Divine Inspiration

“Are you going to elaborate on that, or…?”

“It’s been a long couple of days.” John heaved a bit as he sighed, as if trying to physically expel the fatigue from his mind, along with the tension that sitting across from Etriyya had instilled in him. Neither succeeded.

“I can see that. I’ve never actually seen you look tired before; it’s a good look on you.” Etriyya gave him a playful look, the kind he hadn’t seen on her face in a very long time. Her eyes slowly traveled away from him and wandered across the table, eyeing the stacks of books awaiting his study. “If I were to judge just by your choice of reading material, it looks like you’re dealing with a lot of the same issues that we all are. Though I’m not sure I expected you to choose potion and prayer as your particular methods of salvation.”

“Don’t need to study those. I’ve seen enough to know the goddesses are always listening… they just don’t always feel we deserve an answer.”

“Bitter. Betrayed. Hurt. Seeking guidance. Now you’re starting to sound like an Order Knight,” Etriyya mused, though this time there was no tone of mockery or amusement in her voice. “Or perhaps not. Most Order Knights are so focused on serving the Lady that they rarely even bother to study the other faces that Gaia chooses to reveal to us. It seems you’ve cast quite a broad focus on subjects in your thirst for knowledge…”

Etriyya’s eyes paused when she reached a stack of books concerning the Abyssal version of Creationism and scholarly examinations of the known goddesses and their perspectives on life and the universe as a whole. One of her gauntleted hands traveled across the spine of a book titled ‘The Chaotic Nature of Reality’ and she smiled softly, though John hadn’t yet inspected that one closely enough to know what subject brought that slight happiness to her.

“I’ve not seen some of these tomes in a great many years. They are certainly interesting reads, but I’m not sure how many answers you’ll find here, either… though you certainly have a way of prying the information you want out, don’t you?”

There it was. John frowned and flinched slightly at the way Etriyya’s expression tilted with those words, but before he could decide whether to apologize – again – or simply move on, she was already raising a hand up to hold his silence.

“I apologize, I did not intend that to strike so deeply.”

“It’s not like I didn’t know this has been kind of… hanging between us,” John admitted. “I was surprised you were friendly enough to help me get ready to head to the west coast. But I suppose I was your last hope.”

“You were. And somehow, you turned that little piece of hope into a reality. You know, with everything going on, I still haven’t gotten to have a proper laugh at you for that. Do you even realize how insane you are, how insane what you did was? You’d barely dipped your toe into the Abyss for a few weeks before you vanished for a year, then as soon as you came back, you trek across half the country as if it were your own property. You met a Deity and walked away from it without a scratch. You brought a ghost back to this world and dropped her on our doorstep as a present. You…”

Etriyya paused for a moment, giving a giggle tinged with madness. Then she swallowed audibly to wet her throat again, after her attempt at further words came out as a crackling squeak. Her eyes were focused on John with a steadfast seriousness, but when she finally managed to talk again, her words came out in an airy tone that still held the echoes of laughter.

“John, Tricia and I were ready to make our escape plans. We were already making preparations, going through the process of mourning our home while it was still ours. You saw all the same challenges and difficulties that we did, all the obstacles in our path to happiness – but unlike us, you didn’t hesitate to throw yourself at them, to choose an impossible path as long as it led somewhere happier.”

“I’m not sure how proud I am of that anymore,” John admitted. “I mean, I’m beyond happy it worked out, don’t get me wrong, I just… I didn’t think about the reality of what I was doing and make a conscious decision. It wasn’t about being brave, I just couldn’t let myself think of any alternative. I wasn’t exactly in the best state of mind, even after all that time. Adantia may have been right about me.”

“In what way?”

“When I told her what had brought me there, why I had crossed the country to find her, what I’d been through to get the information that she was still alive, she called me selfish.”

Etriyya gave a lurch that made John reflexively flinch, spittle spraying the table as the armored woman sputtered and stammered for a moment before she could collect herself.

“Selfish? I’ve called you many names, John, but never that one. Fool, daft-headed, reckless, suicidal, asshole? Sure! But what in the name of Gaia herself would make you selfish for doing something so dangerous for the sake of others?!”

“That was more or less my reaction when she first said it, too. But when she actually explained it, I found it kind of hard to argue.” John’s eyes drifted to the table, his thumbs idly twiddling as he remembered Adantia’s calm, confident statement of the facts. How they’d been so similar, and how she read him like a book at times even after meeting him hardly an hour before. “No one’s life was at risk. If anything, technically everyone is in more danger going to war than going to the UK. I went because it was easier to die fighting for what was right than to live with the consequences of compromising.”

“Tch, where’s all that fire you had in you? You don’t really believe all that, do you?”

