60AGW (Year 60 after the Great War)
Dark.
Grey.
Light.
Unreality.
Woman.
Black eyes.
Hand.
Reach.
So.
Much.
Light.
Wake up, Vera Moray.
I woke up with a cold sweat.
A blast of faint light flooded my senses.
The unthinkable occurred. Color. Shape. Dimension. Depth. I have my eyes again. It can't be. I went blind years ago! Never would I dream to walk among the world, gracing its beauty again.
Stop.
Stop panicking.
Look around.
I scanned my surroundings. A small but comfortable room with plain decors. An oil lantern, its wick alight with flickering flame, enlightened the room with a ghostly hue. A cottage in the countryside? The tall grass sways hypnotically to the soft wind. A sight so pretty I have not seen since the days at Morley with my hus…
No.
Preston.
I remember now.
When we were flung out of the high society, I was angry. Very angry. Not sound of mind. And sightless.
Preston, through everything, tried to comfort me. Console me.
I didn't listen. I was angry. The Outsider – that rat bastard – whispered in my ear.
With his accursed words, I did the unspeakable.
My hands balled into fists.
I wailed.
I cried.
I regretted.
I mourned.
Through my tears, I accepted the truth.
With these hands I killed him. My husband. The man I now realized truly loved me.
With that heinous act, I have buried Vera Moray.
And entered Granny Rags.
My hands loosened.
I looked down. My clothes seemed strange. A simple dress and tunic shirt. I edged to the side of the bed and stood up. The floorboards creak under my weight. Strangely, every step I take is no longer slow and crooked with fatigue, but strong, healthy strides. A tall mirror stood at the corner of the room.
With my curiosity besting my fears, I looked in.
No.
It can't be.
It's impossible.
In the mirror stared back young, beautiful forlorn maiden Vera Dubhghoill.
…
No.
No.
I am young again. Beautiful again. I felt as if all the world's clocks had been forcefully turned back.
Back to a time where young Morleyan nobles used to fight amongst each other over me, to a time where I had respectfully turned down Emperor Alexy.
Long, curly tresses of black hair curl down my youthful features, marked distinctively with coffee-colored eyes. All traces of wrinkles have disappeared. My voice, even in my head, was smooth and lulling, compared to the crusty haggardry of my old self. I felt as if I was 17 again – maybe it was true.
There was only one way to explain this…
A miracle.
I stumbled backwards, and fell on my backside gingerly on the bed. With my mind clear and lucid, I began to contemplate my unfathomable luck. My last thoughts were of Corvo and Slackjaw running me through. But now, I'm here. How…?
How?
How?
"My dear, you don't look half as bad as I thought."
I cringed in perpetual fear as I frantically swung my head around, trying to find the speaker. All these years, listening to the hyper-sopranoic voices of rats in my head and the occasional monotone of the Outsider had left me paranoid at the voices of the living.
"Who's there?" I questioned the voice, where ever it came from.
"Turn your head, my girl."
I did.
A woman sat on a chair near my bed. She was perhaps as young as I, with a face carved from an Old Serkonoan statue and dressed with an amused expression. Dull brown bracers covered her forearms. Her blonde hair was down, with a small bun and the bangs mostly tied back. She wore a long dress with a high collar and and a high-waisted white skirt, done in with a purple sash. Her most striking features are her eyes. They were inky black, the blackest I've ever seen since…
No.
It's can't be.
"O…Out…Outsider…?" I dared ask.
"Yes."
"H…How?"
"You mean how did I get here or how am I the Outsider?"
"…"
"Oh, right, sorry. It's a long story. But I suppose we have time. The people who live here? Would be a while for them to get back."
I gathered all my courage into a question.
"Where is the Outsider?"
"What?"
"Where. Is. He?"
The woman inquisitively place her head on one hand.
"Oh, you mean the thin boy? I'm afraid he's retired."
"What. Do you mean. Retired."
The woman's expression subtly turned somber.
"He was freed. I do not know how or why, but he was emancipated from his duties as the Outsider."
My shoulders slump. She notices.
"Don't you know? Don't you know how we came to be?"
"…No."
She leaned back and reclined on her chair.
"He, like I, were sacrificed. By those who wished to curry the Void's favor."
I shook silently at the revelation.
"Many cults were formed in awe of the Void, but none managed harvest its power. Soon, they united out of a single cause: to siphon power from the Void and unlock its secrets. And they found out how. In order for the Void to listen to their pleas and offer them its gifts, it must have a figurehead. A being of sentience. A deity. In order to perform the ritual, certain conditions were met. They picked a time when the blood eclipse would align with the earth, to witness a miracle. Be it a grasshopper mass swarm or a fish rain. Then, a random urchin was picked off the streets. With his fingers adorned with rings and drugged out of his mind, he was strung over the ceremonial table and killed with a special knife."
If I had been skeptical, I am now completely mortified. A god, tailor made to offer a cult powers beyond their knowledge and understanding? But, mankind, trying to find a way to harvest such a enigma as the Void? I would never put it past them.
"The knife severed his name from humanity's subconscious and molded it into a mark, as he merged in part with the Void. His physical body lay trapped within the Void, as his astral projection was formed into the being you once knew as the Outsider. But, recently, he was somehow freed."
I stood up, in apprehension.
"How?"
She waved her hand.
"Easy, easy there. I'm the one with the facts here."
I quickly fell quiet.
"Someone stole the ceremonial knife and somehow made their way to the ritual hold. Freedom ensued."
I lowered my head in disbelief. The Outsider – no, an Outsider – can be made, and unmade? Granny Rags hath misplaced her faith.
"But how did you…"
"I was chosen next for the role. But from your world, they chose me across the barriers between worlds. They ripped me from this world, one that has yet to learn of the Void, into theirs."
This world? Into another? Barrier between worlds? Not knowing of the Void? What did she mean?
"I thought we are in the only world. Where the Empire still stands."
She let out a shrill chuckle.
"Wrong. YOU are no longer in the Isles. You have been transversed into another world. You are now in my former world, approximately 6000 years after my ascension."
Note: The Salem shown here is pre-corruption Salem as revealed in V6E4 of RWBY. Vera Moray's maiden name before her marriage to Preston Moray was Dubhghoill.
