She'd learnt to hate the armchair sitting beside the sermon hall's entrance. Its make had nothing to do with it; placed anywhere else under any other circumstance, it was a luxurious chair the average household would undoubtedly pay a premium for.

It was never originally for her, just another piece of furniture that went unused besides the occasional two or three times a year. Almost purely aesthetic in purpose, and a waste by any reasonable standard.

That was until the sermons started.

At first, she'd been allowed in the sermon hall during the ceremony. Fixing her had been part of the original promise to her parents, so she had been allowed to take part to a degree.

In ancient Beak fashion, every sermon was silent and words through the Aether were still minimal. Of the few times she'd gone, she had done nothing nor said anything, and thus the specific processions largely flew over her head.

It had only been a few weeks before she found herself on the other side of the looming doors. From outside the room, it really was as though the sermons weren't happening at all.

She never received the reason for her supposed excommunication from any of the members or her own parents. All she knew was that when the disconnect truly solidified, her defect became her entirety, and the chair became her prison—the space she'd confine herself to for one or two mornings every week. Each sermon spent there eventually became a blur of thoughts until even those weren't legible anymore.

She sat, midway through another morning and in the midst of slogging through a marsh of thoughts.

That marsh now had a landmark in the form of a gaping pit, perfect for someone to jump into, never to be seen again.

One suicide in her life was enough; now Greidus had opted to follow after her mother and had taken the best recent memories of her with him, at least the ones that Crestana felt comfortable accessing.

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Undoubtedly, her father held many memories from her final years, but she had no confidence in her ability to vicariously relive them, let alone hear about them. Even then, she had trouble imagining them as happy.

She wasn't sure if her father held it in his capacity to record such memories.

Speak of the devil.

The doors swung open, and her father appeared in her peripheral vision. If the room weren't silent and the clack of his heels barely audible, she would've assumed the doors opening were due to some spectre wandering into the real world.

"Father," she said, holding a tone that, after experiencing real conversation, felt more disingenuous than ever. "Is everything okay?"

"Yes," he replied. "I've just forgotten something."

"Would you like me to fetch it for you?" Crestana asked, feigning concern.

"No, we have servants for that," he said, continuing his stride.

Crestana's shutters closed over her mask.

"Father?" she called, thankfully catching his silhouette before it completely disappeared around the corner. He, however, remained silent.

She stood on the edge of the marsh's gaping pit, trying to peer into the black void.

"What was mother like just before she died?"

The pit gave no response for an agonising few seconds, each audibly going by in her head.

"She was a fine Beak as far as I could tell. Showed no signs of what you're insinuating."

The answer the pit gave was not satisfying in the slightest, even accusing her of something she would never dare even think about for a second.

Happy memories. That's what Crestana wanted. At least one.

"Did you still love her?" Crestana asked, the words slipping from her mouth before she could swallow them like refluxing bile.

Her father remained frozen, the stillness permeating through his body, voicebox, and even Aether.

"Of course I did," he said before finally taking his leave.

Crestana watched him go, replaying the last four words from his voice box. Something caught her attention about them, and no matter how many times her own mind suggested she was simply hearing things, the hint of disdain coming from those four words left her mind spiralling once more.

Where those ill feelings were directed was just another thing for her to ruminate about, adding another several miles to the thick marsh she trudged through.