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“Are you sure this will work?”
Flayn looks expectantly at Lysithea who is currently busy looking through the many, cluttered and feverish notes of one Youthful Naturalist. Even to someone to Lysithea, who has learned as much about the anatomy of monsters and nightmares as possible, just for this one moment, has great difficulty parsing the research.
“Well, at worst, it shouldn’t do anything that cannot be fixed.”
“That does not sound really reassuring Lysithea.”
Seteth is also there. Partly because even after everything that has happened, he still is a nannyish prat but also because the subject is of great interest to himself personally. For Lysithea is currently trying to see if there is a way to alleviate a problem that plagues both father and daughter equally: An inability to transform into their draconic forms. Now, it has not always been that way, there was a time where both could shift from one form to the other pretty much whenever they wanted.
“I mean, you are welcome to take a look at these notes yourself!”
Having scrounged up as much relevant material from London as possible, Lysithea underwent quite the odyssey to have it brought here, to the recently finished Academy of Ordelia. Here, Lysithea has had a laboratory built specifically to her tastes with as much high-tech equipment that was either copied from London designs, smuggled from there outright or made from appropriated Agarthan technology. Within this laboratory, Lysithea has everything she needs to solve any and all mysteries, that Fódlan has yet to offer, she is sure of it.
And right now the lass, that commissioned the honorary Headmistress of the Academy for this research to begin with, stands beside her, looking over the same notes amazed at what she sees.
“Oh my! This is really interesting!”
Seteth also reads through some of them, hoping that there is something that Sothis might have mentioned one time in the many stories she told. Though right now it will take some time for him to make sense of the maps that the Youthful Naturalist once drew up before his great change. Flayn, with her gift for the healing arts can make a bit more sense of it.
“I must say, it has never occurred to me to view the body like this! This is fascinating!”
“Well, it was not something I was personally a witness to. Though, of all the tales my sibling has told me, this was the grandest by far. You should have seen the face I made when I poked around and found out that it actually happened!”
Captivated now, Flayn takes a closer look at the map. Though she needs Lysithea’s help to make sense of the chess notation inscribed at some places, it clicks more and more for her.
“And then he wanted to use this ‘key’ on that spot…”
Taking one of the Stone Tentacle-Keys into her hand, Flayn closely observes the peculiar artefact up close, feeling it all over and even smelling it.
“Oh my! How far did he turn it?”
“I don’t know. From what Arodos relayed, he seemed to have made some sort of mistake though because it left him quite sickly.”
“It doesn’t surprise me to hear this. I could not tell you where to have turned it myself but this sounds to be expected for me.”
Seteth eyes between Flayn, Lysithea and the Key.
“So, we are not going to use these things? Where are these from anyway?”
“Hunter’s Keep. An island a hop-skip away from London. But that’s just where they can be collected. Hold on, it was written down in one of the Naturalist’s notes…”
Combing through the many stacks of paper, Lysithea searches for quite some while.
“I could have sworn he wrote it down- Aha! There!”
Presenting the note like an angler would their catch, Lysithea starts reading making quite the big eyes the further she goes.
“The Regret-Beyond-Death. The greatest Shame that the Flukes try to bury and cast away. Whenever it sheds its skin, it produces these keys.”
What a very peculiar name for a group of people! Flukes! A very unusual thing to call a group of people as far as Seteth is concerned.
“A very cruel name that one, if you ask me. Who are these Flukes anyway?”
“Beings from a planet named Axile,”
Lysithea explains while searching through more notes.
“They were the inventors of the Shapeling Arts and lived on a planet whose surface was covered in thick clouds that shielded them from the light of their Judgement. Alas, the cloud cover loosened over time and their Judgement hated them for the ways they shaped their flesh. The Bazaar came to them one day and offered them to take them to safety, at the cost of them never loving again.”
“That sounds horrible! Those poor Flukes never being able to love again, how cruel!”
Rightfully shocked, Flayn looks down on the key again, a few things clicking for her now.
“But it does explain why this Tentacle-Key is, well, key to the change. If it comes from beings who can so easily mould the body, Goddess the Naturalist was- Oh my!”
It seems as if Flayn could not be enthused for a more physical approach to her problem, which also means that Seteth would be an even less likely candidate. Still, Lysithea isn’t out of options yet.
