The hammer has its path. It is inevitable and absolute.

As do humans. Only briefly do you have a window to change it.

In those brief moments, you must force the path to change.

To forge a new fate.

– Golgheim Vast, lecture to Tokyo Twice

Chapter 8 – Shackles of Aris

Toki walked forward towards Golgheim.

Golgheim's hand shot out, seizing Toki’s wrist with an ironclad grip. "You're unprepared," he declared, his voice a gruff reprimand.

Toki stumbled and barely registered his aggression before the impromptu lesson began. "What—"

"Defend yourself!" Golgheim cut her off, pushing her back as he advanced. She regained her footing and pulled her hammer from her satchel. She rolled backwards and discarded the bag.

The rush of wind hit Toki as Golgheim's hammer descended in a sudden arc, crushing the air inches from her startled form. "Focus, child!" he barked, his voice echoing in the clearing. Toki dodged to the side, her wet robe whipping around her as she narrowly avoided another of Golgheim's calculated strikes. "The future holds perils you are ill-prepared to face, and you choose to run? What cowardice!"

"Damn it, Golgheim!" she spat out, parrying a thrust with her own hammer, her slender frame tensing with the effort. "If you knew the future, why didn’t you stop it. I’m not ready.” Her accusation hung heavy between them, punctuated by the harsh rasp of handle on handle as they met.

Golgheim's brow furrowed, not with concentration on the spar but with the weight of unspoken truths. “Your anger is good, but you ask the wrong question," he conceded quietly, deflecting her rage-fueled blows with an unwavering defense, "there are tides in this war that you do not comprehend. Yet you run from the truth."

"Comprehend?" Toki's laugh was bitter as she danced back from a sweeping strike. "I comprehend that we're just food to that dragon! Why didn't you save grandmother? Why didn’t you save Oberon?" They cared for you, and I know you cared for them.

"Elara knew the stakes," Golgheim replied, his countenance somber. His hammer met hers with a resounding clash that sent reverberations singing up her arms. "She chose her path with eyes wide open, Toki. As must we all."

"Chose?" Toki hissed through clenched teeth, her flame ability flickering to life in her palm out of fury. Toki did not know its use, but it was an outlet for her mana and intent, now currently roiling at Golgheim’s words. She unleashed a flurry of blows, each one more ferocious than the last. "Or was she forced because you wouldn't act?"

Golgheim's stance remained steadfast, his movements measured as he absorbed the fury of her assault. "Sacrifices have been made," he murmured, a note of sorrow threading through his voice. "And we honor them not through vengeance, but by striving for a future where such choices need not be made. Again, you ask the wrong question!"

"Empty words from a council speaker who watches as his manasmiths fall to dragon fire!" Toki's retort was sharp.

Golgheim's tone hardened. "Question my decisions if you must, but never doubt my resolve to protect this world. Now, defend yourself!"

Golgheim's every move was a lesson. Despite her fury, Toki remembered his teachings and still learned from him now. My muscle memory and instincts come from you, Golgheim. My hammer style, too. You wear a teacher’s smile on your face, but I see through it. Why did you not fight for them?

Toki parried Golgheim's latest strike with her new enchantment. [Bindings of Tyndall] activated and took enough of Golgheim’s latest strike for her to dodge away before it shattered into mana dust. Immediately after, the clash of their handles reverberated through the air. She could feel the tension coiling in her muscles.

As they broke apart, she seized the moment to pierce the fight with a question. "Tell me!" she demanded, her voice laced with both curiosity and accusation. "Why did Dutch Eternal have such liberties!? Why was the dragon allowed to claim our people? It’s not fair. It’s not just."

"History, Toki, is not fair. You are not a child," Golgheim said as he dodged Toki’s attack. His movements were a study in controlled power. "History is often a series of consents wrapped in gilded chains. An accord was struck. An ancient bond—between myself, the Kathoric Dynasty, and the Falkori Dragons. It was a different time then, and some would consider us the aggressor."

He deflected another of her strikes with his own hammer handle, the force reverberating up her arm. "Every five years, a crafter is sent to learn from and work with the dragons. To the Dynasty, we traded our crafting exports. This was in exchange for system sovereignty for our planet. A triad of promises intended to preserve peace and give us a chance at prosperity."

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"Peace? Prosperity?" Toki spat the words like venom, leaping back from a sweeping kick, placing [Bindings of Tyndall] behind Golgheim’s anchored foot. "At what price? Crafters are dying – they aren’t learning! I saw what happened to Susie Q!"

"Yes Toki, yes. The fine print," Golgheim murmured, almost regretfully, meeting her flurry of blows with unfaltering precision, and deftly avoiding the trap. "The past is the past. You could say we lost everything. We lost our bargaining power, certainly. It allowed the Falkori to siphon our most gifted, causing our exports to lag, triggering hidden clauses in our contract. Our noncompliance opened up loopholes."

Toki paused, breath heaving, the air shimmering around her with starry flames. "You traded lives for what? How was it worth it?" Toki cast [Telekinesis] and five large stones around her levitated into the air. They shot towards Golgheim, more for distraction than damage.

