It's a relief to finally post something again—especially since publishing a story about resurrection on Easter is such a great coincidence.
If you pay close attention to optional NPC dialogue (I don't; a friend told me about this), you'll know that the unique spirit clime in the coliseum enables certain artes to copy combat abilities onto dummies. However, it also appears to copy their individual personalities, which leads me to believe that even though the coliseum has banned fights to the death between ordinary competitors, some parts of it still operate in a morally gray area.
Essentially, what these artes do is temporarily create a sentient person with the appearance, behaviors, personality, and probably memories of someone else, then force them to fight challengers, which is not generally frowned upon since they aren't "real" people. Additionally, the likelihood that they are allowed to exist outside of battle is not very high, given that they can't leave the coliseum since its spirit clime is the only thing that enables them to exist in the first place.
Now, as for the title and content, I noticed in ToX2 that Wingul (Coliseum) drops Silver Dice. This struck me as really odd, since he's definitely not the gambling type, and even odder when I noticed that every other "dead" coliseum opponent carries them as well. I know there's probably no canonical deep and meaningful reason why, but it got me thinking nonetheless—and this is my conclusion.
Every day brings a new death.
It is a Long Dau saying, a figurative proverb—a reminder that trouble is a constant in this unforgiving universe. Happiness, so it implies, is found by acknowledging this truth and moving on. Before the language faltered and finally foundered, it was used similarly to the phrase 'oh well'.
Now, it remains embedded in only one tortured, half-mad mind. It has become an eternal repetition under his breath, an endless stream of muttered days and deaths to carry him through each meaningless battle. For such a wretched being as he, the phrase is literally, inescapably true. He wishes he could remember why he is the only one who knows it.
His silver dice are loaded: no matter how he rolls them, his fate remains the same. What is the difference between a win and a loss? To live is to fight, and to fight is to die; his lifespan is measured in hourglass sand. To lay down his sword and rest in peace is impossible, even if he is victorious. When he is not conscious, he does not exist.
Whenever he closes his eyes, whether in exhaustion or misery, no comforting darkness drapes its soft cloak around his weary shoulders, and no mild dreams pacify his stormy thoughts. He cannot ever recall the process of letting go, of falling asleep, but nonetheless he finds himself awakening.
Consciousness is always sudden, and it is always unpleasant. His body may have recovered from his latest battle, but his mind is forever weary. The first thoughts he stumbles upon are unintelligible, bewildering, too maddeningly bright to look at. It is only gradually that he becomes accustomed to the light inside his head, blindingly brilliant, shining like the soul he does not have.
Recollections shine forth like stars, scattered in time like words in the wind, but around them weaves a shimmering mist, an unfathomable haze of obscure emotions, and that infuriating pale fog blurs the memories into myriad misshapen suns. Those farthest away dim fastest. With each awakening, it becomes more and more difficult to reach them before they fade altogether.
He has learned, over countless resurrections, that these are the ones he must clarify first, or they will all but vanish in the deeper darkness. Slowly and painfully, he stares down each memory individually until the edges become clearer. Often, his focus hones them sharp as white-hot knives, stabbing and slicing into his mind until he can barely keep from screaming.
But enduring that burning agony is preferable to numb cowardice. He may be wary of approaching those faraway and indistinct thoughts, but he is warier still of the shadows swirling restlessly around him. Should he run from the light, he has no doubt that he will lose himself forever in the dark. What little he is will cease to be, and it is the ambiguous abyss of anonymity, far more than death or dying, which he fears.
So it happens that he remembers far more of his past than of his present. The hours blend together so that he does not know how many times his life has ended, nor how long it has been since he was first trapped in this cycle. He knows only that the long-ago memories to which he clings feel different from the more recent ones, like the reverberating echoes of a distant sound.
He wonders, in broken thoughts, whether the other nameless ones have the same problem, and sinks to one knee to cast his heavy dice on the stony floor. Glinting in the watery sunshine, they display the numbers one and three. He collects them quickly and rolls again (five and four) in agitated compulsion. Those two silver cubes are his only possessions besides the clothes on his back and the sword at his side, but unlike his attire and weapon, they make an appearance only in his more recent memories. Countless times, the thought has crossed what is left of his mind that perhaps they are somehow connected to his fragmented identity, but—
The door to his cell clicks unlocked suddenly, preventing him from revisiting the idea once more. He jerks his head up, clenching his dice in his fist and holding them protectively over his heart in automatic defense. As the door opens with a drawn-out shriek, he gets to his feet and covers his closed hand with the other palm for good measure, glaring suspiciously up at the one he must call ally for today.
