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The last thing Wesley sees as he is flown away from the colosseum is the cold and lifeless body of his lover. Her hand is still outstretched towards where he stood.
It was only moments ago that she’d taken center stage, wearing a long dress that seemed to dance with each movement she made. She sang in an ancient language, and all the stars in the sky made space for her. Their light washed over her skin, causing it to glow as if she were absorbing all the light this world had to offer. Wesley had never seen something so beautiful in his life.
Then, Sliver stepped forward, the fused fragments of the Cheions in his hand cast a faint but sinister red glow over his face. Wesley must have imagined this moment hundreds of times throughout the course of his life. Perhaps selfishly, he always thought it would be him.
Sliver stepped forward to meet Esther. They chanted in unison, and the word in its response came to a still. The air itself seemed to stop existing. What should have been a beautiful moment only left a pit of dread at the bottom of Wesley’s stomach as he watched, as in a cruel twist of fate, Sliver plunged the Cheirons and plunged them into Esther's chest.
There’s a desperation to rewrite that image. If he’d only been faster, if he’d only gone to her instead of attacking Sliver in a fit of pointless rage.
Wesley still remembers that moment in detail. Sliver’s boot kicks into his ribs until his eyes meet Esther's. The immediate regret as he crawled toward Esther, and she took a final shaky breath. Any remaining light in her eyes died out, leaving Wesley to lean over the lifeless remains of her body.
He holds onto her, pleads as the Chainbearer drags him away from her. His prayers fall on deaf ears, ears only concerned with keeping him, the Prince, safe.
What makes him so worth protecting when he failed to protect the one thing most dear to him? Caught up in his own anger, he nearly missed her final moments.
Even in those last moments, Wesley is only just barely able to grab the pink ribbon woven into Esther’s hair, now stained and soaked in a bright crimson color, before metal chains lift him from the ground beneath him, the image of Esther’s body growing further and further away.
He can only watch as the spectators flood into the colosseum to ward off the hordes of robots that have invaded. It turned the space into that of an arena, rather than one of ritual.
In the center of it all, he catches a glimpse of fiery red hair, unmistakably Erwyn’s. Wesley almost wishes he missed it, as he sees Sliver step up to Erwyn and land a direct hit, strong enough to launch Erwyn over a cliff and out of sight.
The Chainbearer says nothing, Gigi’s console stored between gritted teeth. His chains wrap around Wesley tighter as they fly away on the back of a griffon.
Wesley screams out to them still, until his voice gives out and his body goes limp, too exhausted to do anything but grip the blood-soaked ribbon in his hand tighter.
These memories – all too precise in detail – replay in his mind for what must be dozens of times, until cities become towns become forests and the griffon they’re riding on lands its feet on a patch of grass, at the foot of the mountain.
It’s too dark to make out the details, but Wesley isn’t too focused on their whereabouts. He doesn’t recognize the space, nor does he care to, as he steps off of the griffon's back and onto the ground with a light thud.
“We will be safe here,” the Chainbearer says lowly, after removing Gigi from the grip of his jaw. Wesley doesn’t bother with a response, unable to unfix his eyes from the ribbon still in his hand.
At some point, he hears the griffon take off, and the Chainbearer begins to set up some sort of temporary camp. Under normal circumstances, Wesley would pull himself together to help, but he can’t seem to move. His feet stay rooted in the dirt beneath him.
Truthfully, Wesley’s entire body feels like it's on fire and frozen all at the same time. There’s a sharp pain in his ribs any time he breaths, where Sliver had kicked him a fair amount of times. It will bruise, surely, but it will heal all the same. It’s the least of Wesley’s worries right now, nothing more than a small thought that crosses his mind.
Much more haunting is the vision of Silver's maddened expression as the man kicked him. No matter how much Wesley tried to shake it from his memory, to think of anything more comforting, his vision kept faltering to that crazed look in Sliver’s eyes, tinged with something unfathomable at the time. Now, Wesley recognizes that look, because it's the same one Wesley imagines he has on his face now. Grief, the kind that only washed over you when the rest of the world failed you in one way or another.
