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As the lingering echoes of the memory fade, you return to the smoke-filled streets of Castrum Kremnos.
You’ve never found Arcadia, and Paris will never return. Yet the nameless Titankin still lies before you, murmuring.
“This story… ended differently than how I imagined.” Mem peeped sadly, a heavy look on her face.
The Titankin croaked again. “Pa… ris…”
Stelle knelt down to the Titankin’s side, hoping to hear her final words…
“Arcadia… Arcadia… Where… could it be…”
The Titankin fell stiff, her silence now deafening. Mem confirmed the inevitable. “Her memory, it’s disappeared…”
If Mydei ever needed another reason not to lead his people back down the path of Strife, she had just provided it, Stelle thought.
Having lost her life, the Titankin’s body was no more than a pile of rubble. Before long, the bloodstained winds of Castrum Kremnos would whip up the surrounding gravel and reduce it to dust, carrying it far into the distance. Perhaps the land that this dust will be carried to is the true Arcadia? Does Cerces know that place? Will Mnestia await them there? Stelle didn’t know. She knew she couldn’t answer. All she and Mem could hear now was the echoing war drums of Nikador.
“Hero, have you found the treasure?”
Stelle simply nodded and begrudgingly handed the spool of thread to Iason.
“Thank you for your hard work, dear guest,” said Aglaea. “I had never expected this task would have fallen to you.” She took the offering from the man and closed her eyes as she felt across every golden thread on the spindle. “Captain Iason, I have unfortunate news,” she finally spoke again. “Seeing the look in our dear guest’s eyes when she handed this to you, I fear this object may carry some special meaning. It could be that this object was considered extremely precious to someone before. However, if you were to judge it through the eyes of Reason, that is its only value. It is no more than a simple and unremarkable dyed thread.”
Stelle thought about it for a moment. She should give that Titankin a proper burial, or at least a cenotaph, if her body was already gone. And this golden thread that meant so much to her and her partner would be the perfect piece to it.
“In that case, can I have it back?”
“Statue lady… Your memory… We will never forget it…” Mem promised.
Stelle took the metal scraps she obtained from Chartonus and wrapped the golden thread around them to form a cross before fixing it in its place atop the disturbed earth. “I hope you find Arcadia in your next life. But for now, you can rest, Valentine.”
“Valentine?” Mem repeated.
“That’s what I’ve decided to call her.”
“Yeah, I figured that much, but what made you choose that name in particular?”
“Well, what day is it today?” Stelle asked in response.
“The fourteenth day of the Month of Balance, why?”
“And the Month of Balance is the second month in the Amphoreus calendar, right?”
“Yeah?”
Stelle smiled. “Then elsewhere in the cosmos, today is Valentine’s Day. A day of celebrating love…” She thought back to her first Valentine’s Day on the Express, the colorfully-wrapped chocolate coins with the unicorn design that March gifted her, the charmingly simple cards Dan Heng made for everyone with “Happy Valentine’s Day” written in the Vidyadharan language. Even the way Mydei always called Phainon “HKS”, a supposedly derogatory term in his native tongue, came to mind.
She had to admit she was jealous of the white-haired man. Though she couldn’t say that she had ever been attracted to the type of physique that the crown prince sported, his courage and resilience were alluring. After getting to know him, she finally had the words to accurately describe her taste in men: “The phrase "I can fix him" doesn’t exist in the Kremnoan language.” But Phainon had known Mydei a lot longer than she did, and she’d eventually have to return to the Astral Express anyway.
“Oh! That reminds me, I have a song I wanna teach that little bard boy in the city…”
A small crowd had gathered around Stelle and the boy as she sang.
Come now, swing wide those gates
‘Cuz I have paid my penance kindly well in time for judgement day
Somehow, I knew my fate
Turns out the gods we thought were dying were just sharpening their blades
Have you been waiting long for me?
I am the final dawn, I am the flood
What was missing from those scriptures will be written in my blood
Dig down into the mud
What good is all this talk of wings when there is nothing left above?
Have you been waiting long for me?
Have you been waiting long?
Aglaea once said that the golden butterfly nymphs were once lovers whose spirits had been blessed by Mnestia. Would she offer that blessing to one of Nikador’s Titankin?
No matter how we feel
We’ve got a taste for one another and a few good years to kill
No matter what is real
As Stelle looked up, she saw one such nymph flitting above the crowd. Was it Valentine? Or maybe it was Paris, finally come to guide his true love to the land they pined for? She held out her hand to the nymph, and it came to rest in her palm. She felt like a princess in a movie.
It seems that even in Arcadia, you walk beside me still
Have you been waiting long for me?
Have you been waiting long for me?