Disclaimer: the Artefacts' names, and any quotes with a bold source, are credited to Spore. This is pretty much the only tie directly to the game, but this is part of Project Tesseract, so it needs to be said. :3
Thank you so much to NJKilleen and VeeVee for being so patient and so damn awesome, and to Goldie for the death threats that motivated me to finally put this draft up already.
oOoOo
'the core's colours move across Aeron, looking back' -cont.
from Soletris' Archives of Artefacts, Book 1, Part 3.
First mention of such 'colours' in the archives; most connections here tenuous at best. Second mention Bk. 3, Pt. 7.
All life betrays itself and dies. To attempt to preserve one's life is pointless. Loyalty must be given to something greater than a single life.
-Stone of Force, Vol. 4
Prologue
The capital had since faded to a blur of light unknown miles away. Sienne pretended she could pick out the Sanctorium's silhouette, black against the last sunlight and the distant glow of the city. One of her students would be dead there by now. The other was probably reading. She reached into her coat, and the Marshal caught her wrist before she could pull out a screen to check the time.
"It was right, Sienne," he said. Her shoulders dropped, and Sienne pushed the screen back into a pocket, pulling her cloak tighter over her shoulders. Ferrilyn watched her. "You can borrow mine if you're too cold."
"Thank you," she sighed. "But I'm used to this. You keep it."
Ferrilyn nodded. He had pure Markaris tan skin and white hair, both grey-toned under the moonlight, and wore a thick cloak of the Markaris Empire's scarlet. Sienne's hair seemed ashen, her own green cloak nearly black in the night. The grass around them was already paling with frost, glittering as the horizon darkened and Antra's lights brightened. It was the only source of light on the flat landscape. Other than the occasional patch of woodland, the land around the Taren Empire's capital had few interesting features. Sienne stared over the expanse of grass and ice towards the city, then to the stars. This was why she had wanted to meet the Marshal out here to think, rather than under the relative warmth and bright lights of her Sanctorium. And her student.
Ferrilyn put an arm around Sienne as her shoulders began to shake, and carefully, she leaned against him. They both wore gloves in the cold, but as always, were careful not to let their skin touch. As a result, she felt only an ache in her side and the Marshal's warmth as he shifted. From what they had described to one another, in place of the pain she felt, he experienced a temporary nausea and disorientation when beside her.
Sienne spoke to divert herself from the weak, constant pain and from the tears shaking the lights of the city into a blur. She couldn't expect an answer. Only a distraction.
"Why do we lie about Soletris?" she said.
Ferrilyn was quiet for a moment. "It wasn't your fault," he said. "And you should be asking an Archivist, not me."
"I'm the Taren's Archivist, and I shouldn't have to lie to this empire about Soletris, to... " She took a deep breath, feeling the cold air. "Why did I have to kill him for this god that doesn't even exist? I should have given him more time; he-"
"-would have got out of your Sanctorium again at some point. Quiet." The pain in her side shifted slightly as she felt him move in the darkness, still with an arm around her, still keeping her warm, but looking almost reflexively for anyone in the darkness. "The other Archivists supported it," Sienne said, "he wouldn't listen to me, they knew I couldn't keep him shut away forever. But this hasn't happened in so, so long. They'll have to help me with cover-ups, explanations, I'll need a second student…" For a short while, there was silence as they simply kept each other warmer.
"You haven't told Layne yet," Ferrilyn said. "And you can find another student to study the archives with you." Sienne was quiet. "Listen to me. Sienne. Listen. This has been done before. It's been a long time, yes, but you've told me that you're not the first to do this, and you won't be the last. It was right. It's the death of one for four empires' stability. Think of the Metria region. Sienne. Imagine them bringing firearms across the rest of the Alliance. That's what would happen if he told people about this. There are no good reasons to take what Rosira believes and destroy it like that."
The Archivist released her breath as a tiny mist.
"He was such a good student." She kept her eyes closed. "And then I told him about Soletris, and-"
The Marshal tried to hush her again, but she raised her voice over his. "He spent his life training to be an Archivist, and I took it away from him and expected him to just move on." Her hands trailed through the grass, glinting under the moon and the endless bands of stars while the frost thickened. "And then the people I hired to find him, to bring him back to me in the Sanctorium after he ran. He told them, Ferrilyn. I had to send some of my Sentries to bring him back. They're innocent people, and they're- they'll be dead because of this."
Ferrilyn pulled her closer, and she grit her teeth against the spike of pain.
"I brought you something," he said.
"Ferrilyn, as an Archivist, it went against everything I was taught." Sienne did not look at him. "But as myself, as the person you know, when I told you about Soletris, can you tell me honestly that I did the right thing then?"
"You made a good decision, Sienne. Tonight, and when you told me." His smile grew, and her frown deepened, ignoring the pain in her side as he moved. "I can tell you now beyond doubt that, while Soletris itself obviously didn't dictate the archives, the Artefacts detailed in the archives certainly do. Here." Ferrilyn reached into his bag, pulling out a roll of paper. Sienne couldn't repress a sigh of relief when he took his arm from her shoulders, the pain melting away and the cold returning, and she noticed him relax as his slight nausea faded. "You were right, Sienne."
