You say "I wanted you to be proud of me"
I always wanted that myself
When you gonna make up your mind?
When you gonna love you as much as I do?
When you gonna make up your mind?
All the white horses have gone ahead
To tell you that I always want you near
You say that "Things change, my dear" - Winter, Tori Amos
When they finally reached the inner sanctum of the Shrine, Chris had finally found that state somewhere beyond exhaustion where it didn't occur to her anymore that she'd just taken a long sprint and a battle in full plate mail, keeping up with a bunch of people in light or no armor. Her breath hung in the air in front of her, and soon enough the cold would catch up through the exercise. She'd fallen back in behind, half being pulled by Nash; Geddoe and Hugo had led the way through the shrine, the two Runebearers acting in a desperate resolve, as if there was something they heard that nobody else could quite make out. Lucia, Fubar, and Queen hadn't seemed to have had any trouble keeping up, and it rather stung that the only one that looked as worn out as she felt was Caesar. She wasn't sure why they'd brought her, but when word had arrived that Jimba had gone missing, last seen heading into the Amur Plains, Nash had insisted on her coming, more grim than she was used to seeing him, and most of the others had backed him up. Some subconscious part of her saw the pattern of what they all knew that they weren't telling her, a part she wasn't quite ready to understand yet.
"Jimba!" Hugo's panicked shout, and the sound of everyone else readying weapons, snapped her out of the reverie she hadn't realized she'd fallen into.
She drew her sword, letting Caesar edge back past her to stay behind. The inner sanctum was almost impossible to identify as something manmade, the walls thick coated with jagged ice crystals; a snow-laden wind howled through the chamber, blue and white light cast from a silver orb in the center of the room that had formed a shell of shimmering blue, taking up most of the vaulted ceiling. The older Karayan was on the ground, the snow and ice around him red, with Yuber standing over him, both blades out and bloodied; the girl they'd just fought was ignoring her own wounds, helping the nameless Bishop to his feet, the cracked shards of his mask in the snow in front of him, bladed shards of ice sticking in the snow where they'd just broken through his defenses. Albert was just behind the two of them, looking more and more uncomfortable with each second.
"The Water Rune's going to go completely out of control soon." Yuber shook the blood off his blades with a snap of each wrist, making the comment to the Bishop as if he were speaking of a child forgetting to close the window after dark. Something silent went between the Bishop and Sarah as Hugo and Fubar dove at them, hitting only snow where they'd been standing as all four of them disappeared in spirals of light.
Lucia was already at Jimba's side, gently holding him out of the snow as much as she could; Geddoe knelt at his other side, helping support his shoulder. Hugo stood slowly, still holding his blade, and walked over to stand at Jimba's feet, Fubar whining softly and leaning his feathered head on the boy's shoulder. Queen and Caesar hung back by the door, watching the entrance in silence, not looking at the others. Nash stood right next to her shoulder, something unreadable and bitter in his expression, eyes unfocused on the scene.
"Chris…" Jimba lifted his right hand weakly, waving her closer. The part of the back of her mind that caught the hints so far seemed to want to shatter everything as she walked forward, confused. "The Rune…would you take it…I can't…can't hold it back much longer…" He was torn to shreds, holding up his right hand to her, the blue light cracking around it with bits of frozen dust, giving her a look of...she wasn't sure what to make of that expression, there was pain, and some kind of utmost trust. No one else would look up to meet her eyes.
She reached down, taking his hand, and the True Water Rune hit her like a tidal wave. The waking world fell away into a colored web, the flaring, roiling blue knot of the shrine, the lines of power leading off from it; she could feel the Lightning Rune cracking beside her in subdued grief, the Fire Rune howling to nothing as Hugo turned and walked a few steps away to plant his blade in one of the ice spires, Lucia's smaller smoulder, an upright whispering behind her that was Nash with two serpents coiled in obedient sleep, something clever-scrabbling-rat that had to be Caesar, loyal-wild-jessed-hawk of Queen holding sympathy, silver wind and wings of light and pride that was Fubar. The Rune seemed to drag perspective upward, to a larger web of light and shadows, as the ties and bindings that connected the True Rune each to each other were briefly revealed in a flicker, a rush of sigils, powers, faces and souls too quick for her to pick details out of; then it showed her the past.
Ages rushed by with the tides, the fates of nations and civilizations ebbing and flowing. Glimpses of past bearers, of events past bearers had been involved in, flooded through, too much for her to absorb more than a flicker of images and voices.
As it started to settle down bonding to her, it started showing her bits of the previous bearer, the soul it'd just released its hold on. The fight at the burning windmill. Avoiding her on the long retreat from Chisha. Hugo, Lulu, Aila, and Fubar as kids. To the past, watching the firestorm of the out-of-control Fire Rune, standing beside Geddoe.
Leading the Knights into battle against the Lizard Clan. Kneeling, bloodied, before the Karaya Chief.
Walking out of his daughter's room in the middle of the night. "Forgive me, Chris…"
She snapped out of it with a start; the sphere of blue and silver light was gone, the wind and hail had stopped, and the ice and snow were slowly melting away. It had bothered her for so long, that she didn't even remember her father's face; she'd met him and hadn't even known him. She dropped to her knees next to Geddoe; he was dead, the Rune had been the only thing keeping him alive after Yuber was through shredding him, he'd passed the Rune on to her knowing that he wouldn't survive.
Because if he didn't pass it on, even though he would've lived, everyone in the area except perhaps Geddoe and Hugo would've died.
"You…you were…"
She tried to reach through the Rune, to find something in its magic to save him; there was nothing - it had a great deal of power with healing, but it couldn't bring back a Runebearer who'd given up their life to pass the Rune on.
After Nash had told her that her father was still alive, she'd spent hours awake at night wondering why he'd left; why he hadn't come back, or sent any message to let her know he was alive, and some nights, she'd found herself almost hating him, for walking away and leaving like that. She tried to find that again, now that he'd left her again - if not for the Rune going haywire, he would've died and she never would've known her father'd fallen here. She couldn't do it; the Rune had given her everything he'd meant, everything he'd done.
And she couldn't find any anger knowing that this was the second time he'd died for her.
Nash squeezed her shoulder as it shook, and she realized she was crying, tears disturbing the blood on her father's clothing. Out of the edge of her vision, she saw Geddoe's good eye close as he turned away; He'd known, but apparently hadn't wanted to tell her without Wyatt's permission. So had Hugo and Lucia; Lucia had known from the start, Hugo had figured it out from his stories. When she looked up, even though Nash's hand was still on her shoulder, he looked away; he must've caught on at some point.
"We should get him out of here - get him a proper burial." Geddoe started to gather the body, then Fubar nudged Lucia out of the way, slipping under insistently.
They let the gryphon carry him, Geddoe and Lucia taking the lead; Chris walked just behind Fubar. Hugo was beside her, eyes on the ground; Wyatt - Jimba - had looked after the boy as if he'd been Jimba's own son - he might as well be her brother. The others were behind them, quiet as pallbearers on a funeral procession.
She had fought so hard to become a Knight like him, to be something he'd be proud of; she knew now, with his memories of watching her fight at the battle of Chisha, that she'd done well in his eyes. Her father was proud of her. But there was something else missing. She'd looked up to him all her life; considered him a hero every bit as much as any of the others that'd used that word for him, and he had never realized it.
She looked up from watching Fubar's tail swing as the gryphon walked carefully ahead, to her father carried on the gryphon's back, with one quiet whisper.
"I was proud…you really were a hero."