We survived.

So did that monster. Drenar is staring at a drop tile ceiling, and taking a much needed moment to just breathe. His body is one stitched together existence of pain, and mentally processing this is hard enough. King walked right in, and let that fiend get away alive. Even after she killed Lavernius. Either he’s a die-hard believer in whatever endgame he’s got cooking up, or we’re worried about the wrong foe, Alex.

Sleep isn't coming to him, and he knows it. Small flashbacks to the entirety of the night kept creeping into the corners of his mind. That first man he knew died by his hand. The glistening of blood on the blade as that man looked right at him and knew there was no hope for him when he sliced through a ribcage. Falling to the floor with a meaty thud. That feeling, knowing his life ended, bleeding out on the floor.

But at least it had been a swift death. A small consolation, in his mind.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. That cold, creeping feeling of the water from the fall. Drowning. One final conversation with his mother before his brain would shut down…and his only reaction is to stare at the ceiling, where the lights have been dimmed for those of them in the medical center. That feeling in his chest…he rubs uneasily at the bindings under the long-sleeved shirt someone had lent him. His clothes from the day had been utterly ruined, and his armor set had also taken a beating. Bruises, cuts, burns…it’s been only the second hardest day of his life.

Drenar?

I’m here, Alex. He sits up wordlessly, and tries to ignore all the aches and pains–and Julia pinning him down on the cot. Angela is on another cot nearby, along with the rest of them. Everyone is beyond their exhaustion point. But, Joey is sitting there silently, talking to James, of all people at a table a short distance away. They both have a cup of coffee, and she turns to stroke Kyle’s hair–he’s a mess of injuries, too, even with the armor he’d worn. I’m just still taking it in. The things I saw. The things I did.

It can consume you if you let it. Focus on the important part: you saved lives, Drenar. You put others' safety as a priority. That is the only thing you need to hold onto for the day. He could see everything going on replay inside his head, and understood exactly what bothered him the most.

We didn't kill Val. The danger isn't over. The rest...I can live with. He clenched his hand gently, all bruises and aches.

We’ll get Val someday. If you’d tried to take her down now, as you are, you might have died. Everyone might have died. But you proved one thing to her: you can stand on equal footing with her, and survive. Something even Lyssa would be proud of. Alex’s firm words bring a modicum of relief. But…there’s still so much of the day he doesn’t want cropping up.

Home isn't safe now, so the medical center is now their place of temporary sanctuary. Kiera had rolled in everything for the survivors and those needing treatment, and she is still talking to others in one of the conference rooms in the adjacent office, fortunately, undisturbed by the previous mage battle in the day. She’s furious. Possibly at SAF, possibly at the lack of intervention, or the fact that some SAF members might have looked the other way during the attack? He only catches snippets of the conversation. She’s focused on making sure those injured survive their wounds, and finding every Talon soldier responsible for the atrocities of the day. Eventually, people filter out.

Now, Kiera is talking quietly to someone. He can't hear it too well, but it might be Levine. He catches a few snippets, but...they sound a lot closer than people who had only a few fleeting crossing of paths. He's really going to have to dig into that one, later. But Levine has nerves of steel under fire, of that, there's no doubt.

He manages to shift Julia over a little bit, and she mumbles in her sleep, trying to hold onto him, but she does relent a little when he lets out a reassuring whisper. “I’m just going to walk around for a bit. I won’t be long.”

He doesn’t know where he’s going, and James waves to him over at the table on the far side, where he and Joey are still having a cup of coffee. The smell of cinnamon is prevalent–and he’s pretty sure it might be from her, and not just the hot liquid sitting at the table. “Hey, you guys holding up okay?”

“Just…processing a lot of things.” James is almost hunched over the table, cradling a mug gently and looking like he’s aged visibility over the past few weeks. “How are you not comatose right now, Drenar? After everything you went through?”

He's still at a loss how he's still functioning, too. “Too much to unpack. Do you guys mind if I—”

“Here, grab a seat.” Joey almost commandingly pulls him next to her on the impromptu bench, and he sees her face has lit up a little in his presence. She reaches out to his face, as if to examine him. “Damn, that villainess did a number on you. The bruising is starting to show up.”

“I don’t mind not looking glamorous. All I care about is that we all made it out in one piece. And we saved as many people as we could.” He glances over to Kyle, who is mumbling something in unwelcoming sleep. “How’s he taking it? Reeves was a friend of his?”

