Last Farewell

Six years ago

GRAY AND dull clouds hung over Pallethorpe Village the day Sirius and Lucien were supposed to leave their home for the final time. For the two of them, they were ready, but not ready at the same time, to leave behind the last piece of the life they’d hoped to keep.

Sirius sealed what little belongings he needed for the journey ahead in seal scrolls, and headed downstairs, where he found no traces of activity.

No signs of life.

Usually, his parents were awake early, preparing breakfast or reviewing the daily post delivered to the house. He knew this was going to happen, so he’d written a letter that he left unfolded and without a wax seal on the kitchen counter, a space he knew no one would miss. But despite everything that’d happened to him yesterday, Sirius also didn’t want to leave without properly saying goodbye. He quietly made his way upstairs again and gently knocked on his parents’ door. “Mom? Dad?” Once again, knowing they wouldn’t answer, he just stated with a heavy heart, “I’m heading out now… I… I love you.” When he went to Adhara and Mirzam’s shared room, it was answered after he called his brother’s name.

“Why are you making so much noise?” Mirzam scolded in a low tone.

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m leaving now.”

“It’s obvious that you were. Now go. Get lost.” He began closing the door, but Sirius placed his hand on it and stopped it.

“Wait,” he urged. “I wanna say goodbye to Adhara.”
Mirzam clenched his jaw. “Not a chance. Move.”

“Wait, don’t do this, Mirzam.” Sirius stepped into the room.

“I told you to get lost,” he hissed, grabbing him and wrangling with him to force him out.

“Dammit, she’s my sister too!” he whispered harshly. “Just let me—”

“Sirius?” a small voice piped up from behind the begrudging eldest brother.

Mirzam let out a heavy sigh as he loosened his grip on his forsaken brother. Moving past him, he sharply whispered, “Two minutes,” and exited the room.

The little girl approached Sirius with a brown rabbit plush. “Good morning!” she gleefully greeted, diving into his arms for a hug.

“Good morning, Adhara,” he greeted with an equally vibrant tone. She then went deadweight on him, as she often did to get picked up, and giggled with playful innocence when he spun her around. They wore wide smiles that made the morning feel kinder than it truly was, if only for a moment.

He soon placed her back down, and knelt in front of her, continuing to hold one another. “I’m gonna be leaving soon,” he stated with regret. “So I wanted to say goodbye for now.”

She frowned, and curled her fingers into his sleeve, holding tight. “When will you be back?”

Sirius hadn’t the heart to tell her the whole truth, at least not yet. He decided on a compromise. “The God-King is sending me on a special mission, so I can’t say how long it’ll take.” Her eyes searched off to the side, feeling dejected, but he assured her that he would always be there for her, even if not physically.

“But how?” She looked with a twinkling shimmer into his eyes.

He smiled warmly. “Do you remember those belt stars in the sky?”

She nodded. “The Hunter’s belt?”

“The next time you gaze up at them, remember to look to the brightest star near it—that’s me. And then look farther south, where the stars spread out like scattered petals. There’s a quiet one there—small, but steady. That’s you.”

“Adhara… Sirius…” she whispered, recalling her and her brother’s namesake stars. “But they’re really far apart.”

“They are,” he admitted, resting his forehead against hers. “But distance doesn’t mean alone. Even when they’re separated by the whole sky, they rise together, move together, and share the same night. No matter where I am, Adhara… we’re still under the same sky.”

Adhara’s face crinkled, and she sobbed as she melted into his embrace.

“So when you look up,” he whispered, tears forming in his eyes, holding her warmly, “you’ll know I’m looking too.” When they parted, he jokingly remarked, “Oh, and always remember that Mirzam’s star is nearest mine to the side. So he may hate me, but he’ll never take away my light.”

She sniffled, then wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her white nightshirt. Sirius leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, lingering just long enough to commit the warmth of it to memory. She hesitated only a second before standing on her toes and planting an earnest kiss against his cheek, clumsy and wet, but full of all the love she couldn’t put into words. “I’ll look every night,” she promised quietly.

“I know you will,” he replied, voice thick. “I love you, Adhara.”

“I love you too, Sirius.”

The door creaked open behind them.

“That’s time,” Mirzam said flatly, arms crossed. His eyes flicked to Adhara, then looked through his brother. “Get out.”

Sirius rose and turned toward him. “Okay. I’m going.” As he started to walk out, instinct pulled him forward. He proceeded to wrap his arms around his brother. “Love you, Mirzam—” But he stepped back and pushed him off.

“Don’t.” His jaw tightened. “You’re lucky she’s here or I’d put you back on the floor where you belong.”

Sirius swallowed. “Okay, I get it,” he said in a flat tone, and gave Adhara one last smile, before leaving the room.