She is not, to his dispassionate disappointment, any of the only three he likes. Those in charge used to let the remnants of the Chimeriad battle together, four against four. In his mind's eye, he sees eight dots, evenly distributed on dice. But some time ago—he does not remember how long—they forbade him from fighting alongside those familiar faces, because though they forgave whatever injuries the four inflicted, they could not forget the first fatality.
And the result has been one and one ever since. Partnered with unworthy strangers over the course of his last several lives, he thirsts as much for the blood of his so-called allies than those labeled his enemies, if not more so. And what keeps him from slaying them all, anyway? Any punishment the necromancers could give him will undoubtedly seem a blessing in comparison to what he goes through at each awakening.
Except—as he has by now discovered—indignity.
Ever since he almost snapped the neck of a particularly insolent man, they have taken to binding his hands when he meets new allies. Now they look upon him not only in fear and awe, but in naïve compassion. He can see it in their eyes, and he can almost hear their thoughts: hail, the Ebon Wing of Auj Oule, reduced to a madman in chains. (Yet they still flinch when he glares at them.) It makes him fight all the harder, in an often futile effort to prove that he is not weak enough to be pitied.
But this petite girl is not like all the others—not quite. He frowns slightly, fingers curling more tightly around his dice as he narrows his eyes. He recognizes her pale pea-green hair and vivid viridescent eyes, but try as he might, he cannot recall where he has met her before or why. "Wingul?" she gasps, and he can see she thinks she knows him too.
"Don't worry, miss; he won't harm you," remarks one guard gruffly, as the other approaches and pushes on his shoulder in gentle warning to obey. He sinks to one knee, rolling his dice again. (One and two.) He could take them, he tells himself for the hundredth time, bowing his head with grit teeth. He could kill them all and run for his worthless life. Yet something intangible restrains him as always, and again he does not struggle when his hands are brought up behind his back and—
"Stop it!" exclaims the girl angrily, not in one cry but in two. A pink-and-purple-patterned animated doll floats glaringly out from behind her. His captor, while startled, is not noticeably intimidated, and after exchanging a long glance with his comrade, he carefully sets to work binding his prisoner, heedless of the girl's protests. The manacles dig too tightly into his wrists, as usual, but he is as powerless to say so as if there was an invisible hand clapped over his mouth.
And besides, they would not understand his language anyway.
"Stop it right now!" says the girl in her voice alone, stamping her foot and clenching her petite fists in earnest indignation. The doll nods in fierce agreement, hovering menacingly in midair. "He's not an animal!" But he may as well be, he thinks with a sour smile, as the guard straightens up. He is forced to fight for the spectators' amusement just like a common monster, but even giving his life will not render his task complete. It is inescapably eternal.
Swatting the doll out of the air as he goes and ignoring its protests, the man who bound him walks out without another word. The animated plush twirls in midair to glower after him before swooping down to hide behind the girl's back. The other guard only gives her a somewhat sympathetic look as she gazes up at him in shock, peridot eyes glimmering in empathic desperation. "We'll send someone to fetch you both when the challengers finish off the monsters," he says, a note of something like apology in his rough voice, and departs. The door shuts behind him with its usual mocking metallic screech, and they are alone.
The girl says nothing for a very long time, but then, silence is not unusual. Almost all of them just stand there and stare at him, just like she is. The only difference is, he usually stares back, and this time he simply closes his eyes. Whether he does it in an attempt to remember his past or forget his present, he does not know.
But then the girl speaks, stumbling forward, and draws him back into his bleak reality. "W-Wingul," she falters, sounding as though she is on the verge of tears. "You're… alive." She kneels next to him, a safe distance away, and cannot meet his eyes. This girl is not the first to imply that he has died a real and permanent death—a comfort he only wishes he knew—but her tone sounds so remorseful that she may well have been directly involved with the incident.
