Starting a new thing. After the story ends for each season, Sera (my warlock) gets a story update. Hopefully, this bridges a few gaps in her story. It will also tee me up to start opening her story more as well as helps you understand where I’m writing from. @ebevkisk
A deep sense of dread hung in the air.
The Traveler had ascended to the sky. In an attempt to run or to stand sentinel over the city, she didn’t know, but as she sat in the Seraph Station watching it happen, her vigilant protection over the city felt worthless. Several minutes later, a mournful silence hung in the HELM as Sera’s best friend and her sister cried over the unmoving Exo frame that was Rasputin. A sound very familiar drifted into her ears as Mara Sov walked in next to Sera.
Sera didn’t even look. “So this was the war you spoke of. I knew you were right back then, but I had no idea of the toll it would take.”
Mara paused before speaking. “War has a way of exacting a price from every participant. Especially from those we least expect.”
Sera turned. “What is the Queen’s Mercy?”
Mara looked mildly surprised, which was a leap beyond anything she’s ever seen from Mara before. “So your memories are starting to come back.”
Sera fiddled with the mark Mara gave to her several years before when they hunted Skolas. “Not all of them, but recently, between me killing your brother, him returning as a guardian, all of these stories resurfacing, and your disappearance for a time, I’ve started to have flashes of memory and not always good ones. When I was on the Leviathan, I was reminded of a moment where we refused help to the Last City and that I’m the one who spoke against it.”
Mara nodded. “You were much different back then. You had an ice cold demeanor that even I struggle to keep most days. Your actions helped me realize how much of an open mind I must keep while still remaining objective.”
Sera paused to absorb that information. “You didn’t agree with my actions.”
Mara sighed. “We all are capable of making mistakes. At the time, both of us were in places we couldn’t call unbiased. We wanted to protect our people and stay out of conflict. We’d been hurt before. That’s the fault of all of us. We can’t see everything until it’s on top of us. To answer your question, the Mercy and the Wrath are my left and right hands. Petra is my enforcer. She hunts my enemies and wields the blade that strikes down threats that would oppose my people. The Mercy is different. The Mercy is my tactician and my consult. She offers opinions and objectiveness to act as the Reef and the City seems to be most effective and useful. You were the last Mercy because I could not trust anyone else to do the job as proficiently as you did and continue to do.”
Sera clenched her fist. “But I made so many mistakes. I closed us off.”
Mara touched her shoulder. “Life is about learning, dear. If I had known that this was where we would end up, I may have stood against you more. But at the time, no one knew the follies we were committing.”
A tear rolled down Sera’s face. Sera looked back at Ana, her best friend, still struggling with the loss of a force that she spent years with, intimately building a person that not only helped shape the Tower as it was, but was such a driving force of survival in all of their lives up to this point. Rasputin made mistakes. A lot of them. Felwinter was proof of that. In the end, though, he was struggling with the same nightmare that Mithrax struggled with, that Eido was coming to terms with, and that Sjur, Sera’s old mentor was always contending with: the will to protect a people at any cost, even if it meant dirtying your own hands in the process.
War was inevitable at this point, but Sera could still make moves and her inner circle was wide. Mithrax, Eido, Caiatl, Mara, Ana, Eris, Petra, Elsie…she had a group of true friends she had gathered since reaching the tower and Sera would not let them down.
Sera wiped the tear from her eye. “As long as the Tower and the City continue to stand strong together, I will once again be your Mercy. I will be the bridge that connects all of these factions. And I will break this Witness into tatters, even if I have to weave the threads of fate in order to do it.”
