@astrodyn " thank you ... for everything. " : ' ) / ( four word sentence starters )
there is something to be said about grief, tangled up in the deep purgatory of time; of where zodiark sleeps, a vestige of mankind’s sacrifice and an echo of their desperation. mangled in the ever encroaching dark, sacrifices bled into the star but never returned: forever at journey's end, hythlodaeus spent millennia neither truly living or dead, unable to find closure in the poignant, restless sorrow of his friends, or the many others, who offered themselves up in the same heroic sacrifice.
there was a time where hythlodaeus believed most of all his belief was his strength— and at the heart of it, that was his unmaking. to his cantankerous friend, soul trembling with pain, the hard lines of his face sunken but resolute— hythlodaeus, in the shade of ashen skies and echoes of pain, believed his greatest contribution to his friends' dreams would be to believe in a world where the people he loved would be able to continue on living.
could his traveler, palms bruised from the toil of saving all she could scarcely save, find an answer they could not? hythlodeaus was never able to know. and in the long, long stretch of time, knowing not what survived or endured of his world, shattered into shards— he too, became adrift in a sea that would not claim him— only erode at the sun until it was difficult to recall what sunshine even was.
so when a familiar quiver of light shone on the desolate side of the moon, however faint, it was if the wave of stillness finally rushed into him, flooding his senses with that same, heart-felt shine.
to his new old friend, who he knew, but didn’t, and yet it didn't matter— to stars still burning in her eyes; an echo even after the stars have died out, yet aflame even brighter. to the last vestige of a friend, burdened yet again by the duty of walking a path alone but sure of her footing all the same, he puts that same faith in her, now, to free him too, at last.
at last, little shard of metis who has endured, who carries on— who is now tethered to a world of new friendships, new loves, new wishes. hythlodaeus believes for one last time.
" thank you... for everything, " she says, and if his form hadn't been worn down by time, she might've caught his smile.
" no, my new old friend, thank you. "
ah, if only he was a little stronger. it's been so long since they've both gone an adventure. but look there, in the distance— it is no longer metis, turning back to him with eyes full to bursting with curiosity, but serafina moving ever forward— and there, at the crest of the world, she has new friends there to meet her.
