FH 57, Summer. The Crystal Spire.

A week later Arkaziel, Bobbi, Lilith, Telos, Kallos, and I sat in the yard of the Crystal Spire. The trees provided ample shade, the wind whispered against their leaves, and it felt like the whole universe kept holding its breath.

“We’re leaving the house to you two. Including our ghosts,” Kallos said while she smiled at Lilith and me.

“Your ghosts?” I asked for clarification immediately. They weren’t going to die, why would there be ghosts?

“You know, recordings, really. In case any of you ever want to talk to us. It’s more like a phone that we’ll answer, with an illusion projection. It will only work in the Spire, though.” Telos answered the question and ruffled my hair, amused at my reaction.

“It’s significantly more complicated than that, you know. Echoes of our essence, imbuement, and manipulation of Time itself shouldn’t be reduced down to being compared to a phone.” Kallos tsked at Telos, vexed at the minimization of all of her hard work.

“What’s a phone?” I asked.

“See?” Kallos smirked.

“Fine. Memory crystal?” Telos suggested.

“We get the idea,” Lilith stepped in, to try and derail the conversation from going even further off track.

“Ruffling your hair was more fun before you cut it…” Mom lamented, then ruffled my now short hair again. She still looked disappointed.

“Alright, we’re off then.” Kallos said, and all of us swore.

“If we do the long good-byes we’ll be here forever. Hasn’t Telos told you about the Midwest Goodbye?” Kallos put her hands on her hips, a no-nonsense pose that in normal times would immediately result in her getting her way.

“We’ve got a few last things to do yet, love.” Telos laughed and walked over to Arkaziel. He blurred into a kitten and jumped into her arms.

“You’ve been a good boy, Ark. Everyone acted like you were going to betray me, or steal from me, but you never once even considered it. I would’ve gone insane in that first Tower without you keeping me company. Real friends walk through fire for you, and you dived into the Void with me. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.” Telos lifted the kitten and placed a kiss on his head. Something that sounded like glass breaking echoed across the room, and Telos wiped a tear from her cheek.

“Ditto, Blue.” Arkaziel sniffed, but he didn’t say anything else. I wondered how much had gone between them telepathically. What last good-byes did I miss? They weren’t for me, they were for Arkaziel and mom. Selfishly, though, I was very curious.

“What just happened?” I whispered to Lilith, who was chewing on her lower lip, eyes focused intently on Arkaziel and Bobbi.

“I don’t know, shh.”

“Guess we’re next?” Bobbi asked Kallos.

“Seems like it, dear. You’ve been an exceptional traveling companion, your culinary skills have made our travels a delight, and you helped raise the kids as if they were your own. You have my eternal gratitude, Zephariel’Realmara’Etheriassa’Flemmel'Bobbisylth’Chronoquintessara” here Kallos paused to take a quick breath and finish Bobbi’s extremely long full name off strong, “Falkora'Stellarae'Quantumwhiskeria'Diavala'Jormungandria.” The sound of breaking glass filled the air again, and both women smiled sadly at each other.

“Hey, hey, now. This isn’t a sad time. Since we’re all adults here, and there’s two adult StarMane’s without bonds…” Arkaziel blurred into the humanoid form he’d used so often the last two decades, and he pulled out a small jewelry box.

“Human custom, blame my best friend.” Arkaziel dropped to knee.

“So how about it, Slay? Will you be my mate?”

Bobbi’s pink skin flushed even more.

“You still haven’t beaten me in a real cook-off,” Bobbi pointed out.

“I never will, either, but I’ll trounce you any time I can cheat, and you know it.” Arkaziel didn’t even have the grace to be bashful about having to cheat to beat her, he seemed proud of it.

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“Yes, I’ll be your mate, you mongrel twerp.” I’d never heard an insult hold such fondness in it before.

Telos jumped up and down, clapping, and after a few moments, Kallos joined her, and the two hooped and hollered their joy for their friends. I gave the two of them a big hug, and before I knew it, it turned into a pile of hugs, sniffling, and crying.

“You were right,” Telos told Kallos, an hour later when we finally all sorted ourselves out.

“I love those words,” Kallos nodded, and gestured for Telos to say them again.

“You were right, oh wise and beautiful Soul Witch,” Telos laughed, but her face tightened in dread.

““It’s time for us to go,”” Telos and Kallos said together, with finality.

Kallos smiled at the painful expression Telos wore.

“Alright, we’ve had our hugs, we’ve said our good-byes, we’ve had a hug pile and a proposal. It’s time. Be good and make us proud.” Kallos, usually more reserved than Telos, took the lead of the fair well. I could tell both of my parents were bubbling inside, though, and had to give each of them one last bear hug.

