Archive of Our Own ^beta

It is Hydaelyn who speaks with Syrene when next they meet, but the part of Her that is still Minfilia sees the dawning horror in her expression when she beholds Her wearing her shape. “What have You done to her?” Syrene exclaims, more sorrow and disbelief than anger.

She gives her answer, and though Syrene seems unsatisfied, She tells Her Warrior of Light the story of this world’s birth, and of its sibling worlds formed in that same instant to halt Zodiark’s rise.

And a story it is, for Minfilia knows it is not the full truth, though the true story eludes even her. Hydaelyn intends to tell her someday, when her duty is done, but not now. Not yet.

Later, when Syrene leaves this place, and Minfilia is as much herself as she can be, she recalls the brilliant shade of blue ringing Syrene’s form like an aura. It was beautiful, and strangely familiar, though she cannot say where she (or She?) has seen it.

She waits, and She waits. The Scions mourn her, and her heart aches to see it. Her champion – Their hope – chases after the wayward heroes doing the Ascians’ bidding once she’s ended the Dragonsong War (she’s ended the Dragonsong War! Minfilia thinks, brimming with pride). Yet Hydaelyn remains unbothered by it all, even when poor Alisaie lies at death’s door.

‘Tis as if She already knows what will happen next, though She does not share this knowledge.

She holds her close, whispers to her once again until her fear, too, drifts away, and promises once again that She shall reveal all once the time is right.

When they meet once more – not just Syrene, but both twins, Urianger, Thancred, giving her the same pained look as Syrene had when last they met – Minfilia speaks as herself.

She takes in every detail of their faces, every gesture. She hangs on every word they speak, the timbre and cadence of their voices as she bids them farewell. She wants to remember everything about them.

Urianger will think her choice was made in this moment. He’ll likely blame himself for it. But Her mind was already made up long before he called her here.

“Make me proud,” says Thancred, and she will.

“Take us home,” the Warrior of Darkness asks of her, and she does.

(To Her eyes, the glow of his soul appears the same color as Syrene’s – a lighter tint, but the same hue)

Minfilia has only moments to reach across the star for Lhaminh and wish her one last goodbye before she’s pulled into the rift.

She knows the way through as though she’s made this journey a thousand times. Five souls follow close behind, clinging tightly to one another. The desperate whispers of their hearts amongst themselves are too faint for her to hear.

When she arrives, a radiant wave stands before her. Light in its purest form. Beautiful, terrible, unstoppable – but not for Her. Minfilia’s will gives way to Hydaelyn’s, stasis calling out to stasis and bending the raging Light to her will. The other Warriors of Darkness offer all they have left, one by one. The first four, She accepts, but not the last.

Why not, she asks Her. Why leave him here alone?

Someday, our Champion shall walk these lands as well, and when she does, she shall require his aid, Hydaelyn tells her. When the time comes, they shall know what must be done. Neither shall triumph alone – only together, hand in hand.

“Your time has not yet come” is all She says to him, before she takes what strength the others offered and finishes the job. The Flood’s source lies not here, but far away – an abomination born of a single wish twisted beyond recognition. She reaches Her senses out to that distant entity, seizes it, and halts it in its tracks.

It happens all in an instant, and in that same instant, Minfilia feels her connection to Hydaelyn loosen as she, too, is cast away.

You know what you must do.

In those last moments of consciousness, she hears the Warrior of Darkness call out her name. She cannot bear to look back.

Minfilia awakes amidst a battlefield, invisible, intangible. Someone is calling to her. She feels tug after tug on her being, coming from somewhere close by. Is it Hydaelyn, or someone else?

She follows that tether beneath gleaming gold skies, past monsters and men and men becoming monsters, until it leads her behind an old barn.

There is a girl there, dressed in rags with tangled hair. A war orphan, perhaps. No one else is with her. Around her is an aura of blue-green, and though she’s never seen it, she knows instinctively that it matches her own.

Sharing this vessel would be out of the question, even if the girl were to lie dormant. Were she to do such a thing, it would trigger a Rejoining. She’d be left without a vessel, and the child before her would never again be reborn.

It is a monstrous act, what she’s been tasked with doing. She hesitates. The girl sees her, somehow, and gasps, recoiling, curling into a ball. “Don’t eat me,” she cries, her voice thin. “I don’t taste good. Go away!”

She doesn’t have to do this. She could return to the Aetherial Sea herself, be reborn in this world, let Hydaelyn find her again. She does not have to kill this child and take her place, like an Ascian might.

