My world of long bygones, ere all things inevitable would come to pass, was a simple place. The world before that girl who died.
You never knew her, Aster, but once she came to seek my light. And yet by the jest of fate she became my sole light. The only kind of which these blind eyes might discern from the dark of this world.
She came to me, for me, at a juncture of my youth. Fifteen I was. Fifteen cycles unknowing of what lay beyond the four tall enwrapping walls of the Order they call Auromare, once.
The day I was born, the Mercy was high in the heavens, and Charitable Ashoran shone blessingly within the clutch of my right palm. As is proper, they sent me to the monastery, as naturally a course as yielding the lost babe to her ma. For it is Goddess they said to be my true parent from beyond the mortal plane. Of my blood mother’s face and voice I never learned, but balms and psalms became my motherly soft touch and lullabies.
The little child’s blessing was little more than a fresh breeze to the troubled mind, yet believers would come from far and wide, come and plant their knees before the child who yet crawled on fours. The eerily warm palm of mine they craved upon their weary and thought-filled heads. What succor they thought the grim stone statue grudged them, they sought in me, whose flesh and blood were even as them. So I played my part; I played it so well at times I felt in my place a fine porcelain statue of the Goddess stood, that I saw not by my eyes of flesh but by embedded jewels. The pilgrims beheld me with wonder. It was not I they saw but Charity. But a Charity with a mortal warmth, more susceptible to begging and pleading, so long that they groveled at length.
And yet the nuns raised me in humble ways, as all I could do, all that I was, were Ashoran’s deeds, not mine, and they ensured I never forget this. Laughable that. I need no admonition. For I already knew the truth better than any. What ordinary human could heal the sick with a touch? Who in these skies could endure such imprisoned youth? Only I, who was not born but bestowed to the mortal plane.
Years: a short time for free women, a lifetime for a sheltered soul. In that dingy monastery, that dusty chapel, that withering garden, heedless of things beyond, wanting of nothing, I grew up. All the monks and the nuns, worshipers and servants, prayers and books, should be all I have for eternity. I do not crave for aught, Aster, even as you azures does not.
Sometimes, though, there would come passing by some young couples, hand in hand, soul linked soul. They come and they pray for a child, or a happy marriage, or aught else they thought would secure their union. Unwittingly, they marked in me a great and terrible mark, one of desire impure and short-lived. One I could but guess and not imagine. I shouldn’t need such earthly things! I was Ashoran’s avatar, destined for things beyond mortal reach. Divine ecstasy eclipses all lesser delights. And yet. And yet. One longs for things one has not.
I was never perfect, nor did they expect me to. I was an avatar, not Ashoran in all her aspects. So even I had moments of weakness. Fancy struck me. The Order’s alares inspired me the longing for the sky. The farmers’ domestic gossip birthed in me a want for simpler ways of life. But love and freedom were not for me. The peasants whose brow I touched might as well live in another plane. That is a life unreal, most like fiction, like warriors and princesses of the novel. And I yearned for such things as a naive maiden may yearn for a shining prince to deliver her from the tedium of peasantry. Yearns, yet deep down knows it could never be. My lot had been drawn and my role decided, my life so preordained. At once revered and condemned, feared while unloved. That was who I had been.
By the fifteenth spring, I would soon be entered into the convent and made officially a nun. And then my goal should be achieved: to serve the Goddess until the day of dust. That is a privilege like no other, even now I so maintain it to be true. And indeed I was looking forward to the fulfillment of my life mission.
Then she came - my condemnation. Unannounced one morning by the fickle turn of the Wheel, she came a believer among the people of her clan. I still remember her dress of white, her fragrance of bergamot, her smile brilliant as a summer noon. But of her long gaze, the meaning of which evaded me completely then! What I thought was awe of the Goddess’ holy grace was in fact something else. That when her mien brightened up like the eclipse’s end, I attributed it to momentary dizziness. But betimes I learned the truth! More and more she would come by during the lulls of my day without her people, but sought me out, and me only.
‘Twas no strange things, I was regarded well nigh a saint, some claimed no less so. Troubled worshipers sought my guidance every morning, or rather my aura, all that I could provide. What else had I to give? The Goddess granted me no wise counsel for the people’s woes, nor keen guidance for the winding path her flock must walk. I was a mere light, a healing hand upon which the people could depend and look upon in needful times, knowing and believing that all should come to pass, that pains and suffering are transient, that the death of a loved one but delivers them to a better place. That joy and loss but the ebb and flow of life. I served the purpose by my existence, less by my healing hands but the awareness of its existence. I was the servant blessed, and through I, divine mercy was proved possible.
