Yatro: My mistake ~ Present

When the midwife opened the door, Ases immediately rose up from his seat to talk with her. Mors did too, but instead of walking towards them, she walked towards the window, having spotted something in the distance.

“How is she? Is she fine? How is the baby?” Ases asked, all questions coming out at once, not even breathing in between them.

“Calm, calm. It was a very hard labor, but the baby is healthy, and Raz is out of danger now. She needs a lot of rest to recuperate herself, but you can see her now.” She said, standing out of the way.

When he entered, he could see Raz, absolutely exhausted, but holding a baby in her arms. She was crying, mumbling something unintelligible.

“Raz?” He said, running to her side and kneeling in the ground to get on their level.

“Is a girl.” All Raz managed to say, in between her tears, before starting crying again.

Ases looked at the baby, shocked, but feeling a warm feeling bathing all over his heart. The worries were going away, giving space to a wave of happiness that started to be overwhelming.

“Is a girl… my little girl” He said, starting to cry too, putting his arms forward, hoping to hold her. Raz gave the baby to him, still mumbling.

Ases held the baby, that opened her eyes and started crying. He tried to calm the baby, but it seemed like she was scared of him. The idea was scary for him, but it still didn’t manage to make a dent on the happiness that he was feeling at that moment.

At least, until Raz started crying.

It was not a light cry, all of the sudden, she started full out bawling. She seemed inconsolable, surprising Ases, who wanted to give her a hug to calm her, but couldn’t do so with the baby in his arms.

He sat on the bed at her side, trying to calm her, but it was to no avail. It took a long while for her to finally stop, simply weeping in the pillow.

The two of them stayed there in silence, until finally, she talked.

“How long do we have left?”

Just like that, Ases felt as if the world crashed on his head, stripping him immediately of any semblance of the happiness he was feeling up until that moment.

How long did they have left? How long until the waters rise up to Yatro, and there’s nowhere left to run? How many months, if not weeks, would their kid manage to live?

The happiness of the birth he once felt now became a spectacle of mounting horror as the realizations all hit at once. They would never be able to see her walk, not even speak. As things were, her destiny was to drown once the ocean consumed the world, and that if they were not mauled by telchines before the waters found them.

Ases returned the baby to Raz, and hugged her. The two of them remained there, shocked by the realization, trying to find a way to cope with the pain they felt now that they could truly feel the magnitude of the loss they were destined to face.

Ideas spun around in Ases head, every time faster, until finally he could not take it anymore and simply shot out of the bed.

“I’ll be back. I promise.” He said, kissing Raz, before bolting out of the door and going outside.

He had a single objective. If there was any slight, minuscule chance of changing their destiny, there was a single person who could help them and she was in that same city. He went outside, running with his unnatural speed, trying to reach the Goddess of Wisdom as soon as possible, but something else caught his eye when he went outside.

Far, far away. In the middle of the ocean, a ray of light was shooting up into the sky. It shone in the middle of nowhere, in the space between the now stationary moon and sun that remained on each side of the horizon.

He looked at it for a moment, but soon returned to his own goal with full intensity. His plan was to reach the government building in the center of Yatro and get himself a reunion with the Goddess of Wisdom at once, but this time such rush turned out to be unnecessary. While he gave an enormous leap to cross the field that separated his house from the main city, he saw in the distance the army that the Goddess had arranged, now moving towards a point outside the city.

As bad of an impression as that gave him, he would have ignored such a thing to focus back into his goal, but something compelled him to look more closely. An idea that cooked in the back of his mind. Just like the city, the army had been organized by someone, and if they were acting now, that surely was by her hand too.

Following his instinct, he changed direction as soon as he landed, shooting himself through the air in enormous leaps that landed him near the army in a matter of minutes.

A person jumping through the air dozens of meters and landing perfectly safely was something very rarely seen, so everyone knew who it was way before he arrived. When he got near them, Ases could hear them break in cheers, celebrating him, his presence bringing them a joy that he himself did not understand. It only would make sense if he finally managed to speak with the Goddess herself, the one that was chanting a ritual in front of everyone.

