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Well, shit.
Nico looked down at his battered and crumpled body.
Should have seen that coming, I guess.
At least he didn't have to deal with his own problems anymore. He breathed a sigh of relief.
Fate has such a funny way of working, he thinks. There laid Nicolae Pardo, once an unstoppable teenage boy who felled not one but two dragons, got a really cool dagger out of it, now he was just a body and a sad one at that! He shakes his head and laughs to no one in particular.
Nico hms.
Stares at his now incorporeal hands.
Closes them into fists.
Man… that sucked.
He didn't expect the elemental to catch him off-guard like that. He didn't expect the blow that struck him to be the killing blow, out of all of the things that he had hoped to kill him, this was probably at the bottom of his Least Coolest Ways To Die list.
He wondered what the others were doing. He also wondered just how much time he had left until The Raven Queen came to collect him. Could he see them one final time? Could he maybe haunt them somehow to let them know that he was still there in some capacity?
If he could kick his body, he would have. Instead what he does is float around before deciding to retrace his steps back to where the others were led. He followed his own memory of where he was struck and where Cecilia had stood with the other half of those elementals, that fateful moment replayed in his mind but he knew there was no use in dwelling on what had transpired. He continued to explore the cavern in which he last saw them, traversed the makeshift rooms, thinking about them.
He thought of Sabine and Bob, it would pain him to see both of them right now, he thought back to how kind she was, her sweet smile, her gentle brown eyes, it sucked that he'd never see her again, he remembered how skillfully her hands worked any sort of machinery she had encountered. He thought of how much fun Bob was to be around, how alive he was despite being a Steel Defender.
He thought of Luciano, always strict and serious. A little too serious for Nico's liking. Luciano and his constant faraway look, there but not really. He thought of how much they clashed in the past and that one time he pulled a prank on Mister Too-Serious and that made him chuckle.
He thought of Cecilia, ditzy yet beautiful as she was, he knew that she was the emotional glue that held them together. He thought that maybe, in another life, they could have been something like siblings, yeah, that would have been cool. He understood some of her pains, more specifically what she told him in secrecy late one night.
It was then that he was met with the strung up bodies of his comrades, their eyes magically glazed over. Nico floats over to Cecilia, waves his hand in front of her face. “Exandria to Ceci!” he says, moving from waving his hand to snapping his fingers in a bid to get her attention and once he sees that she doesn't respond, he moves onto Sabine who is in a similar state to Cecilia, he tries gently shaking her awake but couldn't due to his hands no longer being of flesh he can't touch her and so his hand merely goes through her completely.
“Maaaan…” he draws out clearly frustrated. If there was no one occupying that ring he found, maybe he could have tried to have done something from his side, unfortunately the ring was occupied by some snobby princess of sorts, he didn't really know.
Nico crossed his arms and huffed, blowing some of his bangs upwards.
He thought of a prank he could pull on the team, a really good one but unfortunately he couldn't grasp anything let alone get their attention and that annoyed him, for all of the times he wanted to die, being dead surely sucked.
He crinkles his nose, frowns.
He watched them for a while, until he noticed that they finally stirred and broke free of the shackles that held them. The new guy that was there was pretty cool looking, especially with the gun holstered to his hip. He wondered how he would look with one but then he knew that neither Sabine nor Cecilia would have wanted a teenage boy to go around waving a gun around.
Once they all had gotten up from the floor he followed them, drifting behind them just in case. Watches them attempt an escape from here only to be confronted by a hooded figure, only the lower half of their face was visible from this angle, though when the hooded figure pulls down the hood to reveal his plaintive face, the realization hits him like a ton of bricks.
Elgar.
Nico's non-existent breath hitches as he reels back in shock.
Shitshitshit!
He scrambles away just in case his brother can see him, only to realize that his brother in fact can not so he gathers around his party, waiting for their next move. He turns his head in the direction of Elgar, who looks older, bleary, and ruddy-faced, one of the Myrmidons stands next to him as if waiting for orders.
Something inside Nico's chest hurts, a pain he doesn't quite know, seeing how miserable of a shell his brother looks now makes Nico hurt worse than the killing blow.
What he wants to say is this: I'm sorry.
But knows that it's too late to say sorry and Elgar wouldn't forgive him.
What was done was done. Nico felt sorry for what he had done to his brother but he knew that whatever punishment awaited him was too light for the hurt and pain he caused to his own kin, he was a monster and so many other people kept reassuring him of this. He deserved death, no, he wanted death. Fantasized about it too much, dreamt of all the ways he could end it all.