“They were mates at the academy. Kyle got the job here, because of Reeves. And now he’s gone.” Joey winces and turns briefly to look at Kyle, the dim lighting illuminating her messy hair, bruises, and her still mostly intact armored jacket. though he can see a silvery mesh metal insert at a place or two where the fabric outer shell is torn. “He’s not going to be okay. Not for a long time.”

“Joey, we’ll get that monster someday. You have my promise on that,” Drenar vows with determination. After a few seconds, she nods, all her focus on the cup of coffee in her hand.

“I know we will, Drenar. But we can’t be consumed by hatred. It's like you said, we need to bring tranquility to the terrorized. And to defend the defenseless.” She cups her mug and takes a light slip, and that dazzle persists in her lavender eyes. “I guess you might be rubbing off on me a little bit, in a good way. James was telling me that before this, you were about as plainly vanilla as you can get.”

“Oh?” He glances sideways at James, who nods, though his glasses are missing–a likely casualty of being smashed, or lost along the way. “Telling tall tales about me?”

“Sheesh. Like I would ever need to embellish anything about you.” He points to the medical center across the street, past the trees glowing lightly with blue lines across the bark and fiery leaves, past the colorful trimmed hedges, somehow untouched by the violence earlier in the day. “What about your friend, Claire?”

Joey taps her coffee mug calmly, before the faintest glimmer of a smile comes through. “She’ll be okay. Took a bolt to the gut and kept going. She’s tenacious, I give her that,” Joey says firmly, head tilted curiously at Drenar. “You know, she’s alive because you were daring enough to face down a dragon on foot. That was so reckless.” He shrugs softly–odds never mattered much to him anyway. They were just numbers to keep people from trying to do and achieve the impossible and improbable.

“Joey, I can assure you, reckless isn’t in my nature. Despite what Julia will say,” he adds with a chuckle that causes a rib to protest. He rubs at it gingerly below his thin shirt. “You guys can’t sleep, either?”

“Nah. I’m worried about what happens when I close my eyes. I smashed people into pudding with golems, Drenar. Set a few people on fire, too. Among other things,” James says glumly. His hair is a disheveled mess and there's a gloom in his expression that tells him that James is barely holding it together. He glances over his shoulder, where Angela is leaning next to Julia, stirring slightly in her sleep–those silver scales are gone, but their impact isn't. “Now we’re all killers, Drenar. What have we become?”

“We’re not killers. We defended others when the people who were supposed to protect them, didn't. They were betrayed, or the proper authorities dropped the ball through sheer incompetence,” he states. It feels right to say those words and believe them. “Joey, I see that look, too. I know you said that Curtis betrayed you, and you should never feel ashamed when we’re protecting others who can’t fight back, or defending our own lives.”

“I know you mean that, Drenar. I know you certainly believe in it. But I know that when I close my eyes, I’m going to see the tattered remains of Curtis, a dragon perforated with razor-sharp mana shards, and an unhealthy amount of spiders. Well, I guess killing monsters doesn’t count, since you really can’t reason with something that views you as food.” It’s a small lightening of her mood. “I think I’ll be okay, in time…I’ve faced monsters before, Drenar. I’ve killed some. Nick could tell you more.”

Nick is currently resting on a cot, arm in a sling, looking just about as beat up as the rest of them. His burns were significant enough that Joey was a little worried before medics had treated him. “Killing Kin…that’s never going to sit well with me." She seems to curl up a little at that, and her eyes look down at the table.

“It shouldn’t sit well with anyone. We didn’t make this situation Joey, we did what we thought was right. The burden is purely on those who marched in here with guns drawn.” She doesn’t say anything for a second, and rubs her hand uneasily on the coffee mug. “I know you lost people, Joey. I can’t imagine what this is like, other than my loss six years ago.”

“Kyle…lost Reeves. There were a few other people I knew, but…not as well as Claire or Reeves.” She points to one of the far rooms, where Levine had been recovering from the wound to the head, possibly concussed, more than it was safe to use regen potion for. “Zameren isn’t taking this well. I caught a glimpse where he was talking to Levine. Bawling his eyes out. He kept it in as long as he could, once everyone was out of danger.”

