Medio: Just, allow me to have this ~ Present

Mors might have lived a very sheltered life, which led her to believe herself to be profoundly naive. She had an understanding of the world that only a handful of people alive had, but even then, not being able to notice such things before led her to think she would always be blind to the world around her.

“But there are things even I would notice, given how evident they are.”

The first thing that surprised her was the fact that the doors of the mansion were open for her to go out. Halia, or Leucothea, as she called herself nowadays, had given the order to let Mors go, if so she desired. Quite a bold order, but at the same time, a show of confidence from her part. After all, she knew that she would not abandon the city as long as she didn’t know where Todo was.

The first day of exploring the city the first thing that struck her as strange was the fact that they all seemed to be happy. That would be desirable of course, what better to live happily in a beautiful city, but the end of the world has an incredible capacity to ruin such things with a lot of ease.

Looking for Todo she had been in a lot of places, seeing a lot of people, and with that a lot of ideas. It wasn’t precisely the first time she found people happy despite the circumstances, but most of those times she concluded that it was a matter of denial more than actual happiness. Nothing more than people deluding themselves hard enough to forget the true circumstances of the world around them.

But in Medio? This is no such thing, that she concluded after a simple stroll through the city. People were organizing what seemed to be a festival while talking animatedly between them, all about how great it would be. Apparently, some time before her arrival some people had organized and killed every single person who overlooked the city, following which the preparations for the festival started.

It didn’t take her long to connect the two dots and guess that was the moment Halia took control of the city, which meant that the festival was also her doing. The enormous level of coordination also pointed to it being her work, as well as the uniform clothing everyone was wearing now. The clothing varied in all colors of the rainbow, but they were also all embroidered with a pattern of golden spirals and strange symbols. What did it all mean? What is Halia planning for the people in the city?

“Excuse me, what are you doing all of this for?”

Mors, without her crown, and covered by a cloak that covered her regal clothes, asked one of the men who were creating the body of a giant hay man.

“What do you mean? It’s the hay man, it’s for the bonfire.” Asked the man, responding as if it was the most natural thing for him.

“You’ll have to excuse me, I only recently arrived and I am not quite aware of the traditions around here. Do you all usually do this?”

“Did they let you in? I have heard the guards haven’t allowed anyone to pass for a while now. How did you convince them?” Asked the man again, even more confused than before.

“Give her a break. I’m sorry for that, apparently no one ever taught him that is rude to answer a question with a question” Said a woman who had just finished tying together a bundle of hay, that would later be tied with the other bundles to make the head of the hayman.

“No, no. I agree, in a certain way. I saw the vigilance on the entrance, to be honest, I am not quite sure why they did allow me in.”

A lie, of course. But if she feigned ignorance she could avoid any more troublesome questions.

“Well, everything happens for a reason, so you may as well see it as a gift. You came just in time for the festival!”

Mors looked around once more, as far as she could see down the street, everyone in the city seemed to be preparing for it. But although Medio had a quite famous annual festival for the arrival of the spring, it was completely off season.

“Of course, although I must say I am surprised. I thought the festival was celebrated in spring.” Asked Mors, trying to keep a facade of innocence and naivete.

“Who cares about things like that? If there is something I have to agree with the new governor on, it is that we have to make the most of this time. Is no time to be weeping around gal, we have to celebrate!” Said the woman, raising the pitch of her voice every time more.

“Celebrate… what?”

“The fact that we are alive of course!” Said her, letting down the head of the hayman and opening her arms, as if she was ecstatic about something.

Mors looked at her, feeling that something must be deeply wrong with her. Being alive? The whole problem is that soon no one will be. And to make matters worse, the city had an enormous view that allowed them to see that inevitable end only getting closer.

The woman saw that she still didn’t understand, and after sighing, she let her tools down, rose up and took Mors hands.

“Look, if I were you, I would not go around making questions like these. Until very recently we all were very distraught, and in a way, we are trying to do everything in our hands to find the good side of it all. With the world as it is, the fact that we are still alive is a miracle in itself. We have to celebrate, dance and be happy while we still can!

If we start doubting ourselves now… well, I don’t think there will be anything left for us.”

The woman sounded upbeat, but the tone she had been trying to maintain went down, until she only whispered the last part. Only then, when the seed of doubt in her voice showed for a moment, Mors understood, and decided she had enough.

When she came back to the mansion she had conflicting feelings, but a single determination flourished in between it all.

She had no idea why Halia decided to create the festival, but if what the woman said was true, it was the people’s way to hold on to something. With how little there is left, taking that away from them would be too cruel, so she would not intervene.

But, even then, she knew that Halia could not have done so from the kindness of her heart, the rituals and sacrifices proved so, which meant she had to be stopped. The main problem was the fact that she was completely incapable of killing her. She could try to kill her out of old age, but based on her recent experience, she would have to truly unleash her power to take her out.

Doing so could mean taking the entire city down with her, that was a risk she could not take.

The most frustrating point about it is that she was sure that Halia already knew it, and that’s why she was so confident of herself. She knew that Mors would not escape, and she was also unable to kill her, so as long as she was kept away from her plans there was nothing she could do about it. The best option she had was for Ases to arrive and do the deed for her, but even that would probably be on her plans, so she could not fully count on it.

Trying to decipher the next step, the night came. Near midnight, Mors was a spectator to the sorry spectacle of Ases’s family crashing a caravan in the middle of the plaza while probably waking up most of the city with the scandal they made. If that was the kind of people she had on her side, she might as well give the world to Halia on a silver platter.

If she wanted things to change, she would have to do it herself, so she decided to confront Halia again. Mostly with the hopes of getting new information, but also with the intention of distracting her from the incident with the caravan.

That was the plan, but as soon as she entered the room where she was in and saw the beast with the priest's clothes on she knew that she had waited too long to act.

“Oh, this must be your precious child, isn’t she?”

The beast said with a happy tone, going to welcome Mors, but as soon as she got near her Mors felt as if the world started spinning on itself around her. This could not be, how could a God lose consciousness?

But even then, that’s what she did, as her skin turned pale, and her eyes closed to never open again.