Elwin followed his Tanaar to the gardened shore by the great lake, this time facing it from the west. Across the lake to the east, he could make out the silhouettes of the campus buildings, the floating villas of House MANASURA, and of great columns beneath the cliffs where he witnessed the power of Maximus and his Quan; where he resolved to obtain such a power.

Professor Aionia stopped, took off her hood, and turned to face him a distance away.

“There is something deep down that troubles you, something more than just Lucian, that gave you that broken heart. Can I know what it is?”

Elwin fidgeted and jogged a loose stone away from his feet.

“It’s nothing, Professor. What I told the headmaster was all there was.”

Elwin, like almost any other boy, was afraid to admit or express that which he felt, that which made him suffer, because every time he did so the world threw stones at him. So he became very skilled at bottling away things which drove him to despair and anger, until it threatened to consume his being. And consume him it did, in the events of yesterday; and also today, which would have taken his life. But Professor Aionia continued to look at him, and in many ways her eyes were deeper and more frightening than the headmaster’s. There was a depth to them that no one he knew could possibly match, not even Professor Thales. It did not mean her eyes were pooled only with sorrow or despair; there was joy and elation, of triumph and tragedy, an ocean of emotion and experience reflected in one being as stars in the forever sky. Under that celestial gaze, the walls that Elwin built around himself began to fracture.

“Why do you insist, Professor?”

“Because if I do not, one day the shadow of your soul shall prevail.”

“What shadow?”

“That is for you to tell.”

There was no arguing with a question of such force, and Elwin relented. With a frustrated sigh, he began.

“It’s just... It’s that I know what I did was wrong. I understand Headmaster Abraxas. And surely I can’t object to my Quan being taken away, because I hurt others. And what he said about the world judging people by the consequences of their actions... I must buy it, because that’s how the world is supposed to be. But I cannot shake off the feeling that this is all so... unfair. Wouldn’t you agree, Professor?”

Professor Aionia listened quietly.

“I was only defending my father! Why does nobody understand? Why doesn’t anyone even try to understand? Headmaster Abraxas tells me he understands, but, but –”

Elwin raised his voice, “but if he truly cared about Carl Eramir, if he truly respected the courageous figures of experimental philosophy, he would have delivered Lucian the same magnitude of punishment I received!”

“He said in his opening speech that actions triumph over words. But from what I’ve seen – if I’m to understand this correctly – Headmaster Abraxas either does not mean what he says, or he never was my ally. And there is nothing more in the world I hate than people who pretend to be good, oh-so good.”

Professor Aionia offered her take.

“What is your point therefore?”

“I want justice.”

“Justice?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.

“Yes,” Elwin replied. “The world seldom offers any justice. I don’t know what happened to Mirai, but I just keep dreaming this trial, this thing where her family was framed... forget that, I know for a fact that officers of the Order are as cruel as people can be. So what’s up with this farce, with our world that offers no justice? Are we mere animals?”

“What kind of justice do you wish, and how will you administer it?”

“What I just said, Professor! I mean, I want Lucian to learn that it is wrong for him to defile the heroes of our past.”

“What of every person in the Republics who harbors ill-resent towards such figures? Will you administer the same justice to them all?”

“No, I meant only for Lucian – yes, I...”

Professor Aionia spoke.

“A definition of justice must be consistent in order to be fair to everyone. One cannot go free while the other is punished if they commit the same crime. If you wish to apply this justice upon Lucian, you must have the will to impose that same justice upon everyone who deserves that justice.”

“I... I guess so,” Elwin replied, lowering his head in the implication of his statement.

“So tell me then,” she continued, “will you administer the same justice to them all?”

And with that statement Elwin’s heart was shaken. He was so willing, so frenzied to convince people to punish Lucian because Lucian hurt him and pained him as long as he could remember... but what if it was someone else? If Isaac disagreed with him on the opinion of Carl Eramir... if Katherine or Mirai did, would Elwin be so keen to punish them? Would he have the heart, no, lack of heart to do so? He couldn’t say, and his head began to boil with frustration.

“Why are you interrogating me with these questions? You are saying the exact same things that the headmaster did!”

“I ask because I wish to get to the roots of why you wish this justice.”

Elwin raised his voice without thinking.

“I’ve already told you! Is it so hard for the world to at least acknowledge that Lucian did a bad thing, instead of spiraling into existential questions that I don’t care about?”

