Kimberly Earthfriend was standing before a beast. Some awful twisting thing made of the terror of the world’s destruction. Fire or storm, she didn’t really care. It was natural disaster made manifest. It stared her down, a guttural growl torn from its throat by the arid wind. Wasn’t this place supposed to be paradise? As the beast charged towards her, Kimberly threw back her head and laughed. There was no humour in the sound, only bitter, dry irony. “Oh, you want a battle?” The wizard accepted the challenge with open arms, a devious glint in her eyes. “I’ll give you war. Just don’t expect to see the other side in one piece.”
And then, her world was all a blur. Blades and spells flashed before her eyes. Claws and teeth traded blows with swords and wands, a whirlwind of terror and fury. She allowed herself to fight on autopilot, tuning out the world around her and letting the spirit of the Divine Paradox do all the work for her. She thought back over her life, trying to remember a time when she had been more than just a soldier with a fancy title. It didn’t matter what they called her. Wizard, knight, scion or paradox, it was all the same. For as long as she could remember, it was all the same, violence and destruction following her wherever she stepped.
Perhaps she had had friends once. Allies who helped her to save her little corner of the universe. That’s what they always told her, that she was saving people. But she knew in some deep-down recess of her soul, the same place where she buried the parts of herself that found a little lurid joy in her violent, paradoxical godhood, that that had never quite been true. She had fought necromancers, shadow mages, even the elder gods, all under the pretence of pushing back against evil and bringing light to the Spiral. But very occasionally, she caught herself wondering, had any of them really been “evil?” The necromancer had just needed some grief counselling, a healthier way to cope with the death of his wife than raising the malevolent undead all across the worlds. The shadow mage was lonely and resentful. The council of light had taken everything from that poor witch, forcing her to turn to the dark for a mere scrap of kindness or acceptance. Of course she was angry, who wouldn’t be? And the elder gods? Well, Kimberly had always thought that love made people do crazy things. Raven and Spider would have burned down the whole Spiral just to see the other hurt. And then they’d do it all again, to keep each other warm, and no matter how dangerous they had become, Kimberly couldn’t help but see the beauty in that. Creation and destruction, intertwined in a living paradox that wove together all the worlds of the Spiral in some sort of delicate cosmic tapestry. It was little more than perfection. She could hardly blame them for wanting to protect that.
When Kimberly shook herself from her wistful trance, the beast was dead. She wondered briefly what it actually was, or rather, what it had been before she destroyed it. Storm or fire, she thought again. No doubt another creature brought to life by the mana burst. Oops. Not her problem though, she thought. Best not to speculate, lest she get too attached. So, on she climbed to the top of the mountain. Whatever the Old One had been hiding up there, he clearly didn’t want it found. Hidden behind vines and leaves, beyond the beasts and horrors of the countless worlds he had cobbled together to make this place, under vents that produced smoke and fire to create the illusion of a volcano, was… something. Kimberly wasn’t certain of what exactly she was supposed to be looking for, but she figured she’d know it when she saw it.
Or Dasein would help her. Yeah, that’d probably do it. Where had her companion run off to anyways? She wondered vaguely if he had faded again, or if he had just run on ahead to the summit. She understood that he felt the pull of the Old One’s memories more strongly here in the world that he had created. It wasn’t his fault that he felt so compelled to run off and search for those brief flashes of clarity that cut through his borrowed brain. She didn’t honestly think she could ever be upset with him, even though he kept disappearing on her. They were each other’s perfect foils, yes. The Nothing and the Everything, the Divine and the Aberrant. But more than that, they were each other’s best and only real friends. Kimberly considered herself something of a mentor for Dasein, his only reference for interacting with the world around him. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for that void given form.