The house remained still as he passed through it, untouched by morning. His parents’ door stayed closed. No footsteps followed him. Sirius stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind him, the sound final in a way that made his chest ache. Halfway down the path, a soft tapping caught his ear, and he turned to the sound.

Adhara stood at the window, rabbit plush tucked under her arm, knocking gently on the glass. When she saw him looking, she waved with a bright, fearless smile and mouthed the words, “I love you,” again.

He uttered vocally while waving back, and smiled, even as something inside him cracked. His heart ached, but he straightened, turned forward, and carried on, letting hope guide him onward.

* * *

Mist curled over the graveyard on the outskirts of Pallethorpe Village, the world hushed in that fragile morning hour.

A blond teen knelt before a set of freshly erected tombstones that were portioned off. His face hung low to pay respects to his fallen friends and classmates from the crusade.

Sirius quietly approached and lowered his head, his eyes closed as he mouthed a silent prayer. As he finished, he noticed Lucien was fixated on the name on the clean white slab that read Theodore Calvert. “Hey, Lucien,” he greeted softly.

“Hey, Sirius,” he replied, as if it took all of the energy from him, and slowly stood up.

“How’d it go for you?”

Lucien sighed heavily and shrugged while shaking his head. “Where do I even begin?” He related a similar story as Sirius’s experience when he returned home. A cold homecoming followed by a ruthless punishment made by his family from authority granted by the clergy. The only difference was that it was raw fisticuffs, no sibling to come to his aid, and no ability to heal from his wounds properly.

When he said that, Sirius noticed his right eye was blackened. “Whoa! Dude! Why didn’t you say anything?” He searched the affliction, and started to place his hand on Lucien’s eye, but he nudged it off and stepped back.

“Please don’t,” he requested in a defeated tone. “I just wanna keep it for a bit longer.”

“Lucien—”

“It’s the only thing I’ll have left from my sister.” Lucien smiled weakly at him in assurance. “Just… let me keep it for now.”

Sirius clenched his jaw and respected his friend’s request. “Until we leave,” he decided.

“Thanks, bro.”

They continued standing for a while before walking to the other ten tombstones and paying homage to each. No speeches, just presence and prayers.

“How’d it go for you?” Lucien quietly asked after they stepped away from the final grave.

Sirius took a deep breath, and recounted all that had happened to him, from his arrival to his departure.

He stood agape, and shook his head, because not only had his friend been afflicted with physical wounds too, he had experienced an emotional damage that he was unfamiliar with. “I-I’m so sorry about Tahira. How are you feeling?”

Sirius shrugged, feeling void and numb of any warmth. “I don’t know, bro, I’m just… here.”

He placed an arm over his shoulder to quietly comfort him.

“Thanks. I just thought that maybe she’d look past it and think more positively for the future, you know? But I know I wouldn’t wanna burden her like that. Not when she was already letting go.”

Lucien looked up at the cloudy sky. “It’s a tough situation we’re in,” he murmured. “I mean, no one could’ve known that this was gonna happen. All we can do is keep moving. Keep believing there’s some hope on the horizon.”

He exhaled slowly, the breath trembling as it left him. “Yeah… Anyway, people are starting to wake up. We should go before they chase us out.”

He first healed his friend’s black eye, and as they started leaving, footsteps gathered behind them.

“See? I told you they didn’t leave yet,” a charismatic voice sounded.

“Just in time,” another voice chimed in with relief.

“Hey, guys, you shouldn’t leave without saying goodbye!”

Sirius and Lucien turned to meet the commotion quickly approaching them. Their eyes widened and their chests rose.

It was the remaining Pallethorpe Village Class of 3015 AKD.

Their classmates stood assembled—each one together again for the first time since the pilgrimage.

“You guys!” Sirius gasped in heartwarming disbelief.

“What are you doing here?” Lucien added, holding his head.

“We came to see you off, of course,” a tall boy with light brown hair and an easy grin said as he stepped forward. His hands were tucked into his coat pockets as if this were any other morning. Desmond always spoke first—half confidence, half deflection—but his voice wavered just enough to give him away. “You didn’t really think you could sneak out without us noticing, did you?”

Lucien blinked, stunned. “You… all came out here?”

“Yeah,” another voice chimed in, lighter, brighter, though it carried the fatigue of too many sleepless nights. Veronica, with her white veil over her platinum blonde hair, brushed past Desmond. “We figured if you were gonna disappear again, you deserved more than an empty road.”

A broader figure with dark brown skin and a silver fade lingered just behind them, arms crossed, gaze steady rather than sharp. Omari nodded once, solemn. “Some of us stayed at the clubhouse last night. We thought maybe you’d visit before heading out.”