But she came for naught of that. Seeking no counsel, no otherworldly comfort, she asked for me and me only. How queer is that?
One day she inquired of my favorite flora, and on the next brought a basket full of primroses. But Ashoran’s flower was the Sage, and always the monastery’s vases were filled with herbal blue. When corrected, she announced that the bouquet had been picked, collected, and arranged for me and no one else, humans or Gods. All morning she had wandered the plains beyond the walls, these walls that I had never passed since the day I entered the monastery, scouring for primulas of all the rainbow’s hues, and had twisted and arranged them into a beautiful bouquet, my aspect her only aspiration.
But for you see, I had little use for flowers I could not offer to Ashoran. There might be better purposes for them crushed for the physician’s medicine, or mixed and made food for the swine. Such facts and reasons greatly offended her. And she would not come for days. And when her clan resumed their pilgrimage, it was natural that I should not see her again. She, simply another worshiper, had passed by my life. There I remained a bystander. I was the statue who stood still in time and place, so that troubled worshipers always knew where to seek me out. If we should reunite many years after, I might then be an aged maid, dimly able to discern her enchanting face and sweet bergamot scent from all the other passing folk. For the first time in my life, misery seized my heart, not out of wretched sympathy for fellow beings, but for my own loss. Ashoran would be all I have left, as all the things that could have been seemed utterly lost.
But to my doom, she stayed.
For almost no reason, even when her clan had left, she expressed a desire to serve the order. She was not the pious type, and never would have been. But what of it, I was glad! I was glad to gain a friend in my life of confinement. Far gladder than the time I was anointed a servant to Ashoran.
I knew nothing of the world, Aster. I knew not even the meaning of my own feelings. I lived but like an animal guided by instincts, I was inclined to where happiness seemingly lay, and away from where loneliness and sorrow lurked. I gravitated towards her. At first because she symbolized life. With her I felt myself living and being. With her I breathed and laughed and sighed as my own person, not Ashoran’s. It was by a hungry need of the ego, a craving for true life, that I craved her adoration. For the first time, I was someone. Her existence affirmed mine. She breathed life into my lifeless husk. She was my salvation and my rebirth. I worshiped her like my own goddess. A great blasphemy, is it not? But even that did not suffice.
Ere long things changed, and my feelings grew to be more than a selfish desire to feed my ego. Often, when the night veiled us from the light, we shared embraces and mutual happiness. Immoral embraces; sweet words more affecting than prayers; tremors profounder than miracles. Her gray eyes tugged at my heart, and the sound of her laugh played strange tunes with its string, leading me hopelessly out of my depth and newfound self. Never had life seemed so hopeful, not even if Ashoran herself should descend and grant me my salvation. Nay. No holiness in this sky would tip the scale away from what I had then. Not a thing. Never a thing.
Long nights we sat soaking in each other’s scent, the silver moon our only witness, as we peered out the highest tower to the world beyond walls. We became such nymphs – sheltered from worldly sadness and the turning wheel of time. Somewhere out there, down in the shabby houses of our town, the poor and the sick lay in agony and misery, as the servants of Ashoran did what they could to allay the pain. And somewhere out there in distant lands, suffering and injustice roamed beyond the humble Order’s extended hand. As always, the world outside seemed terrifying. But here imprisoned, happiness filled my being, the tiny beats of her heart sustained me. Though others might have persecuted us for our forbidden act, what were they but prattling heretics to our true religion? They had no bearing on us, safe we should ever be within the monastery. Joyous ever on in each other’s loving arms. Furthermore, I was Ashoran’s avatar, whoever should dare hurt me and mine? Our own garden and paradise there lay. Endless were those moonlit nights. Perhaps the days and the years have ceased their driving march since, and all that then came to pass was not reality, but the evil mare I chanced seeing in one fitful sleep, and is seeing still…
At this moment Valerian paused. A sudden graveness came to her eyes and she looked away, peering into the starless night beyond the porthole. A slight tremble compelled her shoulder. When it subsided, she resumed the tale with a hastened, less wistful voice.
Now comes the heart of the tragedy.
Even for its renown among believers, the Aurumare Order was a humble monastery, bearing little reputation of wealth and might. We lived by the support of a handful of alares and offerings of a small agrarian town nearby. But in desperate times, people cling to such smallest of hope.