“Right, I can see that maybe you don’t exactly want to stick a calcified outcropping of shame and regret into your system which is fairly understandable. And I feel like other physical methods would end with the Spear of Assal getting rammed square up me arse but there is still one way. Shame and regret do have a toll on the body. Perhaps a tour through the Graveyard of Fódlan’s Parabola could help you come to terms with that?”
Both Nabateans are mulling over the offer. They haven’t been to the Is-Not, the Realm of Dreams before, only ever hearing stuff relayed by those that travelled with Lysithea there. Still, it was through Lysithea’s work there that Dimitri managed to be functional again and cope with his night terrors much better now so it does clearly work.
“Well, I think it is worth a shot, don’t you think, father?”
“Truly. The worst that could happen is that we are freed from some emotional baggage but still cannot shift.”
“Alright, then let’s go to this Parabola-place!”
That is something that Lysithea can very easily do, leading the two down into the cellar of the academy. It isn’t the most comfortable of places but it’s where a mirror can function as a gateway to the Is-Not. A massive thing that towers even over Seteth and is wide enough to host all three of them in the reflection but before Lysithea puts on her Cosmogone Spectacles, she eyes her own reflection more closely. Closer and closer to the mirror now until the Firecracker is glaring into her own eyes, pink irises staring into pink irises. There’s the slightest of twitches in the reflection.
“Oh well, that’s going to be fun.”
Lysithea mutters under her breath, leaving Flayn and Seteth rather befuddled.
“Whatever could you mean, Lysithea?”
“I fed myself on the fruits of Parabola too often and now my reflection is acting on her own. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem though. I have dealt with the denizens of the Is-Not often enough that she won’t stop us.”
“Are you sure about that?” Seteth asks, raising an eyebrow. “She is yourself after all, so I expect her to be quite capable.”
“Yes. But she isn’t the original now, is she?”
Putting on her Cosmogone Specatcles and taking a small dose of Prisoner’s Honey the mirror’s surface begins to ripple like water and Lysithea takes a step inside, keeping the door open for her two tour-guests.
Even after all this time, Fódlan’s Parabola is so wonderfully, and frighteningly, different from London’s Parabola. There is the great scar in the sky basking the landscape in Cosmogone, woods full of Mandrakes instead of Fingerkings. Talking horses instead of talking cats. And no Waswood but a Graveyard, where the regrets, the nightmares and the shames pile up.
“It will be an uncomfortable place but with me you’ll manage.”
Navigating Parabola is not as straightforward as one would think. That is where Lysithea, an experienced Silverer in her own right, comes in, leading Flayn and Seteth through the ever-changing and ambiguous pathways of the realm beyond the mirror. They arrive at the edges of the Graveyard soon enough, groans echoing through rows and rows of tombstones and grave-markers haphazardly stacked at the sides of the paths.
“So, what do you think is a regret that keeps you occupied all the time? Or is there anything in the way of negative emotion that you have not fully dealt with yet?”
She eyes both Seteth and Flayn but Seteth especially. Though Lys would never say it outright, he does seem emotionally constipated from time to time.
“I take it it’s to narrow down your search, isn’t it? Well… You might find it stereotypical but I believe it is still the loss of my wife.”
“And you?”
“Would you find it funny if it was the same as my father?”
“Not at all. One event can traumatise more than one person after all.”
This is something Lysithea can work with. There are traces that people like her can track and though it does take some effort, the way eventually leads to a cave entrance. Flayn stops in her tracks before entering.
“Is it just me or can you actually smell the sea coming from there?”
“I think I can hear the sound of it too.”
Carefully, Lysithea takes a few steps inside and it seems safe for now.
“I’ll go forward then. I can see a stair just ahead I think.”
A staircase isn’t too surprising in the Graveyard, there are crypts here. What is surprising, greatly so for both Seteth and Flayn, however is, that this staircase leads to the Rhodos Coast. Or at least, a reflection of it draped in rain.
“Oh! Father did you remember when we had to burry Mother?”
“Yes. I think this is actually the day we did it. I-”
Ah. Of course, it happened during the War of Heroes so perhaps neither Seteth nor Flayn got the time to truly mourn her, especially with the thousand year nap she had to take. As the two make their way to the grave of their beloved, Lysithea thinks about some helpful words to say, to help these two deal with the regrets. Shaking her head she lags behind and wants to move back towards Flayn until a thick leathery rope is wrapped around her neck and pulled tight, chocking her out while getting dragged out of sight of her two travel-companions, Cosmogone Spectacles falling into the sand.