“My point being,” Professor Aionia replied, “that whenever people speak of punishing another person for their crime, to hold them accountable for their actions, they must ask whether such a rule or law is fair to everyone involved, and be prepared to defend how such punishment can be administered.”

“What does that mean for me?” Elwin shot back, gesturing wildly.

“You are certainly free to speak of justice without these criteria, but if you do speak without preparing to be responsible for lives which shall change due to your speech, do not dare shroud your argument in the veil of intellectual honesty.”

“I –”

“Many through history have extended their personal prejudices to the domain of law, in the guise of fairness, and have taken millions of innocent lives from this world. So declare clearly to me whether your argument for justice stems from your selfless desire for good, or from a wish to correct personal grievances.”

Stolen novel; please report.

Elwin sighed and lowered his head. He could hide no longer.

“Personal grievance.”

“Is it your father?”

“Yes,” he looked away.

“Elwin,” Professor Aionia spoke, stepping closer, “It is not the duty of the world to sympathize with every person’s conflict and deliver them freedom. If you cannot change the world, you must change yourself. It will consume you otherwise.”

Not this again. It was the same thing that Headmaster Abraxas implied.

‘Be stoic.’

‘Don’t feel.’

‘Change yourself.’

Words thrown casually around like a stone, not caring for where it will land.

Elwin had enough of such moralizing.

“You say as if it is something so simple and easy to do. I tried. I tried so hard, and it’s just not. I’m not like you, okay? I’m not like everyone blessed out there who can weather the rain and wind like they’re generals and presidents. I’m not such material. I can’t brush off what I feel as easily as everyone does!”

He tried to stem the tide of his frustration, but could not. It swelled up inside him like a wave amidst a thunderstorm.

“You speak the same thing the headmaster said. I thought you wanted to hear what I have to say. I thought you wanted to help me. You knew my father, Professor, you knew my father! Out of all people, you should be the one to agree with me, to defend me! If you didn’t experience the loss that I have, the best you could do is at least nod along, and not criticize my share of suffering.”

“Elwin, I am –”

“Instead, you keep moralizing about things I should or should not do, or what I should or should not speak. Why are you speaking to me of such things? How could you possibly have the right to say such things? WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY HAVE GONE THROUGH TO KNOW HOW AND WHAT I FEEL?!”

And in an instant, Elwin knew he had said a terrible, terrible thing. He glanced up fearfully at the eyes of his Tanaar, and witnessed a sorrow so intense that it would have devoured anyone who had them; he remembered back at The Marlin when he first saw Professor Aionia, that she had eyes like his mother’s, that she had eyes like his, that she was no stranger to suffering. Upon this remembrance Elwin clutched his chest and crumpled to the ground.

Why am I like this? Why do I always say things I come to regret? Why do I make friends and drive them away? Why do I condemn those who try to help? Why am I so bad at being good? Why, why, why, WHY?!!!

He lost his kismets the same way. And now he would lose Professor Aionia too, his only bastion and ally in this world that was indifferent and unkind. He hated every fiber of his being; he despised himself for who he was, for what he was, that disgusting, pitiful figure who could not throw off the yoke of his own demons, his own past. He began to retch, trying to muster tears which wouldn’t come, pounding the cold hard earth until his fists went numb.

Professor Aionia beheld her student in front of her, that figure, and in the waning light of night, saw for who Elwin was: he was herself as she once was. It was not that Elwin had said such a thing, or thrown such a poisonous question that filled her with sorrow; it was instead seeing him unable to choose his own path, unable to free himself, what impossible strength it required for him to decide otherwise.

She would not abandon him.

And thus she spoke.

“Elwin, it is never in my desire to trivialize your suffering, or to demean it, or to insist that it has no right to exist. Witnessing you upon this night, to hear the quivers of your broken heart, tells me all I need to understand. I have experienced similar things once, but I shall not tirade it here to darken the light of the moon. This is your journey, your story, after all.”

Elwin brushed his eyes and looked up, as if her words were divine miracle.

“Elwin, do you know who it is that witnessed you in the exam hall to the great streets of Lumière, to your defense of Toto, and your sacrifice for Isaac?”

His voice came out in jittery wisps.

“The... witness in my acceptance letter?”

“Yes.”

Elwin gulped. It was as if a stone was in his throat. “...Who was it?”

“It was me. I witnessed you that day capable of doing something that no one could, a singular action that reignited my hope for the world.”