Far, far away from our monastery, there was an impoverished village. There was naught of note about it, save its exceeding poverty and many years of ill harvests, yet ever their lord, sovereign of a mighty dukedom under the empire’s rule, raised their tax to fund his conquests. On one particularly bad year when the children starved and livestock could not last till winter, the villagers illegally crafted a ship and sailed unaided by a Priest for the bounty in the Duke’s air space. This, being an act of treason, was highly punished. The offenders were flayed alive in public, and this ignited their overwrought restlessness, desperate anger. They revolted. I knew not their aim, not if they earnestly believed they could overthrow the duke or demand from him wergild or a lower tax, but all the same they were extinguished, mercilessly slaughtered. A handful few survived, who upon their pathetic vessel sailed for, and by some miracle, made it to our land.
They sought the shelter that by religious duty the monastery was obliged to provide. Our store was already stretched thin by so many more mouths to feed, and the town people were anxious, foreseeing a higher tax to be imposed to feed the foreigners, but soon, a worse disaster hung over us.
The Duke came demanding the sheltered souls. That bloody devil thirsted for revenge and torments, to fill his foul belly with despaired cries and children’s soft flesh for public display! No man nor woman who had seen and touched another of their fellow creatures would ever agree to such a demand. But agree or disagree, lives were at risk. The Order’s handful of knights and wyverns had no might to check a Duke’s army. The death of every person in the monastery and the town seemed imminent. And the cruel beast’s patience wore thin as our people disputed.
What think you I did, Aster, amid that disaster? Such is the first of my riddles. But, why, I shall excuse you the burden of blind guessing, for this one’s answer will illuminate or provide some hints to all others.
Now sorrowful Valerian drew high like an erect mast, and at once, all sorrow that had been in her vanished, leaving no trace on her noble bearing, her grim visage. So that she seemed less a lamenting woman but now a stern judge – one heartless, heedless of the condemned’s pathos as she groveled at her feet. That terrible gaze which struck fear even in my guiltless soul.
Why, think you the pious and valiant Valerian, in the hour of need, rallied what little few of the Order’s alares for a heroic rebel against the villain? Do you think the blessed Valerian formed a timely pledge with her sweetheart to deliver innocent lives? If so, then you think too highly of one in love! You misconstrue one, who in truth had grown up perceiving the helpless and the poor as dreadful bonds and fetters. One, who had just recently learned of selfishness, of desires long contained, of infantile indignation for privileges taken! Naïve!
Here’s the plain truth: pathetic Valerian seized her sweetheart and entreated her to fly together. Away. Away to some far-off land. Fly and seek new walls behind which peace may be regained. For what is strangers? What is esteemed brothers? What is dear sisters? Fly! Let us fly! Form a pledge just of our own! Ever there shall only be us. Has that conduct not been our secret truth under a thin lie all this time? So let us fly, away, and away! Only us together!
And fly they did. Like cowards into the night. She: the sole light to which the unfortunate clung to in the desperate hour. She: who alone the Goddess had assigned her last citadel of charity to stand opposing evil forces in this cruel world. That so-called saintess turned away and trampled on her people’s hope. She forsook martyrdom because her heart ached at the thought of one person’s suffering more than aught other.
But what says Valerian now? Does the woman regret and renounce her sins? So wretched now by guilt that she warrants sympathy from another, and pardon and mercy from those who yet live and those who were allowed not?
Answer these questions, Aster the azure! You are my Ala-sister, my charge in this house of pain, condemner in this hour of truth!
So fierce and ireful was the woman that I could not possibly raise a judgment any harsher than what she herself had already passed, but I responded with my own questions:
“I don’t know why you think I am fit for the task, Valerian. What is it you want to hear? I am no heroine, I am not even a person proper, yet you expect me to shed light on a human problem?”
Azure. I have no need for a human verdict. For that is clearer than the heavens itself, and I have long known it, and shouldered it. You are not one. And so your judgment may not be hindered by pity or sympathy, nor do you fear offending or hurting me, who demands you speak freely, for I do!
I could not answer out loud, yet in my thoughts I silently grieved:
That is wrong, Valerian, my Ala-sister. For pity, I do feel. I fear above all else in this hour to hurt your already gravely wounded heart. And another cruel stab at it would tear at my own soul no less than it yours. So demand not of me the impossible! I am not fit for this duty to inflict the fatal blow, nor to absolve you of guilt, no more than aught in this vast sky. But ‘tis a pity! A pity to witness a creature so darkly tormented while I am powerless to provide relief!
