Griever steadily walked towards the gate, brooding. Always brooding. About his future, but mostly about his past. This was the one place he could go. She was the only one who understood at all.
Eden. That mysterious being who dwelt in the dimensions outside of time and space. Passing through the gate into that strange and peculiar pocket of subspace, Griever could hear her voice. The wordless voice that was as thunder through the heavens.
You.
Why are you here?
"I have no where else to go." Griever's reply echoed his thoughts. But he didn't want to think just now, and instead simply sat gazing at the enigmatic entity before him. Eden was so unlike anything else, like a wildly beautiful mosaic of every time that ever was, is, and will be. A being of great power and wisdom who was like a guide to others.
Angel.
Griever looked up suddenly, slightly startled.
Those are your thoughts Eden continued. But angel I am not, though perhaps something similar.
"Perhaps something more," Griever said, more to himself. But Eden did not agree, so he withdrew his comment.
They wish you to return.
Dwelling outside even time itself, Eden could only communicate within the "now".
Bahamut does not hold your deeds against you, he wishes that you return.
"I wish it not." He turned briefly away. No, dear Bahamut, he thought, it is not your forgiveness I cannot accept, but my own. He thought back on what had happened. No, Bahamut would not, could not understand. That terrible cry, the deadly scourge released upon the land, and all in his- Griever's, name! Yes, others were to blame for creating the bridge, but it had been he who had caused the crossing of it. And now he could not pass a night there without seeing that terrible reminder ride through the sky.
Griever gritted his teeth in anger. Never again would he be so foolish as to attempt to show reason to irrational beasts!
You must leave it behind.
Griever looked up and smiled weakly. Of course, Eden did not know that what she tried to console him for was truly the least of his concerns.
"Why did you go there, anyway, when you go nowhere else?" he asked. "Wait, let me answer that- it was because it involved the alteration and control of time, and so you yourself would be of considerable help, right?"
Your analysis is accurate. Yes.
Griever smiled to himself, but remembering that time quickly made him grow serious. After that first terrible incident, he had placed his power in the world so that it could be used to help undo his mistake. But in the end he found himself fighting against that very power, fighting for a dark master he could not resist. His effort did not prove completely in vain, however, for it was with that very power that he was then defeated and the order restored.
You are restless.
"I wish to wander." He did not say, I wish to do penance. Penance, such a useful word.
Bahamut neither consents nor forbids. You are to come back.
The last part was both a statement and a question.
"Perhaps. Eventually. Yes." Griever replied. "When my soul finds rest."
The gates were open, the worlds endless to roam.
Return. The soft echo was so faint, it was no more than the stirrings of a light breeze.