He looked behind his brother where he saw his own body again, cleaned up from the injuries he received. His body looked so at peace now, a peace he never achieved in life.
And then–
A shot rings out.
Nico turns around to the source.
The new guy had shot… something? nothing?
Cecilia had grabbed his arm, said something about allowing her to talk to Elgar and this made him jerk his head back. Talk? Is she nuts? Nico knew she wasn't all that bright, but even she had to know that talking with his brother was a terrible idea. He watches her lower the new guy's arm and turn to the rest of the party, motioning for Sabine, he watches as Sabine reluctantly follows.
The three disappear into the room where Elgar had Nico's body, he follows inside. Sabine can't stop crying as the glow of her resurrection spell fades when she delicately places her hands on his chest, she crumples to the floor as Cecilia walks over to comfort her, except he knows that she's crying also.
A pang in his chest again, he wished he could embrace the two women and say it's okay. He's okay now. At peace, he guesses. The two elven women embrace each other and cry, he can barely understand what they both choke out amidst their tears. A part of him hated that they were crying over him, what did he ever do to deserve their tears? Monsters do not deserve to be mourned after all. Nico gritted his teeth and gripped at his hair, he wanted to beg and plead with them to please stop crying for him, to cry for anyone else but him.
It isn't long before Cecilia gets up from the floor, her makeup smudged slightly from rubbing her eyes, she helps Sabine up from the floor and keeps her steady as she escorts her to the room where Luciano and Mr. Cool-Guy are, it's Luciano who steadies Sabine now, he holds her tightly in his arms, strokes her hair. Man, does he look kinda awkward and stiff. He chuckles, guessing Luciano wasn't that much of a serious kind of guy after all if he was awkward with touch.
He goes back to peek at Cecilia, catching the conversation she's having with Elgar.
“Do you feel proud of yourself for hurting others? What would Nico think? Do you think he'd be okay with what you're doing?”
Nico in turn winces.
“All you've done is hurt people who are innocent and for what? To make your sorry ass feel better about what happened? He was just a kid, he couldn't tell what was right from wrong and can you really blame him? It's not like he did it on purpose! You think you're so special, like you're the only one who's ever been hurt? Grow up, everyone gets hurt at some point in their lives! And look at what your stupid plan has done! Nico's dead because of you! I'll never see my friend and you'll never see your brother. Does that satisfy you? Knowing that you're responsible for your brother's death just because some stupid lying worm told you to?”
Nico's impressed by her words, it isn't the first time he's seen her work her magic when it came to talking to people, she was always the one who had a way with words like no one else he had ever seen. He watches Elgar attempt to defend his position but Cecilia gives him no room to speak until he's nothing more than a crying husk of a man.
“Y-you're right…” Elgar admits, crumpled on the floor. “Maybe...” He looks blearily up at Cecilia, who is continuing her tirade, now swearing at him in Elvish.
“I was wrong.” he admits.
“You were.”
He barely sits up before wounds start opening all over his body, his eyes widen as the wounds start to bleed profusely, Elgar’s screams fill the cave as his body twists and contorts painfully, descends into an agony so intense he transcends screams and passes into whimpers.
It takes Cecilia a moment to react as Nico watches her place her hands on Elgar, the familiar glow of her healing magic flowing to him, knitting his wounds together only for them to open again.
Elgar's face is contorted with pain, half-frozen in a scream, eyes rolled back, it would have almost frightened Nico if he wasn't already desensitized to it already, but still the sight of his younger brother's face and state unnerved something deep within him. He watched as beads of sweat accumulated on Cecilia's face, her expression stilled as she desperately tried to out heal the damage being done to his brother's body, her lips moved in a quiet prayer as she squeezed her eyes shut.
Nico's expression shifted to one of pain? sorrow? he wasn't exactly sure what it was but it pained him to see his brother like this, regret filled him. A lump grew in his throat, he hugged himself close. Was she really saving Elgar? After everything he had done to them?
“You don't deserve to live… so just know that I'm doing this for Nico. But you're like not getting away so easily, you gotta pay the price for what you've done.”
He swallowed the knot in his throat and clutched tightly at his chest.
For him? Why?
Why? Why would Cecilia do this? All for him? After how much of a bratty kid he was to her? A part of him felt wrong to hear this.
He watched her pick up Elgar and carry him, cradling him like a child, a bright halo appearing behind her. If there was any one to have been blessed by divinity in this moment, it should have been Cecilia, a gift from the Everlight or the Arch Heart, he supposes.
