A Dream

“I can’t cure you,” I would tell her, and she would always lament with sadness in her voice.

“I know. I knew you would say that but…”

“Yet. I can’t cure you yet, but I promise I will be back. And I will find a way for you to open your eyes again without being afraid.” She smiled at my blind hope, but accepted her perceived reality.

“Even if that’s a lie, thank you for trying.”

“It’s not a lie…” I protest, yet she accepts her fate to my dismay.

“What are you saying, Na? You always tell everyone that you’re a liar, so was that a lie too? But it’s okay. As long as I can stay here, as long as no one else gets hurt, I am fine. It was foolish of me to hope for more in my life, anyway…” And so I wake once more.

That same dream, or rather memory, had recurred to me repeatedly over the several months I spent unsealing that old vault where it had taken place in. The somnolent events started when the cure for 10666 came my way, and they only intensified the more I breathed in the crypt’s fumes. The promise I had made to that girl, as well as the memory of that horrible day, they were what drove me forward on a seemingly mindless and over-bearing quest to free a stranger from her shackles. It nearly drove me mad from the exhaustion, but, after much perseverance, all the pieces to the puzzle of a most peculiar and dangerous anomaly fell into place. All of them save one.

Alas, the toll for that final piece was heavier than I had anticipated. It required the essence of compassion: a pure energetic infusion of the stuff to place inside the tincture of release. There were only a few places I could acquire such an element; and, while one was willing and immediately accessible, I hesitated to take the offerer up on her proposal.  I did not wish to risk the well-being of my daughter; no matter how much she desired to help when she found out the truth. Instead, I swallowed my pride and distrust for the divine – at least temporarily – and went pursue an audience with the one person in all of Revaliir who represented the domain of love: the red haired mother herself.

Angela, the deity who I sometimes referred to as Red Fish because of her hair color, was not really a friend of mine per say when I finally went to go visit her for the first time since my stay in Revaliir. It is in my nature to distrust all deities, after all, and Ol’ Red Fish was no exception. Yet Angela, despite my misgivings about the power she possessed, had always been forthright and evenhanded in her minimal dealings with me. She had also healed me just enough to be able to hug my beloved Robin after the battle against Sardon; so perhaps, just this once, I could trust her enough to step into her home.

In actuality, it wasn’t as hard of a trip as I might have made it out to be either. The arrival was relatively uneventful, but only because traveling to different planes, for me, had become as simple as breathing thanks to my millennia of practice. The red-headed goddess also wasn’t particularly stringent about her entry procedures, so, while the main entrance to Elysia was still through the soul stream, it was far from the only entrance. One minute I was at the vault entrance in the highlands, and the next I was on the blindingly colorful shores of the Gardens of Devotion.

Tired and ragged, I stood there in the dunes of sea glass, watching the waves of twilight as other visitors to Angela’s realm passed me by on their way to the carriages. Some even tried to talk to me, but I was too preoccupied with the object in my hands to pay them any heed. It was a music box: one of ornate and multi-cultural origin. The piece was something I had handmade for the express purpose of freeing 10666, each section slightly different than the others; and the music I had carefully planted inside of it was from all walks and corners of civilization. I had tenderly tuned the item, preparing it for the role it was soon to play, and now I just needed the final ingredient of compassion to complete the artifact. For that, I called to Angela on her beach, not wishing to step further into her realm just yet.

“No doubt you already know that I’m here, Angela,” I began while finally allowing the music box to rest. “No, the world is not ending (yet at least). I am here because I require a pure, condensed blessing of compassion infused into the music box I hold, and I have come to bargain for that within reason. I offer information for mercy, provided, of course, that you are asking for secrets that I am allowed to tell.”