He hated to think that he and Sliver had something in common, but only this level of pain could sway someone into committing such horrible acts. Sliver was to blame for this, undoubtedly, and yet not once did the gods regret his claim to the throne. Wesley was hardly one to question their ways, and yet it was in their watch that Sliver sank so low as to destroy their ritual. The question that rang in Wesley’s mind was unsettling, but impossible to ignore. What gods would allow a fate such as this?
All his life, Wesley did everything by the book. Every step he fought without hesitation, only for it to lead to this. It was hard to believe there was anything else to be done, or that he, or any of his friends, misstepped somewhere along the way. But the alternative options were just as unbelievable.
Was this really just a part of the Gods’ sick, twisted game? Did the Gods give up on this world, or worse, never exist to begin with?
Wesley didn’t like any of these answers. Surely, he had made a mistake.
Regardless, it didn’t change the outcome: Their kingdom was doomed. His best friend and his one true love were both dead.
The blood soaked into his skin, clinging to his hands, like tree sap, was proof of that. Dry as it was, bits of blood dripped from his forehead onto the ribbon in a rhythmic pattern. In the darkness, it's nearly indistinguishable from ink, only truly recognizable as blood due to the unmistakable smell of iron.
It takes a second for Wesley to register when the blood stops dripping into the ribbon, instead hovering just slightly above it. By the time he realizes this, the blood on the ribbon is rising, splitting from the ribbon and forming a sphere in the air, as it merges with the blood soaked in his skin, and then his clothes, leaving them dry.
Wesley isn’t sure what to make of it, as he watches the blood shift in the air, taking form and landing back in his hands, dried into the shape of a hiltless blade.
He stares at the blade, turns it over in his hand to examine it carefully. His reflection is visible in the blade, just as ragged as Wesley expects it to be. His eyes, in particular, are foreign to him, as if they belong to the face of a stranger. It makes sense. In what world would Wesley recognize the face of a man who lost everything?
Some time must pass, and the sun is making its entrance by the time the Chainbearer brings Wesley through the entrance of a nearby cave. If he notices the blade in Wesley’s hand, he doesn’t mention it, instead bringing Wesley to take a seat by a small campfire. A small sliver of daylight cracks in through the cave's entrance, which is mostly blocked by a hung-up piece of fabric, which Wesley recognizes to be the Chainbearer’s robes.
His eyes wander to the other side of the cave, where the Chainbearer is tending to the fire. This must be the first time Wesley has seen the man without his robes, he realizes. The Chainbearer’s chains are attached by iron to the man’s muscular build, which is littered with scars. He has long brown hair; Wesley isn’t sure why that fact surprises him.
Noticing that Wesley is staring at him, the Chainbearer pauses and looks up to Wesley. The fire illuminates his face just enough to make out his hardened features.
“You should get some rest, Prince,” he says. His tone is as even as it always is.
Wesley opens his mouth to speak in turn, but the words get caught in his throat. He’s not even sure what he would say, so he looks down at the ribbon in his hand instead, placing the blade on the floor next to him.
Days go by in that same fashion. The Chainbearer does most of the work in ensuring their survival, accompanied by Gigi. It’s a slow process, one hindered by many sleepless nights, but eventually Wesley begins eating again, and eventually, once his own thoughts become too much to shoulder on his own, he begins speaking.
“You shouldn’t have to see me like this,” he says one evening. It’s one of many rainy days that have passed in these last few days, leaving the three of them holed up within the cave.
The Chainbearer seems surprised to hear Wesley’s voice, hoarse and unrecognizable as it is. “It’s understandable,” he responds, “with how much you have gone through.”
Wesley nods, taking the Chainbearers question with a grain of salt.