The paper was sealed in a hard, transparent case, and she spread her hands, letting the Marshal drop it without touching her. "Hold it carefully," he said, pressing his thumb and forefinger against it. There was a quiet hiss as the lid unsealed, and Sienne reached in and pulled out the scroll. With slow, precise movements, she unravelled it against her knees. Under the moonlight, she could see the silvery paper was flaking, coated in small grey markings she could not read.
"Harmony or Faith?" She stared at the paper, imagining it disintegrating into pale dust on her gloves in the open air. "Should - should you keep this in the case?"
"It will be alright for a moment or two. Now, I'll need a little more time to study it; I've only had it since yesterday. I was going to schedule a visit to your Sanctorium before you called me last night. But I'm sure this is a Scroll of Harmony, rather than of Faith, possibly the fourth in the set," Ferrilyn said, "and your knowledge of the archives will be invaluable. The two of us will be able to translate this. You always knew there was something out there, didn't you? And now all the research we conducted has given us this. It's given us answers, Sienne."
Sienne felt her fingertips brush against millennia, before the tiny piece of the Aeron Galaxy known as Rosira became the Rosira Alliance. It never would have become the Alliance if these words had not been passed between Archivists to each of their four empires, believed to be the writings of Soletris by all but the Archivists themselves. But at least there was a tiny part of truth in what she taught. This much existed. She pulled her eyes away from the Artefact to Ferrilyn.
"You and I are closer than any of the Archivists to knowing, Sienne," he said. "Why you teach Rosira that Soletris exists, why the first Archivists passed that on to the rest of Rosira's Archivists. To you. We can find our answers together."
Sienne placed the Scroll on the ground, leaned over and wrapped her arms around the Marshal. He chuckled, returning the gesture after a moment, and pain shot through one side of her face. Blue light flickered in her vision. Ferrilyn collapsed onto the grass. Sienne forced herself away from him, the frost crackling under her knees. She grit her teeth and squeezed her eyes closed to shut it out. Her world became the blue light on her face, filtered through the pink of her lids, and she gasped, eyes opening. The spot where she had brushed against the Marshal's face felt almost paralysed. For a moment she could not move for the shock and the searing on her cheek. Wisps of light swirled just beneath her eye. She saw Ferrilyn breathing deeply, repressing waves of nausea. The red light on part of his own face coloured the frosted grass around his head. Sienne braced herself with one hand on the ground and reached out for him, then gripped her cloak instead. She kept her breathing in time with Ferrilyn's, calming, distracting, and counted. Then she wrapped gloved hands around his arm as the pain faded and he appeared more stable, helping him to his knees. Streaks of light brushed part of his face, colouring his cloak deepest scarlet even as they began to fade away. She winced at the sight of it, but stayed where she was, hands curled into fists.
"Sienne," he said. "Sienne, it's alright. Relax. You're okay." His voice was suddenly too steady for Sienne to believe him. He was staring downwards. There was faint blue light in the cracks beneath her clenched fingers. Her eyes narrowed in frustration. The light flickered, then vanished.
She didn't look up at him. "I'm sorry," she said.
"It's difficult for me, too." The red darkness on his face faded entirely. "At least you didn't pass out this time." Ferrilyn smiled, relaxing, his voice less steady this time. He was alright. "And I'm not about to start wearing gloves every time I see you. Not unless it's this cold whenever I get the chance."
"What is it, Ferrilyn?" Sienne said, staring across the flat grasses before them. "What is this? You haven't heard about anyone else with this… this… yet… have you? After you found..."
The Marshal laughed humourlessly. "I have not. Perhaps more Artifacts will tell us what it is." Sienne looked at him, this time getting a true laugh, then returned to staring past Antra's glow, across the expanse of Euna's landscape. "Just relax," Ferrilyn said. "I'm helping you in your research, and I'm already investigating locations of some other Artefacts. I'm sure we'll find something soon."
Sienne stared at the paper on the grass beside them, eyes darting across indecipherable grey lines. "You said this was the fourth Scroll." She did not want another discussion on their colours now, and neither would Ferrilyn. She picked up her tablet and tapped at its screen until it filled with words. Ferrilyn rolled the Scroll back into the case and set it on the grass between them. "This is the section of the archives concerning the fourth Scroll of Harmony," Sienne said. "It mostly focuses upon the nature of practising one's faith. Not fearing to question precisely why one holds one's belief, so one might achieve fuller spiritual understanding-"
"Spoken like a true Archivist." Ferrilyn smiled as she glared at him. "Sienne, I will be working on translating this Scroll with the help of you, the archives' records and Rinas, so you and I can read everything on it that was originally written. No, I trust Rinas completely with this," he said as Sienne's frown deepened. "And as I said before, I'm certain this is the fourth Scroll in its set - the set most probably being the Scrolls of Harmony, rather than those of Faith - but I'll need a just a little more evidence first. That shouldn't take me too long at all. But as to what precisely it says… Sienne, you understand this will take a lot more work. But the archives will help sort fact from fiction. We can do it together. And once we're started on this, any other Artefacts I find will fall into place that much faster."