But if she does not, will She have any power left to offer? Who else will protect this world long enough for Syrene to arrive, if not her? This was the plan.

She approaches the girl, footsteps silent. Hesitates again. She is not ready to decide.

For a while, she continues following the girl, remaining just out of sight. It could’ve been hours, or it could have been days. It’s impossible to tell day from night when the Light never stops shining. She does seem to be an orphan. She stops by a small church for meals, its congregation piled into the basement, praying together for the darkness to spare them from the Light. They call her Lena, there, but she never stays long.

The monsters are called Sin Eaters. They used to be people, or animals. They attack indiscriminately, and some of them can transform their victims into more of themselves. It’s a nauseating sight. The people of this kingdom are fighting to reclaim it, but they’ve been driven from its heart already. Only the outskirts are still fit to live in.

She still cannot bring herself to kill Lena. Why does it have to be her? Ascians aren’t picky about their choice of vessel – why can’t it be someone who’s already dead?

In the end, it’s the Sin Eaters that force her hand. They chase her but she’s fast, and she loses them in a tangle of trees. She can’t outrun them forever, though. If they get to her first, death would be a kinder fate.

So, when Lena finds herself outnumbered, Minfilia tugs on the tether between them until the girl’s soul gives way, still trembling in her grasp. “I am so sorry,” Minfilia tells her, and she casts Lena’s soul into the languid flow of the First’s Aetherial Sea. The Sin Eaters lose interest after that, the meager spark of life remaining in this empty body seemingly less appealing than other nearby victims.

Minfilia pours her own soul into the hollow Lena’s left behind before she can think twice about it, infusing this vessel with traces of the power Hydaelyn has left to her.

She opens her eyes, stands upon unsteady legs, and begins to walk.

There is no turning back now.

The next time a Sin Eater finds her, she’s badly injured before anyone comes to her rescue. Minfilia is left in a distant tent away from the other injured, and only one chirugeon dares to come near. They expect her to turn at any moment. When the next day comes and she is still herself, she is an anomaly. One day turns to two, then three, with no signs of Light corruption. She’s declared a miracle.

Voeburt falls, but to the survivors, she is hope. Incorruptible. Some of the soldiers take her with them back to their city. Eulmore, it’s called – a haven for the rich and powerful in the wake of the Flood, and a military force unmatched among what remains of this world. It would not have been her first choice, but from what she gathers, there are few other choices left.

They call her by her own name. The Oracle of Light, they’d called her, the one who’d halted the Flood and spared the continent of Norvrandt from its wrath. How did they know her name? Who told them?

The people there take her in, feed her, shelter her, treat her like a princess. A man named Zal’bard teaches her to fight, sword and shield in hand. He is stern, but kind, and he has the utmost faith in her. She’d never been the sort, before, but that was another lifetime. Here, it’s where she can do the most good.

It never quite feels like home here, but she does find friends as the years go by. Comrades-in-arms, most of them. Zal’bard brings them from every corner of Norvrandt, meaning to lead a grand crusade against the Sin Eaters with her at its head. She learns much of this world from them – its history, its people, its myriad cultures. Zal’bard hailed from what would’ve been Ala Mhigo in the Source, and though they are different in many ways, the similarities feel like a small taste of home.

Zal’bard’s son, a boy named Ran’jit one or two winters younger than Lena was, is one of her first friends in Eulmore, and one of the closest. He’s spirited, fiercely protective, and much stronger than she is – at least at first. When she surpasses him, he’s proud of her rather than jealous. She cannot tell him of the Source, but they confide nearly everything else in one another.

Even after several winters’ time, Minfilia is still not sure what to make of Eulmore. The Scions never fought for any one city-state, but now…

No. She has not the luxury of choice. These are the people who welcomed her and gave her a home. They’re no worse than Ul’dah, not really. It’s the least she can do to repay them. She almost believes, for a time, that she will save this world on her own. Let this be her burden, for once, rather than Syrene’s.

Those hopes are dashed the moment they slay Kholusia’s Lightwarden and Zal’bard immediately takes its place. Eulmore’s people celebrate, not yet knowing the truth. Her comrades mourn with her. It feels almost as though she’s lost a second father.

Something changes in Ran’jit that day. He’s the slightest bit more distant, and no amount of Eaters slain changes that. He throws himself into his training, day after day, year after year. Their conversations are pleasant, but infrequent.

Eventually, Minfilia is fatally injured during a long battle. It’s slow and agonizing, but at least she has the time to say farewell to her remaining comrades. “Minfilia will return,” she tells them.