A phantom of Litzia, my own wyverness, came to me in the memories of so familiar a pain. What is it the tormented seek? What is it? A lie? A soft, pleasant, sweet lie? But is this Valerian the same as my Litzia, so unlike, yet alike. Does sorrow shape one’s soul, or something far deeper, or higher? I did not know. But I could feel it vaguely. Almost as though I could reach out and touch that thing hidden in Valerian’s dark tale.
There was something there.
Something lay between my noble Ala-sister’s words. Less than clues and hints, but faint implication of a fatal answer for this story that she just told. There was something in there, I was sure of it. I just have to seek it out and all these troubling threads should be untangled, if not perfectly then satisfyingly. In the meantime, Valerian continued.
So you fail me, Aster. You could not give me your answer for some reason. But there is yet one more, and this time I think you should more readily provide it.
But first, what do you think people do when they lose their last hope, Aster, you who has never had hopes? As doubtless I was their last. What did the town people, the refugees and the Order do when they discovered their last bastion of faith had fled like a scoundrel, depriving them of the salvation of the soul, when earthly succor seemed already hopeless? What did they do when Ashoran’s avatar, their only remaining hope, had deserted them?
Do you think they handed over the refugees to the duke? Do you think the refugees fled? Do you think they together fought and achieved an unlikely victory or a bitter end? Hah! All wrong! My Ala-sister, all wrong!
Nay. When hope dies, it is hope in the light that dies. And then one turns to darkness. It happened that, as the story was told to me in a distant country after all of it had come to pass, that in their despair, the town people had gathered to concoct a plan. They could not simply hand over the refugees, for the duke was merciless. He would have suspected them of hiding some of the refugees still, and even if he had not, he would have found enough reason to slaughter them who had not immediately submitted. In the face of such an unreasonable and cruel beast, the only way available was to become his likeness, to be his fellows in thoughts and deeds, so they concluded. They concluded as coldly as a clerk calculating cattle heads to be slaughtered for his lord’s feast.
And thus agreed, the town mayor, who in my day had treated the poor and the helpless with unequal generosity and donated much to the monastery - he led his people to my once home. The common folk cast aside the knights without much resistance in turn, as many of them were not wholly opposed to this evil course. And storming the chapel, they found the refugees. As they could not drag them all out in peace, so in the sacred house of Ashoran, with their forks, they impaled the men; with their knives, they slit the throats of the women; and with their hoes, they crushed the skulls of the children. Those peaceful neighbors of mine drew blood to appease their new overlord. The very bloody hands I had seen joined in weddings by the Order’s monk. Those cruel brows that must have grimaced with bloodlust I once placed my palm upon. All this they did while desecrating the house of the Goddess, the very one to whom on many a forlorn night they had clasped an earnest prayer to their chest.
But who could blame them for that? If Her avatar had forsaken them in life, what reasons had they to believe Ashoran would be by their side before the Scale? Now the real culprit in this tragedy becomes all too clear for observers. It is in the harpy’s nature to seek flesh and blood, and so is that villainous Duke’s. And it is in the nature of the powerless peasants to do all they may for survival. But is it for one born blessed, one revered, one within whose palms held the hope of many to so abandon the people for a selfish desire? Who is the real villain of the story? Pray tell, Aster, who?
I could not answer but wild thoughts swirled in my mind:
Does it matter? I cannot speak for others, but for my part, I do not think Valerian is right to be so hard on herself. And I hate to see her act as though on the brink of insanity. But that thought itself is a selfish thought. I do not think she comes for my pity. Something else, but also not justice. She is no Gladiola, nay, she does not care for justice for past mistakes. Then what? Such an inferior soul as I is not fit for the task! Fetch Litzia! Fetch Thea! They know the right way to a person’s heart, when I have not one proper! I do not know what to say or do to provide a little comfort for this woman.
Alas! Aster, you fail even to answer the simplest riddle of all, if one could even call it one. Are all azures such fools? A ha! But I have a way to pry your real thoughts out of that skull. A precious prize, so to say, to solve a thing doubtless has been troubling you. Resolve mine, and then I shall resolve yours. Answer my request!
“What is this thing you speak of, Valerian? I do not follow.”
I speak of the murderer, Aster, the conspirator that your wyverness suspects was of Xenon allegiance, the traitor who in truth lurks in our ranks, onboard this vessel. She who shall be held responsible for the squall that tore your flesh. I know. Oh, I know well who that is. But I shall not tell. Not until you have given me the thing I need!
As she spoke, a chill came in me, as chillness came also to her eyes. And she seemed cold and hard, terrible as frost and graven stone. She hinted at the identity of the attacker on Ala Estival.
