The Hebert Family would really like the Ghostbusters to stop leaving them on hold, please.
Special thanks to prime beta Lucky38, Canon Overlord
@Ganurath,
@hellgodsrus for being my loveliest wife and co-author, and
@SolarFlare for being our wonderful supportive girlfriend!
Enjoy and gib feedbacc!
1.7
Be Thou Mine Greatest Repentance
-.-.-
The needle Dad had stuck in my hand had vanished into shimmering dust after a few minutes, but Lost Paradise hadn't tried climbing back into life again. Not yet. I could
feel it, there, quiet and dead and
waiting. Waiting for what, I wasn't sure - a moment when I wasn't paying attention? When Dad and Ranni weren't paying attention? For something else? How could something dead
wait? How could it
think and
feel so cold and alone and -
It was harrowing, the thought that I could go through that again at any moment, that I could be
replaced by the revenant of an outer god. I was being fucking
haunted in the most literal sense
.
Eden didn't even have the grace to be something I could kill.
There were still lingering effects from what had happened, beyond just my own fear. Looking at the world and things felt
deeper, like I'd had one eye closed. Other things, things I couldn't quite quantify.
And more than that, I felt… tougher. Dropping the cooler on my foot, I'd barely even noticed it. Trying to tear at my own skin to carve out the god - as if that would work, as if Dad and Ranni wouldn't stop me - had been useless. I felt - sometimes - like I could see movement near me, before it happened, how I could get out of its way. Defences.
We were back home now. I'd managed to make it to the couch, to lie down on it to hide how badly I was shaking, keeping my eyes fixed on the ceiling. Ranni and Dad were discussing -
not arguing, for once, and that was almost as horrifying as their gentle silence and soft reassurances in the car had been - about how to train me. What to train me in. How to keep myself safe if neither of them were there for whatever reason, good
or bad.
"Do I get a say in this?" I mumbled, barely tilting my head to look at Dad's armchair. I needed a say in
something, and catharsis in the form of breaking things with a hammer or a sword or my bare hands would be -
something.
Ranni twisted from the cushion she sat on, on the repaired coffee table. "Dost thou have a say to give?" Her ghost self had narrowed its eye but her doll-self's eye was wide and blue and calm.
… well, she had me there. "Uhh." I tried for a smile. It felt like a grimace. "Hitting something with a hammer sounds fun - or at least simple?"
"Mayhap. Truthfully…"
"We think you would be best suited to an adaption of the training of Black Knives had." Dad leant forward, elbows on her knees, hands clasped, almost a pose I'd seen him use as Danny. "Since it is a training program that both Ranni and I have worked on before. Though I believe it should be
changed significantly since the combat you face will likely be against multiple opponents - "
"And what if she faces one, singular, stronger opponent? The knives could handle small groups as is your concern, but also face
truly unique enemies and kill them."
"And that was due to their use of Destined Death. Which - "
"With a felled patron is too great a risk, I am aware." Ranni made a face and flapped her upper left arm distractedly. "Truthfully, any training involving one of the true Knives would be - hm." Her eyes narrowed in thought. "Perhaps - that woman. My Consort's Maiden."
"
Her?"
"She fought using that training, and
I was not the one who acquitted her so. But she used magic born of the Erdtree - "
"She was a desperate shot in the dark attempt to succeed, Ranni, and I would
not train
any of my children thus." Dad had reared back behind the curtain of her hair, and I could hear the soft crack of pain as she added, "Again."
"Um. What
is Destined Death?" Just saying it left my heart feeling cold. Not the comforting chill of Ranni's touch, but something… deeper. Like jagged shards of ice piecing all my veins at once, like the cold of the starry void above was a warm summer's day. More than just physical.
Dad rolled her shoulders. "Complicated. Something I should never have created."
"You give yourself far too much credit. It existed before thee, at least in part."
Dad grimaced, ran a hand through her hair. She looked so tired. "Not in the form it became. That was due to - it is death, Taylor. It is an
ending. Destined Death is what ends anything. A tool for that purpose, made when I first…
edited the Elden Ring, to prevent myself or my bloodline from ever being touched by the Rune of Death which is what it was before, when it was part of a whole." I couldn't be affected by true Death? Paradise Lost almost
shuddered in delight at the thought, squirming silver and black behind my eyes. "The idea that everything has its place and time - and I isolated it. Bonded it to something truly insidious to keep
both contained. Together they are - the all-death, distilled. Destined. I can't - put it any clearer than that."
I swallowed, and tucked my legs up a little. "Could we kill the Patron with it?
