"I'm sorry?" Agnès asked, now turning from her desk to face the vestaling. The young recruit fidgeted, the fingers of her left hand seeking out and clutching the elbow of her right arm. Agnès repressed a sigh; it would be so much easier if her acolytes could just treat her like anyone else and not get so nervous around her. The vestaling frowned and repeated her question.
"I was curious as if there were any Crystallism texts we might be able to study? I have enjoyed your sermons Lady Agnès, but there are times I wish to learn more and do not wish to disturb you."
Agnès set her pen down. "I'm sorry to report that we do not have any texts remaining. All the copies I know of were destroyed when the temples were overthrown."
The vestaling nodded, not looking quite as downcast as expected. "I... I worried that would be your answer." She met her gaze. "Would you mind if I begin transcribing your sermons?"
Agnès blinked in surprise. "I- I see no reason why you should not." She smiled warming to the idea. "It will be good to have what I remember written down."
The vestaling smiled. "If you have time also, would you be able to record any history you remember of the older Crystallism?"
"Yes, yes," Agnès said, visions of a growing library of texts now in her head. A library that grew as the years went on and the religion re-found its place in Luxendarc.
"And we would like to hear of how you re-founded crystallism."
Agnès's heart skipped a beat. She tried to keep her face from reacting, but the colour drained from the vestaling's face and she apologized. Agnès tried to insist everything was fine even as her mind raced. She dismissed the girl who scurried from the room without a backward glance and Agnès slumped in her chair staring at the ceiling. The revival of crystallism. It was a subject she had always been reluctant to discuss due to how personal her role in it was.
After sorting her desk she retreated to the window, looking out at the darkening sky. To tell the story of the re-founding of crystallism was in part to tell the story of meeting Edea, Ringabel and Tiz. Tiz missing for so long now without a trace. Was telling anyone of their actions a good idea?
Agnès was still mulling over the vestaling's request when Ringabel visited a few days later. She needed to talk to someone, and as involved as he was, Ringabel was a good start.
"I see," he said, his face breaking into a grin as Agnès finished. "It would make for a fine epic if I do say myself."
"It's not supposed to be an epic," huffed Agnès. "It's a story about the founding of a religion."
Ringabel flicked his hair upwards. "Quite so. But said story also involves a colourful assortment of asterisk bearers, a vampire, a few dragons, a callous cryst-fairy and a lot of fighting. And a rather dashing amnesiac." He grinned, striking a pose. Her reaction was not quite what he was after and he settled back into his chair. "Or are you just going to focus on after that?" He sat forward looking more serious. "Just going to write about when we all went our separate ways before we met up in Caldi-."
"I might," Agnès interrupted too loud, her teeth worrying her lower lip. "I might," she repeated in a quieter tone. "That's the part about the actual founding."
Some colour had drained from Ringabel's face. "Agnès, I-."
"It's okay," she said, hands fumbling against each other. "I can't keep avoiding the subject forever."
"You're not alone in doing that, you know. Edea does. I have been. Well, when I haven't been searching for him. Just not thinking about- Anyway." He forced a smile and continued. "You have mentioned this to the right person. I do have-," he said fiddling in the bag at his side. "Ah. My copy of the journal." He held the book out, the 'D' on the cover tarnished and flaking silver leaf.
Agnès paused for a moment before taking the book. "I'm not sure I would need this," she said staring at the cover.
"If you do focus on the aftermath, perhaps not. But if you decide to tell the full story or even a version of it, I hope it'll be of some use. If you have no other thoughts of format you could do worse than ape the journal style."
Agnès flipped the book open and rifled through the pages. She should close the book now. Close it now before she caught sight of-. Her hands stopped, a rendering of Tiz Arrior on the page. She stared, aware of what she was doing but finding it hard to stop looking. She snapped the book closed and looked up at Ringabel. "I'm not sure this will do me any good."
Ringabel waved the tome away as she tried to hand it back. "Hang onto it for me for a while then. It'll be safe here. Use it if you want. Write if you feel up to it. Do what you want with it afterwards. Nothing says you have to give it to the vestalings."
He had a point. Agnès stared at the book again before placing it beside the chair and caught up on Ringabel's recent activities.
Once Ringabel left, Anges flipped through the journal again. Select passages from both her friend and Alternis Dim caught her eye. Maybe the diary form would be best. The thought of writing their adventures gave her an unexpected thrill. She took a blank book and turned to the first page, musing for long moments on what to title the work. This was hard. She wanted a meaningful title, something short and to the point. Something allowing for many interpretations as the reader read through the text. Nothing seemed to come to mind. 'Lying Airy' was a bit too specific, a bit too obscure, a bit too revealing. 'The Fate of Luxendarc' seemed too portentous. She resorted to 'An Account of the fall of the last of Crystallism and the founding of the new by Agnès Oblige.' She scrubbed it out a moment later. The title could wait. She wanted to begin.
On the first page she paused again, wondering where best to start. The days before the darkness consumed the wind crystal? When she first met Olivia? When she first met Sage? Her arrival in Caldisla? She decided on the crystal after a few moments thought. That was the moment she started on the course that would take her to Caldisla and all that followed.
She wrote the date at the top of the page. Well, first thing's first; she should introduce herself.
My name is Agnès Oblige. I one of the last vestalings of the crystallism faith. Today I was summoned to pray to the crystal as it had been losing energy for some time. I was dressed in my vestal garb that would be later destroyed in the ransacking of the temple. That would be the moment Orthros would take residence in the crystal and require later expulsion along with the awakening of the crystal. This was done under the direction of Airy, who said she was a cryst-fairy, but was actually an agent of Lord Oroborus and had killed our past selves. We discovered that there are many similar Luxendarcs and it is possible to move between them, but in doing so we aided Airy in her quest.
