[ Zenith feels like being swallowed in Night itself. Not just night, but Night -- a great and grand power, so seeped in seeking it that it lost its way, coupled with the cold of winter, and tempered by Catherine's own motivation to see it through, to make something Better for everyone. Not just villains, not just heroes, but for every orphan who called themselves Foundling, she had been motivated to upend the very structure of Calernia itself, and change it. Zenith was change, taking the old, pulling it apart, and shaping it into something more than what it had been.
Wasn't that what Catherine had wanted in the end?
Wasn't that what she wanted? To guide them? Nudge them toward the perfect line of Villainy, in between outright destruction, and a more subtle, less destructive path? Wasn't that what she had given her damned life for? She had not made it to see the end that the Wandering Bard had leveled across Calernia.
Even if she were to bring it back, what would be left, after the Ealamal rained destruction over Keter? They had killed Neshamah, but what good did that do, if his hordes of the dead still charged? Would she even have seen it? She was dying -- Scarred and disfigured by the Dead King's magics, and stabbed by Catherine's own blade. She'd felt it, accepted it, wanted it, the promise of becoming something more -- but what if her gambit had not worked?
What if she had willingly accepted a death, and the weight she had leveled at the Bard, had not been good enough? What if the powers of Above and Below had turned away, once they realized her heart had held a place in motivating her decision?
The flood of Zenith is...overwhelming. Comforting. It's Night and Darkness, it is everything that Akua had wrapped herself in for so long, that it feels a little bit like coming home.
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Wasn't that what Catherine had wanted in the end?
Wasn't that what she wanted? To guide them? Nudge them toward the perfect line of Villainy, in between outright destruction, and a more subtle, less destructive path? Wasn't that what she had given her damned life for? She had not made it to see the end that the Wandering Bard had leveled across Calernia.
Even if she were to bring it back, what would be left, after the Ealamal rained destruction over Keter? They had killed Neshamah, but what good did that do, if his hordes of the dead still charged? Would she even have seen it? She was dying -- Scarred and disfigured by the Dead King's magics, and stabbed by Catherine's own blade. She'd felt it, accepted it, wanted it, the promise of becoming something more -- but what if her gambit had not worked?
What if she had willingly accepted a death, and the weight she had leveled at the Bard, had not been good enough? What if the powers of Above and Below had turned away, once they realized her heart had held a place in motivating her decision?
The flood of Zenith is...overwhelming. Comforting. It's Night and Darkness, it is everything that Akua had wrapped herself in for so long, that it feels a little bit like coming home.
A part of her would always want to accept it.
It feels like that part is winning. ]