maybe it’s POV bias but I always feel like the void arc ended when planet decided to void ban himself. I guess you can argue that the void ponies motive was already incredibly meta—trying to get people to log on—without planets involvement but definitely not to this extent. it suddenly becomes more, not just about people not logging on but why they don’t log on. kids grow up, and when they grow up it is natural that they move on. some move on faster than others, and sometimes someone you really love can leave you behind because that’s just what they have to do. zam and bacon consider this for a while, but do just end up scrambling for a conclusion. there’s no move made to incorporate planet and his ban into the narrative, in spite of how effective it was in inspiring them to give the server hope. and that’s because there is no real way to give it the weight it deserves. it took the story in an unprepared direction that neither zam or bacon possess the medium to address, unless they end the server for real, of course. and as much of a lovely story I’ll always see the void arc to be, i can acknowledge it was never going to end in any satisfying manner.
The light just now… Of course. And thus I am returned…
A light that illuminates the way in darkest despair.
In the depths of Troia's dungeon, we found an unexpected ally. The last of Her Light responded to that tormented, dark-robed figured. A Light that grew, as Zero relearned how to live, how to trust - and how to believe. Until with the help of her friends, she became the Light her world needed, a beacon of hope that the darkness will one day be lifted.
The Espeon purred, waving his tails. "Who are you? Well, that's easy! You're you, who else would you be, silly?" He giggled, then tilted his head. "Are you feeling okay? You didn't hit your head or anything, did you?" ~Shine (@sometimes-jumping-through-hoops)
I can't exactly feel anything so I don't believe I have hit my head, why am I somewhat transparent? ( @sometimes-jumping-through-hoops )
(Hey it's the practically tradition, annual future fic! Spoilers for Endwalker's patch storyline.)
“Did you want the radio on this morning?” Tillie asked as she set out breakfast.
“Please,” Iyna answered, easing herself into her chair. Her right leg was stiff and aching this morning thanks to a shift in the weather. Even Viera grew old eventually, though she had never expected to be one of them with all the adventures and danger she had been through in her long life.
Tillie turned on the radio, the morning host going over said weather report while Iyna ate. There were also the morning’s newspapers to peruse. She liked to keep a few subscriptions rotating, to see where the biases were and who she had to write stern letters to.
Well, dictate to her assistant. Her handwriting was still shite, and her typing skills weren’t as good as they used to be. Her wrists and fingers ached too easily these days.
The weather report ended, with a brief word from the morning’s sponsor—some chocolatey beverage powder—and the next forty-five minutes of music began before general news. There was a brief identification of the song title and singer if it had lyrics, but otherwise the announcer remained silent.
Iyna was chewing on jam-covered toast when notes she had not heard in decades struck her ears. They had none of the magic of the old minstrel’s performances—regulations wouldn’t allow it for many good reasons—and there was a modern stylizing, but the song was unmistakably one of his, commemorating and embellishing on one of the Warrior of Light’s victories.
She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. It had all begun with a map they hadn’t been sure was real. They had found the treasure—and a gateway to the Thirteenth, and thus had begun a new adventure: to search the Void to find the lost Great Wyrm Azdaja, sister to Vrtra, the Satrap of Radz-at-Han.
They had not expected the twists and turns along the way. Had not expected Zero, or the Fiends, or Golbez. None of them had expected Zeromus, and the dive into Golbez’s domain on the moon’s reflection to fight the draconic voidsent.
Iyna remembered how close it was; the cracks in reality between the Thirteenth and the Source, the creature’s rage as it hammered them again and again with draconic void magics. Lotus draped over C’oretta’s head as she flopped to the ground. Dark had her axe that day, standing before the others, heaving and snarling as the darkness attempted to reconstitute. Aeryn straightening, rapier ready, about to rush in again. Zero’s hopeful light, able to pierce the deepest darkness. Vrtra’s call. The simulacra falling as a small dragonet manifested with the help of her brother’s Eye.
The song was coming to an end. “Who was the artist?” Iyna asked. “I missed it.”
“I don’t think they said yet,” Tillie replied. “Probably after, before they introduce the next one.”
Iyna nodded, and listened for the announcer. She smiled as he identified the modern artist as Nadim Ranaz, commemorating the two hundredth anniversary of Lady Azdaja’s return with a new rendition of the classic ballad. Ranaz was also a distant blood relation to the Warrior of Light, and his musical interests included rediscovering and modernizing the songs and ballads of his many-times-removed cousin, to spread and preserve them in the current era.
“It’s been some time since I’ve visited Thavnair,” Iyna mused. “Tillie, would you—”
“On it,” her assistant replied, pulling up contact information and beginning arrangements.
Two hundred years. Azdaja no longer needed her brother’s Eye, her own aether replenished, though she still had plenty of regrowing to do to reach her full power again. It would be nice to visit the dragons, to speak of old times, of old friends, and reminisce about that wild era before seeing the fruits of their labor in the peace and prosperity of modern Thavnair.
Iyna would also have to make a visit to Ranaz, sharing her carefully kept copies of the old minstrel’s songs—most of them from Aeryn’s own extensive collection.
Both of her old friends would like that. That wandering minstrel had only ever wanted to share his stories with the world, and Aeryn’s own bardic nature, so oft at war with her tendency to demure her heroics, would appreciate the songs being passed to a new generation.
After all, Iyna’s own self-appointed task as keeper of her friends’ legacies meant keeping those tales and their truths circulating for as long as she was able. To keep their memories alive in not only her heart but the rest of the world’s.
She wasn’t out of the fight yet.
She also was not at all the singer that Dark or Aeryn had been, but hummed a few bars anyway as she left the kitchen to prepare for her next adventure.
