June 22nd 2120
There was a single instant before the opportunity was lost, that lengthened impossibly as Sidra ramped your perception acceleration all the way up to combat levels. Time slowed to a crawl, single motes of dust hovering in the air beyond the clear windows of the platform. Your fingers twitched, the motion catching the rope of quickening power in quite non-physical hands. And the choice filled the world around you, washing away everything under its enormity. A chance to change what was in front of you, and reject the loss that the Shiplords had inflicted on you half a century past. The sad reality you'd dedicated years of your youth to overcoming, and that called to you still. Mytikas had stood at the heart of human progress before the Sorrows, and its fall had wounded those left behind in ways you'd never be able to fully understand. You couldn't wipe away those scars, but you just might be able to erase the loss that caused them. There was enough power in the blazing network of light the Harmonic Circle had created for that.
And yet, for all that Vega was offering you this, did you really want to take it? What her Circle had made here, it was more than she'd ever expected. Could you justify taking that away, even if she was giving you the chance. If this wasn't conscious it wouldn't be happening, you knew that as easily as breathing. But the question remained. You'd laid down your responsibilities only six months ago, and you knew that Vega could carry through on what she'd begun. She knew it too, a flicker of emotion across the link between you said. But there was a difference.
The Miracle of Skylark had been incredible, and she would do far more than just repeat that today. What you could do, however? As a Speaker, Vega was still much your junior in skill, and her Focus was ill-suited to such a sweeping expansion of what had been planned to be a far simpler working. The Word she was reaching for didn't lie within her Focus, and the only time she'd done that before now had been with you Speaking next to her. You wished you could do that now, it would have made this so much easier. Unfortunately, the link to her and the Harmonic Circle wasn't bound tight enough. Either you stepped back, or you Spoke. There wasn't a middle ground.
The ribbon of prismatic lightning flickered, for the second time, and you swore mentally.
:Sidra,: you began, only for them to respond over your abortive continuation.
:I don't know, Amanda. Let it pass and Vega could learn a great deal. Take the chance, and we could increase the effects of the working beyond anything Practice has ever done. Even Skylark.: Further profanity flickered across your mind. Exactly the same as your reading of the situation, but it wouldn't be fair to expect more. They'd pulled so much from who you were, after all.
A shiver ran through you, a clear sign that the moment was on the crux of fading. Too little time. Not enough to think, or plan. Only enough to act. Possibilities whirled across your mind, of what could and might be, but there were too many to organise, let alone sort through. But something in that last chain of thought caught you. Something in the words, what had it be-
Act.
Hands not of flesh clenched around the link the Circle had extended to you, and you felt your Aegis blossom into reality around you in a wave of iridescent power. Energy raced across it, but a thought pushed it back down into the Harmonials below. The core of their working couldn't change, not without changing what it would do. Practice wasn't a thing that cared for many of reality's laws, but the location of a working was one of the few things where it did. Especially this one, where a Miracle had been born of more than just chance, but concentration.
You couldn't move that Miracle, or change what it had been called into being to do. But you could direct its power. Where Vega would have called out a Word of Harmony, you could Speak one of your own Focus. For at the end of all things, you were a mender. A healer. And to walk away from this gift of a chance was not in you. Your Concert Set moulded warmly around your ears, and you stretched out senses that were only half there. The melody that you sought was right in front of you, but there was more to Speaking than knowing the tune, or the Word to put to it. You had to have the right timing.
To Speak the Word: 85 + 32 (Practice) + 10 (Concert Set) + 10 (Sympathetic Harmony) + 30 (Knower of Words) + 40 (Unisonbound Master) = 207 vs DC ??? Highest Degree Success.
The world rang around you, in tones only you could hear. A symphony of gentle notes, on the cusp of crescendo. If you'd waited a moment longer… It mattered little. You hadn't. A Word rose from your chest, but it was pitched differently than you could remember. Thousands of meanings flickered within it, all the different ways that you had seen it change the world, and every one of them for the better. Such a simple word, but one that meant so much. A word you'd first Spoken in part almost a decade ago, as a woman reduced to a crying girl clutching the broken pieces of the most important physical memory of your mother.
A Word that had defined you in the hearts of billions long before the Second Battle of Sol had brought Purify to your lips. A Word you could never imagine hesitating to call out into the world. And a Word…oh that beautiful, delicate word, that lay at the very heart of your soul. It sang in your throat, the purest manifestation of who you were, and not just to the world. Your Focus.
Mending
You felt Mary turn as the second syllable fell from your lips, accepting the shock that she would feel at the sight of your Aegis fully extended, and rippling with a faint light. But you'd done what you needed to do, and without moving any of the Harmonic Circle's working. You were pretty sure that would count for something, eventually. For now, your Aegis faded back from existence as swiftly as it had come, leaving you staring at the confused face of your dearest friend.
"Amanda," you shook your head gently, feeling the Word falling still, down into the ring of light. You already knew the question.
"I was given a chance," you whispered, "to set this right."
"What do you m-" another tiny headshake stopped her. She trusted you so much, but only because you did to.
"I'll explain later." Your world shook as the Word splashed down across Vega, and the triangle of light held by three other Harmonials shifted. "But I think you'll understand before it's over."
"What's over?" Was what she almost said, but the eruption of blinding light through the viewscreens and far below stopped her halfway.
"Mending." You repeated, nodding at the wider view of ruins of Mytikas.
Colour raced out from the outer ring along paths already traced to the other pairs of the Circle. And the glow of Practice rose to the same blinding pitch as the light pouring from Vega. Echoes of flame raced down the hastily reconstructed bones of the old Towers, and the world warped at their touch. Walls flickered, between what was and something much older. Mary gasped, her mind making the connections so much faster than you could without Sidra to help.
For on the wider view again, the two rings above Mytikas had joined into one. A dome of shimmering colour eighty kilometres across rose above the city, and your vision blurred as the Word you'd Spoken catalysed the Harmonic Circle's Miracle. Practice beat down on the ruins below them, and at their touch the broken buildings were washed away. Streets replaced them, fading to more mundane colours as the touch of dream and Miracle passed. Shining walls, reaching endlessly towards the sky. Parks, houses, schools and halls. Every piece of the city pouring back into creation, like a faded watercolour running in reverse.
Your friend's breath hitched as the smaller spires of the Olympus Colleges rose from crumbled ruin, but you barely heard it, entranced by the Miracle singing through your veins. Something flickered across your vision, and atmospheric readings chimed as the conversion towers woke from sixty years of slumber in nonexistence. You felt a hum that reached to your bones from Vega's ears, as generators and power supplies roared to life.
Skylark had been a single city torn back from death. Vigil and the Elder's Vault again, a single place. But this had been more. More than had been planned, and then had ever been hoped for.
