Completed Broken Roads Lead to Home

[Lazule]

You... think I did this to him?

Feenix, in a diminutive and pitiful way, just nodded. Then, as if this confirmation was somehow express permission for Caliane to unleash whatever disaster had befallen Erën on her, lifted her hands up very slowly in shielding manner and shrunk away from the winged elf.

To her surprise, no such imagined disaster befall her. Caliane simply picked up the fallen elf and left the Acquisition room.

* * * * *​

Lazule turned his helm to regard Caliane when he heard her voice. A noticing, a small strangeness brought on by the change of bodies: where once Lazule--in Lena's body--had been shorter than Caliane, now he was taller. Minute adjustments to this new paradigm would be necessitated when Lazule was in a more appropriate mindset to properly process them.

A question. A sudden desire for insight. Lazule turned his body to match the orientation of his head and faced Caliane properly, still holding Father's heart in that cradling way, like some kind of holy offering yet to be presented to a priest for sanctification.

"Caliane," Lazule said. "The similarities between Sveren and Father are significant. Why did you kill one, and allow for the other to attempt killing you. When it became clear that Father would not relent, why did you refuse to do violence against him. Why did you not kill him."

Flynn, suddenly realizing what had happened, or the very basics thereof, his eyes went wide. He couldn't stop staring at the heart in Lazule's hands. He said breathlessly, "I-I-Is...that...Master Murtry's--?"

Lazule, half holding the heart in his right hand, coldly punched Flynn in the jaw without looking at him. Flynn dropped to the floor, knocked unconscious for a brief spell. A tooth rattled across the tile. As if nothing happened, Lazule went back to cupping the heart with both hands.

He said to Caliane, "Do not include the Soulfire in your equation. It is not you. You are not it."

A pause.

"I seek clarification on your view of necessary violence."

Eren'thiel Xyrdithas Caliane Ruinë

 

[Caliane Ruinë]

Caliane's arms were trembling with the exertion of holding Erën and at Lazule's question she took a breath and slowly lowered him to the ground so that she need not hold him when not necessary. It was a fair question and it deserved the proper thought and due consideration she had given Lazule's questions then they had first met in the guild hall in what felt like forever ago. With tenderness she raised the elf's head again and placed the cloak once more beneath it before standing. She stumbled a little but righted herself after a moment.

"May I...?" the winged elf motioned first to the robes she had spied clutched in Flynn's hands that now lay discarded on the floor. When he didn't seem to protest against her movement she padded across the floor to retrieve it, all the while thinking. Why hadn't she killed him? Lazule was right, they were very similar cases. But...

"Because you loved him," Cali sighed as she cast a glance towards the new body though it was the fire inside the chest her gaze rested upon. She picked up the robe and proceeded to tear two holes in the back before slipping it on. It was a bit awkward fit wise but it felt so good to have something over her skin again. Feeling a little less at odds with her surroundings she folded her arms over her stomach and began to expand.

"The moment I woke from Sleep was when the Soulfire left me... to save you. My hand was around a man's throat that I had no recollection of. So my first thought was that I had done something unspeakable. Erën was," a pained expression. "Erën was hurt. I didn't know if I had hurt him. I worried I had. The way your father reacted and then what you told me about the Soulfire made me give him the benefit of the doubt. I would probably feel the same if someone turned up at my door and displayed such an act of violence. He wasn't hurting an innocent when he attacked me if all that were true," her wings drooped and draped across the floor. Shame. "But as it dragged on and I realised that it was more than that and what you told me in the hall came back about what he thought of Avariel's I did... I did consider it was fruitless.

"But you were so... Lazule I could feel how you felt. The love... I couldn't do that to you. I had to try every way I could before taking that final step so that I could look you in the eyes without guilt. As I looked Sveren's mother and father in the eyes as I handed them their sons uniform after I took his head. I couldn't live with myself if I hadn't exhausted all options and that memory share... that was my final card."