But she had to turn her thoughts away from Dasein as she progressed up the mountain. She would catch up with him later. For now, she had to find whatever it was that the Old One was hiding from her. Even in death, he somehow continued to be the most persistent, irritating obstacle in Kimberly’s path. He and his schismists were always popping up exactly where she didn’t want them. Like in Karamelle, when they had blamed her for ruining the arcanum summit and taken every opportunity to fight her. Or right next to her space in the Wizard City allotment, getting magma from their evil magma peas all over her soil. Or now, hiding away the only thing that would allow her to make any sort of progress. She had to find it, whatever it took. Never mind the citizens of Ursai Village, never mind the kid they had sacrificed to appease the volcano. If they cared that much, they could call the squawking ghost or whatever it was called to rescue him. She didn’t have time for such petty quests anymore. And perhaps in another time, Kimberly would have been disgusted at herself for such a thought. She would have hated herself for discarding an innocent life that she could so easily save. But there were bigger things in the Spiral to worry about than one probably-dead lemur.
When she arrived, there was another figure at the top of the mountain. Not just the sacred child who had thrown himself into the caldera. It was almost as though he had been waiting for her; as though her earlier thoughts about the squawking ghost had somehow come true. He tried to get her attention as she hurried past, calling her an amateur hero and yelling something about how she shouldn’t have reinstated the barbaric wahoo sacrifice. She didn’t stop to listen to his incessant squawking, except for a second to muse on how appropriate his nickname was. He had only been trying to kill her a couple of hours ago, so quite frankly she didn’t think he had any right to lecture her about violence.
“Save it, bird-brain,” she waved a hand in his direction and a shadow sparked to life before him. It was like the opposite of light, a complete absence, a darkness so total that it eclipsed anything else in his mind. He shut his mouth. Maybe he tried to say something about how she shouldn’t be so blasé about using shadow magic, but though the thought formed in his brain, his mouth was unable to parse the words. So he just stood there, looking about as foolish as Kimberly had decided he must feel (which is to say very).
With that out of the way, she hurried onwards towards what looked like an entrance in the side of the mountain. Stairs led down into the rocky facade, revealing the location of another of the Old One’s secret laboratories. So that’s what he was hiding up here. Perfect. Hopefully she would find another of his crystals and be able to leave this place as swiftly as she entered. She had no interest in lazing around in some broken facsimile of paradise with a bunch of lost Polarian bears for the rest of eternity. If this was what it took to help her move on, to help Dasein to move on, she could handle a little breaking and entering. It’s not as if the Old One was around to care - any semblance of that man left alive after the summit was quickly being consumed by Dasein’s consciousness as it inhabited his body. And his lemurs certainly wouldn’t object. She wasn’t sure they had the spirit in them to object to… anything. All they knew was to revere the Old One, and to panic at anything else. The perfect subjects for a would-be God, she thought. Afraid of everything except the one who claimed the title of Creator. They would never doubt him, nor would they ever accept any new god that walked into their lives. They certainly hadn’t accepted her. And maybe she resented that just a little bit. The rest of the Spiral treated her with a cold sort of reverence. They weren’t kind exactly, but they looked up to her. Fearful, perhaps. She didn’t care. But here, everything was different. Everyone treated the Old One in the same way that she had grown accustomed to being treated. He was everything to them. She cursed him for doing his job so thoroughly. If he hadn’t left this place in such a state, it would be a lot easier to appease Dasein’s restless memories.
As she felt anger begin to creep up and rest its frigid hand upon her heart, Kimberly cast a quick pacify spell over herself. Nothing major, just enough to make that resentment and frustration take a backseat for the time being. She had a job to do, and she was damn well going to do it. She could curse the name of the Old One a thousand times over, just as soon as Dasein had what he needed from this place. The crystals. She had to find the crystals. She battled her way through monsters forged of lava and magical energy, cutting each one down where they stood with a swift strike of her blade and a well-placed summoning of her forest lord. It wasn’t particularly difficult to reach the heart of the mountain, and more importantly, the Old One’s lab. In no time at all, the beasts of the volcano were defeated, and she was standing before a sterile grey room lit with the streaming blue light of false reality. It was exactly like the other two that she had visited, with one crucial difference. The crystal that she found embedded into the console, instead of being green like the one in the Wildlands, was orange. The colour of fire, she thought. Makes sense that he hid it in a volcano. He had a bit of a flair for the dramatic, and that often got in the way of making more sensible plans or hiding things more effectively. If he truly didn’t want anyone to find a fire-based gem, she thought, why on Earth would he hide it in a volcano? It was just so… obvious.