“Hmm? Father, do you know where Lysithea went to?”
Seteth looks around to see that Lysithea is indeed gone.
“She probably wants to give us some space to mourn. I cannot shake the impression that she still feels some guilt towards us for all that happens. Besides, she is a very strong and capable fighter, so I doubt she is in much danger.”
Now, Lysithea is not a newcomer to the shady fight of the back alleys and she knows her tricks to get out of holds like this one, but whoever got her in a hold is an expert and there is only one person in all of Parabola who could trounce her like that! It isn’t shocking at all that, after being thrown to the ground, Lys sees herself holding a bull-whip in hand. What is positively bonkers though is that her counterpart wears a bloody chiton!
“Since when was I in the business of playing an Erinys?!”
“Not playing. Being. And you failed miserably!”
Before she even knew what hit her, the whip rends through Lysithea’s face, leaving a deep gash from her forehead to just shy over her eye, intense pain radiating through her body and a memory of a painful failure. Seeing her very own gang of hoodlums and robbers getting massacred at the hands of loyalist Agarthans after trying to storm a stronghold of theirs back in London. Only two have survived and Lysithea mourns those that died greatly.
“This was your fault! Your weakness and stupidity brought death to them!”
“Shut up you Goddess-damned-”
Another hit with the whip and that is the skin on her temple gashing wide open and the same memory again. Lys is fighting the tears, from both the pain and the memories. She isn’t going to give her reflection the pleasure of breaking.
“I have avenged myself. I have killed the bastard that murdered Ursus and Anto!”
Lysithea sneers but Tisophone isn’t buying it, whipping her in the face one more time and making the Silverer keel over from pain with another cut on the base of her neck.
“That isn’t enough!”
The Erinys yells out taking advantage of the situation by chocking Lysithea a second time and ramming her head first into a nearby tree. Completely dazed right now Lys can do nothing as Tisophone throws off her over-coat and vest, leaving her unarmoured because against a whip, these two thick pieces of clothing would have helped greatly.
“Y-you bitch! I will make you p- pay for-”
Lash after lash cuts through Lysithea’s shirt right into her flesh, cracking her ribs and puncturing a lung. It isn’t possible for her to go any further and she cannot help but keel over from the pain and her most painful memory: Seeing Enbarr be utterly destroyed by Hillmovers and Javelin’s of Light. Seeing the light drain from Edelgard’s face as Lys is forcing her to call off the attack to retake the city and evacuate it. The dozens if not hundreds of explosions leaving Fódlan’s oldest city as nothing but a jagged patch of craters flooded by the sea with the occasional ruin still to be seen. Every lash feels like the shockwaves she felt, brings back the memories the anger and the sorrow.
It is bitterly ironic. Lys came here to help Flayn and Seteth deal with their worst regret and here she is spiralling herself instead. Were it not so acutely torturous, she could maybe even have a laugh about it. But the lashes just keep coming and coming, clawing at her body and her mind.
Until they don’t. She only notices a huge shadow and the wind tingling in her many open wounds but the lashes have stopped. And still, Lysithea cannot stop shaking in place.
“Lysithea!”
There is an intense bout of energy near her and given that this was Flayn calling out to her, if in a somewhat distorted voice, it is fair to assume that she did manage to find a way to finally unblock that ability of hers to change form.
“Oh Goddess, Lysithea what happened?!”
The only reply that Lys can get out is a sharp gasp as Flayn accidentally grabs into one of the gashes, causing a burning pain while trying to help her up. Blood flows into Lysithea’s eyes and everything is tinted red but she can see Flayn being so horribly worried right now, even going so far as to waste powerful healing magic on her.
“You are too gracious…”
“No. No! Every time you talk to me, you sell yourself short! Portraying yourself as some sort of violent monster! Lysithea I- I care about you, alright? No matter what you say about yourself, you still deserve happiness and joy, no matter what, OK?”
There were already a few paltry tears leaving her eyes already but Flayn saying that breaks something inside Lysithea and the tears start flowing.
“I don’t… I truly don’t..!”
“Don’t say such things, please. Come, let me help you get your clothes back.”
Flayn leaves Lys for a while, barely able to stand before returning with her vest and over-coat. Now, the Thieving Firecracker is almost back to looking like herself, if one ignores the holes in her shirt and the blood stains.
