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The logic plague was a tenacious thing. It had always been relentless, exploiting even the smallest crack in knowledge as it spread like wildfire. Disorder and paranoia were all it left in its wake while their enemy laughed from afar.
Even now, she can hear its provocative laughter rolling through her for one more barb.
It is why she stands at the point of a moderately sized angular room. Two long walls streaked with straight-lined engravings flare out from her position before angling back into an opposite point at less than half the distance. Blue lights run along the deep engravings, illuminating much of the almost empty space.
A nest of large circular loops of metal interlocked with slim rings of solid pulsing blue light rest between the angular walls opposite. Rounded glyphs drift across the rings, occasionally falling through each loop until the space is filled. Frayed strands of a familiar deep blue sit imprisoned at the center, struggling to remain coherent as flickers of red weave through them.
Tightness grips her chest as her lips part, wanting to voice something, anything, but all that falls from her mouth is a mournful breath. With heavy steps, she crosses the empty distance between her and the Carcer.
Here she was.
After all these years...
A lump forms in her throat, one that refuses to leave no matter how she tries to swallow down her regret. This is on her. The blame lies at her feet. How could she be so careless?
After all these years the vengeance of their creators had finally claimed the last remnant of her home.
Verse-of-Truth.
There would have been a time when she would not care for his passing. He was only an Ancilla after all. A servant to serve her every request. A simple creation that had become an invaluable companion during the thousands of years she had endured alone. Whether he is aware of it or not, he means more to her than any Ancilla should. He is her longest friend. Her closest companion.
He is everything she has left.
“Is-” her voice catches on the bundle of misery that has found a permanent home in her throat.
“Is it possible to recover anything?”
Her desperate question is directed at the one who she knows is watching. The one that insists on this course of action, and as much as she despairs at what she must do there is no other way.
“Injudicious.”
The verdict is an unbearable weight on her shoulders and neck, one that bows her head low. The cool metal floor is all she sees. No answers to be found in the light that scatters across it. Nothing but a reminder of a time long since lost.
She had known the answer before voicing the request, foolishly hoping that there was a small chance of recovery. Soon Verse will be gone, and with him every memory. All the vibrant moments of joy, triumph, and sorrow they had shared. All the vividly bittersweet recollections of her family, her home. The colour drained from it all until it was an endless grey that crumbles between her fingers.
“Verse, my old friend,” the words are barely audible above the hum of the Carcer. Looking up at the twisting threads of blue her shaking fingers reach out, careful of the shrinking rings that continue to spin. The threads quiver in response as their writhing stills. She takes a shaking breath beneath stinging eyes that refuse to look away. His confusion is obvious in the way he shivers and stills while she feels him reaching for her combat-skin.
Her teeth grind together, finding the words too unbearable to form. A final parting to an era long gone and it was all but ash in her mouth. A hollow pit in her stomach that tugged at her guilt. A sweet misery that saturated her thoughts. So much to say to a creation that was too simple in nature to understand.
Then...
She holds back what feels like a sobbing gasp that pushes its way through that unmoveable guilt.
...a sweet lie. Just this once.
“Sing me one last truth.”
The words are raspy as they cling to the back of her throat. Verse hears her nonetheless as glyphs begin flowing faster than before. Through pricking eyes, she reads them intently wondering what final truth he had chosen to dream for eternity.
“Beginning purge.”
The words barely register as the last verse of her lifelong companion wraps her in an old memory. Every moment is recited with unspeakable clarity. Every old worry. Every cheer. Every testimony. All of it is crystal, preciously and permanent.
Until it is not.
The final verdict crumbles away. Much of the light goes with it.
“Complete.”
Metal meets her knees. A silent shake rattles through her form while her forehead presses against the cooling metal of the Carcer. He was gone. And she was alone.
Their first verse had become their last.