them the burden a while longer, but in the end there is but one path before you—remaining true to yourself and to them. Once all of you are gathered you speak plainly, words likely already guessed from Yrael's changed form:
"I have seen Heaven, and it is not there," you begin solemnly, going on to explain the devastation you had glimpsed and offer your suspicions as to what might have worked it.
Dany rises silently to her feet and walks up to Yrael who had been standing still as stone: "You are more than your duty, Yrael Elaenos, do not let it consume you. Walk among the sunlit trees, listen to concerts from the hands of men and spirits, know that you are not alone."
"Elaenos... Bright One," the Archon sighs. "I am bright no more, Highness."
"And do you think those whose lives you have made better, those you have freed and kept safe, will begrudge that of you?" Your sister shakes her head. "'Elaenos' is not a merely a word, no simple title. It is your name upon this world." Her voice trembles slightly as she speaks, struggling with the revelation herself but choosing to confront it by helping another through it.
You suspect Yrael sees it too, for his gaze softens as he replies. "Thank you, I will strive to remember that"
"Are you alright?" you ask, a
whisper of spell-wrought wind carrying the question to Dany's ear.
"No, but I will be, we
all will," she answers fiercely.
Tyene speaks up next, the moment's mute silence giving way to a question you had been too caught up in the horror of the revelation to ask, though which is in hindsight of utmost importance. "From where did you call forth your fellows to aid you in Mantarys?"
"The city of Heaven's Shore still stands, a shadow of its former self. I could not bring myself to ask much more, the fate of a few friends, but now all that you must know." Yrael replies. "I should..."
"No, you should not," you interject. "We will see what might be found there
together." It is all that you can do to keep both hope and fear out of your voice. That something more of Heaven endures than the exiles of Mantarys is a relief, but with the horror you have seen still fresh in your mind you cannot help but consider how even that might have been twisted.
"My lord," Waymar clears his throat awkwardly. "Know that I stand with the princess in this, though my words would be less well chosen no doubt. If I had known my home Runestone broken and lost, no more would I wish to ask where all the pieces had fallen. I would name it human, but I have long since learned humanity is not alone in its joys and sorrows. We can all do but our best before the world and hope that it is enough."
"You don't have to come if you don't want to," Vee finishes bluntly as it her way, but also cutting to the heart of the matter. "It was your home and now it ain't. No one should have to see that lest they're good and ready."
Yrael takes the offer in the spirit it was given with a solemn nod of thanks, but adds: "I am as ready as I will ever be, and it is not only for duty's sake that I would see what remains."
"Then let us be about it and find what power has toppled one of the Pillars of Being," Malarys offers, obviously wishing to push on, to do something rather than standing here, the same grim thoughts echoing through all your minds.
"Well said, Wisdom," Xor agrees unexpectedly. "I, too, would see what remains. Perhaps my perspective would help in understanding how the wound was dealt and in time mending it." Looking into those eyes, born of a reality unimaginably distant from this one yet still looking upon it with kindness as much as curiosity you smile however faintly for the first time since you had seen the fate of Heaven and in that you are not alone.
"I'm not one for solving mysteries or mending wounds," Ser Richard speaks up at last. "But so long as you need a sword to guard you while you do it I'll be there."
All the while Lya had been silent, eyes staring blankly at the wall behind you while her mind worked through some arcane plan or theory, but the knight's words start her from her reverie. "And you shall have your true sword for the task, Ser Knight," she says, drawing Oathkeeper from her mage's satchel.
Where before the blade had been alive with magic now it seems to
sing with it, its aura almost blinding to look upon with the eyes of power that one might think the blade could strike down its foes alone and unaided, so great was the craft that went into its making.
How was Oathkeeper improved?
[] Write in
OOC: As was said last night Viserys needed some some time to internalize what he had seen, and of course the companions needed to be shown reacting each in their own manner.
into this:
