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The days were getting longer, and so were Beetle’s far-off gazes. The dreams were bothering her again - Urianger knew. They were bothering him too. The ritual to discuss them upon waking was still ongoing, but the discussions themselves were becoming increasingly short and dismissive. She would often say she could not remember, and though it seemed odd to him, he did not question - after all, there was little he could remember of his own dreams.
They had not been intimate, or even close, in weeks. She had scarcely deigned to reach for him for a kiss - though she always accepted any he offered. She was the last one to fall asleep at night, and the last out of bed in the morning. Always staying up with a book, always sleeping in well past breakfast, shuffling straight into the shower and staying in it for nearly half a bell.
He did not push her at all, mind, but he could not deny the increasing pain it gave him to see her this way.
But, this evening, he thought to himself that perhaps that had been a mistake. Perhaps he should press her. It was simply so unlike her not to share her feelings, that he had believed she eventually would - but no, it seemed these past few weeks she was not inclined to share a single thing unless prompted.
They ate their dinner in near silence - Beetle had cooked without a single word, a far cry from her usual demeanor, chatting and singing and laughing.
“Beloved?” he began.
“Yes?”
“Pray, may I ask… art thou well?”
Beetle looked him in the eyes, lips falling open.
“I… oh gods,” she sighed, putting her silverware down, “I hate it when you ask me that.”
His brow furrowed.
“Why ever so?”
“Because I can’t lie to you,” she said, exasperated, “No, Urianger. I am not well.”
She took a swig from her glass.
“But I don’t wanna talk about it,” she finished, rather curtly.
It was now Urianger’s turn to put his utensils down.
“Beetle. Prithee. If there art anything I may see done to assuage thee--”
“There isn’t anything anyone can do, Urianger,” she snapped, “I killed my past lover and I am going to live with that the rest of my life. Then I’ll die, be reborn, and remember it all over again in that life, probably.”
He was silent for a spell, as she ate. Words failed him time and time again, until at last the smallest, quietest words passed from his lips:
“My heart aches, Beetle.”
She swallowed, stopping without looking at him. She felt a pang of guilt, and a hard lump formed in her throat as he continued:
“We hath not been intimate, in ways physical nor emotional, for… an unbearable length of time. I feel… distant from thee.”
She sighed, a deep heavy sigh of remorse. She knew it wasn't kind to him, to consistently deny him any form of even emotional closeness, but she simply did not feel up to it. It reminded her too much of the dreams.
“I’m sorry. I just… I haven’t been well,” she said, “World’s ending, my worst enemy’s buildin’ feckin’ death towers, and I won’t stop dreaming about some old bastard I killed.”
They were quiet for a long moment, then Beetle sighed, leaping from her seat.
“Here. Come on. I have an idea,” she said.
He followed her upstairs without hesitation, to their bedroom, where she retrieved a large box.
“Come on, come on,” she said.
“I do not understand.”
“Just come on,” she said, “It’s a bunch of things I kept from our wedding - the first one. I thought we could look through them. Bring back some pleasant memories.”
She took the lid off the box, revealing its contents. Dried bouquets and boutineers, a sachet of dried petals, the halfshell that was used to carry their rings, and the crystal given to them by Taynor, all settled inside the flower girl’s basket.
“Ah,” he said, “The crystal gloweth bright still.”
He reached for it, raising it away from the two of them, watching it wane ever so slightly for its distance away from them.
“Fascinating,” he said, “Master Taynor’s skills are well developed, particularly for a boy his age.”
Beetle took it from him, smiling.
“You know… I had wanted to keep it on the nightstand, but it glowed so brightly, I couldn’t get any sleep near it,” she said, with a small laugh, “It’s beautiful, though - I should really find a place for it.”
“Thou couldst always make a stand for it, to place upon the shelves," he said, "Thou hast made such things before with ease."
“I could do that, yeah,” she said, “Thought about making one for the memory crystal Hythlodaeus gave me, but… I don't know. I like keeping it near me. Kind of a reminder that I'm not crazy - that the things I remember flashes of are real."
She paused, leaning over to the nightstand, and retrieving the crystal from the drawer. It was wrapped in a cloth, which she gingerly unwrapped as Urianger watched on.
"Quite curious," he said, "tis not unlike the stones used to convey the knowledge of past mages or warriors onto apprentices - yet different, in many ways."
He took it from her, inspecting it.
"This symbol… the sun, of course. But, thou sayest the others wert emblazoned with symbols resembling constellations?"
Beetle nodded.
"Yes. Every single one of them. But not mine - not Azem's."
"Fascinating, indeed."
His finger brushed over the symbol, and something strange happened: it glowed, coming to life in his hand. Beetle came closer to it, and it glowed brighter - not unlike Taynor's crystal.
"That's odd-- oh!"
It floated upright in his hand, then began to relay a message she had not previously heard before:
If you are able to hear this message, then I can only conclude that one of my deepest wishes has come to fruition: you are reunited with Vesper. Though I cannot be with you right now, I am glad to know the two of you are still together. Even if you never find it within your heart to forgive me… I can remain content, knowing you have forgiven him, as I have. And I have, Vesper. I have.
Branwen, my radiant sun… care for my stars, as you have cared for the others. Vesper, look to the stars in the sky, and know that though they are now silent, I too am looking at them, and am ever thinking of you. That is the message they now can share.
As for Hythlodaeus… if by some miracle, he is there with you… then I would ask that you relay a message to him. Tell him that we will be together again. All of us. We will be together again. This I promise. This I swear.
Someday, somehow, I will be there with you all.
Urianger stared at the crystal in awe as it settled back into his hand.
Vesper.
