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Twas quiet in Amh Araeng. The night sky yawned above Ariadne, though its plethora of stars were beginning to fade as the dawn's light crept in.
Beautiful, to be sure, both the night and the dawn. Yet, her eyes remained forward as she walked step by careful step across the miner's cart tracks and toward the wall of white rising in the distance.
Twas not that far, in truth, but she had yet to recover fully from her battle against Emet-Selch, and so her strides were slower and gentler than they might have otherwise been. Not enough to fully avoid the deep-set ache, but twas no matter. There were more important things right then—like getting to her destination.
At last she did, and her head bent back to take in the immensity of the roiling wall of white. It stretched as far as she could see in either direction, and she stared off in them for a while.
"Would you fault me for finding it beautiful, I wonder?" she asked the air. "I pray not."
She looked over her shoulder, hoping for the impossible. If Fray and Myste might be summoned to her, then surely—
She stared into only empty space, which had been what she had always been staring into, had she not? Even when he was there. Now she was simply seeing the truth of things again, and he was where he was meant to be.
Ariadne pressed a hand to her chest and closed her eyes. 'So I hope, at least.'
As the thought faded, she listened as she had so many times before. But no voice of forgiveness came to her, nor of love, nor even of rage. Twas silent and still. Just a simple peace. That was all.
Twas enough, though.
Ariadne sat upon the sand before the wall of white where the five heroes of the First had returned so long ago. Twas all she could do not to fall back as she looked up, up, up once more. But she managed it just, and soon her gaze lowered again as she pulled out a bottle and a glass.
She poured herself a cup, staring down at the amber liquid for a while, contemplating. Then the light of dawn began to reach the wall in earnest, filling every facet with even more blinding brilliance than before, and she gave an apologetic smile.
"I know you've a grave, Ardbert, but I must admit, I hate the things. To have someone so close, and yet so impossibly far… Tis torturous," she confessed, taking a sip of her drink—a harsh, cheap liquor, but one he'd loved more than it was worth. "What's more, you always return no matter how it hurts, for torture is still better than distance…"
She fell silent, placing one hand behind her as she leaned back again. The sand ground against her palm, cold and cutting, but she ignored it. "But you shall always be with me. I am your grave, as such things go. So is not here as good as anywhere?"
The words felt thick on her tongue, heavy and cruel. She bit her lip, breathing deep as she tried to steady herself. Then, after a little while, she let out a small laugh.
"Do you know I always liked you? When you were yet the Warrior of Darkness, I mean. Twas quite the entrance you and yours made, slaying Ravana. I couldn't help but admire your style. So… to the point. You wanted to kill me, but it seemed you were also going to stab me in the front. Twas almost refreshing," she said, smiling to herself—to him.
"Is that the way of people like us? To see something in one another, even if we can't place it? You saw something in me, I know, but was it the same, or was it simply that you knew I would finish what you had begun?" she mused, drinking more of the liquor. The burn was far from pleasant, but she didn't mind. It was grounding in its way. "If nothing else, I am glad I could. Tis the very least you deserve… and tis all that I might give… I'm afraid."
As soon as the words left her lips, she could not keep her tears from falling. Try as she might to forestall them, they simply continued to flood. She quickly gave up and buried her head in her knees, abandoning the glass and wrapping her arms around her legs, clinging to herself as she sobbed.
She did not try to stifle herself. There was no one to see or hear in this lonely place. No, naught was here but memories that yet burned in her head. Snatched moments of his life, his friends' lives, as they became Warriors of Light. She had seen them live and love and sacrifice again, and again, and again as she had helped put to rest the four cardinal virtues. Heroes every one of them, deserving of a better fate.
But then, she could scarcely imagine a person deserving of their fate. To see all their life's work undone in the most horrifying way, to be manipulated into almost doing onto another world what was done to theirs, to be cursed and hated by the people who they would sacrifice body and soul to save…
"Tisn't fair," Ariadne said, petulant and childish and uncaring that she was so. "It just isn't, Ardbert. You could not even die, and yet you still will never live again. Couldn’t the world offer aught to you? One final goodbye to them, one moment of peace? Why could it not be kind to you just once? You were always so kind to it."