Agnès read back over her words and sighed in frustration. She had meandered all over the place and mentioned the truths they uncovered almost too late to make a difference to their world. She crossed through the entire block and turned to a new blank page.
My name is Agnès Oblige...
When Edea visited a week later false starts, heavy crossings out and several lists of events peppered Agnès's book. The lists were cross-referenced with Ringabel's journal for more detail to help jog her memory. Try as she might Agnès still could not quite accept the way her own words looked on the page. She watched with bated breath as Edea read through her latest attempt. This one at was a full acount - planned out in meticulous detail before even starting.
"Well," Edea said looking up at Agnès. "It does more or less read like a diary entry. But it's not very engaging."
Agnès slumped. "Maybe I should just tell everything to one of the vestalings and ask them to transcribe it."
Edea looked thoughtful. "It's an option. But hey, you don't have to do this like a journal. You're lacking any written works of crystallism, right?" Agnès nodded. "Then why not try and make this a story for that? Write a new myth for crystallism about good and evil. Black and white. Us and Oroborus."
"Edea, I am having a hard enough time trying to recite dry facts. To do so in a speculative fashion..."
Edea shook her head. "You can be loose with the details. You can change some bits if you want to fit with the message you want to send. You can write it like it's happening to someone else. Hardly anyone knows about what happened anyway. And I'd rather a totally accurate version doesn't surface. Father is not going to come across looking very sensible in that version. We might not either."
Agnès mulled over her friend's words. "I... think I can see how to do it."
Edea smiled. "And if you'd like anyone to look at it when you're done, I've read a lot of stories in my time."
"Thank you, Edea."
Later the same evening, Agnès sat down at her desk, head buzzing with ideas for writing. She took a new, blank book, passed over the title page and flicked a few pages in.
In the land of time and sand, the last vestal was to pray to the wind crystal as she always had. But when she approached the crystal she noticed it's light was fading. Before she could begin her ceremony, darkness enveloped the crystal and the balance of the world was broken.
Agnès sat back and re-read the text chewing on her pen. She had left a lot of detail out but the basic premise was accurate. Where to next? The temptation to fix this first try was strong, but she willed herself to keep going. Changes could come later. Getting a first version down was the important thing. She paged through Ringabel's journal and ran through events in her head.
In the land of Caldisla, in the town of Norende, a young shepherd and his brother were tending their flock. Suddenly the ground shook and the town fell into a vast hole. The young shepherd lost every one of his friends and family.
She left out her own name so it made sense to leave Tiz's out as well. Edea and Ringabel should arrive close together now.
A man with no name was rescued from the sea as Norende was destroyed. Soon after the water grew murky and poisonous. When the man awoke he found he had no name and his sole possession was a book that seemed to tell the future.
Agnès wondered how to deal with the truth of the journals, but again decided to worry about that later. For now she had two more characters to introduce. One much more pleasant to discuss than the other.
The swords woman from Eternia was sent to help with the aftermath of Norende. She was formidable and almost the equal of her master. Her land was becoming cut off from the world as the mountains grew and the earth crystal's light faded and so she arrived in a flying ship.
A cyst-fairy emerged from the Norende crater, waiting for the vestaling to begin healing the world.
Agnès could remember the next stage of the story. How could she forget those meetings and the starts of her friendships? Yet to relate the events would mean writing about Barras and Holly, not to mention the later asterisk bearers. Agnès felt torn. While they had been unpleasant on early encounters, by the time of the last world she did not feel so much animosity from them anymore. They were more or less fighting on the same side by then. Braev seemed to be sending the asterisk bearers against them as a test of strength for what awaited them.
Even so; Ominas still felt uncomfortable to transcribe. And it was tempting to just omit DeRosa. The thought of him still made her shiver; she would not mention him unless it was impossible.
Agnès added to her book each night after completing all her other work. She wrote until her eyelids drooped, re-reading and rewriting her words the next day. Some days she scowled as she found herself rambling on for whole disjointed paragraphs. The transcribed events fit close enough to what happened to be recognizable by those present. Agnès restricted herself to two instances of Luxendarc with no desire to write out about every world they visited. Two was enough to get the point across. Two was enough to explain the dark knight's connection to the man with no name.
At first, even though it pained her, she intended to end the story with Tiz collapsing in the graveyard. She could end with her first tour of the crystals, but something about the loss of Tiz seemed to be a definitive, if bleak, ending. But as she approached the end of the story she no longer wanted to finish there. To leave Tiz's fate unknown and at present unknowable. She bit her lip and continued writing, nervous but excited at what she was doing.
The vestal rushed with the swords woman to the graveyard. The man with no name cradled the shepherd in his arms entreating him to awaken. Was the shepherd dead? No, the man with no name insisted. He still breathed, but was cold and would not awaken. The vestal prayed to the crystals for one more miracle so that they could spend a little more time with the shepherd. She clutched his hands, his touch cold. Was it too late? Why had the shepherd been taken from them?
Her pendant glowed for a moment and then the Shepherd gripped her hands back. The vestal shouted in surprise as his skin warmed and he opened his eyes.
Agnès sat back. It was not yet ended in a way she would accept as complete, yet to go on was to invent more fantasy. She regarded the book, pleased by what she had written. But it was not yet time to let someone else read this account. Once Tiz was safe and sound; then her ending would not be fantasy anymore. She closed the book, vowing to return to it when all was well.