Day 45:

She didn't try to Dream that night. Not just because that would require admitting to her father that she had been trying, but because this day was a tiny reprieve in a month of war. The battles weren't won, but she needed that moment to breathe.

Whatever her intentions, Bahamut had other plans.

No sooner had she laid down to sleep than she was pulled from her body and thrust into the In Between. Though the sensation was not so dissimilar to the years when she had still been struggling to control her magic, it was distinct. His hands closed around her, dragging her along. She reached reflexively for her naginata, but it never came. This was the In Between. Her only weapon here was her will. And his was stronger.

:Behold, O Daemon Queen, the product of your sacrilege.:

Eos blossomed beneath her, like a watercolor painting spreading across a canvas. Bahamut towered over all with Reina trapped in his hand.

:The Starscourge threatens all life on Eos. Unchecked, it will consume the heart of the star and everything upon it.:

Darkness drifted across the land beneath them. Her arms were pinned to her sides and she had little hope of freeing them from this position. She didn't try. He would issue his threat and release her. So she waited, silent. He couldn't be reasoned with. He couldn't be made to change his mind. The only solution for his ignorance was death.

He painted what may well have been a horrifying picture for her, had she been anyone else on Eos: the black taint of the Starscourge consuming people one at a time, from sickness to corruption to transformation. She watched the whole process. Horns sprouted from an old woman's head. Spines tore through that hunter's back. A little boy screamed as wings burst from his shoulders.

If he wanted to frighten her, he might have tried showing her something she hadn't witnessed first hand.

:The power we bestowed upon thy house was a gift. Humankind hath been granted one chance to save themselves from the plague they wrought.:

The plague they had wrought.

They had wrought.

The Cosmogony stated that Astrals were beyond human comprehension. It was one of the few points on which she agreed with the old texts. No human in their right mind could comprehend how anyone could be so blindly ignorant. Did he tell himself those lies to make himself feel better? Or did he still believe mankind deserved to be punished for Solheim's hubris?

:Thou hast turned thy back upon this path. Without the fulfillment of the prophecy, there is but one path to ensure Eos' survival. This world must be cleansed.:

White light burst over the surface of Eos. It burned away the black fog of the Starscourge; it turned daemons to dust; it left sunlight in its wake.

And it killed every living creature it touched.

It scorched them, burning skin from bones and charring skeletons into white ash. It poured over Insomnia, past the walls, and transformed every citizen into dust on the wind.

Cor.

Iris.

Ignis.

Noctis.

Father.

:All shall be cleansed.:

"The only plague this world needs to be cured of is you."

She woke to her own voice and stared up at the canopy overhead. He would kill everyone. He really meant to kill everyone.

And she still had no notion of how to stop him.