Shadows Under the Oak Tree

(C) Intelligent Systems and Nintendo

Note: I'm very sorry for this delay; if it weren't for Gunlord's help I would've never figured out how to surpass the glitch in uploading and get this posted! Also, please expect a continuation of an old story in May.

Note 2: This is based off of Canas' ending. Please don't shoot the messenger.

-0-

Epilogue: The Final Goodbye

Ilia, as one of the largest countries on the continent of Elibe, was much more complex than its snow-capped peaks and cruel winters suggested. Western Ilia, which bordered with Etruria, was more temperate compared to the other regions in the country, to the point that the snow on the ground often gave rise to flowers and a few hardy crops in the summer and early autumn. The central region was heavily forested with firs and other great evergreens. In the east of the country stood Edessa, the capital, headquarters of the Union, and the largest port Ilia had to offer. And finally, to the north were the hinterlands, where a few scattered villages managed to linger despite many people migrating towards the more populated villages and towns in the south. However, what all Ilians shared was the experience of surviving through the winter; sometimes, it was little more than an annoyance, but in other years the winter winds began biting through layered clothes with all the force of starved wolves as the snow blotted their world a crisp, deathly white.

As a people, they lived an existence not unlike a groundhog's, hidden within their homes for an entire season without complaint. Their homes were built to withstand the winds and seal in all the heat they could create from their great stone hearths, and even the villagers themselves, due to a combination of living in such conditions as well as a single-minded stubbornness, bore the same stoicism towards the winter. After all, it was bound to occur, and the most difficult part about it after a while was the sheer boredom of being cooped up in the house with the same people for almost half a year. Yet there was a limit to what the people could bear, even in snow-blinded Ilia.

Two winters after the end of the world was neatly averted--though very few outside of its saviors knew that--winter came to northern Ilia like it was the end of the world.

It was not winter as the hinterland Ilians knew it; it was nature waging war upon them for a transgression that could never be appeased. It was vicious winds hurled like spears as they buffeted oak trees and caused their branches to bend, then snap as if they had offered no resistance at all. It was snow, piled so high that it was packed against doors, threatening to push even harder against already stressed hinges. It was the strange, suspicious creaking that sturdy houses were making that their inhabitants could not figure out; was it their roofs, ready to cave in from ever-increasing amounts of snow, or were their roofs being torn, shingle by shingle, by the force of the winds? Throughout the hamlets that dotted what was fast becoming an uninhabitable tundra, fear crept with each day that resolutely marched deeper into what they all feared was their last winter.

Something had to give.

-0-

"It's getting worse."

"Is that so? Your sensitivity to the spirits has certainly grown, considering that we're indoors."

"Mm-hm. It's the 'calm before the storm', but it's ready to break. It's so oppressive."

"I see. That's certainly true. Even for Ilia, I can't recall a worse winter."

Niime listened to her son and his wife as they had what seemed like the same conversation they had been having for the last few days. She didn't even know why she had decided to stay in Ilia this winter; it would figure that, after purging the darkness from within her other sons and letting them die natural deaths as a result, she would have been struck by a twinge of sentimentality and want to stay with her remaining son's family, but it did not mean that she should have. If she had known that she would be trapped with them and their eternally-looping conversations as one of the worst blizzards in Ilian history flattened the village, she would have spent her winter in Lycia, even if the rainy weather made her joints ache.

Her patience having been splintered by the droll conversation on the other side of the table, Niime rolled her eyes as she reached for her cup of tea. "And what are you two going to do about it?" she asked, just for the change of pace.

There was silence. Niime took her time enjoying her tea before putting her cup down. As a mother, she knew what silence to an innocuous question meant, and that was never good. She made sure to stare at each of them, even their son, until they felt sufficiently guilty before she spoke again. "My, what's this? It seems that an elderly woman can't expect her only family to even politely reply to a simple question. How strange. Perhaps I've become invisible at my age?"

"Ah, no, that's certainly not the case, Mother. Actually, your question happened to coincide with something that Lily and I were discussing earlier," her son was quick to say, just like she knew he would. This was mostly because she had taught him not to try his mother's patience, along with the fact that her grandson was sniffling and pressing his face into his mother's side, whining that he didn't do anything.

Such a soft child, she thought with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. I don't know how his parents can stand to coddle him so.

"Oh? And what would that be?"

Her son and his wife shared a look. "Lady Niime," the latter began, and to her credit the young woman's tone of voice was steady, "Canas and I have been talking about what we should do. This weather is unbearable and I know that others are suffering. We've been waiting for an opening like tonight. If we don't take advantage of it now, people are going to die. Maybe because of an avalanche, or a roof caving in from the weight of the snow on a rotted beam, or because they're trapped inside their houses."