He lifts his head to observe her grief-struck expression, and frowns spasmodically. What reason has she to feel such sorrow for him?
"Are you okay?" she asks, worried, hesitant, but as he tries to reach out for her, unbalancing himself as his chains hold him back, she recoils and gives a frightened little gasp. As she steels herself and edges forward again, pain stabs through the back of his mind abruptly. Clenching his teeth, he makes an indistinct noise of distress and pulls against his chains in a futile attempt to physically hold his head together.
"Wingul!" cries the girl, closing her eyes and raising her hands, and casts a frantically breathed healing arte. Though the spell does little to repair his tattered mind, it is much more powerful than it should be, given her young age. It must be augmented somehow, enhanced through some unknown means…
A memory shifts suddenly in his head, like a snake uncoiling from around its strangled prey, and a single blurred word gradually, painfully, comes into focus: boosters. With it comes a surge of humiliation and agony, fury and sorrow… and this girl. He raises his head slowly to stare at her, but his eyes flick too rapidly around her features to study them in any detail. Who and what is she?
"Do you… remember me?" she asks tentatively, and he does not know how to respond. She is undeniably familiar, but haunts only his more distant memories. Whatever the nature of their connection, it was established long before this cycle began, and her identity is not one of the recollections he chose to remember. He must have let it go for a reason.
Her large, unblinking eyes fill with tears during his traditional silence, but he cannot guess why. "My name is Elize Lutus," she bursts out, and her shuddering sigh stirs his memories like leaves in the wind. His eyes widen slightly in recognition. This is the hollow girl—the one who originally thrived because of his suffering, the one whose life still goes on while his ends over and over again.
Yet, despite this realization, it is impossible for him to be angry with her.
There is a tremulous pause, a single moment of stillness before the first bolt of lightning forks across the stormy sky. "I'm so sorry," she whimpers, and thunder rolls in his ears like dice on the stone. They lay there motionlessly, one and two, gleaming in the hazy light streaming through the prison bars.
"Can you ever forgive us?" asks the girl eventually, her eyes like snowmelt in springtime. At her sweet and submissive vulnerability, a lingering sense of intense loyalty awakens within him, a fierce and tender warmth spreading out from his heart. He must protect this beautiful, fragile, flowerlike innocence, and this resolution feels like an oath he swore long ago.
Forgiveness comes only with forgetfulness: he bows his head, closing his eyes, as he arrives at a silent decision. Though he does not recall what vow compels him to defend the girl, nor does he know why she is so apologetic, he must still abide by that half-remembered promise to protect her. Today's sacrifice, for once, will not be empty. He does not notice his own somewhat serene smile until he opens his eyes again to find that the girl is smiling hesitantly back, warily relieved, clearly strained.
"But how are y—" begins the doll, hovering anxiously at her shoulder, but the girl snatches it out of the air and squeezes its mouth shut tightly, muffling the rest of the question.
Only the periodic roar of the crowd outside breaks the silence as he tilts his head slightly, carefully examining the emotion in her expressive eyes. Her gaze is downturned in timid and sorrowful curiosity, soft and green like buds before they blossom, as she studies his silver dice. But she does not touch them, nor inquire about their significance. She merely regards the one and two with a barely noticeable frown.
"What's the last memory you have of us?" asks the girl, looking up at him shyly after what might have been a moment or a millennium.
Bitter words burn his throat like bile, searing his tongue, but they do not spill from his mouth and he makes no effort to force them. After all, speech is useless; his thoughts will only emerge in the forgotten and fragmented syllables of what must be his mother tongue. He may be able to comprehend the words of the language shared by all the others, but he cannot easily verbalize them, and they make little effort to understand him even when he tries. It is far better to keep his silence.
"I'm sorry," murmurs the girl, crestfallen; her gaze falls to her hands, folded demurely in her lap. "I forgot. You can't speak my language when you're like this." He frowns: this girl knows him better than he initially thought. She does not assume that he is mute, as do all the others, but what does she mean, like this…?