When he got there, he was out of breath, taking a moment to finally relax before speaking with her. His mind that was rushing out of anguish was slowing down, as if simply being near the Goddess was enough to calm his mind and make him think more logically about what he was doing.

“You should not be here, Ases.”

He looked up. Only then he noticed that the Goddess was not alone, Mors was there too.

“What’s going on here?” He asked her. He wanted to ask the Goddess, but she didn’t stop reciting her spell.

“That light in the distance? That’s the location of the rift the telchines are coming from.” Said Mors, pointing to that faraway point.

Ases looked at it, surprised. Now that he knew what it was, he could not avoid feeling that it was too close for comfort. How far away was it? How long would it take a beast to reach them from that place?

Then, The Goddess of Wisdom finished her spell, and an enormous circle of light appeared in the ground. Just a little bit after, the light shot through the sky, similar to the beam that was far away in the distance.

“As she said, you should not be here.” Said the Goddess, now looking at him. She looked slightly tired, worn out from the feat she had just pulled.

He wanted to respond, but she didn’t give him time to, as she turned around to look at the generals in front of her. A group of ten soldiers who were awaiting orders from her.

“I have granted you your wish. Now go forth, be brave, and live a life with no regrets.” She said, The generals nodded, before each returned to their own squadron, shouting orders that Ases could not listen over the cheers and the noise of the soldiers hitting their shields with their weapons.

“What is going on here? What are you doing with all these people?” He asked again, shouting, trying to make himself heard to the Goddesses, but neither seemed to want to look at him.

“All of them are people who wanted to fight the telchines. This portal will transport them into that beam of light, so all of them can fight the beasts to the end.” Said Wisdom, looking at the army that was now marching towards the circle of light.

Ases had no time to process the information at all. He didn’t know where to start. He was looking for her to ask for a way to stop the telchines, anything that could help him give her daughter a life to live.

And she had opened a path there without saying a word?

“Ases, calm down.” Said Mors, walking towards him, seeing him starting to panic.

“Can they win? What’s the plan? What must I do?” He asked the Goddess of Wisdom, but she simply gave him a tired look.

“What you must do is to remain here, and return with your family.” She said, after a moment.

If he was spiraling out of control before, that answer simply finished him off. He gave a couple of steps back, looking at her horrorized, while the soldiers started walking into the beam of light. Some of them shouted roars of happiness towards him before entering, as if they expected him to join them.

“What… how can you say that? ” He said, uncomprehending. Fear pulling his mind in all directions.

“Ases… It’s impossible to stop the telchines.” Said Mors, grabbing Ases by the arm and pulling him towards her. She said it in as low of a voice as she could to make sure no one else could listen to her.

“But… all of them, everyone, they are going to fight!” He said, freeing himself from her grasp, starting to scream now. “You can’t tell me it's useless, why are they going to fight then!” He said, no he begged. Nothing made any sense for him anymore.

“For the same reason the Gods went to fight so long ago, and for the same reason they opened this portal in their lair. To fight until the end, and resist all they can. No one here wanted to die without having at least tried to fight, so I gave them the option to do so” Finally said the Goddess, looking him in the eye, grabbing him by the shoulders. “That’s the answer they found, and like you, they have to commit to it to the end. Go home Ases, your wife and your future daughter needs you. There’s nothing that you can do if you go.”

The words the Goddess said bounced in his head, bringing a storm of horrible memories that sent him in an anxious spiral. His body was not capable of hyperventilating, and his mind was supposed to be clear thanks to the presence of the Goddess, but nothing actually took shape inside his head while his lungs somehow seemed unable to hold a breath.

He simply looked at the enormous pillar of light, incapable of seeing what was on the other side. In his mind, what he saw was a forest. A reminder of his biggest regrets. A reminder of a horrible mistake he once made, that almost cost everything to him. He gave a step back, trying to rationalize again, to put an order to everything and think what he truly needed to do.

But then he remembered again, his daughter, who was now doomed to be taken away by the waters. A daughter that had managed to be born in the world, but would die before truly living life.

And with that image in his mind he entered the portal, ignoring the shouting of the two Goddesses he left behind.