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Venat sank into the armchair in her usual guest quarters in Amaurot, feeling every day of her years of experience spent serving the people of this star. They felt heavy.
She put her head in her hands.
She did not want things to end this way.
Ever since meeting the warrior whom she dubbed a “Light of the Future”, she had known that this was a possible eventuality for her people. And thus, she had striven against it at every turn. Her allies had thrown themselves into researching dynamis, but it had not yet borne fruit they could use. She had traveled the length and breadth of the star to see if aught may be done to stimulate the celestial currents, before they weakened to where the only possible solution would be the worst one. She had spoken with so many people in an aim to start dialogues about resilience, about suffering, about hope—to do anything to prepare them for when the unthinkable took them all by surprise.
Her advisory audience with the Convocation—minus Azem, and she was not sure whether to feel relieved or chagrined about that—had just been the latest in that endeavor. But not even her white robes could make her former colleagues hear what she was trying to say.
Instead, they bristled and defensively latched on to one idea from her carefully-prepared remarks: Her concern that to summon so great of a primal would be unfathomably dangerous for all of mankind. It was critical that He have checks on His power.
They protested that they had thought of that. That’s why Elidibus would serve as the heart. Unless she had some better idea of a more fair, peaceful, level-headed and conciliatory person than the Emissary himself?
She was frustrated beyond words, but she did not feel she could be too hard on them. They were panicking. A thoroughly unprecedented disaster was spreading like wildfire across the star, and it was only picking up speed as it continued. None could doubt but that it was a matter of time before the crisis reached the capital. A concrete threat presented itself. It required a concrete solution. The Fourteen—well, the Thirteen, now—had a concrete solution in mind, and they were loath to entertain any challenge to it. They had literally naught else to try.
Yet while their rigidity was understandable, so also was it debilitating. Venat was not solely concerned that Zodiark may become corrupted, that this would-be deliverer may turn into an oppressor. Though that was one horrifying possibility, it was neither the foremost nor most likely in her mind.
No, Venat’s worries of Zodiark’s power had less to do with Zodiark, and more to do simply with… man.
She had to concede that these Final Days were the most urgent matter to address. Mankind must be bought more time, lest they be devoured ere they could grow strong. And she had found no other tangible solution to dispel the Meteia’s song, nor to shield Etheirys from the effects.
So she would not prevent this summoning. She could only resign herself to the grim logic that it was better to save half than to lose all.
But what she could not abide—and indeed would not, should things come to it—was the sacrifice of new life to reclaim the souls who had heroically offered themselves up. That was the sort of unchecked power that struck dread into her heart.
In their defense, the Convocation had not proposed such a plan… yet.
While she would continue to hope for and fight for a better outcome, Venat had to admit that Warrior of Light’s future-history had, thus far, never been wrong. She had to maintain a contingency plan in case this, too, came to pass.
After all, today, the threat was the song of oblivion. But what of the days after?
The implications of the devastating report in Elpis had not been lost on Venat. Meteion and her sisters had encountered stars in the throes of their own demise. They had also found stars already long ruined, untold years before they had ever set foot there. While the Meteia now sought to snuff out all life, even without them, the universe was full of despair at every turn. Sometimes it led to war; other times, to indolence; and on occasion, to voluntary self-destruction.
Which is why these “Final Days”, lethal though they were, must be treated as a symptom, not a cause. Without a change of course, Venat had no reason to believe that Etheirys would be any different than the rest of the universe. Even should her people triumph against the song, despair would still be lurking for them just around the next bend.
And this was why, although Zodiark could staunch the bleeding, He could not be a long-term solution.
What would happen the next time the world faced a disaster? How lightly would mankind need to be pressed before they turned to the benevolent, unfathomably powerful primal to fix everything for them again? What kind of resilience to despair could there ever be, if a life of unbothered tranquility was merely a sacrifice away? And what kind of horrifying calculations would determine the value of one more new life tossed on the pyre?
If the Warrior of Light’s account yet held true, then even before this crisis would fully resolve, mankind would shift from laying down their lives for their brethren, to sacrificing others on their own behalf to restore a fabled past—a past which never quite existed like the grieving bereaved recalled it. How much blood would mankind ultimately spill in pursuit of this impossible, mythical ideal?
How would Zodiark ever not become mankind’s downfall—not because of His will, but of theirs?
This “Hydaelyn”, this “sundering”—Venat and her companions had unanimously agreed that it should be an absolute last resort. It was barely less dire than the terrible toll the first primal would already exact.
But despairing extinction to a god of their own making should not, could not, be how the story of mankind would end. If there was any beauty in the world worth saving, then Venat, her comrades, and her fractured but brave little spark, would not rest until a brighter melody rang out through the universe—until mankind had the strength to walk unto the end.