“What about you?” She lets out a soft sigh, and reaches for his hand on the table, and runs her fingers along his bandaged hand. “Joey, I know you’ve got some turmoil going on upstairs, too.” James clears his throat softly.

“Hey, um…I’m gonna go try to get some sleep, okay? I’m gonna go grab a cot.” Drenar nods.

“Yeah, if you can, man.” James heads over a short distance, to a room hastily set aside for people to rest. They're alone–for the moment. Her posture slumps a little–has she just been trying to put on a brave face for the others?

“I’m still processing what this all means. And it’s just too much for any one person to handle at once.” She sets her mug down and traces her fingers errantly on the grain of the wooden table. “How do you do it?” She focuses on him, eyes alight with that strangely beautiful eye color.

“Huh?”

“Keep the brave face going, when everything is falling apart. Because it's been the hardest thing I've ever had to do.” She’s weary, overtired, and injured. Luckily her head wound hadn’t been bad, and she winces when she puts a hand to it.

“I keep a brave face, because…” he trails off, and the words don’t come for him easily this time. But they do come after he draws on his limitless wellspring of willpower. “Because I don’t know if anyone else will if I don’t. I don’t know why everyone started listening to me. I certainly don’t know when Nick and Levine started taking pointers from the kid without a clue. I was thrown into the deep end of the mage world without a life preserver. But, I guess…I don’t mind it. I do this, so others don’t have to. I don’t know if anyone else would have the will to stop the Talons, or their agents. I had…a good role model on that account.” He glances down at his wrist, and it’s steady for once. The trembling has stopped.

The faintest hint of relief washes over her face. “Well, even though you’re a little reckless, at least you have the willpower for it. Imagine what you could pull off with some extra training, and a little more equipment. Or, you know, the alchemist who can buff the party."

“Buffing the party? I think you’re just looking for free clinical trials for your potions,” he suggests with a coy smile, and she nods with a smirk. “I don’t even know what I need for the task ahead. I don’t even know if we'll have a chance to. Kiera is likely to put us all on lockdown for eternity. She won’t dare, though. Not for the secrets she’s kept from us.”

“Well…for what it's worth…I'd like to stick around.” She glances his way, and their eyes meet. She does have pretty eyes, he notes, and not even the eye color. It's the way she's always studying the room, assessing a situation, looking for details…maybe even examining him, out of more than curiosity? “After what we've been through, I'd like to get to know you. And, um, Julia, and James, and Angela, and your other friends. They seem alright.”

“Just alright?” He tries to play it lightly with a smile. “You broke my sternum resuscitating me, convinced Julia to give up on a lost cause, and Angela seems attached to you. I'd say it goes a bit further than that.”

She lets out a soft laugh. “Okay, I've been called out. You guys are really interesting. And not as arcanist subjects. Though, I reserve the right to call for samples, purely in the name of science. And not for my curiosity–oh dear fates.” She groans, and tries to bury her head on the table. “Why did I just say that?!”

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“You're exhausted, mental limiting barriers are broken, psionic attachment?” he suggests. He can feel that wriggle of anxiety from that faint connection between them. She groans louder, and looks at him with a sullen face.

“You do that so well. You know how to get people to open up, even when they don't want to!” she accuses playfully. “Stop doing that!”

“Hey, I learned it from Julia. It's a good skill. Hell, I probably would be unforgivably boring, if I didn't let her open my mind to more creative endeavors.” It does brighten her mood, just a little. They're going to need that, for what comes next, and…seeing her a little happier brings a sense of joy to him, as well.

You starstruck teen, you. Never fall in love with a redhead, you're gonna get burned! Alex makes his comment loud and clear, and Joey laughs softly at this. Oh, I know you're still latched in, lass, there's like…a bridge between you two. Or something. Hanna had a term for it, oh what was it?

“It's called being friends, Alex, no psionics required for that one,” she declares, even as she gently taps his nose.

“Hey, that's Julia's move.” He doesn't even really protest.

“Nope, I'm borrowing it! I just want to pester the dragon cooped up in your skull!” she says with a playful grin. “Well, maybe in a bit. Zameren was saying the survivors and everyone else are going home, or barring that, going to be relocated to Brentson Mage Academy. I'd want to spend a little time with them first, because I know a lot of them are going to need a familiar face to get through this. It wouldn't be for long, though. Knowing you, you'll run haphazardly against an army. Again. You might have a shot of winning. That is, if tonight is any indication.”