That was the plan, after all. Fight and die and live again, as many times as it takes for help to arrive.

When she awakes, she’s back in Nabaath Araeng, where Hydaelyn halted the flood the first time. Ran’jit stands before her – a man grown, now. At his side is another girl ringed in traces of that same blue-green as Lena. This one already looks the way she had for years – golden hair, eyes like gemstones.

This time, she does not hesitate for long. She knows, now, what’s at stake. Once again, she steps into this girl’s skin and casts her out like a cuckoo bird pushes its siblings out of the nest. Ran’jit looks her in the eye, a wild desperation barely hidden behind his cold stare. “Are you Minfilia?” he asks.

“I am,” she replies.

“Do you remember me?” he asks, though the way he speaks sounds more like a command.

She speaks before she can think, acting on instinct. “No,” she lies.

He’s the one who teaches her to fight this time, and he’s a harsh taskmaster.

The cycle continues again and again. She dies young every time. Every time, Ran’jit is there with a different girl. Each time, Minfilia pretends she does not know him, and the longer this goes on, the less he resembles the boy she once knew.

She stops counting the lives she’s lived, eventually, Things never seem to get better. Eulmore feels less and less like home. Its worst impulses begin to rear their ugly heads. It’s around that time that Minfilia first visits the Crystarium.

She’s heard stories of this strange new city in Lakeland, but jealously guarded as she is, she’s never been permitted to visit. This time, she’s brought on a “diplomatic visit” as more as a figurehead than aught else, but – wicked white, that really is the Crystal Tower. It’s identical to the one in Mor Dhona. How is that possible? Those buildings, too – they put her in mind of Sharlayan. The people are kind and welcoming, a humbler sort than the Eulmorans. None of them know where the Tower came from, only that it appeared suddenly. Its enigmatic keeper, the Crystal Exarch, never seems to age and never shows his face, but he’s been nothing but welcoming, and this city wouldn’t exist without him.

The negotiations go poorly – Eulmore wants more than the Crystarium is willing to give, and secretly, she sides with the Crystarium. The night before they leave, the Crystal Exarch himself sneaks up to her door and invites her to his Tower, alone.

She shouldn’t say yes. She does it anyway.

There, in the depths of the Tower, he tells Minfilia the truth: he, too, is from the Source, and he knows her name. Someday, when the time is right, he means to call Syrene to the First. He believes she can defeat the Lightwardens and restore night to Norvrandt. He bids her tell none other, and he still does not show his face. She never tells a soul.

Years and decades go by, and still, there is no sign of her. The time will be right eventually, won’t it? Hydaelyn would not forsake her like this, would She?

(Would She?)

A strange child is born to the wife of Eulmore’s mayor one day – himself a loathsome man with the blood of far too many of Minfilia’s comrades on his hands. This child has the power to control Sin Eaters, even as an infant. If she was treated as a princess in those early days, Vauthry is treated like a fledgling god. The boy himself…Minfilia has never seen anyone so thoroughly spoiled. He cares for naught but his own pleasure, and slowly but surely, the rest of the city falls into his orbit.

Nothing Minfilia says or does changes anything. None will lift a finger, even for her sake. When he murders his own parents, his ascension proceeds as usual, and he rules over his domain like the tyrant he was raised to be.

The people are exhausted. They’ve fought so hard, for so long, and they’ve little to show for it. None of Minfilia’s old friends remain alive. Ran’jit is a stranger to her. A few newer friends from those last few lifetimes still remain, but they’ve changed. Norie-Rao never leaves the city anymore and has long since abandoned her lifelong interest in magick theory. She was always the gossipy sort, but she was never so cruel about it. Now she sits around the parlor all day and makes fun of servants behind their backs. Erich was always portly, and it never slowed him down before – he was strong as a bison, and he used to joke that anyone who’d wanted to kill him would have to cut deep. Now, all he does is lounge around in the Beehive, drink expensive wine, and act like a fool.

It’s not long before Minfilia is relieved of duty. With Vauthry around, there is no longer any need to hunt Sin Eaters. All anyone need do is enjoy this life’s pleasures before it comes to an end.

She begs Hydaelyn for guidance again and again. Still, she receives no answers. She tries to leave the city, but she’s always dragged back.

She does manage to visit the Crystarium, once, before she’s found again in Lakeland. It has been many lifetimes since her last visit. She still likes the place. The guard recognizes her from last time and allows her in when she leaves her weapons at the gate.

This time, she’s the one who finds the Exarch. When will the right time be? She is so tired. She fears Norvrandt is running out of time.

