Chapter Text
If one were to ask her as a child, she would have cited three things as her biggest fears.
One: losing her friends and comrades to Sin Eaters with her unable to do anything.
Two: having to abandon the Crystarium for whatever reason.
Three: losing the Crystal Exarch.
She had scratched the first one off her list of fears after it came true. The night had returned to them in her lifetime, and all the celebrations they had had all felt so hollow in hindsight. She had wept. Screamed. Bitterly and angrily, had hurled her utter rage and endless grief at the uncaring heavens that now changed. The fact that the sun had risen as if nothing had happened, its light almost more painful than the unceasing light before the Warrior of Darkness had appeared, only made the experience more bitter.
Afterwards she had returned that list of fears back into that little corner of her room where she kept it—there was no way they would come true all that soon. Perhaps not even in her lifetime.
Lyna stood in Lakeland and every fibre of her body froze.
With a flash of light amidst the constant rumble and the gut feeling that the end had come, the Crystal Tower had vanished.
It was gone.
All those times the Exarch had leaned down to pat her on the head only to tell her that the Crystal Tower would not vanish until the night returned—but even then it might simply vanish one day one way or another. After the night had returned, after the Warriors of Darkness and the Exarch returned from the Tempest hale and whole, the Exarch had sighed and confessed that the Tower would only vanish if he willed it to. Even in the event of his death it likely would remain where it stood, the crystalline heart of their city.
She had had a feeling when the Exarch had ordered the city to evacuate. When he had pulled her in, unusually forcefully and with an emotion in his bright red eyes that she had never seen before.
“Take our people and go, Lyna. Take them to Eulmore. Take them into the Empty if you must—Gaia knows the way. We will catch up to you once we conclude our business in the city. Please. Go.”
Gaia stood beside her, her hands clenched around her hammer as she stared at where the Crystal Tower had stood not too long ago. Despite the people having had less than good opinions on her, Gaia had very rapidly proven that she was to be trusted as they all fled. Suddenly those months of rumours that she was not quite as good as everyone claimed her to be had gone, and Lyna would have been relieved if this did not feel like the end of the world. All worlds, even.
Lyna took a step forward. Away from the group. Gaia reached for her hand to stop her.
For someone who so fearlessly charged ahead no matter what, Gaia’s face was full of fear when Lyna turned around to face her.
“Don’t,” Gaia whispered, her voice hard to hear over the rumble that shook the very earth around them. “They’re gone—gone with the Tower.”
She had no idea where everything had gone so wrong, but somehow Lyna doubted that the Warrior of Light revived could have caused anything like this. The Exarch was beloved and even though the Oracle of Light and the Warrior of Darkness had their reputation under attack from something or someone who spread rumours, there was just no way that one single man could have caused the Crystal Tower to vanish. The fact that the ground continued rumbling and these strange twisted apparitions continued hanging in the sky without remotely moving told her as much.
But Lyna had a bad feeling about this. Part of her merely wanted to check if either of the four people who had agreed to a match in the middle of the city were alright. Part of her wanted to say farewell to the Crystal Tower and the Crystal Exarch.
She exchanged a long look with Gaia. Long enough to make the Oracle of Darkness falter; the grip on her hand lessening as Gaia started to understand that nothing was going to stop Lyna now.
Gaia let go.
Lyna nodded at her.
“Take our people and go, Gaia. Take them to Eulmore. Take them into the Empty if you must. I will catch up to you once I conclude my business in the city.” Lyna gave her and the people behind her a reassuring smile. “Please. Go.”
And with that, she took off. Sprinted across Lakeland with naught but the wind and the constant rumble of the earth beside her.
There were few survivors old enough to remember what it had been like before the Flood. But there were more than enough stories still about that Lyna had grown up knowing that the world used to be fuller. And while the Crystarium was comparatively bursting with life and people, it was merely a fraction of the sheer amount of people who had once lived in cities that were now buried underneath light-bleached dead earth. The Empty would recover, slowly, steadily. The Oracles had always talked about how exciting it would be to see the first people set forth into the Empty once it recovered enough. That they both hoped that one day there would be cities and people.