She looked prettier than usual, not that he'd ever notice her in that sort of way adults regard each other, but now she looked like she was glowing, aside from the halo behind her head, his gazes drifts down to Elgar who looks almost pitifully ashen, he doesn't stir in Cecilia's arms and part of him wondered if he was still breathing or if the Pardo brothers were about to have a very awkward family reunion.
She steadily makes her way to Olivier who had just made it in time with other members of the church and gingerly places him in his brother's arms and explains to him in that sort of way she usually recalls things to Olivier. Nico pitied his older brother who had to arrest one brother and bury the other, he knew the sort of burden he carried in this moment, how he had to pretend to be unshaken by these events.
He continued to watch his team from afar, some sort of feeling bloomed in his chest that he didn't quite know, it wasn't long until they ended up disappearing into a portal that led to who knows where.
And so… he was alone finally.
Alone with his thoughts. Alone with the pain, guilt, and conflicting emotions. It's in this moment where he feels there's something he's thinking or feeling in a way he can't quite capture with his mouth or mind. The question of why gnawed at him, like something desperate and hungry wanting to jump out, he still didn't know why and perhaps he never will.
Cecilia had succeeded where he failed, he still couldn't believe it, and all of that for him.
It isn't long before he hears the flapping of wings in the distance, guess it was time to be ferried off by the Duskmaven herself, he thought as he closes his eyes, listening to the guttural croaks of her messengers grow closer with every passing second. Finally death would be coming for him after so long of yearning and praying. When he opened his eyes, he realizes that it isn't her but rather a flock of countless birds.
Dark feathers fell gently like inky snowfall. Ravens gathered forming a figure before they dissipated away revealing…
Luciano?
Nico grins widely.
“Hey dude.”
It is Luciano who is taken aback this time. He sees Nico for the first time in days, he looks different somehow.
“Nico?” he asks, his expression softening from his usual hard and stoic face.
“No… The neighbor.” He scoffs, putting his hands on his hips, leaning forward and laughing. “Of course it's me, Bird Brain. Who else would it be?”
Well he certainly sounded like Nico. Luciano looked down at him, noticing the difference in him. Something about him felt more relaxed than the usual sort of on-edge cageyness he usually carried, he looked more like a child his age as he had come to learn from Cecilia.
“The Matron Herself?” he replies but it doesn't sound like a question from him.
“Well… yeah, I've been asking her for years to come take me away… But you're an okay option too.”
Luciano shifts, his expression changes back to his usual one, Nico compared it to a constipated face once in secrecy.
“So Raven Mom has you doing her work now?” he asks with a coy smirk on his face and it is in this that Luciano really sees the Nico he was more well-acquainted with.
“I suppose so… It's part of my duties now as her Champion.”
“¡No me digas!” he replies, sarcasm dripping in his voice. “The new fit didn't give it away!” He looks down to Luciano's new armor: Deathwalker's Ward, a Vestige of The Raven Queen he had once heard about. The armor looked oddly fitting on him; a striking black leather armor with raven feathers decorating it, the skull of a raven affixed on his throat, golden threads weaved their way around him like they weaved around everything around them, a reminder that The Matron was a skilled weaver of the tapestry of life. On his breast he spies a familiar pin, his gaze softens as he looks up at his old companion.
“So.. You kept my pin? Didn't take you for the sentimental type.” His smile is soft, teasing, boyish. A side of Nico Luciano never got to see.
Luciano absently touches the pin.
“I had to…” Commemorate you somehow, he doesn't say. A kid gone too soon, he thinks as his gaze drifts down to the elven boy, taking in how small and thin he was now, he supposes he truly looked his age more now, though his features still retained that cat-like sharpness he knew him to have.
“Aw dude! Now you're gonna make me tear up!” Nico softly shoves him with a laugh. “This wasn't how I pictured our reunion to look. But hey, it's a good look on you, not gonna lie, kinda fits that whole edgy look you had goin’ on.”
The shove barely registers for Luciano, he almost instinctively places his hand on the elf's bird-like shoulder. He wondered still why he was chosen to be the Champion of the Matron, what did she see in him that he didn't? Out of all the mortals, why him? The man that rebuked her for years. And now here he was, standing face-to-face with his comrade, a final goodbye.
Why him?
“Exandria to Bird Brain!”
He jolts, looking down at his own hand on Nico's shoulder, removes it almost sheepishly.
“Sorry…”
“For?”
“Fer bein’ the one to take you to Arborea. Feel like it shoulda been either Miss Cecilia or Miss Sabine…” They were closer to him, anyways. More deserving to have this moment of finality with him.