Now is still not the time, he tells her, but there is one thing he can do for her. He takes her into the Tower again, to his enchanted mirror, and shows her a glimpse of the friends she left behind.

Time moves so much more slowly on the Source that they barely seem to move. But there they are, gathered around a table together, looking exactly as she remembers. There are Alphinaud and Alisaie, in the same clothes they’d been wearing when she saw them last. They look like they’re bickering over something silly. There’s Y’shtola with a glass of wine and a wry smile – what’s happened to her eyes? There’s Krile among the rest of them, fitting in as well as Minfilia could have hoped. There’s Lyse, no longer hiding her face. Thancred is laughing, though she cannot tell why. And there’s Syrene laughing with him, all cares put aside for this moment of rest.

She cannot thank the Exarch enough for this gift. Would that she could be there with them, but she cannot. She will not again. She has a duty here, and for their sake, she will uphold it.

Only a few short moons later, Vauthry comes up with an excuse to kill her himself. This time, when she wakes in Nabaath Araeng yet again, it’s Thancred who’s brought another girl to her.

For the first time, she refuses. She borrows the body for but a moment, never letting go of this girl’s soul – only pulling her aside so she may speak to Thancred herself.

He is devastated, of course. But if he is here, the others shall soon follow. For once, she demands this child be allowed to make her own choice. Let Minfilia lay down her blade and rest, should the girl will it.

Until she returns, Minfilia lies dormant. She knows not for how long until she does. Four winters, she guesses, perhaps five. Syrene arrives with her. Thancred is nowhere to be seen.

The girl chooses to live. She wishes to make Minfilia’s power her own. From the look on Syrene’s face, she’s as proud of her as Minfilia is. This shall be their last meeting, then. She pours her heart out for both her successor and Syrene. Finally, she passes Hydaelyn’s message on to Syrene, though she no longer recalls Her exact words.

She hopes it will be enough – though, from the look on Syrene’s face, she’s starting to put together some of the pieces. Minfilia can only hope they’re the right ones.

With that, she plants a kiss on her brave successor’s brow, pulls away the last traces of her influence, and vanishes.

She lingers in the shallows of the Aetherial Sea just long enough to hear the name Thancred gives the girl. Ryne. It’s a beautiful name. After that, she lets go, and allows the currents to sweep her away.

Only…she does not fade away. She wakes one more time to find herself sitting in a small boat on the surface of a vast river, wearing the same white dress she’d worn as Hydaelyn’s Voice. The sky above is scattered with stars, and the sight takes her breath away. How long has it been since she’s seen the night sky?

There is a woman rowing the boat, standing at its fore. She is dressed in white robes, her long white hair fanning out behind her. She’s humming something to herself. A few more long strokes, and she turns around. Her eyes are the same Crystal blue that Minfilia’s were for all those long years, no matter what face she wore.

Minfilia peers off the side of the boat and into the river’s surface. Her own face looks back at her – the face she’d worn first, on the Source. Those unique eyes are gone now, replaced with the steel blue she’d nearly forgotten about. Her hair’s pinned up and braided the way she used to wear it.

The mask the other woman wears by her neck – it’s not quite the sort the Ascians wear, but it’s similar. She’s not sure what to make of that, but she puts it aside for now. She’s never seen Hydaelyn take this shape before, but she knows it’s Her. “I once told you that I would tell the truth to you when your work was done. Do you still wish to hear it?” She asks.

Minfilia’s too baffled to ask at first. What’s going on? She’s dead. Is this still the Sea? She’s never heard Hydaelyn talk like…well, like an ordinary person!

When she finds the words to speak, the first thing she asks is “Where are we?”

Hydaelyn gives her an uncharacteristically warm smile. “Traveling back to the Source by way of the Aetherial Sea. What you see is an illusion. I wished merely to put your mind at ease. Would you rather I dispel it?”

Minfilia shakes her head. “No. I rather like it.”

“Very well.”

Hydaelyn keeps rowing all the while, waiting for Minfilia to answer. “Tell me,” she says.

She begins with what the other Scions already knew by now – the truth of herself and Zodiark. She is no goddess. She never was. She’s just another primal, and before that, she was a mortal woman – or what passed for mortal in her day. Minfilia ought to be shocked, horrified, ready to leap from the boat and take her chances in whatever Sea she lands in.

But, if she’s to be honest with herself, some part of her already suspected it. “Was I tempered, then?” she asks. “Is Syrene, or Krile?”

Hydaelyn shakes her head. “Not at all. Mine was an older form of summoning that predates the Ascians and their teachings. I can do no such thing.”