Not caring about whether or not she left the equipment intact, Kimberly quickly ripped the gem from the console, shoving it into her interdimensional backpack. One of the only perks of going to school in Ravenwood, she thought, had been acquiring that backpack. It was extremely useful for carrying stuff that she didn’t think would be safe in her bare hands or the pouch on her belt. She snooped around a bit for good measure while she was in there, but she didn’t find much. A few Bunsen burners, a centrifuge, a microscope. A display with a 3D model of the Old One’s ex-boyfriend, Stallion Quartermane. All totally normal lab stuff. Nothing to see here, she thought.
She was still feeling a bit resentful towards the Old One for his treatment of the lemurs, however, so she decided to smash up some of his equipment for good measure. She found the thing that controlled the Volcano’s perceived eruptions, though really all it did was spew smoke and make the ground shake a little, and sent a burst of shadow magic directly into its core. These bears and lemurs would never have to worry about Killawahoo erupting ever again, not if she had anything to say about it. She had promised to fix this, and so that’s exactly what she was going to do. She used her sword to pierce through several consoles and display units, leaving shards of glass strewn about the floor. Some flew towards her as they burst outward, burying themselves deep into her hide. She either didn’t notice, or didn’t care.
When she was satisfied with her work, Kimberly swiftly made her way back down the mountain. She didn’t bother with the stairs or the vines or anything else intended to help travellers cross the treacherous landscape. Instead, she wandered to the edge of the caldera, extended a pair of mechanical wings from the back of her robe, and jumped. Gliding on the air currents, she made an almost-perfect landing, only stumbling for a second over the uneven, sandy ground. She was caked in blood and soot, the once-white trousers of her dashing spacesuit dyed a deep reddish grey. The stars on her cowl were hidden behind clouds of ash, and the bearfolk could just about see the shards of glass where they stuck out of her skin like knives, warning them to stay away.
“I did it,” she said dully, no emotion in her words. “I stopped Killawahoo from erupting. It won’t be bothering you again. Excuse me.” And with that, she turned on her heel, about ready to leave. Only, at that moment, Dasein materialised before her.
“Wizard!” He said, an excited smile beginning to creep across his face. “I am so glad you’re back! I have a… surprise. For you.” He stumbled over his words the same way he always did, searching for the right terms in a brain that was just learning to interact with language for the first time. “I brought you… what do you call them? What do you call me?”
“You’re my friend, Dasein,” Kimberly smiled weakly, not quite processing his words.
“Friends, exactly! I brought you… friends. That’s a nice word, friends. It has a good shape,” he pointed over Kimberly’s shoulder, towards the obelisk where the bearfolk were gathered. Except, when she looked closer, it wasn’t just bears that were gathered there. There were a couple of humanoids, but also a mantis and a bat. People that she had once known, she was sure of it.
“Kimberly!” One of the humanoids ran up to her, a necromancer, all decked out in black and purple. They looked so…familiar. “What happened? Are you alright?” She just stared blankly at them; their words weren’t getting through to her. Instead, she turned to Dasein.
“How?” She asked simply. “How’d you do it? None of these people can even see you.”
“I can,” the necromancer placed a hand on Dasein’s shoulder, proving that they could see and indeed interact with him. “Neither he nor I are of the Spiral, so we can see one another. He came to me with a request, to gather up your friends and bring them back to you. To bring you back to yourself. You’re losing yourself, Kim. We’re worried about you.”