My world of long bygones, ere all things inevitable would come to pass, was a simple place. The world before that girl who died.
You never knew her, Aster, but once she came to seek my light. And yet by the jest of fate she became my sole light. The only kind of which these blind eyes might discern from the dark of this world.
She came to me, for me, at a juncture of my youth. Fifteen I was. Fifteen cycles unknowing of what lay beyond the four tall enwrapping walls of the Order they call Auromare, once.
The day I was born, the Mercy was high in the heavens, and Charitable Ashoran shone blessingly within the clutch of my right palm. As is proper, they sent me to the monastery, as naturally a course as yielding the lost babe to her ma. For it is Goddess they said to be my true parent from beyond the mortal plane. Of my blood mother’s face and voice I never learned, but balms and psalms became my motherly soft touch and lullabies.
The little child’s blessing was little more than a fresh breeze to the troubled mind, yet believers would come from far and wide, come and plant their knees before the child who yet crawled on fours. The eerily warm palm of mine they craved upon their weary and thought-filled heads. What succor they thought the grim stone statue grudged them, they sought in me, whose flesh and blood were even as them. So I played my part; I played it so well at times I felt in my place a fine porcelain statue of the Goddess stood, that I saw not by my eyes of flesh but by embedded jewels. The pilgrims beheld me with wonder. It was not I they saw but Charity. But a Charity with a mortal warmth, more susceptible to begging and pleading, so long that they groveled at length.
And yet the nuns raised me in humble ways, as all I could do, all that I was, were Ashoran’s deeds, not mine, and they ensured I never forget this. Laughable that. I need no admonition. For I already knew the truth better than any. What ordinary human could heal the sick with a touch? Who in these skies could endure such imprisoned youth? Only I, who was not born but bestowed to the mortal plane.
Years: a short time for free women, a lifetime for a sheltered soul. In that dingy monastery, that dusty chapel, that withering garden, heedless of things beyond, wanting of nothing, I grew up. All the monks and the nuns, worshipers and servants, prayers and books, should be all I have for eternity. I do not crave for aught, Aster, even as you azures does not.
Sometimes, though, there would come passing by some young couples, hand in hand, soul linked soul. They come and they pray for a child, or a happy marriage, or aught else they thought would secure their union. Unwittingly, they marked in me a great and terrible mark, one of desire impure and short-lived. One I could but guess and not imagine. I shouldn’t need such earthly things! I was Ashoran’s avatar, destined for things beyond mortal reach. Divine ecstasy eclipses all lesser delights. And yet. And yet. One longs for things one has not.
I was never perfect, nor did they expect me to. I was an avatar, not Ashoran in all her aspects. So even I had moments of weakness. Fancy struck me. The Order’s alares inspired me the longing for the sky. The farmers’ domestic gossip birthed in me a want for simpler ways of life. But love and freedom were not for me. The peasants whose brow I touched might as well live in another plane. That is a life unreal, most like fiction, like warriors and princesses of the novel. And I yearned for such things as a naive maiden may yearn for a shining prince to deliver her from the tedium of peasantry. Yearns, yet deep down knows it could never be. My lot had been drawn and my role decided, my life so preordained. At once revered and condemned, feared while unloved. That was who I had been.
By the fifteenth spring, I would soon be entered into the convent and made officially a nun. And then my goal should be achieved: to serve the Goddess until the day of dust. That is a privilege like no other, even now I so maintain it to be true. And indeed I was looking forward to the fulfillment of my life mission.
Then she came - my condemnation. Unannounced one morning by the fickle turn of the Wheel, she came a believer among the people of her clan. I still remember her dress of white, her fragrance of bergamot, her smile brilliant as a summer noon. But of her long gaze, the meaning of which evaded me completely then! What I thought was awe of the Goddess’ holy grace was in fact something else. That when her mien brightened up like the eclipse’s end, I attributed it to momentary dizziness. But betimes I learned the truth! More and more she would come by during the lulls of my day without her people, but sought me out, and me only.
‘Twas no strange things, I was regarded well nigh a saint, some claimed no less so. Troubled worshipers sought my guidance every morning, or rather my aura, all that I could provide. What else had I to give? The Goddess granted me no wise counsel for the people’s woes, nor keen guidance for the winding path her flock must walk. I was a mere light, a healing hand upon which the people could depend and look upon in needful times, knowing and believing that all should come to pass, that pains and suffering are transient, that the death of a loved one but delivers them to a better place. That joy and loss but the ebb and flow of life. I served the purpose by my existence, less by my healing hands but the awareness of its existence. I was the servant blessed, and through I, divine mercy was proved possible.
