Chapter Text
There was a monster, years ago, out by Moraby Bay. (Dead now, by other hands. By hands clean of bystanders' red.) Once a simple Vylbrand bat, it swelled and grew as it gorged on the fallen: first one, then two, then more and more until it was strong enough to gulp down the blood of Red Rooster's entire herd, a thriving field reduced to pallid corpses by a creature once so pure.
She has become Barbastelle, dragging a stolen sword with stolen hands encased in stolen steel. Once an adventurer, only. Now a violator, only.
(They are my gifts to you alone, he said. The blood on the Boundless Plains, the tempered effigies in Anima's towers, Garlemald's ruin and desolation. Jullus' family. Arenvald's legs.)
Everything that was the Warrior of Light is Zenos', now. The name, the power, the brilliant light of conviction - nothing survived. These hands hold no arcane magicks, no Nymian light and grace. The corporeal aether of this body is a blank canvas compared to her former riot of colour, bereft of the elemental stains that grant safe access to primal power; this mind is an attic emptied of its heirlooms, leaving only imprints in the dust and the ghost whose body she owns.
She can't keep thinking about it. She can't, she can't, nobody else read the script of the tragedy yet to unfold and cares enough to stop it. If she shatters before she returns to Broken Glass then she'll lose them all too, she needs to keep her head in order to make it through.
Would that she could ignore them entirely, but. Bats and bloodsuckers alike, after all.
With no access to aether in a Garlean form, the only way she can survive is through stealth and stolen wisdom: their life is offered up on Fandaniel's dining table, their aether a soul crystal carved from meat. It shows her how to step and how to swing, how to light the lantern in their shield as a ward against the dark; how to uncap a syringe of Garlean medicine and dispense it into a ravaged shoulder, how to read labels in a foreign script she never managed to learn.
(Fortis, for courage. Salutaris, for good health. She never used to need either in a vial to get by.)
The free imperials don't question the accent she can't quite mask, the slipshod stance plundered from memories of military and Hoary's training alike. They beg for aid, say you're one of us with a fear-stained smile, and they don't force her to lie.
In a stroke of fortune, the Echo still lights her path ahead, and her inherited skills are just enough to hold the tempered at bay. Spread out for one strike, stand together for another, both weaker than any primal's blasts yet forcing her to battered knees regardless. The big one screeches in agony, magitek fire piercing its contorted belly, and the armour pilot shouts for cover as your vision washes amber with danger-
"No!"
The big one convulses with a wet squelch, its back pulling taut and destructive death interrupted. The armour pilot reverses a few steps just in time for it to collapse, revealing a gladius wedged in its spine and the impossibility which hurled it.
Said impossibility straightens up to an unnatural height, impatiently shoving golden locks away from a three-eyed face. It glances down at the slaughtered tempered, around at the civilians - whispering frantically to each other after their first unified gasp - and mumbles a quiet "Ah," in the wrong voice entirely.
In a voice that bubbles up from this new body's throat.
She knows who they are.
(This isn't about them. This is for her, a jest spawned from Fandaniel's wretched mind. Not enough that he force her to demand subservience from their body, he took their wandering soul and stretched it to fill the holes in Zenos' breast, one more unwilling soldier in the war against the Light.)
How she is, how they are, they could kill her in an instant. She feels for her soul's aether, draws a stolen sword from their waist, and asks, "Are you our enemy?"
They jerk in surprise, but not nearly as much as if she had thrown their speech back at them instead of mustering her own. (Like Thancred, like Kahedin, like-) Seemingly encouraged by her question, the civilians' mutterings tail off; one, a sharp-eyed woman robed to the knees in fur, steps from behind the armour and adds, "Why reveal yourself now, Your Highness?"
To their credit, they don't flinch at the address, too busy fighting Zenos' hair again after a furious bout of head-shaking. There is a set to his mouth, a light in his eyes that the crown prince never called his own, and the suspicion staining the woman's features makes her immeasurably glad for their full-face helm.
"I...believe that I have mislaid some few memories," they confess in the crown prince's words, eyes jumping from machine to corpse to ruin. "How I arrived, the state of the empire, what became of the emperor..."
Oh. The woman beats her to the revelation, murmuring, "As Seneca claimed." Louder, she says, "You were tempered? And survived?"
"I-"
"Explanations and semantics can wait." Their sword shakes in her grip, the tip clattering against cermet greaves, and she cannot bring herself to still it. "It's too dangerous to stay here."
"Aye, true." The woman tilts her head in concession before planting the butt of her lance in the snow, facing down who she thinks is her prince with no caution or overt nerves. "The question still stands, my lord. What did you intend to accomplish by coming here?"
"That's-" And they laugh, just slightly, more a panicked puff of air than any true expression. (It's still creepy, coming from that voice and that face.) "I heard a cry for help," they reply, "and thought to do my duty to Garlemald."
The woman pauses, then nods. "Good enough for me. Cloelia fae Calpurnius, if you've forgotten that too; for now, we should take cover."
"Of course." Their eyes drift away, following Cloelia as she hefts one end of a bulky ceruleum tank.
She can't stay here. Zenos could have teleported directly to Camp Broken Glass, could have already stained the buildings in frozen blood and burned every one of her bonds and bridges alike. She can't save these people. Not like this.
But there is an injured reaper pilot in a building to the north-east, who volunteered his only escape in an act of generosity to a stranger. Stolen memories and senses tell her a blizzard is rolling in: if she takes her leave, his kindness will see him abandoned to chill to death.
Fandaniel is a showman, at the centre of heart and sepia memory. He will have orchestrated this for maximum impact.
"Is there a problem?"
Cloelia halts in her stride, glancing back at where she has yet to move. "We must seek shelter before night falls."
"I know." She can't stay, but she'll never forgive herself if she leaves. It was never the glory of heroism that compelled her. "I need to pick someone up."