"Shouldn't be much longer now," shouts a brusque female voice from just outside the door, interrupting his thoughts. The girl jumps at the sound, her doll letting out a startled squawk. "Better say your prayers, sweetheart, because all those monsters ain't even appetizers to a couple guys like these—and that crow won't be much different." As suddenly as she arrived, the woman takes her leave, unpleasant snickering fading away with her presence.
The girl takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, toying with her slender fingers. "Th-they told me that no one here is really… real," she says hesitantly, and again cannot meet his eyes. "That you were all born from spirit artes, meant to fight forever."
He stares, and the sharp bright chill of comprehension floods his body, momentarily dispelling the darkness in his mind. There is no doubt, no denial, no disbelief in his heart. The girl's revelation is indisputably true, though she cannot know the effect it has on him. He is a mere shade of the man known as Wingul the Nova, the last remaining fragment of his shattered soul… and he laughs aloud, throwing his head back in humorless mirth, as he embraces the truth of his barren existence.
The shards of his broken identity may once have fit together into the likeness of an ebon wing, but by now every last splinter has been ground into hourglass dust—a new life lived with every turn, a new fight fought as the sand flows down, a new death died when the last grain falls. But it is not that imaginary artifact which controls his reality. He is certain it has more to do with those infernal dice.
He sobers, drops his gaze, and stares down at them, chasing a distant memory with narrowed eyes. These silver cubes have always been his and his alone. They never belonged to the dead man whose guise he borrows, but he cannot recall who gave them to him or why.
The girl raises her soft hands to caress his face, and as he jerks his head up, she meets his eyes with desperate and childish determination. "They're wrong; you're just as real as any of us!" she says, with forcefulness that belies her frailty, and the doll nods fervently. "You may not be the same person I knew, but you're still Wingul—and you don't deserve this!"
His only response is a single, bitter chuckle as his head drops forward and his dull eyes close. That, at least, will be universally understood. Even if the girl is right, the hourglass sand is already running out, and soon it must be turned over again. It is not within his power, or hers, to change his fate.
"They're almost ready for you," calls another guard's voice, and though her voice is far kinder than the last, the doll spins around in midair to glare at the door. "We're going to take his handcuffs off and let you both out now. That okay, honey?"
"Yes," replies the girl immediately, scowling.
There is a sound of jangling keys, a metallic click as the padlock opens, and another shriek as the door swings forward. He turns his face away as one of the guards steps forward to release him, clenches his teeth as he briefly twists his wrists the wrong way to get at the keyhole—and then he is as free as he ever is. Collecting his dice, he lurches to his feet, and the girl rises quickly to steady him with an indistinct murmur, her doll attaching itself to her back like some sort of satchel.
As they walk forward together, the guards close the door behind them and escort them down the torchlit corridor. The only noise besides their echoing footsteps is the din of the crowd. The girl seems more nervous even than before, and does not let go of his arm until they stand before the entrance to the arena.
The two guards flank the enormous double door. "Good luck," says one of them, and though her helmet obscures her expression, her voice holds a sad sort of smile. The other only laughs derisively and shifts in place.
In the stands, those assembled raise a louder cheer even than before; his next death is imminent. As the guards open the gates, he walks forward in his usual trance, and the girl becomes skittish as she follows him out, conjuring a wand as she goes. He strides into the late afternoon sun, filtered through high clouds. The sky is a blinding white, like the bright glow of memories that are not quite his own.
He draws his sword, its blade glinting in the sunlight, and glances over at the girl. She swishes her baton, giving him a nervous smile, and he returns it after a brief hesitation. As he does so, an intangible carmine filament extends between her orb and his dice—the first clear link he has ever established with an outsider.
They act like an orb for him, he realizes suddenly, and he thinks that should mean something, but he has no time to reflect on it. "Now," he says, his voice hoarse from disuse, and the girl understands: they charge.
The old man challenging them immediately elicits an instinctive dislike, though he cannot place its source. As their swords cross for the first time, he realizes that he recognizes him, if only vaguely. As he slashes and parries, dodges and strikes—gives him a couple cuts that should sting, if not scar—he quickly discovers that his opponent's talents lie not in size or strength, but in grace and precision.
And artes. Though he does what he can to prevent him from casting, his second adversary comes quickly to his aid, and the girl can only give so much warning through their link. A flash of her anxiety is all he receives before his own blank shock takes its place.