But it was devoid of life now, even as it recovered.
Stepping into the Crystarium now, Lyna had a feeling that the Empty felt the exact same. No one at the gates to greet her. No one further ahead leaving the city, no Amaro overhead screeching in delight as they passed one another and their riders shouted something or other at each other.
Parts of the crystal had already cracked and fallen—here near those apparitions the shaking ground had turned into a veritable earthquake every time it went. The fact that only crystalline decoration of sorts had broken off was a testament to how sturdy the Crystarium had been built, but nevertheless it broke her heart.
The aetherite still stood.
Beyond it was too much empty space that had once held a place she called home.
Even from the front gates Lyna saw that the stairs had cracked and crumbled and collapsed; the Crystal Tower had vanished instantly and with more force behind it than she could imagine. But she was not here to check this empty space. No.
The four combatants had fought in front of the Crystal Tower. Perhaps it was the adrenaline that made her not tired now or the years of training, but Lyna felt a new surge of energy as she once more took off. A light sprint; after all there was nothing in the Crystarium that could have stopped her. She bolted past the aetherite, noting that its hum seemed interrupted somehow and that it spun not in a familiar slow motion but instead stuttered ever so slightly.
Lyna slowed down once she jumped up the stairs that once led straight to the Dossal Gate.
There were telltale signs of a fight having taken place here. Beyond the destruction wrought by whatever it was that had appeared here and the Crystal Tower’s disappearance, she noticed several broken things. Clasps and buttons torn off of armour. A few pieces of bent metal and torn cloth; blood splatters. What appeared to be a shard from an axe, glimmering in the strange light emanating off these apparitions.
She had slowed down not because of any of this.
She had slowed down because there was a stranger standing in the middle of the plaza, before the collapsed staircase.
Whoever this was, she had not once seen this person in her life. Armour with too much foreign detailing to belong to someone from the First—meaning this stranger could only be from the same place that the Warriors of Darkness had hailed from. They matched no description she had ever been given, but what truly made her freeze in place was the weapon they were carrying. A long, fine blade—covered in blood that had since stopped dripping off of it.
There was no body to match the blood . A trail of it led from the top of the stairs to where this stranger was standing, meaning that they had severely injured someone right at the gate. Someone who had vanished alongside the Tower, and Lyna could only pray that it had not been the Exarch. The Exarch who had now left her like he always promised he wouldn’t when she was smaller. She should have been there with him in those final moments of him being in the Crystarium , just as she was supposed to be with her people on their way to Eulmore now.
A dull rumble and a sound that reminded her of splintering glass sounded from above as that person took a step towards her. Every hair on her body stood—something about this scene made the blood in her veins freeze. This scene did not belong. This person did not belong.
Their voice was, for a lack of better description, like nails dragged across a board. Like the sound of bone breaking and flesh tearing, yet cold enough to remind her of those stories of how quiet the world grew whenever it snowed.
“Now then… what have we here? A straggler, perhaps? Or a foolishly brave soldier wandering in a battlefield that is not hers?” Lyna watched as the bloodied blade moved ever so slightly alongside its owner as they spoke.
“… And what if she is? What does that make you, stranger? For all I know this is all your doing.”
A smile—more teethed grin than anything, the very look a predator gave to its prey. Were it not for the bigger issue here Lyna would have been afraid. But any and all fear had all but vanished alongside the Crystal Tower now that she stood in the Crystarium and nothing of it remained. There was absolutely zero doubt whether or not this stranger was involved with this mess. The only question she really had left at this point was whether or not the person this stranger had injured or potentially killed was the Exarch.
And in any case, there was a high chance that they had injured someone she cared about—the Exarch completely not withstanding, the Oracle of Light in particular had become not only a good recruit but also a friend of sorts to her, and the Warriors of Light and Darkness both were perhaps opposing forces but important to Norvrandt in their own ways that could coexist. Whoever the blood on this blade belonged to, whoever it was who had vanished likely with grievous injuries, Lyna was not going to let that go unpunished.