“Vesper,” Urianger repeated, in a tone of relief and realization. It was always right there, all along. How many times had he returned to Vesper Bay? How many times had his eyes scanned over the sign as he entered: V-E-S-P-E-R. Right before his very eyes!
“Your name was Vesper,” Beetle repeated, “And - and mine was Branwen! And Hades, and Hythlodaeus - and we--! ”
"Twas thee," Urianger realized, "Thou wert the other, in my dreams. Thee, and Hythlodaeus… there wert four, simply alternating within my memories."
Her eyes grew misty.
“We were together,” she said, “We were all together--”
She put her hand to her chest, closing her eyes. Everything, all of it, flooding to her at once, memories crashing against each other like waves, washing over her memories as both Beetle and Branwen. She remembered the love she had for them all, how whole she felt within their arms, the pain of slowly losing Hades, then Hythlodaeus, until only she and Vesper were left - it was too much.
“The ocean,” Urianger breathed, “All of us, at the ocean, as we did away with our robes and masks, and we danced and played like children in the tide…”
Beetle’s eyes opened, her breaths growing shaky.
“Yes! Yes, we-- we used to do that all the time, before Hades was elected to the title of Emet-Selch, and he became too busy to join the rest of us… you once pushed Hythlodaeus in and he pulled you down with him…”
She remembered how hard she had laughed, how she was brought to her knees watching the two of them playfully fight, shoving the other underneath the water whenever they had come up, and how Hades was yelling at them to be careful, to stop that, one of you is going to drown and I am not going to fish you out!
Memories of heady, hazy moments, not too dissimilar to the dreams they had been having, suddenly came to the surface, along with memories of fighting, of tears and hurt and anger… and then Urianger clasped his hand over his mouth.
“I… oh,” he said, looking at Beetle, “The things I said--”
"No, not you, Urianger - Vesper. You might be a small piece of him, but you did not make the decisions he made, nor spoke the words he spoke. Vesper did. And even if it was you - it was eons, literal eons ago. Please don’t get started on the guilt again. Please-- oh ."
The sheer weight of the pain Branwen had suffered suddenly hit her.
"Oh gods," she said, "Hades… why?"
Her chest burned with agony as she recalled it; the Final Days, Hades high above the sky, summoning Zodiark as she fruitlessly cried out to him. How she would find him again, seeing the difference in his eyes: she was no longer his. Not truly. Not anymore.
She began to cry as everything else came flooding back, the feelings now catching up with the knowledge of the memories themselves.
"No," she whispered, shaking her head, "No, no, no, I don't want this."
Urianger reached for her, and she pushed him away.
“I don't want this. I don’t want him!” she said, “He is a curse. He is a curse--! ”
She broke down in tears, her face in her hands.
“I wish I had never known him,” she said, “I grieve for having known him! He… I know he asked me to remember, but now that I do, I don’t… I don’t want to! I want to go back before all this, I want to go back! I want to go… back…”
She trailed off, realizing: these were not at all unlike words Hades might use. These were no different than the words of a broken being who wanted to go back to the way things were before, to shy giggles and hands brushing under the table, to playing in the ocean and watching the sun set, to being locked away in a room with lovers for hours upon hours, to a simpler time when love was free. And much as the grief inside her was very much inclined to agree… she did not mean truly mean what she said.
“No. No I don’t,” she said, sniffling, “I don’t regret everything I’ve done, everyone I've met, everything I’ve gotten to see, these past years. I don't… I don't want to go back. But… god, this pain… I don't know what to do with it."
Urianger merely reached for her again, holding her limp body as she sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed, until she no longer could.
The evening had now passed into night, and they were now lying in bed, going over more memories they had slowly begun to recall. It was healing to discuss the lives they once had together, like unravelling a mess of yarn long abandoned in the knitting basket, slowly turning the mess into neat skeins, now visibly beautiful in their own right. Most were pleasant, though there were some that were not very much so.
"You know what this means, don't you, Urianger?" Beetle said, softly.
"Pray tell."
She smiled, taking his hand.
"We found each other again. After eons and eons, our wayward souls found each other, and fell in love all over again. It's poetic, isn't it?"
Urianger gave a small shrug.
"Indeed, though, for me, it merely confirms what I hath always believed to be true," he said, taking her hand to his lips, "Twas destiny. Spelled out in the stars. The moment I first beheld thee, well. I am not certain I canst say that I knew, but I most assuredly felt that in some way, our fates wert destined to intertwine."
"And here we are," she said, smiling warmly.
She took in a deep, shuddering breath, laying her head against the crook of his neck.
"I'm sorry I was so distant," she said, "I should have talked to you about it. I just thought… if I waited, it would stop. Or something else would happen, and my attention would be drawn elsewhere, and I wouldn't have to think about it so much."
She swallowed, her hand gripping his tunic in her fingers.
"But that was wrong of me," she said, "The world is so close to peril once more, but that should not make me pull away from you. That should make me draw closer to you. I would hate for the world as we know it to truly end… and for me to have made those last few moments misery for you."
"Hush," he reassured, running his fingers through her hair, "Think not of such things."
She rose, bending up to kiss him, which he accepted only too happily.
"You know," she said, separating from him, "We could always write all these memories down. Get a couple new journals, and write things down as we remember them, and then look at them together later if we want to."
He nodded.
"A fine idea," he said, "Twould help to keep them written down, differentiated from our memories of this life. A way of keeping the two lives set apart as their own."
And with that, they went on to explore more of what they could remember. They were not complete pictures, nor was it a whole narrative, but it provided them with some semblance of peace and closure.
Long ago, their names were Vesper and Branwen, and they, as well as Hades and Hythlodaeus, were all deeply in love.
And that was enough.