“Be happy,” was all Telos said before the room felt emptier. Telos and Kallos were gone. No flashes, no bangs, simply gone. The world felt emptier without them.

Someone sniffed and tried to compose themselves, then I realized it was me. Lilith didn’t even try to play it strong and pulled a rainbow hued handkerchief from her inventory to dab at her eyes. Bobbi and Arkaziel were both looking at the spot the women had been in, then sighed.

“Are you two leaving us, too?” I asked.

“Nah, we’re going to hang around until you two come back from your first journey. Blue begged us to hang around until then, and there’s more kids to teach. Gotta whip the academy into something that’ll carry on without us.” Arkaziel mumbled lamely. It seemed pretty obvious to me that he would’ve hung around, at least for a little while, without mom asking him too. “It’d be a real shame if Winona got destroyed by the first monster that attacked after we left.”

“After that, we’ll visit the Lower Realms. Some of the things we set into motion with your mothers are still playing out. Gods to eat, powerful people to humble. One of my favorite pastimes besides cooking, you know? And I suppose our clans will want to have a ceremony for us.” Aunt Bobbi’s gleaming eyes and eagerness to humble certain individuals made me glad I wasn’t those people.

“Won’t Werylin be surprised to see us?” Arkaziel laughed maliciously.

“I bet we get to eat Siegfried, he was such a tosser,” Bobbi laughed, but the atmosphere couldn’t bear laughter, and she trailed off.

Arkaziel dropped one hand on my shoulder, and one on Lilith’s, and gave us each a squeeze.

“Take your time. Come to Manor when you’re ready,” the StarMane said, before he and Bobbi vanished in a burst of shadows.

Lilith and I sat in silence.

“I feel almost as if we’ve done this before?” I couldn’t shake the weird sense of déjà vu that had been haunting me since our moms left.

“It sure does, doesn’t it?” Lilith practically groaned the words. It felt weird, being the strong one between the two of us, for once. In the past it had always been her holding me. Somehow, being needed made me feel slightly more able to deal with it.

We held each other on the couch for most of the day, until growling stomachs finally pushed us to head back to the manor.

----------------------------------------

“So, this is it,” Telos murmured as the two of them pressed their hands against the white walls in the center of the River of Light.

“What happens when we cross the door? Will we cease to exist? Will we become one?” Kallos actually felt fear, if their soul-bond hadn’t gone on the fritz in the center of existence. Telos assumed it hadn’t, because she felt fear too. Binah offered her nothing on this origin-point in the flow of Ein Sof.

“I don’t know,” Telos admitted. “But we’re too powerful for this place. Even our mere passing Bobi’s multiverse sent a spiral of chaos through that dimensional axis. We can’t go back.”

“That wasn’t just us, the events you orchestrated to teach him a lesson are also to blame,” Kallos pointed out.

“Haha, yeah. He deserved it.” Telos felt no remorse.

“But I suppose you are right; we cannot go back. Only forward.”

“You’ve been a great wife,” Telos started, but Kallos had no interest in that conversation.

“We’ve talked about our what-if’s, this is our only choice. Let’s take it with our eyes open and clear, and no regrets. We will enter this box, then we will decide on what happens from there.” Kallos left no room for Telos to argue, but did hold one hand out to grasp within her own.

Telos took the breaks off her connection to all one hundred and fifty Gates, and power surged in her, but still the wall repelled her and Kallos both. Even when Kallos threw all of her chains at the wall, they merely rebounded, again and again.

A flash so fast that even Telos failed to follow it happened, something made contact with both of their foreheads, and power exploded around them. For a fraction of a moment Telos thought, maybe, just maybe, she’d seen a hand, with a finger touching their foreheads, but surely no one could move so fast that she couldn’t even see it.

“… all of my Gates just activated,” Kallos cried out in a mixture of pain and ecstasy, the same feelings that crashed through Telos. Their connection to the Void and Ein Sof doubled in an instant, and then the white walls flared in and out of existence. The power within each of them grew, until their being turned only into energy. Then, and only then, as the last of their physical being was obliterated by vast cosmic power did a breach in the walls form.

Before either could do anything, both were sucked inside of the center of the River of Light, as if they’d been pulled down a whirlpool of molten energy. This is almost like dying, I remember the light, only this is brighter.

Images flashed past her mind, wheels and cogs, scales, pendulums, crystals and phials. A clean white cloth ready to receive the distillation of a soul and render its ethereal tapestry.

Cripes, that was the Great Cycle!

Then Telos landed on her butt, in a white room.