A silence stretched between them and she glanced to Erën before back to Lazule.

"I was searching for that last shred of humanity that was worth saving. But you seemed to reach the same conclusion as I did."

That there hadn't been anything left in Benjamin worth saving.

 

[Eren'thiel Xyrdithas]

A quiet breathing. Short, and faint.

Distant.

He heard nothing of the outside world.

Only the whirling madness in the depths of his mind.

Lazule Caliane Ruinë

​

 

[Lazule]

Lazule listened to Caliane's answer.

And pondered the ramifications. Specifically, the powerlessness of love. Lazule's initial thoughts on love, when first the emotion had been gleaned from Lena's body and given willingly almost immediately thereafter unto Father, was that it precluded those loved from being slain by they who loved them. It was the direct opposition of the apathy Lazule experienced toward the monsters identified by Father's instruction and mantras. It made beautiful and harmonious sense that those Lazule loved, Father and through him Mankind, were exempt in all circumstances from being slain, while those to whom Lazule was instructed to show apathy were to be slain immediately and without mercy.

But this was not so. Even before his Breaking, Lazule knew but did not recognize that the love he felt for Mankind was conditional. If the sanctity of personhood was lost, then it became permissible--demanded--to slay that man or woman. Bandits, murderers, raiders--they were the proof.

It was tacitly assumed, despite this, that the love Lazule held for Father was unconditional. This did not seem to be correct. Uncertainty, still, if the concept of unconditional love was a fallacy, or if loving someone did not make he or she exempt from being slain.

Regardless, a new fact: love granted only a stay of execution. Nothing more.

If Lazule had loved Father unconditionally in the manner he thought the very term "unconditional" meant, then he would not have killed him. But it would have been Caliane, by her own admission, who would have.

If love included within its set of possibilities the arising of a circumstance in which one ought to slay the person loved, then Father still would have died--as it had so transpired.

Lazule's love, conditional or unconditional, was powerless to save Father's life.

And it seemed ever more evident to Lazule that, under the right configuration of circumstances, it would be permissible to kill anyone who so walked upon Arethil.

No one was exempt. For any reason. Whatsoever.

Lazule put aside his further thoughts on the matter; they were myriad, and would take time to properly process and analyze. The impact of these insights was enormous.

Lazule stepped toward Caliane. Said, "He was an imperfect man. A good man. A bad man. Simultaneously. I love him. I hate him."

He held Father's heart in his hands with the care of a supplicant's offering upon an altar.

"And I will carry him with me."

Lazule stepped past Caliane then. Walked back into the Acquisition room. The other acolyte, the Komodi, would be made to insert Father's heart into the chamber.

Lazule would carry this trophy as long as he was able.

This trophy of a wicked monster slain.

Of a good man killed.

Eren'thiel Xyrdithas Caliane Ruinë

 

[Caliane Ruinë]

Caliane could only nod sympathetically at his words; what else was there to say? Love was a complicated thing and the decisions of the heart would probably only get more complicated for Lazule the more he carved out his own path in this world. She had hoped she had helped steer him the right way rather than the wrong one but words like this were not her speciality. That was her mothers domain. As he walked past she very gently laid a hand on his arm and then let him go. She didn't particularly want to know how he intended to keep his fathers heart so close to him but from the muffled noises of horror she guessed Lazule would make it happen no matter what.

Running her hands down her face Caliane found herself alone in the foyer with two bodies on the floor. When she removed her hands the blood from her face, Benjamin's blood, was on her hands and she rubbed them numbly against her robes. It felt wrong to leave Lazule in this state after losing his father by his own hand but Erën needed medical assistance and she wasn't sure it would be given here. Not with the, presumably, mutilated corpse outside and her in here looking like this. Even with Lazule to vouch for her these people were trained and taught by Benjamin and probably shared his views on the matter of her monster status.

Cali turned in a slow circle trying to decide what exactly to do.