“Nahhh… I rather it be you than them.” It's Nico who shifts this time, his smile faded as he looked down at the golden tether on his wrist that looped on into infinity, a sign of his life laid bare.
“Why?” He asked, quiet, raw.
“Well for starters, I love Cece but I think she'd be wailing, besides she did say that if I didn't go with her, she'd never talk to me so seeing me like this might be too much for her. I know she's already kicking herself, but she'll get over it in time… that's the good thing about being an elf, pain doesn't last forever for us…” he trails off, looking strangely contemplative. “Sabine on the other hand… I don't think I could face her right now, she'd probably want to drag me back or fight the Raven Queen herself for me.”
Luciano gives an absent nod.
“So it had to be you. You don't live as long as us elves so you'll be carrying this for the rest of your boring brief life.”
A sigh escapes Luciano.
“Don't go ‘round sayin’ that kinda stuff, Miss Cecilia and Miss Sabine care for you very much. You ain'to got any idea how they're doin’...”
“That's exactly why they couldn't handle this kinda job. You, on the other hand, are the perfect person to do this.” He extends out his hand to Luciano to take, like a cat awaiting to play with a ball of yarn. “Now come. Walk with me, talk with me.”
Luciano takes Nico's hand in his, taking note of the almost proud look on his face now, no longer does he wear a contemplative look. The two walk into the vast expanse of nothingness, only guided by the soft light of the endless golden threads that surround them. Nico began to tell Luciano of his life, of what had transpired in the months before they met.
It isn't long until nothingness becomes something, a forest of deadened trees, snow falling from the sky, forming blankets of white on the ground, the thread that looped around Nico's wrist, looped around all of the scenery, forming a complicated web of the world. An eerie silence in the air, like a stillness in which time had no meaning.
They continued walking in silence for a while before they approached a mausoleum with an opened door. Was it for Nico? or was it for him? He wasn't sure.
“Don't mourn me too much.” Nico finally says after a while, breaking the silence. “Seriously, don't.”
Luciano looks away in that usual way of his, like making eye contact for too long burns him in some kind of way. Like he’s ashamed to face Nico.
They brave inside the mausoleum, smelling autumn air, death and embalming fluid. The inside is much larger than the outside, it is littered with half-melted candles, some still burning while others are snuffed out, around them were stained glass windows depicting the Matron of Ravens at different points of her life, above them a single statue of her, arms outstretched as if awaiting an embrace, the tomb in front of them pushed back, revealing a stairway descending into darkness.
“But…” Luciano speaks.
“Yeah, I know what you're gonna say… ‘But what about the girls?’ They'll be okay. Like I said, time will heal them… one day they're gonna wake up and I'll just be a distant memory. Besides I'll be seeing them in the far future when they die, so it'll be like we never parted. And hey, my replacement looks seriously cool.”
Luciano does not respond but grabs a torch from the nearby wall.
“He's alright. Got his head on straight.”
“Not like me, huh?” there's a sneer there.
“I ain't mean it like that.”
“I saw what Cecilia did to my brother…” He steps inside the open tomb and walks down the stairs. “If anyone could have done that, it would have been her, wouldn't it?”
Luciano nods. “Sure would. She might not be all that bright but she can certainly flap her gums.” He follows behind, the light of the torch is the only thing illuminating them.
“That's what I like about her.” he begins almost wistfully. “I didn't know what I would have done if I were in her shoes...” He looks down to nothing in particular. “I think I would have clammed up… y'know a part of me wanted to have that kind of courage… but I didn't. I couldn't even face my own brother n’ Ceci went on ahead and did that for me.” He feels the tears he's been holding back all of this time start welling back up again and he's thankful Luciano can't see his face at this moment, balls his hands into fists.
“I'm a coward.” He confesses. “I heard her saying that dying was easy but living is painful and…” he tries to not let his voice crack, not right now, not in front of Luciano. “I tried to keep pressing on… But truth be told… every night I would pray real hard for Raven Mom to come get me.” He sighs, shakes his head. “Living with what I became sucked, I'm sure you know what that feels like.”
Here he stops, turns around to Luciano who is half-shrouded in the blanket of darkness.
“Yeah. I know… I lose myself when I become it.”
“Yeah but you're a were-swan which is kinda lame compared to being a were-tiger, whatcha gonna do? Honk at people? Y'think that's scary?” He chuckles, trying to will himself into not crying.
Luciano chuckles, a first for Nico.
“So you are capable of having fun and expressing emotions!”
“Umm.. yes? ‘course I can. What made ye think otherwise?”