Minfilia breathes a sigh of relief (a strange thing to for a dead woman to say, she realizes). “If you are a primal, how did you know so much of the future?” she asks.

There is a long pause after that. “What I am about to tell you, not even your companions yet know, though it shall not be long before they do. Do you still wish to know?”

No hesitation this time. “Tell me.”

And so she does, for what feels like bells upon bells. By the time they reach the end, Minfilia is stunned. “It’s…it’s already happened? All of this? How can that be?”

“Indeed it has, after a fashion.”

“And you let it? All those horrible things – everything that’s happened to us? All those reflections lost? Why did you not stop it?”

“I did all I could,” Hydaelyn tells her, her voice heavy with sorrow. “Even now, I cannot be certain that this time is the one that will lead Syrene to meet me in the past. I took nothing for granted. I gave my all to oppose the Ascians at every turn. My failures were in spite of those efforts, not because of them.”

Minfilia is silent. Though she cannot fault her, knowing what she does now, still it feels like a betrayal. “You had to be silent while I died for you again and again?” she asks, her voice growing louder. “For a world that you would abandon so soon after, knowing all it meant to me? To my friends?”

“I did not say I would abandon it, nor any other.”

“But –”

“Minfilia. There is one way, though it lies beyond any future I know.”

She listens, and Hydaelyn continues. “You recall the Mothercrystal?”

How could she not? “It contains enough aether to carry a starfaring vessel to the edge of the universe. I shall challenge the Warrior of Light and any others who make the journey with her to the heart of the star. Should they prevail, I shall entrust it to them, that they may halt the Final Days once and for all.”

“What will become of you should they succeed?”

Hydaelyn looks back at Minfilia again. “Should they prevail, my long vigil shall finally reach its end. I shall return to this star at long last, fully and completely. There will be no more lifetimes for me.”

She has earned that right, but despite her lingering frustrations and concerns, it still saddens Minfilia to hear it.

She cannot say how she knows they’ve reached their destination, but she does, instinctively. “I ask not for your forgiveness,” Hydaelyn says, “nor do I expect it. I have asked far too much of you already. I wished only for you to know the truth before you embark upon your next journey.”

Truthfully, Minfilia’s not sure what to think. Strange as it is after all this time, it’s oddly comforting to think of Hydaelyn as an ascended mortal rather than a lofty goddess. Her flaws, her cruelest requests, everything Minfilia’s ever been angry with her about…she made mistakes because people make mistakes. She cannot justify everything, but has she met anyone she’s never disagreed with? It seems to her like necessary evil.

…Perhaps it’s easy for her to say that now, when she no longer lives. It is no longer her place to decide. Besides, her own hands have not been clean for a long time. One act of mercy does not undo what came before.

It’s so much to take in, and she is so tired. “Thank you,” she finally says.

Hydaelyn sits down, placing her oar along the boat’s side. “Thank you,” she says. “None of this would have been possible without you.

That, at least, she can be proud of. “They’ll win,” she adds.

She needs not elaborate. Hydaelyn responds with a rare smile. “I hope with all my heart that they will.”

“Is there aught I can do to aid them?”

“You have done so much already, my dear child,” Hydaelyn assures her. “But, if you can hold onto yourself until they come searching for me…perhaps you might see them one last time. For now, I must go. There is still one soul I've yet to bring here, and I cannot imagine he would be happy to see you."

Hydaelyn reaches out, carefully, and puts one hand on Minfilia’s shoulder. “Whatever your choice, I hope your next life will be a kinder one. Farewell.”

Everything around her vanishes – the boat, the sky, Hydaelyn herself.

At long last, she is home.

By the time the Scions reach the depths of the Aetherial Sea, much of Minfilia’s memory is hazy. Only the faintest wisps of her remain.

But she knows them. She welcomes them, walks these paths with them, shows them the way. Is that the Exarch with them? She never did see his face, but the flecks of bright red around this man match his.

She walks by each of them. They offer a few final words, a few watery smiles. There’s a man she doesn’t recognize at all, but even he acknowledges her with a quick nod.

“Ryne is doing well,” says Syrene. “I’ve been to visit her, and I’ve brought her letters from nearly everyone. She’s happy. Found herself a girlfriend, even!”

Her expression clouds, and for a brief moment, something in her eyes doesn’t quite seem like her. “We won’t leave her, nor anyone else if we can help it. Not unless there’s no other choice.”

At the end of the path, she smiles sadly. “Rest well, Minfilia, and thank you. We’ll take it from here.”