But she came for naught of that. Seeking no counsel, no otherworldly comfort, she asked for me and me only. How queer is that?
One day she inquired of my favorite flora, and on the next brought a basket full of primroses. But Ashoran’s flower was the Sage, and always the monastery’s vases were filled with herbal blue. When corrected, she announced that the bouquet had been picked, collected, and arranged for me and no one else, humans or Gods. All morning she had wandered the plains beyond the walls, these walls that I had never passed since the day I entered the monastery, scouring for primulas of all the rainbow’s hues, and had twisted and arranged them into a beautiful bouquet, my aspect her only aspiration.
But for you see, I had little use for flowers I could not offer to Ashoran. There might be better purposes for them crushed for the physician’s medicine, or mixed and made food for the swine. Such facts and reasons greatly offended her. And she would not come for days. And when her clan resumed their pilgrimage, it was natural that I should not see her again. She, simply another worshiper, had passed by my life. There I remained a bystander. I was the statue who stood still in time and place, so that troubled worshipers always knew where to seek me out. If we should reunite many years after, I might then be an aged maid, dimly able to discern her enchanting face and sweet bergamot scent from all the other passing folk. For the first time in my life, misery seized my heart, not out of wretched sympathy for fellow beings, but for my own loss. Ashoran would be all I have left, as all the things that could have been seemed utterly lost.
But to my doom, she stayed.
For almost no reason, even when her clan had left, she expressed a desire to serve the order. She was not the pious type, and never would have been. But what of it, I was glad! I was glad to gain a friend in my life of confinement. Far gladder than the time I was anointed a servant to Ashoran.
I knew nothing of the world, Aster. I knew not even the meaning of my own feelings. I lived but like an animal guided by instincts, I was inclined to where happiness seemingly lay, and away from where loneliness and sorrow lurked. I gravitated towards her. At first because she symbolized life. With her I felt myself living and being. With her I breathed and laughed and sighed as my own person, not Ashoran’s. It was by a hungry need of the ego, a craving for true life, that I craved her adoration. For the first time, I was someone. Her existence affirmed mine. She breathed life into my lifeless husk. She was my salvation and my rebirth. I worshiped her like my own goddess. A great blasphemy, is it not? But even that did not suffice.
Ere long things changed, and my feelings grew to be more than a selfish desire to feed my ego. Often, when the night veiled us from the light, we shared embraces and mutual happiness. Immoral embraces; sweet words more affecting than prayers; tremors profounder than miracles. Her gray eyes tugged at my heart, and the sound of her laugh played strange tunes with its string, leading me hopelessly out of my depth and newfound self. Never had life seemed so hopeful, not even if Ashoran herself should descend and grant me my salvation. Nay. No holiness in this sky would tip the scale away from what I had then. Not a thing. Never a thing.
Long nights we sat soaking in each other’s scent, the silver moon our only witness, as we peered out the highest tower to the world beyond walls. We became such nymphs – sheltered from worldly sadness and the turning wheel of time. Somewhere out there, down in the shabby houses of our town, the poor and the sick lay in agony and misery, as the servants of Ashoran did what they could to allay the pain. And somewhere out there in distant lands, suffering and injustice roamed beyond the humble Order’s extended hand. As always, the world outside seemed terrifying. But here imprisoned, happiness filled my being, the tiny beats of her heart sustained me. Though others might have persecuted us for our forbidden act, what were they but prattling heretics to our true religion? They had no bearing on us, safe we should ever be within the monastery. Joyous ever on in each other’s loving arms. Furthermore, I was Ashoran’s avatar, whoever should dare hurt me and mine? Our own garden and paradise there lay. Endless were those moonlit nights. Perhaps the days and the years have ceased their driving march since, and all that then came to pass was not reality, but the evil mare I chanced seeing in one fitful sleep, and is seeing still…
At this moment Valerian paused. A sudden graveness came to her eyes and she looked away, peering into the starless night beyond the porthole. A slight tremble compelled her shoulder. When it subsided, she resumed the tale with a hastened, less wistful voice.
Now comes the heart of the tragedy.
Even for its renown among believers, the Aurumare Order was a humble monastery, bearing little reputation of wealth and might. We lived by the support of a handful of alares and offerings of a small agrarian town nearby. But in desperate times, people cling to such smallest of hope.