“Losing myself?” Kimberly shook her head, voice cracking with anger and disbelief. “I am doing what needs to be done! My “self” doesn’t matter anymore, don’t you get it? I am what I need to be to save this place, to save all of you. You do not have the right to talk to me that way. Everything I’ve experienced, everyone I’ve known, has made me the way I am. You did this. You made me like this. Or have you forgotten that your abandonment of this quest is what led me here? Have you forgotten the way you LEFT ME BEHIND, picking up the pieces of your failure. When the mirror shattered, who pieced it back together? When the horn called, who took up your mantle and sailed the great beast across Starfall Sea? When Morganthe struck from the shadows and the skies began to fall, who finally defeated her? Did you even care? You stand here now, claiming to be my friend. Did you even care that Morganthe and I used to be friends? Do you know what I’ve been through since you quit? You have no right to stand there and tell me that I’m losing myself. Not when you’re the one who put me in this position to begin with. f*ck off, Duskhaven.”
The necromancer obliged, not keen to face the wrath of the Scion. Although it hurt to hear, they knew she was right. It was their fault that she had had to put herself in the position to either save herself, or the entire Spiral. It wasn’t fair, and they knew that. They had carried that guilt since the day Azteca fell, knowing that it was not only their fault that an entire world was destroyed, but that they had doomed somebody else to a fate that they had only narrowly avoided themself. Everything Kimberly had said about them was absolutely true.
“I’m sorry,” they said, turning away and heading back towards the Wildlands. They would find a world gate and head home to Darkmoor. Or maybe go and visit Micah in Empyrea. Anything was preferable to staying here.
Kimberly finally felt her spell begin toe wear off and emotions, real emotions flooded into her mind at last. They pushed out the spirit of the Paradox, the voice of Bartleby, everything else that she had been forcing herself to conform to since the moment that Azteca fell, and for just a brief flash, she was herself again. Not the Wizard, not the Scion nor the Paradox. Kimberly Earthfriend. She looked up, and saw her friends. Dasein, the Bat, Zaltanna and even Ciaran the schism soldier. Ciaran walked over to her, offering a hand.
“Lay down your weapons, and lay down with me,” he gestured to a towel he had laid out on the beach, a detail that had previously gone unnoticed by the preoccupied Scion. “We’ll stare at the sunset and think what life could be.”
She followed him over to the shore, and the rest of her companions followed. Taking a seat on the towel, the extent of her injuries finally hit her, and she winced in pain as a shard of glass dug deeper into her skin. He knelt behind her, beginning to patiently pick out every shard. While Kimberly was a far better and more practised healer than he was, he knew his way around a minor blessing or two, and fixed each one of her injuries as the glass came out. She seemed to relax a little more with every shard that he removed, as though he was pulling all the tension out of her body along with the shattered remains of the Old One’s experiments.
“Islands of memories, we’ll leave them where they lie,” the mantis placed one clawed hand on Kimberly’s shoulder, and she felt a familiar warmth flood through her. She and Zaltanna had been the best of friends back when Duskhaven first quit the group. They had gone through so much together, saving the world of Khrysalis from Morganthe’s shadowy grasp. “Could we make the choice for love and joy?”
Kimberly nodded, feeling the tears welling in her eyes. She could make a choice for love and joy. The council of light had done their job. Morganthe was gone. The elder gods were settled and the Spiral was safe. She didn’t need to be their perfect soldier anymore. She had a choice. For the first time in a long time, she really felt like she had a choice.
Ciaran and Zaltanna began to harmonise, and Kimberly thought back to the last time anybody had sung a song for her. It had been when she was just a wee fawn, wandering the Weirwood with tears in her eyes and terror in her heart. She felt almost the same now as she had back then, when Gwendolyn had found her and brought her to Caliburn for the first time, introducing her to the Order of the Silver Rose. She had sat her down in one of the empty seats around the great round table and sung her a lullaby, helping her to calm down and collect her thoughts. It was the first time she had felt as though anybody cared about her. And now, she felt like she was experiencing that first all over again.