She rolled her shoulders and then with determination started to walk over to Flynn who was still unconscious. Gently she touched his head where he had been struck and checked his pulse. He would have a nasty headache but she didn't think he was destined to die here today. Gritting her teeth she hooked him under the arms and dragged him to a wall to prop him up then tore a little from the hem of her robe to bind and gag him. He knew about Benjamin and they needed more time to get further from here. After a pause she went and collected his tooth and put it in his hand. Perhaps they could reattach it. Or maybe they would just give him one of the many she had seen in the little draws in that room.

"Lazule?" Cali leaned against the open doorway and raised her voice as much as she could amongst the pain. "Erën needs medical attention. I think we should go," idly she played with the sleeves on the robe. If he wanted to stay that was his choice but the winged elf had no plans to hang around much longer.

 

[Eren'thiel Xyrdithas]

So still.

The rising and falling of his chest: slow, but steady.

A want to return - to wake, but a heavy weight held him firmly.

A brief trembling of his eyes, as if startled by something. His one arm started to move, and then fell again.

Lazule Caliane Ruinë ​

 

[Lazule]

Lazule coerced the Komodi acolyte, Feenix, to once again open up the center stone of the armored suit and to place Father's heart within. She was terrified when she had laid eyes on the heart, but she complied, using the precise touches of magic to loosen the center stone and unseal it from the glass chamber and taking Father's heart and dropping it inside and resealing and reattaching the center stone.

Inside the chamber in the chest of the Unknown Warrior, the Life Fire of Lazule came to envelop Father's heart, harmless flames licking through and wrapping around the organ. Again, if one to observe it, the heart would have appeared consumed by the strange blue-green fire.

Lazule sat up from the hand cart, very much in the manner when first he had been placed within the new body. Sat up and stood and left the frightened Komodi alone and walked back to the open door of Acquisition and saw Caliane there and heard her calling.

"I am ready," Lazule said to her.

And he stepped out of Acquisition and back into the foyer and saw Erën lying there on the ground. He went to him and squatted down and slid an arm under his knees and an arm under his back and lifted and found, in contrast to Lena's body, it was much easier to lift him than he expected. So unexpected was it, that if Lazule had not slowed himself in the standing and lifting of Erën, he would have potentially tossed Erën's unconscious body a short distance up into the air.

Lazule, carrying Erën, looked to Caliane.

He was ready.

He did not know where he was going, but he was ready.

Lena's Retribution, Father's Retribution, against those who were actually cruel, actually wicked, actually monstrous, awaited.

And he was the Slayer. His purpose so clear.

Eren'thiel Xyrdithas Caliane Ruinë

 

[Caliane Ruinë]

Relief flooded through her when Lazule came back to join her. As much as she would have respected his decision it would have been a worry that gnawed at her until they met again. Caliane almost dared hope for a change of her luck when he also knelt and picked Erën up like he weighed nothing. She would have found the strength somewhere to do if she had had to but at least now she could focus on just keeping herself upright. She watched Lazule for a moment, mulled over his words, and then nodded to herself. At least one of them was ready for whatever came next. Caliane thought she was not prepared for anything else but a warm feather bed.

Her feet took them back the way they had come when they first entered the tower but as she stepped into the snow this time she let herself use the last bits of her energy to heat her footfalls to keep herself warm. She had retrieved Erën's cloak once more from the floor and she flung it over her wings now. The only way down was through the town and she didn't want to cause anymore fright. But once they were through there where did she take them? Her first thoughts had been of home and the help they would receive there but it was a crime to bring outsiders to the protected peaks of Thyasari. Was another argument with another angry father really what the group needed in this moment? Her gaze swept with concern to the body Lazule cradled. But would he be ok without her peoples assistance?