As he turns to face his other opponent, his eyes widen and his breath catches and his heart seems to stop. The crowd roars, but the sound seems muffled in his ears. Blood soaks his clothes, spilling from a gash in his side—but he feels no pain at first, only the jolt of the girl's shift in focus to subduing the old man, leaving him to face the king on his own.
He has never truly met him before, let alone served at his side for all those years, but those false memories are still among his most cherished, held as dear as dice. He remembers them all so vividly, at least compared to the rest of his recollections, that it is unthinkable to oppose the only man he ever called superior. Yet he must not only think it, but do it.
The dice seem to weigh more heavily in his pocket as he lifts his sword to defend himself, his body going through the motions as his mind detaches. It soars around the scene like a bird, observing the battlefield—the girl's fragile ferocity; the old man's dapper dueling; the king's strength and splendor. A strange feeling expands in his heart, corrosive like anger, but sharper and sadder.
All the while, he is well aware that though he can match his monarch, he will never be able to overpower him. His story has only one ending, and the king writes the final chapter. The girl seems to sense some of his resignation, and counters it with fierce and foolish hope—bringing his mind back into his body as she binds the old man in shadows, silently offering him the chance to finish it.
He rolls away from a blast of fire like the breath of some mighty dragon, turning to rush the helpless elder and slamming him against the ground as the darkness dissipates. The temptation to kill, to take vengeance for some forgotten evil, is overwhelming, but he delays an instant too long. No sooner does the steel edge graze the old man's throat than he coughs: "I surrender."
The girl's fear thrills suddenly through their link, drawing his attention away, and he whirls around to find that she has barely dodged another wave of fire, trying desperately to find time to cast her spells. He readjusts his grip on his sword, charging forward. The girl scampers behind him, closing her eyes and focusing.
As the king glances over at the old man, carried off the battlefield on a stretcher, his clear concern becomes anger and his blade glows red. He realizes abruptly that this acidic feeling eating away at him from the inside is betrayal.
Though he himself has never truly lived in this world, he still feels that his place within it has been lost—stolen by a stranger. He wears the body of a dead man, and so his only purpose is to die. Who better to execute him than the king, whose right hand now holds someone else? His next death will only prove that he is a mere remnant. Everything will be made right with the killing blow; it will be a comfort to sink into oblivion. And if he can only let go of the dice…
The battle continues, back and forth, steel flashing and clashing. The girl casts her artes as usual, but the king takes slow and stately steps away from them, just far enough away that they miss him entirely. The girl's frustration smolders through their link, but he cannot keep the king in place long enough for her artes to affect him. This fight is between the two of them.
When his guard slips and his left bicep is cut to the bone, the girl gasps, but he grins behind the grimace. Though his flurry of retaliatory slashes do not make contact, his sword arm remains intact.
It is not long before he fails to sidestep quickly enough, and the king's sword stabs through his calf, burning with a harsh and excruciating light. He cries out in agony, staggering. Unbalanced from the pain, he cannot fully block the next slash, and part of the blade slices into his forearm and lower ribs…
Alarm flares from the girl like a burst of fire, and she runs forward, jumping as high as she can to beat the king over the head with her wand. It is not enough to hurt him, but it is certainly enough to serve as a distraction. He turns his head slightly, allowing his prey to stumble backwards and curse under his breath. Why does she insist on prolonging the inevitable? They cannot win this match.
The girl backs away, tears in her eyes—her doll hovering once more by her side—as the king faces her fully. "Why don't you leave him alone!" it shouts, and there is a flicker of fluid uncertainty in the king's gaze as he glances over his shoulder, but it quickly freezes over.
The world and its king both seem to turn in slow motion. He will not kill the girl; that much is clear from the low, barely audible apology in his throat. Yet he still slams his hand into her diaphragm without so much as a hesitation and propels her effortlessly across the arena.
She lands on her back, hard, and lies dazed on the ground, the doll falling out of the air next to her. The girl's eyes are still open, but unfocused, and she blinks several times as if to clear her vision, not yet breathing again. He notices suddenly that their connection has been severed, that his dice feel much colder through his coat, like two ice cubes. Until now, he has not registered that his link with the girl made them so warm.