“The moon lights a path we can travel down,” they sang, and at long last, the sun over Ursai Village began to truly set. They were no longer suspended in perpetual twilight, experiencing the passage of time at long last. They were finally free of the Old One’s eternal stasis. He had kept them docile and unassuming for so long, unable to leave their perfect paradise. Now, they had a choice. Just like Kimberly, the bearfolk finally had a choice. “River runs wild with what has gone before. Cast aside for new and more and more and more and more.” Ciaran swept his hand towards the horizon, indicating the endless possibilities that now stood before them.
Dasein and the Bat joined in now as well, though Kimberly was the only one who could actually hear Dasein. It was still comforting to know that he was there, singing along with the rest of them. The Old One had been a musicologist, after all. It made sense that the melody came to him so naturally, even with his fractured memory.
“Let me be your haven,” they sang. “Let me be your light. Sail with me across the ocean deep. Find a place for love and joy.” Kimberly was crying for real now, great heaving sobs that wracked her body and pushed out the last cobwebs spun by the shadows and the light and the nothing and the everything, allowing her to regain full control of her mind and body. The Great Tree wouldn’t like that, she thought, but she didn’t have it in her to worry about it right now. There were too many other thoughts and feelings racing through her mind for her to fret about what it would mean if she stopped being the Scion for a moment and just allowed herself to be.
The Bat sat down beside Kimberly, wrapping his wings around her. She had really missed all the time they spent in Empyrea, saving the world together from his scheming brothers and shadowy father. They had been really close for a time. “We’ve had trouble, we’ve had strife, we’ve made our plans,” he tugged down Kimberly’s cowl as he sang, running a hand through her hair and gently brushing her antlers. She sighed, resting her head on his shoulder.
Next, Dasein started to sing again, though Kimberly had to sing with him to make sure he felt properly included. She knew the others couldn’t hear him. “To march on towards the promised lands,” they sang together, a perfect harmony. The promised lands… Kimberly couldn’t help but scoff at that. Lemuria was supposed to be the Old One’s utopia. And yet, everywhere she looked, she saw only destruction and fear. She wondered how much of that had been her fault, when she pulled the world from its place in the synthesiser and allowed herself to walk amongst its people for the first time. How much of their terror had she manufactured?
“Walk with me ‘neath the rising sky.” Dasein continued, forcing Kimberly from her thoughts as his voice made itself present in her head. She smiled gratefully at him. He could sense her distress, just as she could sense his. “We will make a choice for love and joy.”
All five of them were singing together now, a bittersweet melody filled with hope for the future, yet tinged with sorrow for the past they had left behind. “The moon lights a path we can travel down. Rivers run wild with what has gone before. Cast aside for new and more and more and more and more.” They basked in the gentle glow of the full moon, gazing out at the rolling waves and feeling the softness of the white sand beneath them. Maybe they could enjoy paradise, just for a little while. “Let me be your haven. Let me be your light. Sail with me across the ocean deep. Find a place for love and joy.”
“Let me be your haven,” Ciaran smiled, a bright smile that made his whole face scrunch up. He was all aglow with genuine joy and affection, and Kimberly couldn’t help but smile back. His laughter was contagious.
“Let me be your haven,” Zaltanna held on tight to Kimberly’s shoulder, and promised that she would never let go, not for as long as the young wizard needed her.
“Let me be your haven,” the Bat held her even closer, allowing his wings to fully envelop her. He would shield her from whatever the Spiral could throw at them.
“Let me be your haven,” Dasein felt static rising as the little orbs that hovered all around him coalesced into the shape of a heart. Though the others could not see or hear him, they all felt the overwhelming sense of love that he was putting out into the world. Kimberly wished that moment could last forever, the five of them sitting peacefully on the shore of utopia, a campfire blazing behind them and the sounds of happy people laughing, eating and playing music all around. Maybe the Killawahoo festival wasn’t so bad after all, despite its disturbing roots. For just a moment, everything was perfect. They knew that it wouldn’t last, but that didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was that they were together, and together, they could take on the world.
