[What must I do? asks a high, thin voice from the video screen behind them. What pain must I visit upon you to make you surrender to despair?
Eight figures stand in the midst of a withered clearing at the end of all things, surrounded by stars and dead roots and broken fenceposts. Four figures with pointed ears, two tall and two short. Three with tails. One grizzled old bard, still dressed in his gunbreaker whites and looking much like he does in the flesh.
When the elven-eared girl in red walks forward to speak, it's almost like she's speaking directly to Gideon and Thancred, and not to the ink-black bird that hovers in her memory's midst.
No one is unbreakable! What pains one may weather may bring another to tears! But therein lies our strength — for when we fall, our brothers and sisters are there to raise us up. Again and again. Without end!
I see, remarks the bird, in a way that suggests it doesn't see at all, and soon the air is filled with a flock of them, swirling and coalescing together as her tone turns menacing: But no matter how much hope exists, ever will there be more despair. Ever will the living curse and lament the future. So shall we sing until life ceases to be!
The flock of birds becomes a swarm, becomes a torrent, becomes a hurricane; as they fly faster and faster in their ever-narrowing orbit, colors flash against the backdrop of the night sky like an aurora. More and more conjoin, until soon there are so many birds that it's impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins, and not long after there ceases to be any means of division, as the avian shapes melt and reduce into oily masses that all bleed together into one.
The Endsinger exists on a scale impossible to comprehend at a glance. Entire planets are her playthings, and two of them begin to form as she spreads her wings wide and shrieks of hatred and malice. The celestial spheres smash together shortly before their impact reaches the clearing where the eight heroes stand, and the shockwave is nearly enough to send them all sprawling as it threatens to blast them back into the empty reaches of space.
The tall elf in armor is the first to attack. He always is. He sees his enemy before him, and his lance is in his hands; what more could he possibly need than that?
He hurtles into the air, and the skies scream with the call of a great wyrm as the Endsinger manifests a new planet to bear the brunt of his attack — strong enough to all but vaporize it when it strikes.
Not far behind, of course, is Thancred. Of course he is; when has he ever been one to shy away from putting himself between an enemy and his friends?
History repeats itself, in variation on a theme; he lunges, and the elf with the tarot cards on his belt raises a shield around him — but this too comes for naught, as his strike shatters the planet in his wake and sends him hurtling back to skid along the ground.
The white-haired mage readies a spell; black-violet oilslick tears pour from the Endsinger's eyes and down her alabaster cheeks, down to the ground below where they turn into trails of roiling aether filled with the grasping hands of the damned. Thancred and the mage stand no chance of avoiding it; the agonized phantoms overtake them in an instant, swarming over them and bringing them to their knees, barely able to withstand the onslaught that threatens to overwhelm them in despair.
We die in pain, the Endsinger snarls. We die in suffering! Who are you to live?! Who are you to hope?!
They are heroes, the eight of them — and it shows in the way they instinctively seek to come to each others' rescue, one by one. The elf that had sought to shield Thancred before moves to deliver them from the writhing hands; when the Endsinger turns her sights on him next, the younger elf boy rushes in to shield him in his turn.
We cannot comprehend. We cannot know. We cannot know!
Just one good strike, the elf girl in red hisses, arming an attack of her own. The Endsinger's venomous tears fall at her feet and subsume her, forcing her to abandon her efforts in convulsions of agony.
We will not suffer alone. All will know our pain!
And now, at last, the Endsinger turns her attention to one of the last figures standing — almost too far from Thancred to make out the specifics of her features, but her importance is highlighted in the emotion saturating the memory itself. He's still trapped in the grasping darkness, she's undefended, he's not there, he's not there —
But someone is.
No you don't! shouts the redheaded mage with the glowing blue staff, his cat ears pinned back in determination as he plants a spectral sword in the ground — draws a shield of aetheric light to his arm — manifests a shield that looks like blue-white angel's wings that spread to cover the girl behind him —
It holds. And the Endsinger takes his defiance as a challenge.
Her second strike is a continuous one — a perpetual blast of force that seeks to overwhelm the young man's resolve as it bears down on his shields again and again and again. But his will holds — and it holds — and it holds — and when his shield finally breaks he stumbles backward and catches his footing and throws up his bare arms, in his determination to keep holding on.
They say that courage is fear that holds on one second longer. How courageous that boy is, to hold on one second more with nothing but his own body to throw in the way in defense.
The winds sweep them all off their feet, swirling them into the air above the clearing like bits of debris ripped free and thrown up into a tornado. The Endsinger continues her song. Their screams of pain and disorientation rock the empty void at the end of all things.
He can't swim free of it. He can't get back down there. He can't fight, can't help her, can't make it —
But it seems that for the first time — the only time — she doesn't need him to.
In the split-second before she presses down on the activation switch of the odd device in her hands, Thancred catches a glimpse of her, the last bastion of hope left standing against the Endsinger's despair. She seems to burn so bright he almost can't stand to look at her, even as he hears Alisaie cry wait!
That girl's strength has always, always been in the support of her friends. Of having her comrades at her side. Of having the ability to call for them even from far afield, to rush to her aid and lend their strength to hers.