Ariadne shut her eyes tight as memory overtook her. "Oh, you were angry, you were bitter, but who would have not been the same in your place? And even so, you didn't stay that way, despite it all."
She straightened slightly, scrubbing away at her tears as she smiled sorrowfully. "...But I shouldn't forget that you were happy in the end. Twould be another unwarranted injustice, especially after how you spoke of the Talos and your people. I don't think I ever heard you so… unburdened."
A hundred years of distance, cursed in name and actuality, unable to interact with the world that he had died twice over to save. Yet the connection he had felt with the people of the First had been so palpable. And he had fought for Norvrandt just like the rest of them—to the last.
"Take it," he had said at the end of it all. When she could not take another step, he had yet stood tall and smiling, offering her his axe. Offering her everything he had to give.
In the face of that, who could not find the strength to carry on?
Hero, savior, Warrior of Light—all fitting titles and yet they were not enough. They never would be, for they scrubbed away the dirt and pain and suffering. They made him a paragon when he was but a man forever willing to stand back on his feet, choking back the blood in his mouth.
No, more than that, too. A foolish boy who ran headlong into danger and needed Lamitt's conjury to bail him out. A true comrade who helped save Renda-Rae from her isolation. A sentimentalist who gave his amaro a medal and named them partners in crime. And, no doubt, a thousand other petty but oh so mortal things that she would never know, for he was not there to tell her anymore and the visions of the Echo were too rare to rely upon.
"...I wish that I had met you in life, Ardbert," Ariadne whispered. "I am certain we would have been friends."
Twas easy enough to imagine. She had but to close her eyes to conjure the scene to mind. The group of them clustered around a campfire with room enough for her as well. But pleasant as that image might be, twas just that, an image. More than that, she would not trade her life for his. The Scions were where she belonged, always. Just as he had with his fellow Warriors of Light.
Still, twas a warm imagining, and she allowed herself to linger in it a while yet as she thought of what was and what might have been.
Eventually though, her mind turned to the future, and she heaved a sigh. "I will take you away when I go back to the Source. But… I hope that when I return to the aetherial sea you will be allowed back here, to them.
"I know we don’t remember when we are reborn, but just as I saw something in you, could you not do the same with them, one day? In a gentler world, wherein you would have long, long lives to spend together…"
Ariadne trailed off as she saw the flight of fancy for what it was. Shaking her head slowly to banish it, she sighed again. "Tis no use wondering about that. I shall never be able to see it through."
A breeze arose then, soft but insistent. Ariadne closed her eyes and listened. Her heart remained silent, but the wind rang sweetly against the crystal. She nodded to herself as resolve tightened around her heart.
"This last sacrifice will be worth it, though, I swear to you. So long as I—as we—breathe, the First will be protected. We will defeat the Ascians and stop Zodiark, and whatever else comes after them. As… As many times as it takes to leave the world better than when we found it." She took a shaky breath. "Is that not all you wanted to do, after all?"
That question remained unanswered like all the others. Instead the gentle wind carried it away, leaving her alone once more with thought and memory… and grief.
It hung on her tenaciously, but she could not begrudge it for weighing as it should. Twas not a malicious burden. It sought only to make itself known, to see itself unforgotten. Even as it leadened her limbs and brought tears to her eyes, she knew she would miss it one day—the intimacy of mourning. Of knowing with such certainty that she had loved someone… and what she had lost in losing them.
So she stayed there, allowing the tears to keep falling and the sorrow to build and release again and again as she reminisced without reservation. She continued to speak here and there, be the words fond or bitter, letting out all that she could think to say where she (and he) were the only soul to hear it.
By the end of it, her head pounded and her eyes ached. Her throat was dry, Ardbert's favored drink having only served to make her more thirsty. The dawn had all but turned to day—the sun above quickly threatening to blaze down upon her.
And yet she lingered a little while longer as her mind caught upon yet another memory.
"And, one fool to another…" Ariadne smiled. "There is no greater honor than what I have with you, soulmate."