"The Gilded Vale is close to here," Caliane said after a while of picking their way back down the path. She stumbled over a hidden bit of rock and grimaced as she stubbed her toe. The Monster Hunter hotspot might be a good alternative though it would depend on luck who exactly was there when they walked in. It felt in a way a little poetic her journey should end there again with Lazule. "Or we could continue the day of meeting one another's family and attempt to get some help from my people. Thyasari is not far," her eyes flicked across the views their height offered them. She recognised the landscape well now they were moving.

 

[Eren'thiel Xyrdithas]

His limbs hung loosely and his head fell back as Lazule scooped him up from the cold floor. His hair slid up and hung beneath, a single feather twisting around, somehow remaining entwined in a small braid.

He breathed, but barely yet. With his posture changed, the wheeze in his chest became apparent, and his skin had slowly grown pale, almost grey.

A twitch here, and wince there. But from wherever his consciousness had gone, not yet would it return.

Caliane Ruinë Lazule​

 

[Lazule]

Lazule, upon Caliane's and his own exit from the Tower, stopped briefly by Father's corpse. Observed it with a bowed head. A silent acknowledgement: of gratitude, of the good that Father in his ultimately flawed way attempted to do for Arethil, of Lazule's own possession of the most important part of him.

And, that quiet reverence passed, Lazule continued on along with Caliane back down the winding mountain footpath toward Brendalgrim.

A choice was presented. Erën, having sustained injuries that Lazule had not been witness to, but injuries that were severe nonetheless, needed to be seen to. Caliane was not able, and neither was Lazule. Both Father's Tower and by extension Brendalgrim below were poor options for clearly evident reasons, thus the choice presented.

The Gilded Vale. Or the location of Caliane's family, as she so implied: Thyasari.

Lazule did not spend very much time deliberating. He knew where the Gilded Vale was located. He did not know this of Thyasari; Caliane did, and by corollary would know the difference in distance and healing/medical capabilities between them. But the choice was extended to Lazule, and Lazule made it.

"The Gilded Vale," Lazule said. "It is familiar."

Perhaps Caliane could have persuaded her family for aid.

Or perhaps not. And another grim lesson on love would be learned. It seemed better to Lazule to avoid this possibility.

And, as Lazule descended down the footpath with Caliane, he thought on what he should tell Caliane. What he should admit and apologize for. The terrible thoughts he had regarding her and the Soulfire within her.

Eren'thiel Xyrdithas Caliane Ruinë

 

[Caliane Ruinë]

A soft sigh of relief escaped her lips as Lazule confirmed the location Caliane was leaning towards. She was in no fit state to have that argument with her father: Nevarth Ruinë was a force of will at the best of times. Still she couldn't help but think of home as they slipped into that companionable silence of two people who had lived with one another in an intimate way. At least for Caliane what had transpired had formed for her a deep connection with the Life Fire. Lazule had fallen with her above the skies of Bhatharik. It was a moment that would never leave her no matter how many centuries she lived.

With the destination in mind Caliane's body took over and she had the time to address her other problem: the Soulfire. The bounds with which she had kept it in place were entirely gone. It worried her. The last time it had been entirely free it had been spurned on in a moment of anger to set her school on fire and nearly kill her closest friend. The fire had raged for days until they could bring it under control.

"Did the Soulfire do anything else when I was in Sleep?" she glanced to Lazule and then down to Erën. She worried at her bottom lip.

 

[Eren'thiel Xyrdithas]

His head bobbed gently to and fro, nestled nicely against Lazule's arm.

His eyes fought to open, and a muffled groan escaped him. But he did not truly come to.

Vague, blurred perception. Muffled hearing. Footsteps... the slight jostling of their movement. Then gone. Again and again.

And there, where the sword had been tossed - only disturbed snow remained, the blade having vanished.

Lazule Caliane Ruinë ​

 

[Lazule]

Down the footpath they went.