But here, at the end of all things where logic has no dominion and emotion can be made a weapon stronger than any smith's hands could ever hope to forge, Thancred realizes:
no subject
Eight figures stand in the midst of a withered clearing at the end of all things, surrounded by stars and dead roots and broken fenceposts. Four figures with pointed ears, two tall and two short. Three with tails. One grizzled old bard, still dressed in his gunbreaker whites and looking much like he does in the flesh.
When the elven-eared girl in red walks forward to speak, it's almost like she's speaking directly to Gideon and Thancred, and not to the ink-black bird that hovers in her memory's midst.
No one is unbreakable! What pains one may weather may bring another to tears! But therein lies our strength — for when we fall, our brothers and sisters are there to raise us up. Again and again. Without end!
I see, remarks the bird, in a way that suggests it doesn't see at all, and soon the air is filled with a flock of them, swirling and coalescing together as her tone turns menacing: But no matter how much hope exists, ever will there be more despair. Ever will the living curse and lament the future. So shall we sing until life ceases to be!
The flock of birds becomes a swarm, becomes a torrent, becomes a hurricane; as they fly faster and faster in their ever-narrowing orbit, colors flash against the backdrop of the night sky like an aurora. More and more conjoin, until soon there are so many birds that it's impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins, and not long after there ceases to be any means of division, as the avian shapes melt and reduce into oily masses that all bleed together into one.
The Endsinger exists on a scale impossible to comprehend at a glance. Entire planets are her playthings, and two of them begin to form as she spreads her wings wide and shrieks of hatred and malice. The celestial spheres smash together shortly before their impact reaches the clearing where the eight heroes stand, and the shockwave is nearly enough to send them all sprawling as it threatens to blast them back into the empty reaches of space.
The tall elf in armor is the first to attack. He always is. He sees his enemy before him, and his lance is in his hands; what more could he possibly need than that?
He hurtles into the air, and the skies scream with the call of a great wyrm as the Endsinger manifests a new planet to bear the brunt of his attack — strong enough to all but vaporize it when it strikes.
Not far behind, of course, is Thancred. Of course he is; when has he ever been one to shy away from putting himself between an enemy and his friends?
History repeats itself, in variation on a theme; he lunges, and the elf with the tarot cards on his belt raises a shield around him — but this too comes for naught, as his strike shatters the planet in his wake and sends him hurtling back to skid along the ground.
The white-haired mage readies a spell; black-violet oilslick tears pour from the Endsinger's eyes and down her alabaster cheeks, down to the ground below where they turn into trails of roiling aether filled with the grasping hands of the damned. Thancred and the mage stand no chance of avoiding it; the agonized phantoms overtake them in an instant, swarming over them and bringing them to their knees, barely able to withstand the onslaught that threatens to overwhelm them in despair.
We die in pain, the Endsinger snarls. We die in suffering! Who are you to live?! Who are you to hope?!
They are heroes, the eight of them — and it shows in the way they instinctively seek to come to each others' rescue, one by one. The elf that had sought to shield Thancred before moves to deliver them from the writhing hands; when the Endsinger turns her sights on him next, the younger elf boy rushes in to shield him in his turn.
We cannot comprehend. We cannot know. We cannot know!
Just one good strike, the elf girl in red hisses, arming an attack of her own. The Endsinger's venomous tears fall at her feet and subsume her, forcing her to abandon her efforts in convulsions of agony.
We will not suffer alone. All will know our pain!
And now, at last, the Endsinger turns her attention to one of the last figures standing — almost too far from Thancred to make out the specifics of her features, but her importance is highlighted in the emotion saturating the memory itself. He's still trapped in the grasping darkness, she's undefended, he's not there, he's not there —
But someone is.
No you don't! shouts the redheaded mage with the glowing blue staff, his cat ears pinned back in determination as he plants a spectral sword in the ground — draws a shield of aetheric light to his arm — manifests a shield that looks like blue-white angel's wings that spread to cover the girl behind him —
It holds. And the Endsinger takes his defiance as a challenge.
Her second strike is a continuous one — a perpetual blast of force that seeks to overwhelm the young man's resolve as it bears down on his shields again and again and again. But his will holds — and it holds — and it holds — and when his shield finally breaks he stumbles backward and catches his footing and throws up his bare arms, in his determination to keep holding on.
They say that courage is fear that holds on one second longer. How courageous that boy is, to hold on one second more with nothing but his own body to throw in the way in defense.
The winds sweep them all off their feet, swirling them into the air above the clearing like bits of debris ripped free and thrown up into a tornado. The Endsinger continues her song. Their screams of pain and disorientation rock the empty void at the end of all things.
He can't swim free of it. He can't get back down there. He can't fight, can't help her, can't make it —
But it seems that for the first time — the only time — she doesn't need him to.
In the split-second before she presses down on the activation switch of the odd device in her hands, Thancred catches a glimpse of her, the last bastion of hope left standing against the Endsinger's despair. She seems to burn so bright he almost can't stand to look at her, even as he hears Alisaie cry wait!
That girl's strength has always, always been in the support of her friends. Of having her comrades at her side. Of having the ability to call for them even from far afield, to rush to her aid and lend their strength to hers.
But here, at the end of all things where logic has no dominion and emotion can be made a weapon stronger than any smith's hands could ever hope to forge, Thancred realizes:
She's going to do it.
She's going to save them all.]