Aversa didn't want to do this. She wanted to run away, she wanted to hide, she just didn't want to be here.
Yet, she knew she must. She had made a promise to herself, and she knew that if she didn't go through with this she'd be left with an aching hole in her heart for the rest of her life. Sure, there were other days, other weeks, years, but… Today was special. Today was the anniversary of… That day. The day her village was slaughtered by that man.
And one year ago, on this very same day, Aversa had looked into the wellspring and discovered who she truly was. Today was special.
As she approached the charred remains of her former village, she felt unwanted memories surging through her mind. She recognized the worn, overgrown trail she tread on. Young trees joined the lineup of the elders that thrived on each sides of the dirt road, intertwining branches and leaves filtering the sunlight that streamed through, patterning the dirt below. Aversa knew this path – the little girl she once was had often traversed it. She stopped in her tracks, turning to face the woods to her left. There – just beyond the brush, was a stream that she and her childhood friends had played in. Her sister had attempted to join them, but they had usually ditched the toddler before they reached the brook. Their names danced at the edge of her mind, there but too dark to make out…the wellspring reawakened Aversa's lost past, but could not give her everything. But she had their smiling, joyful, you-filled faces.
Aversa nearly smiled before she could help herself, thinking of the good times she had once experienced with those she loved. This thought made her frown. Her happy memories and loved ones, and those that could have come to be but did not – all of them, ripped away from her.
Aversa halted at the dilapidated arch signaling the outskirts of her old town before steeling her nerves and entering the ruined streets. The town did not match the one in her memories, of course. The buildings were charred shells of the homes they once were, and the streets were littered with weeds, the cobblestones broken or misplaced.
A particular structure on the street corner made Aversa stop, hit with a memory so forceful that its impact nearly knocked her backwards. Reiha. It was Reiha's old home, the one with the red cotton drapes that the child Aversa had envied so much. Reiha, with her stunning hair that matched her curtains and her sparkling, joy-filled amber eyes. She had been one of Aversa's closest friends, a mischief-maker and confidant. Aversa remembered consoling her when her mother died giving birth to her brother. …Cecil, that was her brother's name. Was it? Aversa couldn't recall.
Aversa approached the house, running a finger over the mud brick walls. There were no more red drapes. Her smile faded. For a moment she thought of entering the house, but she decided against it. Reiha's spirit certainly wouldn't be happy to see the woman that had caused her death. Aversa turned away and continued down the road, making a left, watching her shadow stretch before her, elongated and misshapen.
Aversa couldn't remember the village's layout if she tried, but once she calmed and let her feet guide her, she found she knew where she must go.
They brought her to next stop—Sansel's house. The label appeared in Aversa's mind as soon as she laid eyes upon the broken tiled roof, not yet ruined enough to disguise the telltale yellow plating on the edges. The door was gone – burned on that night, or perhaps destroyed by time and weather – but she could see inside. Sansel - a girl with light hair and calm blue eyes; the mother of their trio. She was the one to hold them together; even when Reiha and Aversa had their stinging arguments, Sansel was the one to calm them - the peacemaker. Sansel - with her loving mother and infant sister and her ever kind gaze.
Aversa knew she shouldn't, but she peered inside the tiny cottage. Memories swept over her – happy memories filled with smiles and warmth that were undistinguishable from one another. The emotions that swept over Aversa made tears fill her eyes, but she didn't allow them to fall. She stepped inside the house and immediately regretted her decision. She saw joyful events taking place – hallucinations, dreams, visions, whichever they may be. They horrified her – seeing her friends laughing in a broken, rusted shell of a home. She left just as quickly as she entered.
She made her way through the winding streets, recognizing a building here as the home of an irritating young boy, a pile of wood there as the former stand of a fruit seller. Ferns and moss thrived on almost every surface, saplings sprouting up through the uncovered spots of soil. It was a beautiful sight, but simultaneously a dreadful one. The village in her memory was a lively and colorful gathering place for sellers and peddlers, but the one before her… It was overgrown, wasted. It was decrepit. It was dead.