“Did I do something wrong?” Wesley’s voice cracks as he says it, forgoing any attempt at keeping his composure. He runs a hand through his own disheveled and purple hair, which falls in front of his face and obscures some of his vision.
“I keep asking myself if there was something I could’ve done to– if there was any means of preventing this.”
There’s a brief pause before Gigi’s cracked screen lights up to respond. “It’s unlikely. We suspected Sliver of cheating, but the lengths he was willing to go to were… unexpected.” When Wesley still doesn’t respond, she adds, “There was little we could do with the knowledge we had.”
Wesley knows that Gigi is trying to reassure him, but their words provide little comfort in the grand scheme of things, and they do nothing to stop the tears welling in his already reddened eyes. He wipes them away before responding through labored breaths.
“I just keep thinking, if there was something we could have done differently… if that would’ve changed anything.”
“What’s done is done,” the Chainbearer says, “For now the best we can do is wait, and recover, until the time is right.”
“To do what?” Wesley asks. As expected, the Chainbearer doesn’t have an immediate response. He’s seen the Chainbearer, along with Gigi, leave the cave a few times now, to find food, or maybe even stay updated with the outside world. Occasionally, they would speak to each other in hushed tones just outside the cave, and Wesley wondered if they’d discussed their plans for what to do next.
Gigi is the one who answers him. “That is up to you. Whatever you decide, we will follow your lead.”
Wesley laughs, it's not a joyful sound, breathless and void of any true humor. “Why? What have I done that’s earned me the title of a leader?”
It’s more of a rhetorical question. He’s sure his friends could come up with countless reasons for him to refute, but they seem to understand that this is the last thing he wants.
Eventually, Wesley knows they will have to return to Whitemore and find some way to save whoever survived, if anyone did. But in this moment, all he can bring himself to do is lean his head back until it collides with the cave wall, and let tears fall down his face in rhythm with his soft, choked-on sobs.
In the days that followed, he was met with a new guilt for the people in Whitemore whom he had left to die. Wesley spent his entire life selflessly devoting himself to the people of Whitemore, and yet when they needed him most, Wesley had only been able to think of himself. Even now, he still couldn’t bring himself to do anything.
Would he always feel this way? So paralyzed by shock and agony that he couldn’t stand on his own two feet?
The truth is that that weight never truly disappeared, but one morning Wesley woke up to find it softened, just enough that Wesley’s body stood on its own, and mustered up the strength to step out of the cave and onto the grass outside, regardless of how ready Wesley felt.
Immediately, he winces as morning light hits his face with much more strength than Wesley expected. After a second, his eyes adjusted to the brightness, and he looked around at the makeshift camp surrounding him.
His eyes land on the Chainbearer, and Gigi already outside. The Chainbearer sat with his back against a tree, whittling something with a knife that Wesley couldn’t make out from where he stood in front of the cave. He took no notice of Wesley, too absorbed in his work to look up to the sound of footsteps against the grass.
Otherwise, the area outside was minimally used. Save for a collection of sticks, presumably firewood, near the cave entrance, and a pile of… discarded robots. Wesley didn’t want to know the story behind how they got there.
“How long has it been?” Wesley asks Gigi, who immediately lights up upon spotting Wesley.
It pauses to calculate. “It has been approximately twelve days, ten hours, and thirty-two minutes since we arrived here.” So longer than Wesley thought it’d been.
“Thank you,” Wesley says.
“How are you feeling?” The Chainbearer puts down whatever he’d been working on and finally acknowledges Wesley. It’s still strange to see him without his usual robes. Wesley never expected to put a face to the deep voice of the Chainbearer, and it causes him some uneasiness to do so after years of knowing him.
Wesley chooses to ignore the question. “Have you any idea what’s become of Whitemore since our departure?”
The Chainbearer and Gigi exchange a concerning look that lasts for way too long before the Chainbearer responds.
“We’ve done our best to keep an eye on things.”