With long, wavy aquamarine hair kicking up in the slight breeze, Mary Lou added in her usual upbeat tone, “And when we noticed you hadn’t, we figured you might be here. So we didn’t wanna miss you this time.”

For a moment, no one spoke. The weight of it—the fact that they were all here, that they had gathered for Sirius and Lucien—pressed down harder than any condemnation ever had. They felt their throats tighten, for they hadn’t realized how much their fellow classmates, their friends, still cared. The one time they did return home before the trek to the Lachian Mountains, the interaction felt tense and forced, like they were already estranged, despite their sacrifice during the crusade.

But now, the Pallethorpe class seemed more open, and didn’t rush Sirius and Lucien. Instead, they hovered in that careful middle distance that was close enough to be felt, and far enough to respect the space that grief had carved.

A softer spoken Xiaoli finally expressed what everyone had been trying to say. “Thank you, Sirius. Thank you, Lucien.” Tucking her shoulder-length magenta hair over her ears, she continued, “We never really got a chance to tell you this before. So, thank you for all that you have done for our class.”

Sirius remembered sharing the night watch with her during one of the first few days of the pilgrimage to Throne’s Edge.

“Everything happened so fast after…”she swallowed, “after everything.”

“When the soul feeders bested us, you carried us,” Elise responded as she wore a single dark rope plait beneath her white veil. “All of us. Even when some of us had perished.”

Sirius stiffened, his arms stung and felt as heavy as lead again, while Lucien could feel his body drain—phantom sensations that haunted them still.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Omari said, his voice firm now, grounded. “But you came through.”

“You didn’t give up, even when you were alone.” Desmond recalled a brief conversation he had with Sirius after being healed.

“And could’ve gotten yourselves killed trying to save us,” Veronica added.

“But you still pushed on,” Mary Lou finalized. “And we’re all eternally grateful.”

Lucien scanned the group, while Sirius briefly recalled their rugged and disheveled appearances from the crusade. From the tattered shawls and dented armor to matted hair and open wounds, they were freshly etched into his memory every night. “We couldn’t just stand by and let anything happen to you,” he uttered.

Another beat passed, tension filling the air as neither side could begin to piece the rest of their testimony together.

But then, Bernard, an affable individual who was known for lightening the mood in a room, cleared his throat. “Look… we all can’t ignore the fact that things have gotten complicated around here.” He was gesturing vaguely between them, the village, and the road beyond as he spoke. “And as a result, some people don’t know how to act anymore after you guys were promoted with black marks. We know that and understand how hard it must be.”

“So to make things easy for you, we wanted to give you this.” The white keffiyeh scarf covered Hamza’s shoulders as he stepped forward to hand his friends a single scroll with plenty of items sealed inside for the journey ahead.

Sirius and Lucien gasped, speechless at the inventory they were gifted. The former only managed to open his mouth to speak.

“We don’t know the kind of journey you’re about to go on,” Chisato said gently as she moved to the front, her presence calm and homey. “So this is the least we can do for you.” Her hands were folded neatly in front of her off-white kosodes, which had its lapels layered over one another. Her eyes were warm with empathy rather than pity.

“This is…this is too much,” Lucien finally uttered, his voice cracking. “We can’t take this. It’s all your savings and some of the best potions and ingredients. We just can’t.”

Her gaze shifted to him. “While Sirius carried us to safety, you kept the soul feeders distracted to buy us time. That took serious courage, Lucien.”

He let out a quiet huff. “Reckless courage, maybe.”

Chisato smiled faintly. “Still courage.”

At the edge of the group, Tahira met Sirius’s eyes. She didn’t move closer. She didn’t speak. She simply nodded once, an acknowledgment heavy with everything said and done.

That was enough.

The moment between the class stretched, fragile and imperfect.

No declarations.

No absolution.

Just people standing together in the aftermath, trying to decide what awaited them in the uncertain future. Eventually, footsteps shifted. Cloaks and coats were adjusted. Someone sniffed quietly.

“You should go,” Omari said at last. “Before it gets harder.”

Sirius nodded, chest aching, but still mustering the strength to announce, “Thank you, everyone. This means so much to us.”

Lucien glanced around, committing faces to memory. “Take care of each other,” he said. “We’ll see you when we see you.”

One by one, they hugged as they made their way through. Grass and gravel crunched beneath their boots. Their friends watched from the village gates. It was now behind them, quietly holding its breath. Sirius and Lucien didn’t leave Pallethorpe as outcasts, but not as heroes either. They left carrying gratitude they hadn’t expected, grief that hadn’t faded, and bonds that refused to be severed.

And somewhere between sorrow and resolve, Sirius felt it settle deep in his chest: this was not the end of the road, just the part where it narrowed, demanding they walk it with fewer certainties, but stronger hearts.