Euryce ~ Past ~ The lyre and the star, back at the start

Where there was once a fire, ashes remain.

Ashes was all that we had left. All of us, that’s all we had.

When we finally came out of the veil we were now on the outermost border of the city. The only thing left was a small decorative pyramid, and the smallest light stone center of Nochightdad.

What was once the greatest city in the world had now been almost completely engulfed in darkness. In a way, we were lucky to have anything left in the first place. Back then we didn’t understand why the veil stopped growing, nor did we understand why the small veil that Lyra had invoked had gone out of control in such a devastating manner so we couldn’t rationalize the catastrophe in any meaningful way.

Lyra. That was the only good part I could find in our situation.

Howard chose the name. In a way, he was the one who took most care of her for the first couple of weeks. Well, he and the prospects who didn’t become as despondent as I was once we came out of the veil.

We walked for hours inside it, without any breaks, rushed by the fact that Lyra’s glow was slowly fading over time, as if her light was finally running out. By the time we escaped of the darkness we barely managed to fit inside her protection.

Once we were out, and we noticed where we were, many of us simply… fell.

The city once extended as far as you could see, but now we were at its border.

Some dilapidated buildings from its furthermost reach were all that had remained of it. Buildings that were now abandoned, as the people who once inhabited them were gone. Maybe they ran when they saw the catastrophe, maybe they had been gone from a long time ago. The only thing I knew is that those remains were all we had left.

After a very rough couple of weeks I finally got my bearings back. After days looking at what we would eventually know as the great veil, it finally dawned on me that it was not going to disappear. That now we were on our own, and that I could not even know if someone survived. If there was anything left on the other side.

That I could not even know if Orphie had survived.

Once again, as he always did, Howard was the one who took care of me during that time. He actually took care of all of us, in a way. My heart felt warm, even if everything else felt… devastatingly cold.

He is such a kind, beautiful soul. There hasn’t been a single day I regret going so far to save him, even if everything that happened afterwards was regrettable. He did so much for us, that in a way, I felt I had to retribue it to him somehow. In time, I started loving him, but the weight of regret in my heart felt too heavy to act upon it.

I wonder if he feels the same. At the very least, we did end up forming a beautiful family with the baby we went so far to save.

Small, little Lyra…

I wish she would just go far, far away from here. Away from this place that is merely the ashes of what it once was, and that even then we could not truly preserve. There isn’t any words that I can say to say how much I love her, but that only makes it hurt so much when I realize that I have nothing to offer to them. That she was now fated to grow in ashes, and ashes was all I could give to her.

After a couple of expeditions inside the veil, in which we lost many people, we collected all the light stones we could of the closest centers to where we were. Our barrier was extremely small, but with what we collected, it was also considerably strong.

Life moved on, even if we had so little left, where there is a will there is a way.

Years moved past, one after another. So many things went by, but at the same time, nothing truly changed no matter how much time passed.

We eventually found out that another portion of Nochightdad had survived the catastrophe. We didn’t hear much of it, but apparently they had managed to stabilize the barrier even after what had happened.

I didn’t want to think how many lives doing so probably took.

In just a couple of months after the great veil formed, Meofor died. It was not a disease, he was not killed, even when there were many people who wanted to hung him for what happened. It was like… he simply gave up. After seeing the city collapse in such a catastrophic manner, he found no reason to continue and his soul abandoned his tired body.

Orphie took care of the city. He had changed after what happened. He didn’t send anyone after us but… the situation between us was extremely tense. Needless to say, we decided to keep contact at a minimum, hoping that he would forget about us eventually.

We wanted to forget, but nobody could really do so. After all, we were living in the ashes, and everyday we yearned for the return of what it once was.

ASHES, ASHES, ASHES

I started losing control of my anger. Slipping little by little. I simply felt enraged all the time and could not help it. Every single thing that happened only aggravated it.

When two more veils popped up around the city, slowly encroaching us, I felt angry.

When Howard started studying the veils, and figured that without any rituals the light that protected the barrier would eventually run out, I felt angry.

When we started uselessly performing the rituals in the excuse of a pyramid we had for any semblance of peace, I felt so angry I thought I would explode.

It was as if our lives had become a mockery of what they once were.

But then… years still went by. Even when my mind was breaking apart, time simply went on.

When I finally collapsed and Howard had to take care of me again, my anger finally mellowed out. It slowly morphed into sadness. In that time, I finallt had to come to terms with the fact that this was all we had. That we were now living in borrowed time and we would only live in ashes until then.

There are only two good things from those years of my life. One, those times reignited my love for Howard even more than before, which did help alleviate my aching heart slightly.

And two, Lyra was growing to be such a strong little girl. When I saw her, it felt as if all my worries started fading away.

I had to conduct the summoning ritual for our peace of mind. After all, if nothing changed, we would eventually run out of light stones and our little village would be consumed by the great veil. The success rate was already quite low in Nochightdad, so hoping for it to succeed here with our shoddy equipment was nothing but hopeful thinking.

And then, after so many years of nothing, something finally happened. The summoning had finally brought someone.

Someone that appeared and immediately threw himself down the stairs like a fucking idiot.

An idiot who Howard tried to catch, falling down the stairs with him, and finally breaking his irreplaceable glasses that he managed to protect for more than two decades.

“Is the sacrifice awake?”

Old habits die hard, I guess. In a way, I felt it was retribution for breaking something as important as Howard’s glasses. An action that I felt had stolen him something so important as the eyesight, even if he did his best to feign nothing was wrong.

I was extremely pissed off. When Howard tried to convince me to let him enter the stream instead of the kid, I headbutted that idea into submission. If he didn’t want to sacrifice the kid, it was fine, but I would absolutely not let him go. I told him that there was no need for anyone to enter it and that would be final.

He seemed unconvinced.

That’s when he finally told me. He had calculated the strength of the barrier, and it would fall apart in merely two cycles.

Two cycles were all we had left to figure out a solution.

I felt my rage starting to boil again. But just like the first time, when I was getting out of control, Howard found the way to manage it. I allowed him to take care of the kid, which I soon noticed was a ruse to avoid giving the necessary training to Pole. After all, if he wasn’t ready, he could not be sacrificed.

I decided to give him some leeway. After all, we had two cycles, and he would only need one to get ready. If this is what Howard decides to do… I’ll simply look away, for the time being.

Leaving aside his insubordination, He took upon himself to take care of the kid, who later I discovered was named Pole. He often told me about his health, if he was healing well, if he seemed happy or sad…

I sent Lyra to guard him. She absolutely loathed the idea, I think it was because she blamed him for breaking Howard’s glasses. Even so, there was no other kid her age in the village, and most importantly, Pole was from the same place she was from. Maybe there’s something they can learn from each other once they start talking.

And… in a way, I think I was indeed hoping that both of them would finally leave this village of ashes towards someplace better.

Pole Rast. In the end, it’s all up to him this time.

To be honest I don’t trust the kid at all. He has not given me a single reason to trust him. I would very much prefer to believe in Howard, but maybe I have been putting too much on him. If asking him to help in this problem involves letting him die in the stream, then I think its time to let someone else take charge of this.

Pole and Howard have the same homeworld. If we are lucky, maybe Pole will prove to have a similar value to the one I see in the man I love.