His eyes went wide, and one by one, droplets of tears began to descend from them – the revelation of his secret benefactor began to chip away at the walls he built for his soul to keep those out. So it was – it was –

“Do you also know of who it was that sat by me at your inn, The Marlin?”

“Doctor... Doctor Braus?”

“It was Headmaster Abraxas.”

Elwin shook his head. All this time, all this time, he was – they were –

“All this time, you were never alone. There were people who trusted and cared deeply for you, who had faith that when the chance arose, you would do the right thing. We gave you the train ticket to the capital because we wished to give you a chance – a chance to pursue the meaning of your name, to leap over that barrier called your past.”

Elwin continued listening, unable to stem the tide of his tears.

“Isaac still trusts you. Mirai does also, and Katherine as well. Your separation caused them great grief, and they wish to be together with you again, although they do not know how. You do not have to weather your sorrows alone.”

Elwin stuttered a question, in a maelstrom of crazed disbelief and elation that pierced the heavens.

“But how... in my state... how can I ever redeem myself to the Academy? To Aeternitas? Everyone knows I committed my actions in the name of my father... how can I remake his image, my father, he –”

“Tell me, are you Carl Eramir, or Elwin Eramir?”

The question pierced Elwin’s soul like a flaming spear, and lit in him a possibility he had never imagined.

“Elwin, your father was a great friend of mine. He was a man of great enterprise and dignity, a man who gave himself to defending this world against evil. So when he passed away, when news of his expedition came, I prayed a month for his spirit so that he may pass the trials of the MAHA, on a safe sojourn back to the cosmos. I provided what I could into his pension at the Institute of Atomionic Philosophy until a need elsewhere could no longer sustain it. The sorrow of losing such a kindred human being darkens the world.”

“And so trust me that I can envision the depth of your despair. You must have been young and alone in this wild, unfathomable world when your father was taken away from you, were you not?”

“...yes.”

“And the only road out of that great a loneliness was to make yourself in your father’s image, to become Carl Eramir, because as long as someone cherished and defended him, he would never be gone. Am I correct?”

“...yes.” His voice began to break.

“You took such a heavy task upon your heart despite your age... until he cast too long and great a shadow onto your being. He still does. There is not only love in his absence, but also a mountain of resentment, that which you have so far kept drowned under the weight of your being.”

“...”

“You are unable to breathe freely not because people denigrate your father’s image, but because you seek to be yourself, to carve out a new path for yourself, a wish to prove yourself, but you are unable to do it in the shadow of your father, and you find no way out of it.”

Yes, Elwin affirmed.

Yes, all of that was true.

The illusion which he dared not admit to himself, the apostasy which he could not possibly commit since it would break his spirit, was finally, at last in nearly a decade, uttered by someone else. The core of his soul always wanted to be free of his past, to be free from his chains, but could never find a way to do so. Every day he would get into trouble with his school, because Lucian and his gang so easily preyed on Elwin’s weakness: that he as Elwin pretended to be Carl... It was the only way for him to survive, and that wounded his soul until it was huddling by the corner, weeping for help, weeping for a savior, a last light upon the earth.

“At Cita de Lumière, I witnessed your true character shine through that abyss. There is such capacity for empathy and goodness in your heart, and that is the reason why I championed for your admission to Aeternitas.”

“It is time to leave behind who you are not, and become who you are: Elwin Eramir.”

With his Tanaar’s words the chains that bound his soul to his father and past became undone, shattering into a hundred pieces, their clanks upon the earth of his mind as resonant and beautiful as the first song sung by humankind. The dam that held back all he was, all he wanted to be, and all he felt crumbled and broke, and forth rushed a thunderous river of fervor and sentiment.

Elwin Eramir crumpled and began to cry sorrowfully; his tears moistening the earth beneath his feet, the sounds of his cries echoing across the forests and the hills. Not wishing him to be alone, Professor Aionia took him in her arms and embraced him; he sobbed into the shoulders of his Tanaar, all his body heaving with the existential joy of finally being understood, to experience for the first time that paradise called freedom.

His soul, at last, could breathe again.

She brushed his head with her fingers.

“Your tale may have started with sorrow, but it has no right to chain the shape of your soul. It is the rest of the tale you write – who you choose to be. Where you can go now is for you to decide.”

Slowly, the Sun was rising over the horizon.