“Not exactly. I think it’s a lot more complicated than that. I’m not planning on changing who I am or anything - I’ve always just done whatever seemed like the right thing, for the most part, and I’ve never regretted my decisions, even knowing they could have gotten me killed, or hurt the people who rely on me. Maybe I’ve just gotten lucky.” John shrugged and lifted his head again, finding a curiously evaluating gaze from Etriyya waiting for him.

“Even Adantia admitted that she never stopped anyone from doing things like I did, no matter how stupid she thought it was. She said everyone draws their own line. It’s hard to read her, but I don’t think she was trying to tell me to be ashamed or change. I’m glad I was able to help put us on the path to saving our home. I just don’t know if rushing off with a half-cocked plan is really something to be proud about just because it happened to work out.”

“Not entirely unwise…” Etriyya admitted, half her mouth twisting upward in a tired smirk. “Well, foolish as it may have been, I want to thank you for what you did. I didn’t imagine that anyone could stop what had been set in motion. I never thought even someone as blessed and insane as you could pull it off. And then when you came back, everything was thrown into such a frenzy I haven’t had a chance to say it, so – thank you, John Newman.”

“You don’t need to thank me. I owe everyone here a tremendous debt, and I’ve certainly still got a lot to do to make things right between us.”

“We can call it even. You’ve done more for me than you know. Even if it was selfish...”

Etriyya half-whispered the last part, and she didn’t seem keen on elaborating immediately. When John remained respectfully silent long enough to make it clear he wasn’t about to move on, Etriyya tightened her lips a little and let her eyes glaze across the surface of the table.

“You know about my past, what brought me here. That’s what started this all off, after all. Since I joined this branch of the Order following its rather abrupt exodus to the Americas, I’ve let myself be content, for the most part. I thought that by taking this post, I could atone for the sins of my past… but it’s not as though I’ve done something worthy of erasing those mistakes. I’m little more than a cog, another body in their battles. In spite of my age and experience in the Abyss, I’m hardly stronger than the average Knight because I spent so many years wallowing in self-loathing and burying myself in irrelevant studies to forget about my time in training.”

Etriyya MacGabhann
Level 49 Magiknight
<Order of the Golden Rose>
HP: 1,560 / 1,560
Relationship: 2
Alignment: +82
Status Effects: N/A

“You seem like you could hold your own to me,” John said, smiling at her. He thought about complimenting her on her growth – but revealing that he was looking through her Observe sheet was hardly going to help his barely-positive Relationship score with her…

“Perhaps now. Though your mana feels about half as powerful as it was when you returned to the manor a few days ago, and you still put me to shame.” Etriyya pursed her lips and averted her eyes, a soft flush blooming on her cheeks. “But even then, what power I have now, I only have because of what you did.”

“Because of the battle against the Albidians?”

“Aye. The battle, to be sure, but mostly the slaughter that followed it. Moira put me in charge of tracking you down, you know. She wanted to hear about every little detail that concerned you – rumors, hearsay, stories that would’ve been second-hand accounts a dozen strangers ago… she still isn’t entirely sure how you managed to slip back into this world and out of their stronghold. She had Order Knights stationed around the spot you vanished from twenty-four hours a day until you first showed up again.”

“Vallya is pretty good at concealing herself and others from detection… and we waited long enough to be sure Moira wouldn’t be there herself. I knew she’d have too much to deal with after such a huge upheaval… and in their defense, the Knights could’ve noticed us and chalked it up to whatever other magical obscenities that place might have held.”

“Perhaps they did, but one way or another, you certainly didn’t make my job easy, did you?” Etriyya shook her head in a bemused way. “Catching up to you was nearly impossible. Even following you was more than I could manage at times. Mostly we just found what you left behind. And… that was rather something, wasn’t it?”

John didn’t answer, too busy trying not to dwell on the dark memories of his mind and actions back then. Etriyya let the silence have its moment, then continued smoothly.

“Brutal as they may have been, the wrecks you left of the few bases they had, the work you did to hunt them down and eliminate them with that aura-tracker friend of yours? It made me feel like I was a little girl again, getting chided by my father – or worse, scolded by the drill sergeants for falling behind in classes.

“It was like seeing everything I wanted to do, everything I wanted to be, materializing in front of me – only it wasn’t me that was cleaving off the rotted flesh of the world. It was you, a new mage just a few months into his Abyssal life, one who had never even been properly trained for any real length of time. You didn’t concern yourself with superficial matters. You didn’t try to justify inaction by claiming it was ‘good enough’ or ‘more than others do’. You certainly didn’t spend a few decades drowning your sorrows in drink and trying to convince yourself that you’d learned something from your past mistakes.”

“I did what I had to. That is also something I’m not proud of. I could’ve gone down a very dark path because of what was done to me… and because of what I did to them in return.”