Finally, she came across the home that she dreaded seeing the most. Her own, yet not hers. It wasn't Aversa's; it was the home belonging to her childhood, her past life. The sandy, slightly rosy bricks were worn, just as she remembered, but they were covered in soot and grime, even after all these years. Unsurprisingly, her house was in the worst condition of the entire town. She approached the threshold, and gazed around at the ruins of her old home.
Suddenly, she was immersed in memories, of crying with her mother when the letter came, stamped with the Plegian royal crest and announcing her father's death; of arguing with her sisters, shoving one of them away after a toy had gotten ruined in the midst of an argument turned physical; of getting scolded by her mother; of apologizing, and going off to play, a stitched up doll in hand. Of returning, and, upon entering the hut, her mother turning and gifting her with a smile made of sunshine… Aversa saw the vision before her, and she nearly reached out, nearly smiled in return… until she realized that her mother's kind, loving smile was not meant for her, but for the young child that both was and was not Aversa.
She doubted her mother would grace her with a smile, were they to meet today.
Stricken with this thought, Aversa backed out of the entrance, as if she had been burned, seared by the memories that flooded her mind. Turning, she walked away, down a different path, almost too quickly.
Shortly after she arrived at the town square, which had been converted into a mass grave after the massacre that took place all those years ago. Aversa remembered the bodies piled in the center of the square, she remembered observing the graves, dug one by one at a painstaking pace, the corpses filed away into individual holes - the only system of organization being to put a cadaver in whichever grave fit the body best.
For some off reason, Validar had stuck around to see the aftereffects of his crimes; to watch the visitors from neighboring villages come and pay their respects; watch the weeping relatives that had returned to wish their family a safe passage to the afterlife; and, possibly more than anything, to watch her. He surely stayed to watch Aversa, watch her weep, even though her young mind was wiped clean and turned into a blank slate on which to record any lie Validar so wanted, hadn't comprehended the tragedy that had occurred.
Aversa recalled watching the procession of mourning. At the time, she hadn't had any idea why such feelings of grief overwhelmed her, why her heart was aching for those that she did not know. But now… now, Aversa knew all too well, and those emotions came rushing back, doubled, tripled, in sorrow and guilt and the sheer force of them nearly drove Aversa to her knees.
But she remained standing; she did not let the tears fall. She had no right to cry - none at all.
Her mother - she remembered her mother's body being tossed into a pit, so casually, so painfully. Aversa's father had perished in the war with Ylisse, and so he was buried outside the town borders. They did not get to lie together in death. Aversa did not deserve to release her tears.
Steeling herself, she stepped further into the square, amongst the stones placed in a grid along the ground. They did not correspond to the graves with which they marked. Indeed, no one had taken note of who was buried where, so instead resident names were listed and carved into granite stones, and placed where they would best fit. There, amongst the names of the murdered, alongside the names of her sisters, Sansel, and Reiha…Aversa saw her own. No doubt it was thought she was dead - even if her body hadn't been recovered, there were quite a few that had been lost in the inferno, or houses that had been skipped and neglected of a search, so many were the destroyed. Finally, she came to the one she had dreaded seeing the most.
Aversa knelt in front of her mother's tombstone. She opened her mouth to speak, but what emerged was a desperate, strangled wisp of air, unable to take responsibility and turn into the words that would set free and permanently chain her soul. After clearing her throat, she began again.
"Mother… I…" words began to fail her so soon after returning, and Aversa took a deep breath. She'd come to see her mother for the first time in sixteen years; she thought she'd have so much to say, yet… How could she confess all that she'd done, and to her mother's memory, no less? Aversa had committed crimes, done deeds that no sane person would want to tell their mother…And Aversa was no different than a shamed prodigal son. Her mother was not the most forgiving of women—far from perfect, but she had still raised, fed, and cared for Aversa and her sisters. "Mother, I've done so many things since we last saw each other… And… I don't know why…or how I'm here, to be truthful, but I am." Aversa's hands balled into fists.
