“It’s okay, you’re going to be okay,” the Demon Lord said.
Joan wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. The Demon Lord wasn’t a demon now, but she’d recognize him anywhere. His face wasn’t the same, but the way he moved, the smile on his face, so many tiny, itty bitty… wait.
No. None of it was the same. The more she watched him, the more she realized it didn’t seem like him. The face, if anything, more closely resembled the Hero. His movements, those little quirks, they were similar. But not the same. There was no hint of maliciousness. No hidden cruelty. No boredom or exhaustion that seemed to spill out into his movements, either. Yet she knew it was him. She could feel it, all the way to her core.
“Of course you can,” the fate said. “If ever there was a soul you knew well, it was Arta’s. After all, the two of you all but shared one. Of course, that’s not the only reason you recognize him. You see through my eyes and there is something else you can see that you are resisting.”
Was there? There wasn’t--
Oh, there was. And now that she was aware of it, she couldn’t help but notice there really was something else there. Something else about the Demon Lord that she could feel. She could see. Something that terrified her. Something she, desperately, wanted to not look at. She found herself struggling to avoid it, while also struggling to look at it. Something about it was terrifying. Yet familiar.
It was the Hungry One. Could she see it? Was it--
“It is,” the fate said. “You will need to see it eventually, if you truly desire to end this. To end it.”
Joan hated it, but she knew she had to. She stopped fighting and looked at Arta, even as he held the wounded girl, trying to bring her comfort and wash away her fear as others healed her.
Joan could see his thread, the toxic purple and the glimmering silver. More, she could see the source of the purple.
She recognized it. She’d SEEN it.
The Hungry One. Or, as its statue had written when she had first traveled into the Realm of the Gods, the Corrupter of Weavers.
More than that, though, she could see the creature in a way she couldn’t before. She knew what it was. Who it was. But it wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible.
Eight massive legs, leaking… she’d almost have called it fluids, but that wasn’t right. Souls? The souls of those bound to it. Trapped in it. Feeding it. The threads of fate that it tainted and coiled around itself, supporting its damaged, crumbling frame. The wounds across its body were brutal, yet still it sustained itself.
She could see Arta’s very soul, wrapped in those toxic webs, trying to escape, trying to fight off the focus of the foul creature. Were he anything but the Champion, he likely would have fallen long ago. But even like this she could see it was a losing fight.
But that wasn’t all Joan could see. The Hungry One, a god so dark and vile that its very children threatened this world. But it was a god, wasn’t it? It had to be. It couldn’t be both a… both a…
“How can something be both a fate and a god?” the fate asked. “It is quite the confusing existence, is it not? How could something like that exist? But no, you’re not wrong. The Hungry One was a fate, once. But they denied their own existence, refused to accept their own end. They gorged on the souls of this world and became something… vile. Broke the very rules they were meant to keep sacred.”
If Joan could, she would have collapsed to the ground. If they were a fate, then how could they be killed? Of all the things that the Hero had slain, a fate had never been amongst them. Could one be slain? Could--
“All things must die,” the fate said. “Even us. It is no longer a fate of any kind. It is now nothing more than a dying god. Struggling desperately to destroy this world. To gorge itself and undo what has been done to it.”
Joan would have shivered if she had a body, but instead all she could do was watch the Demon Lord. Arta. The Hungry One infecting his soul with every second.
------
“What’s your name?” Arta asked, giving the small, bandaged child the same kind of smile that Owain had always tried to make when he wanted to comfort someone. Trying to seem strong, confident. Even though, inside, he’d always known there was so little he could do to truly bring comfort after all the pain he’d failed to stop. She didn’t like seeing someone else bearing that smile.
“Elise, but… everyone calls me Elly,” the girl said. Joan didn’t know why she’d expected the girl to say ‘Joan’. It wasn’t like Joan was her soul’s name. Did souls have names?
“Not usually,” the fate said. “A few do, but that is usually an exception. Disappointed?”
Maybe she was a tiny bit. She wondered how many times she’d been ‘Joan’.
“Well, Elly,” Arta said. “Do you know who I am?”
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“You’re the Champion,” Elise said and, there it was. That small bit of hope and trust. She’d said that name the same way that they’d always said the ‘Hero’. “You’re going to rescue them, aren’t they? My parents? Everyone?”
“Of course,” Arta said.
“You promise?” Elise asked.
“On my life,” Arta said.
“Arta,” a voice said, one filled with annoyance. It took Joan a moment to realize it was Penthe’s. Younger. Less scarred. No toxic veins. She grabbed Arta by the shoulder and dragged him away. “We don’t have time for this. We need to find the Nameless One, now.”