He relaxes in his seat, with a hard earned smile. “Yeah, I get that. I know some of them will need a lot of help. But, I'm sure Julia and Angela would love to have you with us, as soon as we figure out what the next step is. It's just like I always say. There's no such thing as goodbyes, Josephine, it's–”

“--It's just until we meet again.”

Drenar blinks reflexively when he and Joey finish the sentence together. They both look at each other, puzzled. That had been spooky and weird. “Uh, that was uncanny,” he says after a short pause.

“It’s just until we meet again.” Her eyes dart back and forth, lips moving with silent words, as if she's trying to remember something. “What was he trying to say?” she whispers.

“Joey?” She's still locked in focus, her finger tapping the handle of her mug.

“It's just until we meet again.” She says it again like she's trying to grasp something crucial. Something is dawning on Joey, and he feels a strange sense of recognition. It’s from her, he can feel it. That spark of discovery, the genesis of a crucial recollection.

She's regained her focus, and she sidles the seat, very closely to him. “Drenar, that's not the first time I've heard that phrase. You said the same thing, before we teleported everyone out.” There's resolution in her voice now. “But, where did you hear that phrase from, for it to be so ingrained?”

Lad, there’s something weird going on here. Go on. Even Alex is tuned in now.

He speaks slowly now. “It's…something my mom would say, when she had to travel for work. She’d always say that, like it was some kind of mantra. Like saying goodbye has some kind of bitter finality. So, she always said it like goodbye isn’t forever. I always thought it was catchy, so maybe it just stuck. I guess now that we know the truth about her…she said it, because there was always a chance she wasn’t coming home.” The memory is still bittersweet. She’d held on long enough to try to give him and Evan hope.

“It was the last words she ever said to you, wasn’t it? It’s why you remember it vividly,” Joey says in a calm, quiet voice. He takes a second, and nods slowly. Every time he said it, his thoughts went back to her. She places both hands on his shoulders gently, and has gone calm. The kind of calm someone keeps when they know things are as serious as they get. “Drenar. What did your mother look like?”

“She looked a lot like me, actually. She had verdant eyes, always seeming to have a life of their own. She had fair-weather skin and light freckles on her face and arms. She also had long dark brown hair, she liked to braid it herself, every day. She was taller than me, about one-eighty-five centimeters. She was built like a Viking, too, like living steel.” It isn’t his imagination, he can feel something of a feeling that isn’t from him. An emotional signal. He felt a radiating sense of discovery, from someone who might have just discovered the most important thing in her life.

“There's one thing I need to know…when they brought her in from the accident, you said she was hurt badly. Did they…” she trails off. “Did they perform an amputation on her left arm? At the elbow?”

His pulse is racing. This impossibility can't be happening. He was at her funeral.

They’d buried her.

It was over.

“How do you know that?” Her expression has gone somber.

“She had a beautiful voice. Deep and earthly, in tune with the rhythm of the world. She was always playful in her mannerisms, too. Like she was hiding a truth in front of you with a small laugh, or a slight smile. If you blinked, you might miss it. She had a way of conveying kindness to others when they needed it. She had that radiant warmth of a soul, like you could trust the world with her, and…and everything would turn out alright.” Even her voice is tense now.

He feels that trickle of heartache again. She couldn't know these things. Yet she did. “Joey, she's been…gone…for six years. Whatever you thought you saw in that weird vision, it wasn’t her.”

She doesn’t wait for him to finish and leans her head against his chest, breath calm, her grip firm, and her eyes closed. “I need to show you something, Drenar. Because I don't think words are enough for this.” He looks down, and nods quietly. “When I finish…tell me, yes or no.”

Then show me as I showed you before. The thought comes without resistance. Something clicks in the back of his mind. He can see what Joey’s thinking. Not a string of thoughts, or images in her head.

A memory.

It’s a bright day under the lake in Asqualia archives, and an armored and helmeted Valkyrie is standing stiffly in Joey’s lab, with Kyle sitting in his beaten-up chair, taking measurements on a sword with a scope of some kind.

His sword.