Properly, this time?"
"Maybe. We'd have to find your Patron first. Truly find them, and even then - its removal merely removed fated death, not deaths by violence, and it was made to
reduce the potency of the godkilling flame, the death within turning on that power itself. It's not - something I
have access to any more. Another guards it, and that is… for the best."
"And calling the one who wields it would likely not end well, no." Ranni made a face. "If we are to train Taylor in methods of combat that do not involve incantations or the risk of deepening her Patron's pledge, I think it best we train her as you trained Melina."
Dad
flinched.
"Is she another sister?" I sat up slowly.
"No," said Dad. Her voice was flat and rough.
"Yes, in a way," said Ranni. "Though I did not know her as a sibling. I knew her only as my Consort's Maiden. As thou may hath guessed, there was much
weight put on being…
paired with an Empyrean. Not all were Empyreans, though, so culturally as the practice spread, it became understood that to truly commune with the gods, with Marika's
Golden Order, one required a woman who could
translate their messages, and turn thy runes into strength."
"Runes?" I hadn't really heard of the concept being used like that before - Ranni had mentioned it from time to time but - I needed to know, to bury myself in knowing
something that wasn't Dad's weird grief or the dead god in the back of my head.
"Memories of skill, echoes of action, codified." Dad had leant forward again, slumped. "Shadows of the nature of reality, won through -
normally won through combat. But simply through
life one could accumulate a number of them. And with a connection to the Erdtree -
another's connection, aiding you - you could… weave them into yourself. Alter your nature to be beyond what it should be."
Like living several lifetimes, having all that strength and experience you could never truly get on your own. It was a compelling idea - but I could feel Lost Paradise's stirring interest too, tangling in mine, corrupting it. I had to change the subject - "And Melina had this connection? Is that what being a maiden means?"
Both were very quiet. Dad's hair hung in front of her face, that blank, implacable curtain of gold.
Eventually, Ranni looked up from under her hat. "Yes."
"I… take it this was a bad thing, then. Like any connection to any outer god would be."
"Somewhat. The issue is more… she… you remember how I said that the Flame of Ruin achieved its vengeance?"
"Against you, yes." I nodded slowly. "Melina… had something to do with that?"
"Marika trained her to do that. To - sacrifice herself to burn the Erdtree. To weaken god, so mine Consort might use a weapon infused with the strength of ancient dragons to slay it." Ranni sighed. "It was - she was my Consort's greatest friend. And nothing could save her."
Dad's reluctance became a lot clearer. But the thought - the idea of
training someone, let alone your own child, to be a sacrifice… could she do that with me? Would she? She was there, frozen and hurt and I
hated that that was my first thought, that I still didn't really
trust Dad, even this Dad who'd been helping me, who'd
saved me from the monster in my mind. So instead, I asked, "Is there anything we can do? To help?" Because - she looked so hurt, so sad -
"Train you. Help you. Be better than I was before." Dad had her face buried in her hands. "It's all I
can do."
I went over to pull her into as tight a hug as I could manage. "Then. Then that's what we'll do."
-.-.-
Later, once the children were in bed - or doing whatever this fragment of Ranni did to rest - she went to her wife's room. Sat beside her bed, looking at the still, motionless camouflage she'd worn to fit into this world. The slow rise and fall of her chest. Sometimes - sometimes she couldn't help but wonder if Rennala was
alive under the disguise, if that was why - she had not moved in years, not eaten more than thin broth carefully poured down her throat, not -
She clasped her wife's hand. Like this, her own dwarfed it to an almost comical extent.
"'nala, darling, I don't know what to do." She pressed her forehead to the back of her hand. "I don't know what to do. I was not - I was never
made to bear a parent's burden. I have not the heart for it. The ability. You
know I didn't - that I
don't understand it. Children. That I hated to bear them, hated that I was
forced to bear them. That I was
never good with them. I don't
understand them. I can either - treat them as rivals and equals, as I came to with Ranni, or - as I treated all else, as tools. Weapons. Nothing at all."
She took as deep a breath as she could. Exhaled. It kept the telltale, awful prick in her eyes at bay.
"You - made me believe that I had compassion in my heart. Twice over. Helped it to ignite, then reignite. But without you - I fear I let the fire fade to mere ash. And I don't know how to start it again. I know - Taylor deserves a parent who
can. Who can do more than plan and shape and
craft, who can
love and care and - " It was hard, to keep her breaths even. "But you are - like
this, and I am here, and I
don't know what to do."