“Not the type for monologues, are you?” she snarled as the silence continued and she reached for her chakrams. It was… a shockingly stark contrast to how Vauthry had taunted them at every turn—and that made her angrier underneath her professional silence. “That suits me just fine.”
As the Warrior of Darkness had said after the raid on Holminster Switch while they walked back the way they had just come while Lyna could not tear her eyes off of the night sky, she had a fierce elegance about her whenever she drew those chakrams of hers. Blindingly fast and elegant as a dancer ought to be, yet at the same time there was absolutely no denying the fact that Lyna had more of a brute strength to her than other dancers they had met before. While she had considered that an odd compliment in the past she had come to appreciate the strange honesty about it, and it had helped her get even better. As Captain Lyna she needed to be her very best at any given time, after all.
Those blades had been her companions since the very day she had received them from the previous captain. She had used them anywhere and everywhere, and there were no chakrams she would rather have as another rumble announced something bizarre happening to the sky. It looked as if the clouds warped and gave way to deep darkness for a moment—and in that deep darkness Lyna swore she saw several faces all staring back at her with confusion, horror, or fear. Then they vanished.
Perhaps the barriers between worlds was coming undone. Which… would likely spell their doom altogether. It would also explain these strange apparitions that still hung above and that seemed to be the reason for the strange shaking that Lyna had completely phased out at this point. All those stories of how the Oracle of Light was a servant sent by a goddess, a goddess whose voice called out to those meant to become Warriors of Light. How so many people heard that voice, and how many of them left simply because of that. On the other side was the story of a deity in opposition to that goddess, a voice only those in the dark heard and that made them become beings without body and seeking destruction.
If those two were those deities, well, Lyna knew that there was no way of saving her home or her people.
Those who could had already left.
And she remained here, with this stranger—and her drawn chakrams.
She gave the stranger a grin; a provocation that she normally avoided.
“How about it, stranger? A dance, just the two of us?”
Lyna received no answer other than a raised blade.
She had ever enjoyed the art of combat dancing. The way the dancers moved and the way their weapons, too, danced to the same beat. A step, a throw, a slash, a bow and a twirl; blades that cut and that returned to their owner. And despite the fluidity of combat dancing every single person was seemingly all too aware of the battlefield they had chosen as their stage. Slopes could turn into both a tactical advantage or a dangerous tripping trap, they needed space but their weapons allowed to help nearby allies. It was a long and gruelling path to becoming a dancer of some skill, and if there was only one thing in the world that Lyna took pride in then it was the fact that she had danced her way to the top.
Even just the path from a girl declaring that she wanted to become a combat dancer to the Crystal Exarch of all people to someone in the guard was enough of an impressive story most people said, but Lyna had not become the captain for nothing. It had been skill alone that had gotten her this position.
Even so, she was not without weakness. That one night had been a dreary enough reminder of the fact that despite all the training and all her achievements she would never stop learning until the day she retired.
A flash of gleaming blades. She tossed one and used the other to feint an attack. All but ran circles around her opponent whose name she still not knew but whose power she feared. Lyna danced with her fear just as she danced with her opponent, blood-covered blade tracing arcs she often barely dodged. Caught her thrown chakram as she jumped over a slash, landed on the blade for a moment.
When the battle begun this stranger’s eyes had been dead and the frustration and boredom had all but seeped out of his very soul. He had not taken her serious, and it took Lyna a while to prove that she meant business. A shower of blades, a cascade of steel, and she reversed her steps. Bounced off the blade. Landed behind him just to duck and rush forward, the bloodied sword barely missing the tips of her ears as she turned on her heels and tossed both chakrams in an arc as distraction.
He had started taking her serious when one of her chakrams had brushed his face. Had taken some of that blonde hair with it. And suddenly all the boredom had dispersed, and Lyna found herself in a fight that she knew would be near impossible to win.
“Say, stranger, I do have a question—the blood on your blade.”