“Well dude, to be honest, where do I even begin? First of all, you constantly look constipated, Second you're always straight faced and thi–”
“I think I've heard enough.” Luciano cuts in, frowning.
Nico laughs, seeing Luciano emote so earnestly made the pain of thinking about the circumstances of his death hurt just a little bit less. “Dude you're a riot! Where was this while I was still around?”
Luciano looks away “I'm sorry.”
“Don't apologize. I know I was a pain in the ass.”
The crackling of the torch is the only noise in the staircase before Luciano speaks again. “You were but I didn't even know that you were just a kid till Miss Cecilia said somethin’ and then I understood why ya acted like that.”
Nico chuckles softly before continuing their long descent. “I guess that's part of the reason, the other part was just me lashing out cuz of all that I was feelin’... it's like Ceci said back there… dying was easier than living, do you know what it's like to carry someone's death on your spirit for a really long time?”
Luciano shifts uncomfortably as someone who was haunted by his previous profession, before the life he began to lead as an adventurer, he was deeply well-acquainted with the act of torturing people and snuffing out their lives when orders were given. He watched the light go out of the countless sets of eyes, all by his own hands, and sometimes when he closed his eyes, he could still see them.
Those that struggled against him, a last act of human defiance. Hundreds of faceless people all indecipherable from each other, gone.
Once upon a time he was the perfect killing machine, now he's just a man running from his past. Funny how growing a conscience worked.
“Yeah…” he replies after a spell of silence. “It stays with you forever…”
“Exactly.”
“So.. that person Miss Cecilia saved…?”
“Yup. Was my brother.” comes out quiet, softly, like he's choking back tears.
“Is your brother.” Luciano corrects.
“No. Was. I don't recognize him anymore, so that's not the Elgar I remember...”
The staircase finally came to an end, a large arch in which there was no door but rather light that filtered through the opening, when the two stepped through the arch. They’re greeted by the edge of an ocean; ultramarine and aqua, cumulus clouds drift in a hazy-edged sky, faded blue wonderland over spears of green, like they can breathe in the colours, drink them down like liquid for their starved, thirsty bodies. Wild, untamed, untouched beauty surrounded them, stretching into infinity, sunlight filtered through the trees, dappling the landscape.
And for a moment they're both speechless over how beautiful Arborea looks.
“Well… I guess this is my stop.” Nico finally says, stepping forward but not before Luciano catches his wrist.
A part of Luciano, the part that was a man in love, held onto Nico's wrist. He could drag him back to the world of the living, he thinks. He thought back to Sabine's crying face and how it pained him to see such a beautiful woman like her cry and suffer the evils of the world, he thought about how badly he wanted to protect her. Surely bringing Nico back would have lessened her pain.
“What are you doing?” Nico asks, staring up at Luciano.
“I–” He stammers out.
“Dude… I know what you're tryin’ to do and while I appreciate it… My time's up.”
“‘m sorry… it's just… the girls–”
Nico puts up his hand to silence him.
“I get it. But I've already accepted it and you guys have to as well. Remember? The path of fate is sacrosanct? Death is the natural end of life? Her tenets? For a guy who got chosen as Raven Mom's champ… you kinda suck at knowing her tenets.”
Luciano balks as he drops Nico's wrist, knowing he had a point after all, though the human part of him still wanted to take him back and yet the other part of him, the part of him that is Luciano Champion of The Matron of Ravens, knows that death and life are a delicate balance, one to not be trifled with, no matter how much Luciano The Human wants it.
“I know… Jus’ cuz I distanced m'self from her don't mean I don't know her teachins’.”
“We'll see each other again. It'll be great, it'll be like we never got separated.” Nico flashes Luciano a grin that he knows hides a great pain and perhaps a part of Nico that wanted to stay with him, linger just a little bit longer. A part of Nico who maybe wanted to cry and beg him to please take me with you.
Luciano instinctively wraps his arms around Nico and pulls him into an embrace.
“Sorry kid.”
Although affection felt foreign coming from Luciano, Nico returned the embrace and buried his face into him, wishing that both girls could have been here with him, but he knew that this was as close as he could get.
“It's cool. Take care of the girls for me, ‘kay? Or else I'll haunt you for the rest of your life.” He looks up at his comrade, a glint of mischief dances in his eyes.
“I mean it.”
Nico's form then flickers as Luciano continues to hold him before vanishing somewhere deeper in Arborea, the crisp, fresh wind picking up his hair, he closes his eyes.
In the distance he hears the familiar birdsong of swallows and smiles to himself as he traverses the path the two walked to return back to the world of the living.