She nodded, strands of pale hair trembling around her face. "Ferrilyn. I should go back." She forced the words out. "My Sentries will be expecting me back in the Sanctorium before the middle of the night."
"And Roxier will be wondering where I am," Ferrilyn said. "Give his best wishes to Layne, will you? We both miss him awfully, and once he is told of the loss of his fellow student- "
"Yes. Layne talks about you and his father all the time. He's only been with me for a few months now, but he misses home. He's… he's a good student," she said. "And he will make a wonderful emperor one day."
"I'm sure of it. Layne takes after his father."
Sienne looked at the Marshal. "Emperor Roxier has no idea what he's doing."
"No, he doesn't. But he is also my friend," Ferrilyn snapped. "And I will not hear anyone speak of him in that way."
"And your negotiations with Commander Rinas?"
The Marshal's eyes narrowed. For a few seconds, both refused to drop their gaze. Then Ferrilyn growled and looked away, staring into the cold ground. "I don't know what I'm doing much more than he does. And I can talk to Roxier," he said to himself and to her. "He is simply overcautious, Sienne, and I will remind him that our negotiations with Rinas really are a productive endeavour."
She sniffed and pulled herself up from the icy ground. Ferrilyn shook his head, his bright white hair luminous under the moon.
"Sienne," he said, standing as well so he could meet her eyes. "You'll going to have to think about finding a new student to study with Layne now. He can't be an emperor and an Archivist at the same time."
"I know. I'm going to ask my third choice from when I was reviewing applications earlier this year. I'm contacting her family tomorrow to see if she still wants the position. She's only about Layne's age. Her name is Kaira Mercia. Her parents are a fairly influential couple in the Aspelin Empire, with strong connections to the Charede Empire's royal family."
Sienne watched the stars for a moment and drew a haze of blue light to twist around her. She noticed Ferrilyn take an involuntary step back as she lit up, the grass at her feet now glittering with as many tiny points of light as the sky, and used the mental clarity it always brought to steel herself. "I haven't told the other Archivists this yet." Her voice echoed slightly, and she let the light fade, watching Ferrilyn settle as she did so. "But I'm going to wait a long, long time before I tell Layne and Kaira the truth about Soletris' non-existence. Not months. Years. They should become used to their studies first. They're practically children. They deserve time to settle."
"I can see why the other three are supporting your decision with your last student. You did make the right choice." She could see Ferrilyn watch the light as it vanished. "But will they understand you in this? All of their students are older than Layne. I assume he and Miss Mercia are the only ones who doesn't yet know."
"I haven't even spoken to her family yet. It's undecided. But you are right," Sienne said, looking towards the city again, the warm gold lights miles away over fields of frost.
"I don't want to leave you when you're like this, Sienne," the Marshal sighed.
"I'm fine," she said. "I'll be fine. I must go back now. Thank you for coming to meet me here. It means a lot that you'd come halfway across Rosira at such short notice. And…" She shook her head, staring at the Scroll's case as he put it into his bag. "You found an Artefact, Ferrilyn."
He grinned. "It's just one of many I'll find, I'm sure," he said. "And we can meet again shortly, look over it properly. Goodnight, Sienne. I'll be seeing you soon."
"Goodnight. And thank you for coming out here with me, Marshal."
"Any time, Archivist," he smiled, clasping her hand in both his own. She ignored the brief stab of pain and sighed in exasperation, but smiled back at him, and pressed her palms together against the ever-sinking temperatures as she watched him go. Ferrilyn's dark cloak rippled in the night as he disappeared into the thin covering of trees. He had told her a ship and his own Sentries were waiting a short distance away.
The Archivist stood long minutes in the cold until green lights glittered through branches and a dark shape rose above the surface of Euna, higher and higher until darting away and becoming another star in the ripples of white above her.
Sienne kept her face upturned towards the black and white and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her body was draped in gently swirling, rippling light, the same bright blue that had healed her when she and Ferrilyn had touched. She felt whole, seeing it play up and down her cloak, twisting around her arms and between her fingers, moving and stretching around her like ripples across a body of water. With it came a sense of purpose. Purpose in the way she watched the stars, the way she watched the capital. She was the Taren Empire's Archivist. She was needed back in Antra to control Soletrism, however she chose to do so. And she needed to focus. She needed a new student, another successor. A replacement for her last student. Kaira Mercia. She would talk with her first thing tomorrow.
Sienne let the glow fade, looking at her breath momentarily light up as a thin blue mist before the last wisps of light vanished. In its place, the cold enveloped her. She rubbed a hand across her pale face, pulled her cloak a little closer to herself against the night, and started towards Antra and her Sanctorium.