“True, but which is worse when your path is taken from you? To turn to another, no matter how bleak or angry it might be… or to sit down beside the road, settle in, and wait to die?” Etriyya slouched back in her chair, the corners of her lips starting to tremble a little. She fought a bit too hard before finally managing a swallow to give her throat enough strength to continue.

“When you first showed up with your impossible abilities and that drive of yours, you inspired me and reminded me of what I wanted to be, what I wanted to do for this world, John. Then, when you vanished, when you started to lose it… I started to sink into that despair again. All it took for me to lose that little hope I’d started to gain was for the person who gave it to me to disappear. But when I found out you were still out there, the one who truly lost something still fighting and suffering to make things as right as he could, I got so angry that I couldn’t stand it. I had to do… something, didn’t I? How could I justify sitting on my ass and waiting for something to finally finish me off, when you somehow found the strength to carry on? So I… I…”

Etriyya paused briefly as she reached for a pouch at her side, metal clinking loudly as she fumbled inside the small pocket before tossing something small and shiny at him. John reflexively snatched at it, and found himself staring at a small, brightly-colored coin. There was a triangular shape in the center, surrounded by numerous words, but the most bold were the ‘9 Months’ emblazoned in the center.

“...Is this-”

“I drank myself into a stupor the first few nights after you left. It was the only way I could sleep, or look myself in the mirror without wanting to vomit. Not that I’d ever been much for sobriety before all that, but… well, when I saw what you were doing, when I knew you were accomplishing more on your own than I’ve managed serving the Order since their arrival here? It was the kick in the ass I needed to start getting my shit back together.

“I sobered up and started training harder than I have since I was a student – and I mean before I lost focus. Never actually went to a meeting, you know, but… well, the tokens aren’t a half bad idea for keeping track, so I started buying myself some. I figure if I run up as many years sober and training my ass off as I wasted moping around in self-pity, I’ll either be a hero of legend or dead, and either way, I’ll have earned a drink by then, eh?”

“That’s wonderful. Really. I just… don’t know if what I did is something to be so inspiring. Necessary, maybe. Justifiable, sure. But…”

“I get it, I get it,” Etriyya huffed, leaning forward and resting her head on her arm. “No one should revel that much in bloodshed. It’s good that you aren’t that way anymore. It’s good that you’ve found another path. But if it all happened over again…? If the wheels of time turned backwards and placed you in that horrid place again, blade covered in blood, facing Moira with steel and fire in your heart, would you turn the other cheek? Would you leave them to roam free? Or would you rain down hell all over again?”

“…”

John’s eyes met Etriyya’s, and he wasn’t sure whose looked the wearier, nor whose seemed to carry the most weight behind them. John’s fingers drummed upon the table as all of the different perspectives he’d viewed the world through over the past year all coursed through him, all the pieces of himself he was still trying to reconcile.

“I would,” John finally said, voice almost raspy with the admission. “I couldn’t make any other decision. What it did to me may have been regrettable… but doing nothing would have turned me into something unbearable.”

“And do you still want to ‘burn it all down’, John? Do you still long to make the Abyss a better place, even if it requires tearing it right down to the foundations and starting from scratch?”

“Yes.” That, at least, was a constant. “I’m not letting myself turn to cruelty for the sake of it, or wallowing in my own grief and anger anymore. But I still want to make things better for the people I care about. I want to give them a world worth living in, a place where the ones I love can know something other than war and ****. Right now, that means saving our home.”

“And then?” A gleam hid in Etriyya’s eye, as if she were already certain of the answer – or at least of her own.

“...I don’t know. I’ll owe Adantia everything. I’m guessing she’ll come to collect, though I’m not sure how much use I can be to her. Other than that, all I care about is making things better. Making an Abyss worth living in, instead of a world that everyone describes as an awful, cursed place. And from everything I know about the Abyss so far, that means getting strong. Strong enough to make things better by ****, if necessary.”

“Too fuckin’ right.”

Etriyya stood from the table and strode around, clasping a hand firmly enough on John’s shoulder to make him wince a little.

“I’ve seen enough of your abilities to know they didn’t just come from being a late bloomer, or from being some kind of prodigy. You do things no-one else can, John. Things that only one goddess has the power to do, let alone to gift to another.”

Etriyya’s grip tightened further for a moment, then weakened and shifted, putting pressure on him until she was practically leaning on John for support. She didn’t appear off-balance or unsteady, though. If anything, there was a fire in her eyes and a vulnerability to the shaky smile John saw spread across her face that he hadn’t seen since the days when she was still training him.

“And as angry as it has made me at times, that means I have to accept the idea of that ‘quest’ of yours being from her as well. Or, at the very least, from some part of her. I still don’t know why any goddess might be so interested in digging at the old wounds of a ragged soldier like me, but they were. And they thought it was important for you to be the one to do it.”