“Me and Father have finally had a proper burial for Mother here and it really helped but we weren’t sure if you just wanted go give us some space but then I found your glasses in the sand and I have gotten worried about you and-”
“You were worried about me?”
“Lysithea, you are not an irredeemable monster. You have doubts and regrets too, don’t you? That’s why this different you abused you so horribly, isn’t it?”
“Y-yes, that’s why…”
“Lysithea… Is this how you think of yourself?”
Part of her doesn’t want to answer but Lys just can’t bring herself to it. She wants so desperately to be the violent monster she paints herself to be, wants so desperately for Flayn to push her away so that she can find another way to deal with that constant aching in her heart. But she can’t and so, Lysithea just answers with a nod, crying silently as a she does. It makes Flayn deflate.
“Alright. Shall we go home?”
Again, Lysithea just nods.
“I can lead you back. Just. Give me a few moments.”
Supporting Lysithea, Flayn walks her back the way they came from, alongside this reflected coast. Seteth joins in too, helping support Lys.
“I have not destroyed your reflection, only incapacitated her for a while. I did not know whether killing her would have had bad consequences or not.”
“Good call.”
Down the stairs into the cavern and back out into the Graveyard proper they go and from there, a painfully slow trek back to the mirror and finally back into the real world.
“My reflection is confined to the Is-Not, thankfully.” Lysithea pants out. “I will have to deal with her later.”
“Lysithea, you should rest.”
The Firecracker looks at Flayn as if she just proposed ending her life then and there.
“But I got stuff to do- I-”
“Lysithea. Please, you need to rest with you wounds-”
Much to Flayn’s horror, the wounds that Lysithea got in Parabola are still very much real even after entering the Dream-Realm.
“You really need to rest with them.”
“Can’t. Then my mind is at rest.”
“And why is that a bad thing?”
A few tears run down Lysithea’s eyes again. Remembering the lashing she got.
“You have seen what happens.”
“Oh.”
A poignant silence settles between the two now as they make their way up the stairs to Lysithea’s chambers, only Seteth looking on.
“I take it this is about your doubts? Enbarr perhaps? Take it as someone that dealt with the Agarthans for a long, long time now, that what happened in Enbarr was just one of their many contingencies. They had a thousand years to plan for their campaign of terror while you had five at best. The fact that they were beaten in the first place is nothing short of a miracle, if you ask me. You did the best you could, trust me.”
“… Thank you Seteth.”
With a satisfied nod, Seteth leaves Flayn and Lysithea alone and the latter does notice it.
“Flayn with Seteth going shouldn’t you-”
“No. I still wish to talk with you.”
Lysithea dreads it. What a cruel twist of fate that she, who is dreaded among even the worst of the worst that London has to offer, fears talking to one other girl. Not because she is higher on the Chain but because it’s Flayn.
“I see.”
A few more stairs, a few more painful three dozen steps and the two finally arrive at Lysithea’s private bedchamber. It is rather quaint, compared to the splendour of the rest of the Academy, really more akin to a garret but this is what Lysithea is more used to. Flayn helps her out her shoes and coat and lies her down in the bed.
“Lysithea, I do have to ask. Why do you think of yourself that way. Your own reflection was whipping you to shreds.”
Tisophone did indeed! It makes Lysithea’s lips quiver a little.
“You don’t have to answer, if you don’t want to but-”
“No. No. You’re right. I- I shouldn’t- It’s just-”
Flayn takes Lysithea’s hand. This, this is the thing that breaks the Firecracker’s mind right there.
“Take your time.”
“It is this! Just this! I did horrible things! I boasted at times about doing horrible things! You hate violence and yet you still treat me so- So-!”
“So nicely?”
“Yes! Why?”
“Because I also see that there is some good in you. You call the things you did horrible, you regret when your actions hurt people, extremely even so! I do not wish to know the very details of your criminal record but you don’t really seem to like it! Because at your very heart you are still a good person and I know it because you helped me, you helped your father and your mother you worked yourself to the bone to see that Fódlan can have a somewhat better future. Even with all the horror this war brought us, you still try and get stuff here to Fódlan that you know will help people. You are not a horrible person at heart Lysithea, I know that, deep down, you just want to stop hurting and this is- Oh!”
Caught completely off-guard by a very tight hug from Lysithea, Flayn decides to return the embrace, as Lysithea is bawling her sorrows out into Flayn’s shoulder, the two just lying there in each others arms, Flayn giving Lys a much needed respite.