Far, far away from our monastery, there was an impoverished village. There was naught of note about it, save its exceeding poverty and many years of ill harvests, yet ever their lord, sovereign of a mighty dukedom under the empire’s rule, raised their tax to fund his conquests. On one particularly bad year when the children starved and livestock could not last till winter, the villagers illegally crafted a ship and sailed unaided by a Priest for the bounty in the Duke’s air space. This, being an act of treason, was highly punished. The offenders were flayed alive in public, and this ignited their overwrought restlessness, desperate anger. They revolted. I knew not their aim, not if they earnestly believed they could overthrow the duke or demand from him wergild or a lower tax, but all the same they were extinguished, mercilessly slaughtered. A handful few survived, who upon their pathetic vessel sailed for, and by some miracle, made it to our land.
They sought the shelter that by religious duty the monastery was obliged to provide. Our store was already stretched thin by so many more mouths to feed, and the town people were anxious, foreseeing a higher tax to be imposed to feed the foreigners, but soon, a worse disaster hung over us.
The Duke came demanding the sheltered souls. That bloody devil thirsted for revenge and torments, to fill his foul belly with despaired cries and children’s soft flesh for public display! No man nor woman who had seen and touched another of their fellow creatures would ever agree to such a demand. But agree or disagree, lives were at risk. The Order’s handful of knights and wyverns had no might to check a Duke’s army. The death of every person in the monastery and the town seemed imminent. And the cruel beast’s patience wore thin as our people disputed.
What think you I did, Aster, amid that disaster? Such is the first of my riddles. But, why, I shall excuse you the burden of blind guessing, for this one’s answer will illuminate or provide some hints to all others.
Now sorrowful Valerian drew high like an erect mast, and at once, all sorrow that had been in her vanished, leaving no trace on her noble bearing, her grim visage. So that she seemed less a lamenting woman but now a stern judge – one heartless, heedless of the condemned’s pathos as she groveled at her feet. That terrible gaze which struck fear even in my guiltless soul.
Why, think you the pious and valiant Valerian, in the hour of need, rallied what little few of the Order’s alares for a heroic rebel against the villain? Do you think the blessed Valerian formed a timely pledge with her sweetheart to deliver innocent lives? If so, then you think too highly of one in love! You misconstrue one, who in truth had grown up perceiving the helpless and the poor as dreadful bonds and fetters. One, who had just recently learned of selfishness, of desires long contained, of infantile indignation for privileges taken! Naïve!
Here’s the plain truth: pathetic Valerian seized her sweetheart and entreated her to fly together. Away. Away to some far-off land. Fly and seek new walls behind which peace may be regained. For what is strangers? What is esteemed brothers? What is dear sisters? Fly! Let us fly! Form a pledge just of our own! Ever there shall only be us. Has that conduct not been our secret truth under a thin lie all this time? So let us fly, away, and away! Only us together!
And fly they did. Like cowards into the night. She: the sole light to which the unfortunate clung to in the desperate hour. She: who alone the Goddess had assigned her last citadel of charity to stand opposing evil forces in this cruel world. That so-called saintess turned away and trampled on her people’s hope. She forsook martyrdom because her heart ached at the thought of one person’s suffering more than aught other.
But what says Valerian now? Does the woman regret and renounce her sins? So wretched now by guilt that she warrants sympathy from another, and pardon and mercy from those who yet live and those who were allowed not?
Answer these questions, Aster the azure! You are my Ala-sister, my charge in this house of pain, condemner in this hour of truth!
So fierce and ireful was the woman that I could not possibly raise a judgment any harsher than what she herself had already passed, but I responded with my own questions:
“I don’t know why you think I am fit for the task, Valerian. What is it you want to hear? I am no heroine, I am not even a person proper, yet you expect me to shed light on a human problem?”
Azure. I have no need for a human verdict. For that is clearer than the heavens itself, and I have long known it, and shouldered it. You are not one. And so your judgment may not be hindered by pity or sympathy, nor do you fear offending or hurting me, who demands you speak freely, for I do!
I could not answer out loud, yet in my thoughts I silently grieved:
That is wrong, Valerian, my Ala-sister. For pity, I do feel. I fear above all else in this hour to hurt your already gravely wounded heart. And another cruel stab at it would tear at my own soul no less than it yours. So demand not of me the impossible! I am not fit for this duty to inflict the fatal blow, nor to absolve you of guilt, no more than aught in this vast sky. But ‘tis a pity! A pity to witness a creature so darkly tormented while I am powerless to provide relief!