They are his orb; they tie him to the battlefield…
On the edge of epiphany, he limps forward to stand before the girl's little half-conscious body, facing the king. Standing up as straight as he can, he raises his unbearably heavy blade with shaking hand, meeting the king's narrowed eyes in a challenge. His strength ebbs swiftly away; it is all too easy for him to imagine that it is crimson hourglass sand which pours from his wounds.
"Finish it," he spits. He knows the king can understand him, but he does not reply. He only pauses, bowing his head momentarily, and charges like a bull—like the Taurus he once commanded. But as he runs forward, the king holds his sword off to the side in a gesture of cruel mercy, and his eyes are distant, focused on something less tangible than his competitor.
He supposes wryly that his final foe intends to force him to forfeit rather than take his life. To spare an enemy is unlike him; perhaps it is because of the girl. He glances back at her briefly. She leans against the fence, clutching her middle, eyes glistening with tears of pain and worry. Her doll wears a similar expression, hovering weakly an inch or two above the ground. Both stare imploringly at their king, silently begging him to have pity.
A smile plays on the condemned man's lips as he faces forward once more, and he shifts his grip on his hilt. For some, pity can be found only in death: he hopes fleetingly that this will be the last time.
The world again spins more slowly as he hurls his sword at the king's stomach. He sees him frown, blink, as he instinctively raises his weapon—he hears the steel sing as it glances off the blade and spins away, skidding across the stone with a scraping sound—he feels pain explode just below his heart, below his shoulder blade, as something sharp slides sideways through his chest—
"Wingul!"
The crowd roars in approval, as usual, but it is the girl's high scream that stands out to him. As the king's blade leaves his body again, slick with gore, he falls to his knees. His rasping laugh becomes a cough, and a stream of blood trails thickly from the corner of his grinning mouth. The king only stands still some distance away, back turned, muscles rigid: he is ready for the next match.
For him, there are no nurses, and no stretcher. They come only for the frantic girl and her doll. ("Not again," she sobs, over and over. "Not again!") He himself is carried inside by the two guards, and stares up at the bright sky—it hurts his eyes, but the darkness hurts more—he cannot slip into the shadows yet—he must give the dice to—
"Put him down!" commands the doll, floating high once more, heralding the girl's arrival. Her warm summer eyes blaze with searing heat, streaming with scalding tears. She brandishes her baton threateningly, and he gives a faint smile. If she intends to heal him, she will only waste her energy. The spirits that create and sustain his form deflect all external healing artes, as per their contract.
"If you like," says one of the guards warily, and they set him on the ground, off to the side, as the next challengers march through the archway to their execution.
As the girl kneels next to him swiftly and closes her eyes, he raises his numb and trembling hands to her innocent face, painting it with his blood and drawing her out of her useless spell. "The dice," he croaks. "Take them." He places her hand over his dying heart, over the cubes of icy silver, and she frowns, reaching into his pocket to obey.
As she draws them out and looks at them, puzzlement amid the distress in her eyes, light bursts into his mind like the white sky. All his memories shine forth with brilliant clarity: every event in the life that was never his—every turn of the hourglass for eight years of hell—every disastrous roll of the dice. They are the pact, he realizes, the physical embodiment of the incantations that make his existence possible. A fitting representation for their dangerous gamble with his life.
"Keep them safe," he says, his voice a ragged breath, and closes her delicate hand over the dice to make sure she understands his last request. The girl who told the truth, he is certain, will not misuse the symbol of his consciousness. She sniffles, bowing her head in acceptance, and holds his hand with warm and shaking fingers.
As he closes his eyes, the light dies gradually from his mind, but this darkness is soft and gentle, like falling asleep. Unconsciousness embraces him slowly—swallowing the taste of his own blood, drowning out the sound of the girl's quiet sobs, washing away the dull throbbing pain of his final wounds.
His memories flicker out one by one, like candles, and when all of them have been extinguished, the last gleam among the shadows is the outline of a silver hourglass tumbling through the still air. Even as he watches, it smashes into countless fragments, glimmering in the fast-fading light of his final conscious thought:
May today be the last day I die.