“Come on, Penthe,” Arta said in a friendly, casual tone with a smile that Joan recognized FAR too well. It was the same one Owain had always used when he was going to try and sweet talk one of the Chosen into either letting him do something stupid, or helping him do something stupid. If she had been able to make a face she was pretty sure it would have been oddly similar to the annoyed one that Penthe was now making. “We can’t just leave them.”
“We don’t have much choice,” Penthe said. “The Chosen are waiting for us. In case you forgot, you have a time limit.”
“I can barely feel it,” Arta said. “There’s still plenty of time. We--”
“The sooner we can find the Nameless One, the sooner we can end this cycle,” Penthe said. “The longer you’re here, with that… thing inside you, the longer it has to try and take over. How much longer do you think you can fight it?”
“As long as it takes,” Arta said, the smile fading from his lips. “You can’t ask me to just ignore them. They’re right in front of me. It’ll just take a day, maybe two. A week, tops.”
“That’s what the Nameless One wants,” Penthe said bitterly. “How many more times do you think they’ll do this? How many more ‘days’ will you waste? It--”
“It’s never a waste helping those who need it,” Arta said. “And… if it comes down to it, I know you’ll stop me. I know the Chosen will stop the Nameless One even if they have to do it without me. But right here, right now? Those people need me. I won’t, I can’t, leave them behind.”
“You have to,” Penthe said.
“And yet I won’t,” Arta said before turning around and glancing back towards the child. “Besides, I made a promise. I can’t break a promise, now can I? What kind of Champion would I be, then?”
“He broke his promise,” the fate said.
As if time had leaped forward, Joan could see it. Arta kneeling, surrounded by the bodies of the fae. She could see all those sacrificed.
She didn’t need to see his thread to know how he felt, she had been there far, far too many times as the Hero. Moments he’d arrived just a little too late. An hour. A day. A minute. When he had let down the people who’d depended on him, trusted him, believed in him. It wasn’t the worst part, though.
That came moments later when Elise realized that she’d be alone. When she realized that the Champion had failed. When she’d lost everyone she’d ever known, loved, had loved her.
By the gods she didn’t want to see this anymore. She’d been there too many times. She knew what it was like to be the only survivor, to lose everyone you cared about. The guilt, the shame, the fear. She knew exactly the pain Elise felt now. But she also knew the pain that Arta felt. To know that, despite everything you’d done, that you’d left this poor soul alone. That sense of failure. Those moments where you wondered if you had just been a bit faster, a bit quicker. Maybe if you’d just wasted a little less time, made one less joke, run just a little faster, things would have been better.
“So is that why you constantly almost get yourself killed?” the fate asked.
Probably. If the choices were always being stressed, always being exhausted, always being on the verge of collapse…
Or hearing those sobs, those screams, that wailing from Elise? From the many, many people like her?
She’d always take the former.
“A foolish thought,” the fate said. “Ignoring this would have been smarter. Going straight after the Nameless One would have been the wiser choice.”
Easy for the fate to say, when she--
“That doesn’t necessarily mean it was the correct choice,” the fate said. “Nor that any of us would see the ripples this would create across the tapestry. So much happened, then. But… very little of it mattered. Odd, though.”
What about it was odd?
“You’ll see.”
------
More glimpses of their lives were shown. The countless battles. The victories. The defeats.
But also what happened with Elise. A child like her couldn’t just be left to fend for herself. Especially not when the Champion already felt such shame for his ‘failure’ to keep his promise. But she also couldn’t just come with them. Not where they were going. So she’d been sent to the Champion’s home. Where she’d remained, surrounded by the powerful, the strong, the brave, the noble. Where she stayed, heartbroken and, in many ways, shattered.
Blaming herself for surviving. If only she’d asked the gods to save her family, not her. It was the same kind of twisted logic that Joan recognized well. Twisting her own guilt into a weapon to stab herself with. Allowing herself to see the deaths of everyone as not just an unfortunate incident… but as entirely her fault.
“I did warn you that this was what your soul once was,” the fate said.
That wasn’t exactly comforting.
Of course, when she realized what was coming, Joan felt another rush of dread wash over her. Oh no.
“Yes,” the fate said. “The moment that your thread intersected, once more, with that of the Nameless One’s. Amazing, honestly. That such a single adjustment could have such a dramatic effect on the tapestry. The Nameless One’s fate had always been known to us… and yet… its course was changed.”
Changed? How?
“All thanks to a single meeting with a young child… somewhat,” the fate said. “A child, who in a fit of grief, of self loathing. Of fear of losing the little bit of a home that she still held… came up with a small lie.”
“My name is Elise,” Elise said, trying to speak with the courage she didn’t feel in the slightest when she looked the servants of the Nameless One in the eyes. “I am the daughter of the Champion.”