Etriyya finally lifted her hand and took a **** step away, keeping her head turned toward John as she adjusted herself into a wide stance, almost as if standing at attention before some unseen commander.

“You’ve been given amazing gifts and chosen for something great, John Newman. What exactly that is, I still have no idea, and whether it’s blessed or cursed, wonderful or terrible, fearsome or inspiring… those are entirely up to you, but whatever you choose, they will be great. I truly believe that now, as strongly as you believe in changing it by your own hands. And I’m done sitting idly while conflict and **** weave their threads across the world unopposed. If there is to be a chance to finally change this world for the better, when it finally comes, I intend to be ready. We may have some… friction yet to resolve between us, but I will be fighting for the Order with everything I have when we join this war. If you ever need my blade at your side, you only have to ask. And I will do what I can to make it a blade worth calling on.”

Etriyya never let her eyes waver from his, even going so far as to clasp a closed fist over her heart as she spoke the final lines. John wasn’t sure how to respond – he hadn’t expected such an intense, heartfelt declaration. It wasn’t quite forgiveness, but it was more than he’d ever anticipated from her, more than he felt like he deserved.

“I feel like I should say I’m not worth inspiring anyone, but that would just trivialize what you’ve done. So… thank you for believing in me, Etriyya. I’ll try to be worthy of this image you’ve made of me in your head.”

“If you want to thank me, come back and train in the yard with me sometime. Glenna and I need to drill some proper swordsmanship into you before you develop any more bad habits fighting so long on your own. Do you still remember the forms I taught you?”

“Of course. I practiced them every day for weeks after we stopped talking.”

Etriyya beamed at him, giving him a grateful nod.

“Good. Maybe we can make a real blademaster out of you one day. Anyway, I’ve kept your attention long enough. Best get back to reading, John – you won’t have too long before the Warden is up and about for the day. I’m sure she’ll want to talk to you plenty herself.”

“Etriyya, one last thing – you sounded almost familiar with the goddesses when you talked about my ‘gifts’ just then. Do you know much about them?”

“I know about as much as anyone serving a sect dedicated to their version of Gaia. I’ve lived long enough to think I’ve met a Shard or two myself a few times, though I’ve never been able to prove it, or had a reason to care much whether they really were a Shard or not. Why?”

John noticed the way that Etriyya’s eyes narrowed as she turned back to face him again, how her pupils rolled over not only him, but over the piles of books with renewed interest.

“With everything going on, with all the interest they have in me, I was hoping to learn something about the goddesses myself. Aspects and Fragments and Shards… if I really am in the middle of something ‘great’, as you say, I feel like I know almost nothing about them. I spoke to an Aspect last year shortly after I vanished, and she-”

“To an Aspect?” Etriyya was unable to keep the shock from her face as a gasp escaped her. “That is beyond rare, even for someone as gifted as you. Only a handful of Wardens have ever even claimed to have spoken to the Lady since she first bestowed them with the Blessing! What did she tell you?”

“She gave me a few answers, and a lot more questions. I asked her to bring Seras back… she said that she couldn’t, that the Aspects and other goddesses were forbidden from using their powers to break the fundamental laws of the world. That also led to her confirming what you said – that only Gaia could have given me these abilities. That it had been almost a thousand years since she blessed anyone directly like that. But Dike didn’t know what Gaia was planning, why she chose me… Dike didn’t even tell me what she wanted, not directly. All she said was that together we could ‘bring Justice to this world’.”

“Hardly the most cryptic riddle they’ve given, but I agree, hard to find a direction from that…” Etriyya muttered. “I was certainly right about you though, John. Something beyond our comprehension is in the works. I only wish we knew what.”

“Maybe if she ever talks to me again, she’ll feel like being a little less vague,” John muttered angrily. “Until then, reading these old books is the best that I can do to learn more about her and the others. What can you tell me about them?”

“Little enough,” Etriyya said with a snort that came somewhere between amusement and disdain. “Every claimed meeting of a goddess has twenty different versions being told around the world, and few of them have any way to glean the truth of the matter from the fantasies woven around them. Even the debate within the Order itself over whether the Lady is an Aspect or is truly Gaia herself claiming to be otherwise will get you drawn and quartered if you argue a bit too strongly with the wrong scholar.”

John turned his head, now examining his literature a little more closely himself, with a great deal of skepticism on his face. “Great, so even this is probably all rumors and legend. And I’m guessing anything worth knowing is buried in lies, embellishment, and half-truths. Thanks for saving me time, I guess.”

“Merely by your abilities and their willingness to appear before you, you already know the only thing worth knowing.”

“...And that would be?”

“The goddesses have their eyes on you, John. And Gaia herself has granted you the ability to do what no one else can. What the gods want is their concern, not yours. But you have the power - and as good as permission - to chase what you want and to shape the world as you see fit.”