My blade brother’s sincerity bleeds through the emotional tomb’s thin walls in which I have entrenched myself, the shuddering of my heart gaining speed, so that I’m worried all the tiny fractures both inside, and outside myself, will begin to flake and fall away. What will be left of me then? I can’t help but wonder, holding my brother’s face with my eyes, because it’s all I can do, other than stand here, numb and aching, all in waves. Will there be anything left of the Rikyn he wants and remembers, then, or will all that remains be the cold, calloused, wicked things that he condemns?

I am no longer the boy, laughing in the wake of summer’s reach, gallivanting across a wide world with his friends to a sea of sand, and a wealth of adventure; even if I’m still caught up in the allure of the promise that had carried us out into the world then, behind all these dark clouds, and the heavy feeling of just giving up, sinking down, I can never be that child again.

Does he know that? Or does he expect me to be my old self, the child with a family, a place, and a future, though I have almost none of those things left?

I want to open the door, and walk into the warm room he’s offered me, but, like Albrecht feels, when he’d touched the Time God’s quest stone, I am afraid of the flames, as much as I wantonly desire their comfort. I see in my brother home, a light to follow out of the shadow in which I find myself devoured, but I also see embers, bright, and smoldering, hungry to sever the few tethers binding me to any sort of belonging at all. It’s…

Frightening, Duir understands, finding his place alongside me, his shoulder a warm touch to my own. That word sinks into me like a hot stone, shame bubbling up about it, and, in the plumes of that blow’s wake, Erebos delivers another shard of ice.

"Shit," I glumly remark to his revelation, without thinking.

My eyes widen, and my knees feel weak. My kind buck glances to me and back to the prince, uncertain what to make of this rather unfortunate turn of events. The Reaper, too? The tears I’d managed so far to hold in place well up, and I look down to hide them, ashamed they have arrived at all, as much as I am at myself for all my inactions (and actions, lets be real) up until this point. With my jaw clenched, I wonder if maybe it is a game, if Orsino will bound to his side, and my General brother’s mouth will part into a grin, his laughter mocking my sadness – “of course he’s not!” he’ll laugh, and maybe I might too, and there won’t be anything more for me to regret the rest of my fucking life. But, I think of his eyes, the last I’d seen them, and how he, too, had not joined in the taunting and fun as he might have, another day, and I can’t pretend like he would dare jest about death anymore.

Had his father… had he ever forgiven me, for what I had done? I certainly wouldn’t ever know, not now.

Shuddering my eyes, I will the sorrow back into its proper place, returning my eyes to Erebos only when I’m sure that no trace of their existence lingers on my face, but for, perhaps, the aching emptiness of my gaze.

"What… what happened?" I ask, worried that, maybe, something (or someone) had attacked the Aurora Basin. Though I hadn’t lived here in a while, I did know and care about a good few people here… Enna, Erebos, miss Lena, Ming Yue, Tangere, Tiamat. Hell, even Albrecht probably counted among those I gave a damn about, even if most of those cares were about how many more times I’d get to hit him before Time cashed in on all those extra years the old geezer had borrowed. The thought of anything trying to hurt any of them made me feel uncharacteristically defensive, even in my somewhat emotionless state, an emotional response which draws my buck’s eyes to me with a healthy amount of surprise.