He swatted one chakram out of the air and stomped on it, the other blade reversed its path and returned to Lyna as she had intended from her throw. Very slowly he removed his foot from her weapon as he glared her down. “What does it matter? He was in the way.”
Not the Oracle of Light or the Warrior of Darkness, then. That only left the Warrior of Light and the Crystal Exarch as possible victims—but still, the lack of a body and the disappeared Tower meant that the Exarch himself had at least been capable of initiating whatever mechanisms he needed to activate. And wherever they had gone, if he had been injured perhaps they would find medical attention. That was her only hope.
But she could not waste more thought on that. A rumble, accompanied this time by a droning noise that might have been a voice. A voice that spoke in a language that Lyna did not understand.
The stranger did, judging from the way he started scowling up at the skies for a moment.
If he had been the one to unleash these deities for a lack of better words upon them, then why did he not seem particularly pleased?
It was enough of a distraction for Lyna to dash forwards, almost on all fours, only to snatch her weapon off the ground beside the stranger. She took half his cape with her in a slice with her other chakram, and dashed ahead to straighten herself back up. Again the skies seemed to bend, almost split, and shrill noise emanated off the two apparitions above their heads. If those were words she once again understood nothing.
Her opponent grew only more irate for a moment before once again focusing on her.
Those slow, self-assured movements reminded her of the Warrior of Darkness. Not that they were a slow fighter, no. There was a certain confidence in skill that was earned one way or another, sharpened through fights controlled and uncontrolled. It was absolutely out of the question that her opponent was someone who simply happened to have been here. No, Lyna was almost convinced at this point that he was responsible for this strange shift. And something in the very distant depths of her memories told her that this was someone who the Warrior of Darkness had mentioned. Once, twice, perhaps only in passing. Something dark from their homeworld, something that did not belong here.
A rumble.
A building collapsed just as a crack split the very ground between her and her opponent. Again that strange irate energy from him as he stared up above.
Lyna figured that this was the continuation of a story she had not been privy to. A story she was not supposed to be a part of in the first place.
And the world would end. Somehow she felt this with a certainty she had not felt in quite a while. Gaia and the Crystarium’s people could run to the other end of the Empty and they would not escape whatever was building up here. It nearly made her laugh, but Lyna instead focused on her next step. The next flourish.
Wove through blades and tossed her own; understood now that the beat she was dancing to was that of a requiem for a world. A requiem for all worlds, even. The stage was the soon-to-be ruin of her beloved home she had sworn to protect.
Almost as if it was part of the play, another building went down with the next screeching rumble. At the same time her opponent pointed his blade at her—and she saw a trio of different blades scatter. She managed to catch one with her chakrams, bounced high to deliver a precise kick to the other, and both were sent clattering to the ground. The last rammed itself into the shaking ground as she landed; and she knew that she was the centre of attention now.
So many Sin Eaters had used blades of light. So many of them had scattered them like this. Most of the more agile fighters taught each other tricks how to divert these blades and keep them from landing where they were supposed to; but from the look her opponent gave her she must have been the first one to ever use or land such a trick. Rather than leave him time to use those blades for whatever he had scattered them for, Lyna went and pulled the one that had embedded itself in the ground only to toss it away.
The clattering was deafening even through the general noise.
And just as suddenly as their fight had begun, her opponent tossed his own blade to the ground.
“It matters not,” he said, his voice dangerously low. “You are not them. And neither are you one of the ones who spirited them away from my grasp. There is no point in hunting pointless prey when there is the actual target at large.”
Lyna stood in the slowly crumbling and abandoned Crystarium as she watched this stranger leave. The skies that had once been dominated by the Crystal Tower were empty now, empty and seemingly cracking between two strange apparitions that howled in a language she did not understand.
All that she knew, now that her opponent had left and she had caught her breath—the Warrior of Darkness had described people like him in the past. The stranger had been a Garlean. Not someone who belonged here. Someone who had seemingly been trying to hunt them down.
She didn’t spend more time on that. Once the road was clear she departed.
Captain Lyna still needed to catch up to the Oracle of Darkness and her people.