#Writing #BloodofSilenceSeries #DanceTillOurEnd #DTOE
Pinks and blues danced upon the horizon. Stars faded as the sun came to shed its shimmering light upon the boundless spires of Amaurot.
It was a magnificent sight, as it had always been. Beautiful without words to describe as I watched from above. The world seemed so small and peaceful from up here.
"Ah, there's my favourite protégé," came the smiling voice of Venat. Argos came bounding over to nudge at my side, and I chuckled, giving him the pat he so desperately wanted.
She came to sit beside me with laugh. "Come now Argos, that's enough."
With what could almost pass as a pout, he was promptly dismissed.
My gaze drifted back to the horizon with a frown. My eyes were longing and distant as my chest heaved with the weight of the unbearable emptiness.
"How are you holding up?"
I thought about the question for a while, but found myself unable to find the words to answer. How do you describe something that doesn't feel real?
In lieu of my answer, she spoke. "I know it's hard...but it does get easier. Though at times it may feel like it will drown you, you mustn't forget the feeling of the sunshine. For when you emerge once more from the depths, it will be as a beacon blazing. Don't fight it. Let yourself feel, but never lose sight of hope."
"You've lost someone too?" I murmured.
"'Lost' is perhaps not the correct word. I haven't unexpectedly in the sense that you have, but even so, I've felt their absence keenly."
I sighed. "Sometimes I curse myself for not being faster. I should have left the moment we heard..."
"There was a reason your parents stayed in the East all these years, is there not? The people, the places, and the memories... Do you truly think they would have wanted to leave that behind?"
"No, I... That's why I saved it in the first place."
She nodded. "You knew they would be safe having evacuated long in advance, but you still saved it anyway. That place was their lives. Their purpose. I am sure they are proud to have fought their hardest to protect it and its people, and their legacy lives on in those who made it out."
With a sigh, she continued. "This calamity will not end with the East. It will spread, and rot the star from the inside out--praying on our fears and weaknesses. It will cost us everything, and we will be powerless to stop it, but it will not take from us our hope. For if life itself is to endure, we must accept despair as our constant companion, lest it be our undoing."
"...How do you know this?"
"Ah, I told you about the visit from a friend from the future, yes? She was you from a time long after all of us are gone. In her time, the calamity has returned once more, and she came looking to the past for a way to succeed where we will fail."
"Did she find her answer?"
She laughed, "I should certainly hope so, for she went through a lot of trouble to get it."
"Then whatever she found, we can use it here and now to prevent that future from coming to pass, can't we?"
"Alas, no... The past she travelled to existed as a result of our future failure, and it was therefore impossible for her to alter the outcome of our own story."
"So, we're supposed to just wait out the inevitable then? That's all we can do?"
"Though the end of our story may already be set in stone, we must endeavor to keep hope alive so that the future may be a brighter one. This is the duty left to us."
With a sigh, I lay down on my back to gaze up at the sky. "What was it like? The future she came from?"
"Her world is one wrought with despair and hardship. Much unlike ours, and yet I could see it in her, and through the stories she told. Hope. A flame burning brighter than any I've ever seen, kindled with untold suffering."
"What is there for her in that world, if all there is is suffering?" I wondered.
"Despair makes joy all the sweeter, yet I cannot well answer in her place. You would have to ask her."
"What was her name?"
"Fira Alia," she smiled.
A future of untold suffering, where all we knew was gone. It sounded horrible. Why hope, if to hope was to bring more suffering upon yourself? Such logic sounded like the naive musings of a child.
Generations of knowledge and creations, carefully cultivated in the pursuit of a brighter future. Places, people and creatures--each meaning something to someone. Each their own reasons to to continue on, and protect everything they held dear.
Saving my own home town from destruction was ultimately meaningless in the end. If I had let it be destroyed, they'd have all been evacuated and still with us. But even then, if what this future traveler said was to be believed, the end was inevitable, be it there or somewhere else.
Was everything truly fated to turn to ash?
If all was fated to disappear, then... Everything we did...everything we gave. What was it for?
I couldn't let it be for naught. Where there's a will, there has always been a way, and I would find it. No matter what, I could not let that future come to pass.
"You would oppose me? Even should it mean death?" Venat asked.
"If it comes to it."
She sighed. "Very well then."