“The Cheions have become unstable, corrupted,” Gigi elaborates, “each kingdom has been affected differently. Whitemore is under a constant hurricane, and the other kingdoms have it even worse. Most people have gone into hiding. Many are hopeful you will return to guide them.”
Wesley isn’t sure what to make of this answer, so his response to it is more neutral than he means it to be. “That is to be expected.”
The Chainbearer gestures to the pile of robots Wesley spotted earlier. “We’ve worked together to fend off the robots that come into the area. However, they will find us here eventually.”
“How long do we have?” Wesley asks.
“It’s hard to say…” Gigi says, before deciding, “A month, at least.”
Wesley takes a shaky breath.
“Okay,” he exhales sharply. A month. He could hold out for a month.
For once, Wesley decides to spend the morning outside. It’s a welcome change, and from his spot, leaning against the foot of the mountain, he can see the occasional bird fly overhead. The trees rustle gently in the wind, with a calmness that seemed impossible to Wesley only a few days prior. Now, it's a welcoming feeling, as the wind brushes softly against his skin. It’s calm, not in a good way or even a comforting one, but it’s welcome nonetheless.
A few hours pass until the Chainbearer approaches. He kneels next to Wesley and holds out his hand to reveal the blood-made blade, now with a dark colored hilt attached at the bottom to form a dagger.
“This type of weapon is very rare,” he says, gesturing for Wesley to take the blade, “I can teach you how to wield it if you’d like.”
Wesley has been trained in combat for most of his life. It was one thing to wield a sword. This was different, Wesley knew that from the weight of the blade alone, as he hesitantly took it. Something about the dagger screamed of a type of magic foreign to him.
“You don’t have to decide right away,” The Chainbearer stands back up, “but when you are ready, you know where to find me.”
More days go by, and Wesley finds himself leaving the cave more and more frequently, helping with menial tasks and even allowing himself brief moments of relief in the form of quiet conversation amongst comrades. It was almost reminiscent of the time they spent during the months of his travels, if not for the missing presence Erwyn used to fill.
The decision to accept the Chainbearer’s offer was inevitable. If Wesley were to one day return and save Whitemore, he would need power in any form it presented itself.
Those first few days of training were rigorous, reminiscent of the early days in Wesley’s sword training. His muscles ached, and Wesley found himself stumbling over his footing when he became distracted, but eventually the techniques ingrained themselves into Wesley’s memory until they became second nature.
What he was truly stumped by, though, was what to do with this power.
Killing Sliver seemed like the obvious answer, but it was only a piece in the greater puzzle. Wesley found himself dedicating much of his free time to outlining potential directions and courses of action, and frequently asking Gigi or the Chainbearer for guidance. None of the options Wesley was left with felt good or right, but they kept him busy.
Or at least it does for a while. The one-month deadline creeps up on Wesley more and more with each passing day, and he still has no idea where to go from here. The pink ribbon still sits in his hand, even though by now he certainly could’ve tied it around his wrist, or his own hair, with how long it continues to grow. It certainly doesn’t help in his training, serving more as a hindrance than any sort of guidance.
He crumples the ribbon gently, holding it in his hands as he leans his head against it. If only, for just a second, he could hear Esther’s voice and ask her what she would do, Wesley would feel a little bit more sure of himself. Maybe, she would even talk him out of the crazy idea he was prepared to suggest.
Esther’s voice never came through, and so Wesley proposed the idea despite what she would think of it.
“I know what we need to do,” Wesley says later that night. The sun has set, and the three of them are seated around a small fire, now moved so that it sits just outside the cave.
Wesley is unsure if Gigi and the Chainbearer seem more surprised or curious by Wesley’s sudden declaration. It warranted, with how uncertain Wesley has seemed until this moment, and still is, despite the certainty in his tone. The weight of a decision was always going to fall on his shoulders, though, so it was inevitable he would approach them with something eventually.