She tried to relax her grip, at least a little. Curled her fist in the sheets instead. She couldn't cry. Wouldn't allow herself to. She couldn't - oh, those were. Old thoughts. She could cry now, couldn't she? No-one would be there to judge her for it.
And so Marika
wept. She couldn't stop habit from making her keep her lips closed, trying to swallow her sobs, as though a guard or a husband or a god might notice if she let herself be
loud. But she let herself
surrender to grief, to the endless well of it that poured through her more desperate than any power she had ever reached for. Let her mind spiral and shatter and break and think in fragments of furious, servile Radagon and rageful, terrified Daniel - and the desperate, pleading parts she had not named: the quiet despair of the girl she'd been before the tree had spoken to her, the flat hatred of the queen, the joy of the conqueror, the pained and weakened and tortured and
broken and -
She let herself be vulnerable.
She hated it. Her own vulnerability. That she could let -
anyone into her heart, where they could
hurt her by
dying or suffering or not being there with her and that people
crawled in anyway. That she
let them in. That they curled up in her heart, like an injured rat crawling into a corner and then
died and rotted and she had to live with that stink infecting her mind like smoke from a fire -
She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. Drawing on the Frenzied Flame
at all had been a mistake. Teaching Taylor
here and not somewhere secure, and safe, and far away, and
much later, had been a mistake. Not beginning to try and sever Taylor's connection as soon as possible had been a mistake.
… pretending she could settle here, live among these people, and be happy with Rennala, had been a mistake.
If Ranni's full self was still out there and not finally slain by one of the things she hunted, she would probably enjoy putting an end to that mistake. She couldn't even understand why she had been granted this second chance, after everything she'd done,
why. She didn't deserve this. She
still didn't deserve this. She couldn't see - children, people, just…
Things. Tools. Shadows, cast in her own light, in the tree's light shining through -
Nononono. She tried to bury her face in Rennala's stomach, like she'd used to when the nightmares were at their worst, when the itching in her wrists wouldn't stop, when the parts of herself that had wanted to desperately be the tree's wholely, the parts of herself that had thought that
that might make the doubt and fear stop, the parts of herself that coalesced into the things in her named Radagon churned in her mind and tried to rip her apart once again.
Despite only being Rennala's disguise, Annette's hair had still been growing for the eon she had been stuck like this. Reaching further and further - and she couldn't bring herself to cut it. It tickled at the back of her neck now as she wrapped her arms tight round her.
So thin and weak. She could feel the bones under Annette's skin far too easily. She'd tried to - to move her muscles through exercise at first, in case that roused her, but it had become so easy to fail at that.
To simply hang above her, suspended in agony upon her own mistakes once more.
Her wife's words came back to her, like a memory faded in despair.
We are here to be better. Start with the little things, the things you know
you can do. Every little bit helps, gets us one step closer. Even the prodigies of Raya Lucaria started by flinging pebbles, after all.
"But I face a
mountain of boulders bearing down on me. If I do not start throwing more than pebbles - "
She clung tighter.
Don't be afraid to ask for help, especially when learning.
"No-one to ask for help. Save Ranni and she's - she's
gone, save for a moment, an instant. A piece. Just like me."
Then ask. Work together. Just stop being so dense! Phantom itch from that time Rennala had rolled up a newspaper to smack her with, possibly playfully, possibly seriously.
Marika couldn't help the little ghost of a smile that crawled across her face. "... I'm made of rock, my star heart, I can't help but be - "
Her eyes snapped open. Looked at her motionless face. "Rennala? Annette?"
Because - those replies. They'd been - just what she'd say. And she'd - she could have sworn she'd felt her for a moment -
I won't give up on you. So stop giving up on yourself, dear heart.
The ghostly touch of imagined lips against her own.
"Rennala! Rennala, please - wake up, I won't - I promise I won't give up on myself, I'm here, we're here, please,
please - "
I can't, not yet.
" - nonono, how do I - how do I help you, please, I left you alone so long I can't leave you alone again, I won't
, I won't let them take me away from you - "
Calm yourself, dear heart. False sensation of arms wrapped around her. A face in her neck.
It cannot be rushed, lest it destroy us both.
"
Please." Left to begging, like a child, like a peasant, like an invalid. Rendered helpless, once again, by those who'd wormed their way into her heart.
This is not the end, Marika. I will
be at your side again. I promise. Don't lose faith. A hand caressing her cheek, thumb brushing over the cracks, gilded with pain.
Soon. I promise.
"Darling - star heart - "
The sensation was gone.
Marika was alone, once again, with the cruellest of gifts -
Hope.
