Chapter Text
The Pleiades Tower, home of the “sage” Shaula. Located in the center of the mabeast-ridden Augria sand dunes, few have ever had a chance to look upon it. And none have ever managed to reach it.
Deep, deep, and deeper beneath the tower. In the darkest cavern is a series of doors, the mechanism to unlock them tied to the soul. Made by the sage so that only he could open them.
At their end is The Seal. The final obstacle. A black monolith, something that should not exist, impervious to the will of the world. It oozes a miasma so thick that only The Sage and perhaps the Sword Saint could withstand it.
Within it, although perhaps within isn’t the right word, as the monolith's “insides” exist beyond time and space, a woman lay.
Surrounded by an infinite void of nothing, no sound can travel; all motion is pointless. It is a torturous realm, where one only has their mind.
The Sage did not intend for such a torturous prison. After all, he crafted it with love in his heart. But “The Witch” left him with nothing else. And so Satella lived with only her mind, her fractured, broken mind. The only thing keeping her company was the Witch of Envy, that she despised.
The void of her imprisonment had no shape. No floor beneath her feet. No ceiling above her head. No air. No warmth. No passage of time.
Yet, Satella stood regardless, her long silver hair drifted in a place without wind, her violet eye fixed on nothing at all. There was nowhere to look, and yet she had learned to keep her gaze forward. It helped. Pretending there was something ahead of her.
“…I wonder if the stars are visible tonight.” Her own voice was quiet. Soft enough that even here, where sound should not exist, it barely felt real. "I wish I could look at them again." She lamented.
She spoke to no one but herself. No answer other than hers would come. And so she turned to her memories of the past, of when she was free, when she was happy, before the calamity.
“I wonder if the tower still stands. Shaula would have protected it.” She allowed a faint smile to touch her lips. She thought back to her time within the tower. The years there she spent with Her Love and how eventually he brought his "Failure of an apprentice" there. “She was always so earnest. A little frightening, too.” Satella thought back fondly.
"... I miss it." The smile faded.
The void did not move.
It never moved. And yet it shifted.
And then-
Love him.
The words slithered across her thoughts.
Satella closed her eyes.
“…I know.”
Love him.
“I know.”
Love him. Love him. Love him. Love him—
“I know.” Her voice sharpened, only slightly.
The repetition ceased. For a while.
Satella breathed in air that did not exist and placed a hand over her chest. A pointless gesture. There was no heartbeat to calm, only the memory of one.
“How many years has it been now?” Satella asked to the void.
She received no answer. Not even one from Envy, because Envy did not count years. Years required patience. Perspective. A world larger than desire. Envy only wanted.
In the silence, Satella receded to the depths of her mind. Satella remembered. The warmth of sunlight through leaves. Tea cooling in porcelain. The sound of footsteps running through long stone halls. A hand brushing against hers. Voices she had spent her eternity trying not to forget. Faces she recited in silence so they would not disappear.
Her recollections had become harder; the edges of her memory softened, the voices blurred. Even her grief that she held onto so tightly could erode. That frightened her more than the prison ever had. Because pain fading meant memory fading and memory fading meant…
“…I’m sorry.” The whisper escaped before she meant it to. "I don't want to forget... It's just-"
Love him.
“I know.”
Find him.
“I know.”
Hold him.
“I know.”
Never let him go.
It was the same mantra Envy repeated like a prayer. A demand to Satella.
Satella bowed her head. For the first time in a very long while, she laughed. A pained, beautiful, sad laugh, sounding of silver bells.
She felt almost embarrassed, “If anyone could see me now…” A hand covered her mouth. A lady should not laugh so openly. But even after four hundred years, some habits remained.
“I must look pathetic,” she remarked to herself.
She looked inwards, to her soul, the source of her immortal being. There melded to it, the lines that separated her and it blurred, was Envy.
"I hate you so much."
The void trembled. Just slightly.
Liar.
“No.”
She paused.
“…I hate what you made of me.”
The silence that followed lasted longer than usual. Time did not exist here, and yet it felt like an eternity. Envy had no response to Satella, no insistence no repetition, peace remained. Good. She preferred it that way.
Her fingers brushed the empty dark like reaching for someone long gone. Satella closed her eyes and imagined stars above her. A world she could no longer touch. And beneath her breath, with no one to hear:
“I hope all of you are living well.” She spoke soft like a prayer. “And if he is there…” Her lips trembled, yet she still wore a impossibly gentle smile. "...please let him be happy."
And somewhere in the dark, something inside her whispered back.
Mine.
Satella’s eyes opened.
The peace shattered.
And the endless void remained.