"I know that this is all my fault, and I don't have the right to speak with you, but…" she sucked in a breath and exhaled, a strained breath, "…please, I'm so, so sorry. Forgive me, Mother…" her voice had to it a hushed, pained plea.
Aversa felt a cold wind ruffle her hair, and the connection with the physical world calmed her nerves somewhat; she took a deep breath and straightened. "I'll never forgive myself," she addressed the slab of granite, unafraid, "but I promise you, I won't forgive him either…and…I won't waste my life."
She still felt the heavy burden of her past, she still held with her that bitter resentment, for herself and for the man and the god that caused it, but in a final, parting gesture, she leaned down once more and placed a gentle kiss on the cold gravestone. She imagined it was her mother's cheek, and for a moment thought she could feel warmth against her lips.
She rose, and the peace she had briefly obtained swiftly left her. Aversa couldn't help herself: she chuckled, a sour, troubled laugh. How frivolous this trip had been. And yet…Aversa did feel somewhat…lighter for it. She knew she didn't deserve any alleviation of guilt or pain, but all the same, she felt relief at that lessened burden.
Suddenly, she heard footsteps approaching her. Aversa whirled around, alarmed, and felt irrational fears obscuring her thoughts and the anger she thought she had let go of returning with a fury borne from desperation and fear. What if he had returned? What if it was the ghosts of the villagers – the ones whose deaths she had –
"Oh, hello," said a girl with a bouquet of hyacinths cradled in her arms. She couldn't be that old – perhaps nineteen or twenty – maybe twenty-one. Her hair was light, like many of the Plegian desert-dwellers, and her skin held a healthy tan glow. Her eyes seemed familiar to Aversa, a haunting gray-blue that bored holes into Aversa's skin. "Are you here to pay your respects, too?" the girl asked with a kind smile.
Aversa wasn't quite sure what to say. She hadn't expected to see another person here. She didn't want to see another person. She had come here to apologize, to show weakness, and she couldn't do that in front of this strange woman. Granted, she couldn't do that in front of herself, either…but Aversa, more than anything, wanted something—someone—to blame. Someone that wasn't herself. She would have snapped at the girl… But found she couldn't. Aversa had so much anger inside of her, and she wanted to let her grief out, take it out on this unsuspecting, hauntingly familiar woman… But she couldn't.
"…Yes," Aversa responded. She was surprised at the way her voice sounded. It didn't carry the same haughty, teasing tone that it normally did. She sounded… Weak. Vulnerable. And she hated that.
"Did you lose someone?" the girl asked, and Aversa didn't know how to reply. Perhaps the girl sensed this, and she continued, not allowing Aversa the time to respond. "I did too. Of course, I was very young at the time, so I don't remember them very well…" the girl remained smiling, but her eyes took on a depth of sadness. A wave of guilt hit Aversa, though not unexpectedly. She knew that Validar had massacred the entire village, and that others, perhaps from other villages, had known the men and women and felt their loss, yet perhaps she hadn't properly considered their feelings. Aversa wanted to reach out to the girl; she wanted to break down and apologize, over and over. But she didn't. The girl's expression turned to worry and she reached out, as if to rest a hand on Aversa's shoulder. Aversa flinched away, not wanting this woman's pity. She didn't deserve it.
The girl withdrew her hand and looked away. "I apologize, I didn't mean to upset you…" she said, peering at Aversa through the corner of her eye. "Um… Do I know you? You seem…very familiar."
"…No. I've never seen you before."
"Oh… I apologize, I thought –"
"Don't," Aversa murmured, and, with a final glance at the graves of those she once loved, walked away. She had a home, a husband to return to.
The woman stared after her, as if she couldn't shake a lingering feeling that she did know the woman with the strange tattoos, even if the woman herself had denied it. When Aversa disappeared from sight, she sighed, accepting that she would probably never know. Turning to a moss-covered tombstone, she knelt, placing the bouquet down and smiling.
"Hello, Sansel. It's been a while since I last visited you, I'm sorry. I just saw someone that looked… familiar, but she said that she didn't know me. Oh well. How are you? I hope the gods are treating you well, Sister. Terrin is fine, and just the other day, he…"