The Valkyrie is tall–very much so, and he sees through Joey's perspective that she catches a glimpse of verdant eyes, and dark hair traced over her brow. They talk idly for a while. The Valkyrie challenges her to pull the blade from the scabbard in a playful manner, and Joey politely declines, saying that the odds of anything happening are nonexistent. The Valkyrie responds that the odds are irrelevant. Things happen, or they don’t. And sometimes, the right things happen at just the right time.

They talk more. The Valkyrie mentions having two sons. She hopes that one day, she can tell them of her role in the world. The helmet and magitech visor distort the voice, but he can hear a ringing familiarity. Joey notes the golem arm, and the Valkyrie responds that it was a battle scar earned in the defense of her family and a serviceable replacement. She had no regrets, Joey notes silently.

More time goes by. Kyle complains the blade isn’t being cooperative and sighs in resignation before saying they’ll need more time. The Valkyrie flexes almost cat-like, before she points to Joey. She’s not sure what to think when the Valkyrie tells her that she’ll be the guardian of the blade's future, because that tall woman in armor chuckles softly a few seconds later, saying she has a bad habit of being too serious at times.

A short duration later, they’re at the teleportal hub. It’s intact like it was never destroyed, and it's late afternoon outside. Zameren is there, offering a warm farewell to their esteemed visitor. Joey offers the noble knight a handshake, but she gets an unexpected hug in return, green eyes glimmering behind the visor. She says one last thing before she disappears into the active teleportal…

…Words that Drenar knows by heart.

“There’s no such thing as goodbyes, Josephine. It’s just until we meet again.”

Drenar blinks, and reality comes back into focus. He’s still sitting there, back in the medical center. The memory is over, and Joey is still there in the seat next to him. She’s looking right at him, eyes alight with a revelation that dawns on him at the same time, and everything changes for them forever.

“Joey…that was her.”

He is completely unprepared when she hugs him tightly, and she's fighting back a soft sob. He wraps his arms around her gently...

And the deepest aching he's ever felt is back in his heart. Joey isn't far behind him when she whispers out the words at the breaking point of her composure.

“She gave me Luminari.”

His mother is the Champion of the Valkyries.

His mother is alive.

He feels something break loose inside his mind. All those awful thoughts, of seeing her for the last time as she was rushed to surgery, bloodied, her arm severed at the forearm, yet still able to speak a few last words to him and Evan.

The tragic news, a half-hour later.

The funeral. Blurred faces, people he doesn't remember, all those embraces, and feeling numb inside.

The bite of Remari, his name for his dagger, as he swerves and accidentally sliced it across his wrist when Julia walked into the room. Looking down, realizing his almost fatal error, and the horror of what he'd done in front of her, and he tries to hold on, hoping he’d make it, so that he could tell her it was an accident. A stupid accident that he’d set himself up for.

Two years in therapy. Julia would barely talk to him. Angela and James pushing him on. Diane and Dave tell him things are getting better.

That slow transition back to normal. Growing close to Angela. Talking to Julia again, back to the point things were…almost back to normal.

And then, his Awakening. And everything else that had followed. And all this had led him to the one woman who knew what he was feeling in that small moment, and told him the most miraculous thing he’s heard in his life. Someone who had saved his life, and he’d done the same for her. Someone he feels a connection to in a way that is different from his connection with James, Julia, or even Angela.

That dam inside his heart burst, and he can't hold it in anymore.

He hasn't cried since that last day in the hospital, after his recovery. But now, he's shuddering, unable to keep his voice firm, and that lump of both great sorrow, and overwhelming joy, is lodged in his throat. He can feel her overwhelming emotion, too–it’s different, like it’s layered on top of his, and she’s shaking, still on the verge of tears and she creases her fingers at his back…and he realizes, they need this moment to utterly let go, and let those feelings out.

He can’t talk, he's got nothing but choked-up words, and just rests his head on Joey’s shoulder. “Drenar…she was there a year ago. Full of life and vigor. I wish I'd known sooner.” It’s the single most emotional thing he’s heard from her. For some reason…he feels like he’s known her a lot longer than just a few days.

“My mother’s alive. We have to find her.” He barely can get the words out, mixed between joy and tears, but it still hurts so good to know there’s hope. Her response is near-instant, barely above a whisper. But the determination in her words is resolute.

“We’ll find her together. No matter what it takes. No matter what monsters we have to face. You won’t be alone in the journey ahead.”