A phantom of Litzia, my own wyverness, came to me in the memories of so familiar a pain. What is it the tormented seek? What is it? A lie? A soft, pleasant, sweet lie? But is this Valerian the same as my Litzia, so unlike, yet alike. Does sorrow shape one’s soul, or something far deeper, or higher? I did not know. But I could feel it vaguely. Almost as though I could reach out and touch that thing hidden in Valerian’s dark tale.
There was something there.
Something lay between my noble Ala-sister’s words. Less than clues and hints, but faint implication of a fatal answer for this story that she just told. There was something in there, I was sure of it. I just have to seek it out and all these troubling threads should be untangled, if not perfectly then satisfyingly. In the meantime, Valerian continued.
So you fail me, Aster. You could not give me your answer for some reason. But there is yet one more, and this time I think you should more readily provide it.
But first, what do you think people do when they lose their last hope, Aster, you who has never had hopes? As doubtless I was their last. What did the town people, the refugees and the Order do when they discovered their last bastion of faith had fled like a scoundrel, depriving them of the salvation of the soul, when earthly succor seemed already hopeless? What did they do when Ashoran’s avatar, their only remaining hope, had deserted them?
Do you think they handed over the refugees to the duke? Do you think the refugees fled? Do you think they together fought and achieved an unlikely victory or a bitter end? Hah! All wrong! My Ala-sister, all wrong!
Nay. When hope dies, it is hope in the light that dies. And then one turns to darkness. It happened that, as the story was told to me in a distant country after all of it had come to pass, that in their despair, the town people had gathered to concoct a plan. They could not simply hand over the refugees, for the duke was merciless. He would have suspected them of hiding some of the refugees still, and even if he had not, he would have found enough reason to slaughter them who had not immediately submitted. In the face of such an unreasonable and cruel beast, the only way available was to become his likeness, to be his fellows in thoughts and deeds, so they concluded. They concluded as coldly as a clerk calculating cattle heads to be slaughtered for his lord’s feast.
And thus agreed, the town mayor, who in my day had treated the poor and the helpless with unequal generosity and donated much to the monastery - he led his people to my once home. The common folk cast aside the knights without much resistance in turn, as many of them were not wholly opposed to this evil course. And storming the chapel, they found the refugees. As they could not drag them all out in peace, so in the sacred house of Ashoran, with their forks, they impaled the men; with their knives, they slit the throats of the women; and with their hoes, they crushed the skulls of the children. Those peaceful neighbors of mine drew blood to appease their new overlord. The very bloody hands I had seen joined in weddings by the Order’s monk. Those cruel brows that must have grimaced with bloodlust I once placed my palm upon. All this they did while desecrating the house of the Goddess, the very one to whom on many a forlorn night they had clasped an earnest prayer to their chest.
But who could blame them for that? If Her avatar had forsaken them in life, what reasons had they to believe Ashoran would be by their side before the Scale? Now the real culprit in this tragedy becomes all too clear for observers. It is in the harpy’s nature to seek flesh and blood, and so is that villainous Duke’s. And it is in the nature of the powerless peasants to do all they may for survival. But is it for one born blessed, one revered, one within whose palms held the hope of many to so abandon the people for a selfish desire? Who is the real villain of the story? Pray tell, Aster, who?
I could not answer but wild thoughts swirled in my mind:
Does it matter? I cannot speak for others, but for my part, I do not think Valerian is right to be so hard on herself. And I hate to see her act as though on the brink of insanity. But that thought itself is a selfish thought. I do not think she comes for my pity. Something else, but also not justice. She is no Gladiola, nay, she does not care for justice for past mistakes. Then what? Such an inferior soul as I is not fit for the task! Fetch Litzia! Fetch Thea! They know the right way to a person’s heart, when I have not one proper! I do not know what to say or do to provide a little comfort for this woman.
Alas! Aster, you fail even to answer the simplest riddle of all, if one could even call it one. Are all azures such fools? A ha! But I have a way to pry your real thoughts out of that skull. A precious prize, so to say, to solve a thing doubtless has been troubling you. Resolve mine, and then I shall resolve yours. Answer my request!
“What is this thing you speak of, Valerian? I do not follow.”
I speak of the murderer, Aster, the conspirator that your wyverness suspects was of Xenon allegiance, the traitor who in truth lurks in our ranks, onboard this vessel. She who shall be held responsible for the squall that tore your flesh. I know. Oh, I know well who that is. But I shall not tell. Not until you have given me the thing I need!
As she spoke, a chill came in me, as chillness came also to her eyes. And she seemed cold and hard, terrible as frost and graven stone. She hinted at the identity of the attacker on Ala Estival.