Such sentimentalism. Niime could think of worse offenders, including a man who could only forgive his sister's murderers instead of doing the right thing and avenging her, but at the moment she could only arch an eyebrow in disbelief. "Hmph. I wouldn't fault you for caring about your neighbors, but you'll just have to accept that there's nothing to be done now. Surely a sage would know better than to challenge nature itself."

"I truly wonder if it's quite that simple." Niime glared at her son for his impertinence, to which he quickly shook his head. "Ah, well, perhaps that was a bit hasty of me to say. That is, humanity as a race has reached this modern era, with all its conveniences and advances in many areas, not through simply yielding to adverse circumstances, but rather by working around or through these obstacles. Even the improvements in our own understanding of elder magic can be attributed towards the indomitable will and desire for knowledge. Our need to shape the weather is much in the same vein."

"Is that so? And how will you go about doing this, child? Do you think the spirits will agree to stop the snow if she asks nicely?" Shaking her head, Niime wondered, not for the first time, how this son of hers had ended up the way he had. She didn't remember raising him to be so annoyingly idealistic. "There is a difference between optimism and foolishness. Surely you would know this at your age."

"That difference is the wyvernstone," said the sage, brimming with all the overconfidence of a male teenaged sword-user. In her youth, Niime had strung along enough of those types to know such stupidity when she saw it. To make her mood worse, even her own son was smiling at the mere mention of this wyvernstone, which she knew was some sort of spell-storage project and not much else.

"And where will you be using this wyvernstone?"

"Oh, well, we would have to invoke it at Mount Athene for the widest range. It's really quite a fascinating theory that we had first outlined during the summer--"

"You'll die for your folly," Niime said, and silence followed her statement.

Her son and his wife shared another look, longer this time. After a few moments, they glanced at her. "We're aware of that, Lady Niime," was all her son's wife could offer.

Fools, all of them. Niime narrowed her eyes, focusing on the young boy who sat huddled between his mother and father. "I doubt you're aware of much at all. Have you even thought about what your deaths would mean for the son you'll leave behind?"

Before either of the two could come up with an answer, much less a suitable one, their son chose this moment to tug on their sleeves. "Mama, Papa, what's death?"

"Hm, well, that's a good question, Hugh," his mother said while glancing at her husband. However, Niime knew that her son was all but useless in uncomfortable situations such as this one; even now he looked more helpless than his own son, who was not even five. The sage seemed to realize this because she returned her attention to her son. "Death is something that happens to everyone. It's, um, like sleeping forever, except that your soul returns home. Since everyone dies, the most important thing is living your life to the fullest and dying without any regrets, or for the right thing."

"Oh. Is it bad?"

"That would be...purely a subjective perspective. But I suppose that, if you passed on--er, died--for a good reason, then it would be...satisfactory." Niime sighed; what was she listening to? And from her own son, no less. As if the reasons they were espousing truly mattered beyond themselves and a few others.

Her grandson yawned. "Oh. Okay."

"Let's get you to bed, hm? Papa and I will tuck you in together, all right?" With those words, mother, father and child stood up and left the sitting room. Her grandson twisted around to look at her before they disappeared down the hall.

"Good night, Grandma!"

Niime could only sigh again before reaching over and taking a sip of her now-cold tea. There was no use in saying anything; she, at least, would see him in the morning. She wouldn't get in the way of what could be his last memory of his parents.

She could not fathom what her son and his wife were thinking. Did they see themselves as heroes? The thought sickened her, and she had to wonder if that was because of the innate stupidity that resided in their plan--stop nature from running its intended course, indeed--or because it was her own blood and kin who were so determined to die.

Perhaps she could understand, just a bit--she wanted to save them from committing this mistake. And it was a mistake, there was no doubt about that; they were young, both only thirty-one and assured to live decades longer. They had the mindset that young people so often did, that need to change the world for the better. Of course they would learn in time to mind their own business, that they couldn't save everyone, but obviously such a thought hadn't occurred to either one of them yet.

She thought about all the things she could say, all their plans for the future that she could use against them to stop them from this one foolish mistake. Her son and grandson were to visit a friend of the family in Etruria the next summer. Her son's wife regularly expected letters from her relative in Lycia. If only they had been expecting another child...but that didn't seem likely now.

Niime laughed, a dry little bark of cynicism. Perhaps I'm just as sentimental.

Leaning back, she closed her eyes. She had managed to doze, even with the light from the hearth and the lanterns, when she heard two distinct voices as they drifted closer to her.

"Oh, it seems Mother is asleep."

"That's too easy. That wasn't nearly enough lecturing."

Opening her eyes, Niime glared at the two offenders, who were already putting on heavy cloaks. "I can certainly give you more, whether you like it or not."