Truth is, Wesley still didn’t feel ready to embark on a journey to save the entire kingdom, but at no point had Wesley felt ready to so much as lift a hand or stand on his own two feet. Enough grieving had convinced him that he would never feel ready for anything again.
In this moment, though, his head felt just a little clearer, and that would have to do.
“We can get more fragments of the Cheions, and if a priestess survived, we could redo the ritual…” Wesley’s grip against the ribbon tightens into a fist as he speaks, “But I think we should destroy them.”
From the way the Chainbearer freezes, and Gigi’s eyes go wide on the screen, it's clear this is the last course of action they expect him to propose.
The Chainbearer blinks a few times before asking, “Destroy them?”
Wesley nods in response. He knows how crazy it sounds– how crazy it is, even. “It might strip the world of magic, it might change the world in ways even I can’t foresee… but maybe that’s what the world needs. It would at least stabilize us and allow us to figure out a way forward.”
“And Sliver, what of him?” The Chainbearer asks, after a long pause. The fact that the two even consider the idea is like a weight lifted from Wesley’s shoulders.
“He will inevitably try to stop us,” Wesley answers simply, “if he doesn’t already guard one of the Cheions. This catastrophe is fueling whatever desire or power he wants and craves.”
They will cross Sliver's path again. No matter what they did, Sliver would send his robots to hunt them down, and Wesley would eventually come face to face with the man whose eyes were no longer so different from his own.
“I don’t know what I’ll do when I see him,” Wesley admits, “I don’t… I don’t know. But we have time to grow stronger, and I have time to decide.”
When he’s unsure what else to say, Wesley clears his throat softly. “I feel like all this is my fault.”
“Thats not true,” The Chainbearer is quick to come to his defense. “You know you have done everything for this world.”
Wesley’s mouth presses into a tight smile, but he’s unconvinced. “Maybe. I can only do so much in the little time I’ve been on it.”
“You’ve done more than the average,” Gigi adds. Her avatar glitches slightly as it moves over the cracks in her screen.
“I trust your measurements,” Wesley says, “but what I feel right now, I don’t know if it can be measured.”
Gigi pauses, then asks, “Would you like me to try?”
“Maybe later.” He appreciates the offer, but if grief can be measured, the last thing Wesley wants is for his to be.
He looks back at the Chainbearer. “We spared the great griffon before; maybe it would aid it through the hurricanes in the sky?”
They wait until the following morning to test this theory, when their camp is fully packed away, and the sun hides itself just below the horizon.
Wesley is used to the early wakeup time from many nights spent on the road during his trials, but he still feels out of practice thanks to a couple of sleepless nights in the cave. He finds himself yawning, still struggling to wake up fully, as he grabs a final few bags sitting packed in the cave. The pink ribbon is wrapped loosely around his hand so he doesn’t drop it, and the dagger is sheathed away at his side.
He gives the cave one last look before following his friends outside. The Chainbearer holds Gigi up to the sky, as they produce a – frankly disturbing – sound of a griffon’s mating call.
The fact that it works at all is even more disturbing.
After a moment or so of awkward waiting, the silhouette of a griffon slowly flies into view, until it lands just in front of the three of them. They waste no time loading their items onto the griffon's back.
It clicked to Wesley that this is the first time he’s seen the patch of land empty since they first arrived here. With no evidence of the many tear-filled nights spent here, or the meals they shared in heavy silence, it's as if no time passed at all. Wesley still held on to the same pink ribbon.
For a brief period of time, Wesley considered leaving it behind, afraid that keeping it would only bring him painful memories.
While that was true, in the end, Wesley decided to keep it. He feared the man he was without those memories more than he feared the pain of reliving them.
He took a final breath before hoisting himself over the griffon's back, just as the first rays of sunlight began to drift in, drowning out the blue hours of morning. Looking at the empty clearing now, there’s very little he’s truly leaving behind here.
Wesley would never be the man he was before, but he would carry that burden until the day his body gave out on him. For now, that was enough.