"Crafters like Elara—like you—they are the lifeblood of Aris… we… I would never give them away willingly. We were strong then… but even the strongest upstarts will have to fight the universe to reach the top… still, we were strong enough to have a say." Golgheim's voice was a low thrum as he nimbly dodged the stones as they were thrown. "When that strength disappeared, the dragons' greed grew insatiable, devouring the talent we offered over time. It created fissures in our agreement, and now... now you know where we stand."

"Then what good is your contract if it means sacrificing everything we are?" Toki's voice broke with emotion. She sent another salvo of stones to create an opening.

"Sometimes," Golgheim said, deflecting another strike, his eyes dark pools of ancient sorrow, "the cost of ambition is paid in blood. Now we must navigate the treacherous balance between sacrifice and survival." Golgheim dodged four of the five stones and deflected the last with his hammer handle.

Toki's hammer arced through the air taking advantage of his wasted movement. He parried with a grimace, his movements betraying the emotional weight he had shoved deep inside. "How?" she gasped, breathless from exertion and the magnitude of her revelation. "How's that even possible. You aren’t that old. How can you be? That would make you thousands of years old. How can you expect me to believe this?"

The question hung between them like a specter. She twisted away from a disarm attempt, her own strike narrowly missing Golgheim's shoulder.

Golgheim hesitated.

His eyes revealed a sliver of the ancient being beneath the veneer of the council speaker.

"Ageless as the stone and enduring as the wind," he finally said, his voice resonating with the earth around them. "I am Aris itself! Its spirit bound to this form!" With his booming voice, the wind swirled and the air cracked as mana surged around Golgheim. “I will never defy the people of this planet because I am the planet! How would I dare?” Lightning cackled from above and the ground heaved at his steps. Rain fell at his command. An arena of earth lifted surrounding them.

Toki stumbled back, disarmed not by a strike but by the staggering power. This. This? Was this even possible? How could he BE the planet? Had grandmother known? "Then why!? Why did you not save her from the dragons? Was it because she defied you? Because she was a prime?”

Surprise flickered over Golgheim's features, quickly masked by the stoic facade of a guardian forced to make unthinkable choices. "You know of the primes," he stated, more an observation than a question. "Yes, Elara was one—she was indeed unique. But Elara desired the impossible," Golgheim replied, his guard lowering in remembrance. "She sought to rewrite destinies—not just hers, but all of Aris. Her strength was insufficient." His gaze locked onto Toki's, a silent acknowledgment of the burden now resting on her slender shoulders.

"And you gave up on her because of it?! What did she seek from you that you could not give? Is that why you let her die?" Toki demanded.

Toki stood before a planet. His presence forced her to retreat further. "I loved Elara," Golgheim confessed, "but I have loved many children of Aris. My love for her could not overshadow my duty. To forsake the many for the one would have been the truest betrayal of my purpose."

"Even when that one is... everything…," to me? The plaintive note in Toki's voice ebbed away as her inner flame surged, casting cartoonish stars around her form. A small ember compared to the violent energies encircling Golgheim.

"Especially then," Golgheim replied, his silhouette framed by intermittent lightning above. "Our choices are our legacy and our path, Toki. We must live with them, even when they carve into our hearts. That is most important when you come to reach my age. Elara knew this well. You must learn this. You must stop running."

“You have this power… you could have done it so… easily. I couldn’t even damage the dragon! Susie did it with her fucking poison cup. My enchantment was worthless before its power, just like I am now. I only dealt the killing blow.” Toki dropped to her knees and dropped her hammer. “Why do your choices hold you back. Why couldn’t you save them?” Her last words came out in a whimper against the surging power.

"Understand this," he said, his voice a somber echo. "The choices laid upon me are labyrinthine, intricate as the patterns forged into your enchantments. Each path bore thorns, and I walked the one I believed would cause the least suffering."

"Least suffering?" Toki's laugh was sharp. "Ha, how can it get worse than this? The Falkori Dragons are drowning me in legal elfshit and threaten the entire planet. My own kin plot to ensnare me, and grandmother... Obie... and now Eris… they lie dead because of what? An ancient promise?!"

"Your pain is palpable," Golgheim acknowledged, stepping back. "But consider the cataclysm that would ensue if our world defied the contract. If I defied the contract. The Kathoric Dynasty would not sit idle while their tribute is withheld. The Falkori would raze cities to cinders in their indignation."

"Then let them try!" Toki's cry reverberated off the stone walls, her starlike flame igniting with fervent intensity. "We are not chattel to be bargained with, lives to be traded at the whims of others!"

"Would you have all of Aris share in your tumultuous fate?" Golgheim's question was laced with a goading tone, his eyes searching hers for mettle. "The pact, flawed though it may be, has prevented total subjugation. Without it, we stand exposed, vulnerable to the greed of empires."

"Freedom bought with tribute is no freedom at all." Her breaths came fast and hot, misting in the cool rain as she steadied herself for another exchange.

“Then get stronger.”

“How?”

“That is the right question.”