"Ah, Mother, that's unnecessary," her son said as he adjusted his monocle. "We've already made our decision. If it's true that the magic stored within the wyvernstone can be used to warm the ground, then perhaps it can also be used to...do whatever needs to be done to balance the weather."

"You don't know what you're even going to do," Niime said, her tone dry.

Her son's wife shook her head. The wyvernstone glowed a faint crimson in her hands. "We won't know until we get there. If there's an avalanche, we use this to melt the snow. If it's a matter of winds, or cold, we can use this power to negate that."

"Surely you understand the price of using power you can't even understand." To Niime, who lived a life of wielding a magic even she could not claim more than a partial understanding of, she couldn't begin to understand how these two could be so blasé. "If it isn't used perfectly, you'll be obliterated. Even if you created this, such power does not differentiate between its creators and everyone else. Are you truly comprehending this?"

Her son was staring at his hand. "This power, if used incorrectly, can destroy the world. You said this about elder magic, but it is certainly true of all the schools of magic. And yet, my brothers and I learned to wield this power...and suffer the consequences." He glanced at her, his head bowed. "I have used this power to harm others. I have killed in the heat of battle to protect myself and others. However, all I have ever wanted to do was to help others with the knowledge I have gleaned from my experiences."

It surprised Niime that her 'daughter' was so quiet; perhaps her will had weakened. "And yourself, Lily. Your dream was a green Ilia, correct? But if you die here, using that stone that you had created as your hope, what does that mean for the future of your dream? It would be shortsighted to die now and possibly save a few, instead of waiting this storm through and continuing to achieve your dream."

The young woman said nothing. Niime knew that she was the key; her son had spoken with conviction, but Niime knew that he would do as his wife wished. Also, she had a feeling that the wyvernstone could only be used by the two of them together. But, more than that, this single decision had a weight even Niime could not deny.

This could be Ilia's future.

"...I can't."

Her son touched his wife's shoulder. "Lily?"

"I can't just sit here," she said, her voice stronger. "You are right, Lady Niime. A few deaths here, but I could potentially save all of Ilia. Logically, that's an excellent tradeoff." She shook her head. "But this is my home. Those few deaths will belong to my neighbors and friends. Every death that I could have prevented has a weight that I don't think I can bear."

"Because you're weak, you'd follow this path," Niime said. Her son stared at her, his eyes wide with surprise. His wife only nodded.

"Maybe it's weak, but all I can see is what's right in front of me." She bowed, hair falling over her shoulders. "Please take care of Hugh for us."

Niime frowned, more resentful of her own powerlessness than the last request. "At my age, the last thing I want around me is another child to take care of. Very well. I'll make him into the finest shaman in all of Elibe."

They looked uneasy to her; she hoped so, even if it wasn't enough to make them stay. She wanted them to question if it was the right thing to do, even if was only for a few moments. Perhaps those moments would mean something to them.

"...Even so, I would feel much if we entrusted Hugh to you," her son said, although his gaze was fixed on his wife's face. "Perhaps we seem like uncaring parents, but I feel that we must do something. We have the power to do something, and so we must try."

His wife nodded. "Hugh deserves a good life, no matter what. After all, we're also doing this for him. This house is also a target of the storm."

As if affirming their words before Niime, her son reached out for his wife's hand. She watched their fingers entwine and realized that they had been determined to do this from the very beginning. Nothing she could have said would have gotten through the layers of foolish noble values insulating their minds. She could see their idealism, that almost childish innocence that led them to believe that what they were doing was the right thing, but there was more than that. In her youngest son, there was that pleasant, inoffensive kindness lifting up the corners of his lips in a small smile; in her 'daughter', muted righteousness smoldered in her steady gaze.

They didn't look like heroes to Niime; they lacked that sort of self-awareness. Instead, before her stood two people who knew what needed to be done and were willing to do it.

No matter the cost.

Their goodbyes were muted. Niime, despite all the death she had seen throughout her life, could not say very much as her only son and his wife left to face almost certain death.

So she sat there, facing the door, and waited.

-0-

Niime rarely dreamed. The dreams of someone who used dark magic could drive the weak-minded into madness, but she had conquered those fears long ago. Hovering between the waking world and the realm of sleep, she reached out with all her senses, her breathing shallow as she waited.

Outside, she could hear the wing howling, the herald to announce the coming of another storm.

She rarely dreamed, but in the darkness behind her closed eyes she could clearly see two lights. By their auras, a healthy purple and warm orange, they were her son and his wife. She could see these lights as they began to grow, blotting out the darkness. The edges of the lights blurred, then seemed to merge and form into one giant luminescence that obliterated the darkness. Its strength was undeniable, a force of nature in and of itself that could challenge even the umbra that was the source of dark magic.

Then, like a candle being blown out, it vanished, leaving only a haunting emptiness inside her.

Outside, the wind could no longer be heard.

-end-