[ he nods, and he's about to say something else but it is sunday on memshare week and i have been so slow the void decides no, we've had enough of that today, and proceeds to dump out a memory. ]
[ you and your party ascend the hill that leads to the chapel of flamechurch that you've attended all of your life, to the chapel where you once stared starry eyed and attentive up at the pontiff when he gave his sermons. it is the chapel where you gave sermons yourself, where you wrote and drew paper plays, where the people of flamechurch gave confessional to you, to roi, to the pontiff. where a fellow cleric sighed when you forgot your lines.
that fellow cleric stands before you now, but 'fellow' has lost all meaning of the word.
you grip your staff, when she starts to laugh, when she explains her identity to you. not mindt, the kind if naggy sister of the sacred flame. no - arcanette. founder of the moonshade order. bringer of the endless night that has gripped the entirety of solistia.
the one who orchestrated it all, right there, right under your nose. the one who -
"Since arriving here, I've felt forces mobilizing against the Church. I know your position as the inquisitor keeps you plenty busy. But, I beg you to aid me, Temenos. I know I can trust you. Just as I trusted Roi."
some of pontiff's last words to you were the kind that struck deep. he always knew how to get to you; the only authority figure in your life you ever knew was trustworthy. he was a bastion of goodness. a father, for a foundling.
and you found his corpse mauled on the floor of the cathedral: like always, you were just minutes too late. ]
[ ... you speak, finally, voice even, as the realizations click into place. ] The Pontiff knew who you were. He was going to tell me, but his life was cut short.
[ mindt - arcanette - sighs. "I had hoped you would be more stricken. How dull. Such has ever been your nature. Your face always a placid mask."
she's right. your face doesn't change. you won't allow her the satisfaction, if you can help it, but by the gods, you can feel something churning like a shadow in and of itself, the tidal wave of emotions that you have gotten so, so good at hiding. anger. despair. guilt. how did you miss it? how didn't you see?
she pulls out a staff. black, with an ominous red crystal. your heart lurches. you've seen a weapon just like it before.
roi looks at you, with his expression haunted, clutching the black and red bow in his hands. you've never seen him look so despairing, so worried, so - determined, too.
"The Church has secrets. Extraordinary, terrible secrets." he says, to you, your guiding light, your closest, dearest friend, the man who was raised beside you, your older brother. he departs to find a way to destroy the darkblood bow - because they tried. over and over, he tried to destroy this dark, evil object, and no matter what they did, it wouldn't break. but this bow had to be destroyed, and roi mistral was a hero. he walked out that day with the bow in his hands and the brilliance of his goodness his guide, and he never looked back.
arcanette tells of her plan. to bring darkness to the world eternally - one that has been in motion - and you feel the anger rising in you again. you think of the journals all of you read, huddled together in the darkness of the temples of the sacred flame, and say, slowly, white knuckling the staff of judgement, calm, so calm. ] You stole the futures of untold innocents.
[ arcanette smiles. "Did I? Then you should thank me. This world is cruel. Monstrous. With not a single mote of joy to be found amongst the misery. Don't you see?"
crick, beseeching, eyes bright blue and passionate, a man on the precipice of his beliefs and his doubts: "I want to extend a hand to the weak, and cleave the wickedness from the world."
arcanette continues, sounding out the syllables, slow and sumptuous, watching you like a hawk with each name. "Roi."
roi. the most upstanding man you've ever known: honest, sincere, loving, the very embodiment of what the sacred flame asks. protecting you, when you were both grubby, tiny children, camped together over books in the tiny guild library in montwise when you were twelve. scribbling notes in the scriptures at fifteen. roi, with the inquisitor's mantle, smiling at you and your doubt, a true believer to his core. roi, sick with the plague, and you, praying at his bedside from morning to night, hands clasped together and sobbing, begging the gods to save his life. your brother. you were faithful, then.
disappeared into the night. five years have passed. you know that he's dead.
"Pontiff Jörg."
the pontiff. a wise old man - you knew him when he still had color in his hair. when you were left behind, unwanted, uncared for, he took you under his wing. he raised you and roi in the heart of the church. he gave you a home. he gave you a family. he gave you his trust. he stroked your hair when you cried - you were such a crybaby, then - and taught you lessons, kept your bellies full and your minds sharp. the pontiff raised you so well. a man you could call your father.
a still-warm body on a cathedral floor, mauled by the claws of a felvarg.
(when aelfric granted you your ability - spoke to you from the very heavens, and called you his chosen cleric, the gift made you sick. because you could pray for plenty and heal, bring succor and light, revive the dead; but the prayer for plenty you were gifted felt like a cruel joke knowing how useful it could have been.)
"Yes..." arcanette sighs, trailing off, "And even Crick."
crick wellsley. a knight, newly anointed, of the sacred guard. a lost little lamb who you took under your wing entirely by accident, who you came to enjoy bantering with, who looked to you for guidance even though you know you irritated him so. (you did it on purpose.) he flustered and sulked and still fought for you with all of the same sincerity that roi had. he swore to be your godsblade, though you needed no protecting. and when you called him naive, he scoffed, but he listened. a bastion of goodness, a heart as pure and noble as roi had seen in him all those years ago. a thread between you you hadn't even known. a man who sought the truth the way you did, because you taught him to doubt.
a mangled body outside of the headquarters of the sacred guard, clutching a bloody sheet of paper in his hands to lead you to the truth.
"They knew. They knew the beauty of a dawn that would never come." arcanette says, light, intoned with the continuation of her speech, and you - temenos mistral,
you have had enough. ]
Quiet.
[ it's the fiercest word that's come out of your mouth in as long as you've lived. cold fury bursts free from your chest, and this time, you let it loose, each word heavy as a stone. gone is your unaffected, casual tone. you snarl: ] I won't allow you to sully their names with such blasphemy.
[ every manner of cynicism and darkness you've held onto is gone. because she's wrong. the insinuation of the pontiff, of roi, of crick, of any of them fading from the light that they've brought is so violently wrong it cracks the porcelain of your perfectly maintained composure in half. the staff of judgement is in your hands - you grip it with white knuckles, with holy fury, and despite the evenness of your voice, you swing it into a ready position and step forward. ]
You will answer for your sins, Arcanette. [ for the deaths she caused. for the very names she dared to speak, dared to sully, dared to try and use as a weight to taunt you, to throw away.
you have always been the doubter. you looked at roi and crick's rose colored world and scoffed at it, but today? today you face down the endless night, and you know you owe it to them.
you were the one who survived. ]
And I'll ensure that the world they hoped for comes to pass.
[ whether you deserve it or not, you were the one who survived.
arcanette starts to laugh. it's unhinged, delighted, and she nearly cooes - "At last, Temenos's mask falls off."
you no longer care what she sees. what she thinks. the holy magic under your fingers surges.
you are not roi mistral, or crick wellsley, or pontiff jorg. but you are the chosen cleric of aelfric. you are the last survivor of the cold cruelty of the reality you touted as truth.
you are temenos mistral, and today, you will smite down the wrath of the gods on arcanette, for all those you've loved and all those that you've lost. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
How much of that did you see?
no subject
[ so. a lot. ]
A tower, an attempted theft of an item, a trick. Your path upwards to the mountain. [ a pause. ] The voices and figures.
no subject
I have it under control. The prize here will tilt the balance back into my scale.
no subject
Was that the last thing you remember happening before you came here?
no subject
giant octopath ii spoilers ahoy
no subject
I don't know. Maybe she has a point. ]
... I'm going to guess this is the last thing you remember?