Some curious sights along the way. The gargoyles that once patrolled the footpath (and indeed, also those that kept watch around Brendalgrim, as well as the other arcane constructions that assisted the dwarves with their labor) had all stilled. Their eyes no longer glowing with the magic that had powered them. They had all become nothing more than statues and inanimate constructs now that Benjamin had died, his magic having dissipated and rendering them all lifeless.

Lazule was capable enough in adjusting to the experimentally designed feet of the armored suit, but, as Flynn had warned back in the Tower, not without error. A few times Lazule would step awkwardly down the path, or perhaps a rock or a small divet would rock his balance and force him to stop suddenly and sharply and take a moment to regain it and to not drop Erën.

The question. It was Caliane who now sought insight.

"Yes," Lazule said. "The Soulfire seized control of your body from me and conjured a ball of fire and launched it. This fireball destroyed the front door of a cottage and would have, had Erën's timing been different by a matter of seconds, harmed him in the process."

A small beat.

And Lazule added, "This was a single occurrence."

Eren'thiel Xyrdithas Caliane Ruinë

 

[Caliane Ruinë]

Caliane visibly grimaced as Lazule filled her in on the two weeks of darkness in her mind. Yet that was so different to the Soulfire she had seen on the top of the mountain. She mulled this information over again quietly in her mind. Her curiously quiet mind. Knowing that the Soulfire had free reign yet still chose the silence was infuriating in a way. It seemed it too had things to contemplate after the last few hours had unfolded, perhaps even the last few days. It was hard to make sense of when her brief conversations with the essence of her had happened amongst all the darkness.

"It likes you," the winged elf offered after a while in a tired observation. The conversation would keep her awake. "I haven't ever felt it like another being before." It was a very selfish thing which is why it had probably tried to kill Erën. Her gaze flicked to him when he groaned in his sleep and she gently adjusted his injured arm so that it was tucked into his shirt. It would at least keep it from bumping along on the journey. "I am sorry for leaving you alone with it like that though, in truth I thought that blast would kill us both and leave you with a body," she toyed with the sleeve of her robe again.

 

[Eren'thiel Xyrdithas]

A weary content with his arm more comfortably placed, but still little acknowledgement.

But for a moment, when his eyes managed to part just enough, he saw the red of her hair.

"Cal...iane..."

And then his head dropped quietly again.

She was safe. All of them were. Finally. The task done.

It mattered little now, if he made it through.

But something in him refused to let go.

Lazule Caliane Ruinë ​

 

[Lazule]

It likes you.

Just those simple words, the confirmation of Lazule's wonder--indeed, a reciprocated amicable reception--warmed the fire in his chest. And the further expounding of, I haven't ever felt it like another being before, warmed it more. He even felt that warmth spread across the cheeks of his face, hidden beneath the stern metal helm of the armored suit.

"Oh," Lazule said. He may have gained a new way of being and new insights about the world and the societies therein, but there were social situations which remained difficult for Lazule to navigate without a high degree of awkwardness. He wanted to express his own amicable feelings concerning the Soulfire, that kindred spirit of flame, but he maintained difficulty in formulating how. Perhaps the Soulfire already knew.

"You need not apologize," Lazule said in response to Caliane, walking down the footpath. He made no comment on Caliane's assumption that the blast might have killed her and the Soulfire both. The pursuit of righteousness at the time dictated sacrifice. If all three of them needed to perish so that the Amalgamation could be slain, then such would have been done with no remorse nor hesitation.

Lazule thought again about apologizing. It seemed apropos. Caliane had just apologized herself.

But he did not. A noted strangeness. That he would not have hesitated to sacrifice his life to slay the Amalgamation, but, in this relatively small and simple matter, hesitation gripped him and stayed his words.

He did not know when he would apologize. But he knew that he ought to. To do so seemed...right.

And Lazule continued to descend down the mountain footpath, carrying Erën (who had stirred briefly), with the intent of journeying all the way to the Gilded Vale for aid and rest.

Eren'thiel Xyrdithas Caliane Ruinë