The Year of Ascension
Have you ever heard of the phrase “The first day of the rest of your life?” I always took it to be a halfway dramatic statement to be given by somebody as they turn over a new leaf and pretend they’re a new person, that their life up until that point is somehow irrelevant. Their deeds, their choices, their sins, washed away in their own eyes because they’ve convinced themselves this new choice of theirs is the only one which matters - after all, it is the first one they have ever made, is it not? I do not believe such a thing is possible. Recent events have given me a particular perspective on this... That even when our body is gone, our name forgotten, we live on, with memories intact. The man, or men; who have shown me this truth can personally attest.
Yet despite all my objections, I can understand the comfort of the sentiment. I sit here now, in my own chair in my own home, and somehow I feel renewed.
My name is Cyrus Aeadon Neveris.
That is not the name I was born with, I was born Aeadon Halcyrus Neveris, and over the course of my life I have crossed the paths of both my namesakes. One who took the form of disturbed earth and decorated stonework taught me what I had to do to reach this stage of my life. The other, reaching from beyond a veil no person living may perceive, has shown me what I must do with the rest of my life, for the hope of the future. How I may alter the fate of this world.
The power before us is enticing, it draws us, and I know that one day it will either claim us or we it. There is simply no other outcome. We will either scale the gilded steps of the Halls or end as charred bone at their base like so many others.
But that pursuit is for the future. Annaveil and I: in our struggles to survive the present we’ve pushed that future far afield, and the peaceful lull is one I welcome. I feel old, journal, I confess it. I ache where I’ve never ached before, my scars itch. My hands, feet, they’re sore. I wake in the morning to a world gone grey until my eyes adjust and I perceive colors again... and my mind. Months of constant alert have left me so very weary. Aye, I’m grateful for the rest. For this time with my family, my mother and brother and wife and my children. Even my sister in law and good old Fran, I’m overjoyed to see them as well... and Bear. Of course he cannot go without mention. I love them all dearly, with every fiber of my being.
Aye, the peace is welcome, but not for a moment do I allow myself to forget that there are yet answers I direly need, solutions to the riddles branded throughout the inside of my skull, that vex the mind and cause me to seek respite and understanding from the ghosts of the past. With none forthcoming.
Before that, I need finish my fathers work... Or rather see that another does. Before I leave these shores I must know that Kryta will be freed in the coming purge. It rankles me still, to have come so close to the key and having it slip through my fingers. Jude, the spitting image, will be found again. Once I have him, he will be brought to the Levin adrift and from there she need only follow her nature. I fear the cost of the revelation that I have always known who she is, but enough time has been lost in this wait. From there, the rest is smoke and mist. I do not even know the way to the Rock, all I know is that someday Annaveil and I will stand before it, and in that moment Atalas will shatter itself, and the stars will be brought towards me.
For the future.
Until the future comes, peace. Quiet. Joy of family. For a time.
