The same violated town.
The same desperate hopelessness.
But this time, he drags himself to the outskirts.
Another tiny hut.
Even lonelier than Isaac's.
Surrounded by a rough wooden fence.
And dead trees.
He passes easily through the deteriorating gate.
…
…
…
A young woman sits on an oak stool.
She rocks back and forth gently, hugging herself.
Early thirties.
Still youthful in some ways.
And she's smiling a painted smile...like that of a wooden doll that has long lost its novelty.
She closes her eyes as she softly sings an ancient song, so old that the words have long since passed away like the centuries.
"Mie...tarathum sal fortuit...idelis das nvernes ariettus..."
A soft knock.
The front door creaks open.
He steps inside.
"Jenna?"
An old woman enters, holding a tray of food.
He moves out of the way.
Her eyes are weary.
Her silvery-orange hair is pulled back into a messy bun.
Wrinkles scar her round face.
"I...I have some food for you, Jenna," she says. "Please eat...you do look like you're starving."
Jenna's song marches on.
Until her burgundy eyes notice her visitor.
They inquire about the sustenance in her hands.
"Mom..." she whispers, drawing out the lone syllable.
Her eyes roll back a bit.
She laughs breathily through her nose.
"Mommmm...you know I don't like fried leeks. Or mashed potatoes! Give them...hehe...to Felix! He likes them! And anyway, he always eats my leftovers. Geez, for someone so skinny you'd never think he could beat Garet in an eating contest!"
And then she begins to sing again.
The previous moment barely a mote in the eyes of time.
Her time.
"Ariettus...polente de meni sarigo..."
Dora stares at the plate of stew she is holding.
She sighs.
And places it down on the floor.
He watches as she takes another tray from his feet.
And then another.
And another.
Dusty and barely touched.
Long gone cold in the summer heat.
The flies swirl up from the food like the smoke of disturbed puffballs.
Dora gathers the neglected dishes in her arms and leaves.
The door shuts quietly with the barest of sounds.
Like a music box winding down, Jenna ceases her song.
She gets up.
"I keep on telling Mom that I don't like fried leeks..."
She walks to the tray of food on the floor.
She stares curiously at it, tilting her head to one side like a cat.
...she giggles.
"Hmm...it smells almost like Mom did when we found her. Isn't that right, Felix?"
She laughs even harder.
"Right?"
More giggling, like the screech of a wounded harpy.
"Right?"
Then...
In one cutting motion, she grabs the plate and flings it across the room.
It lands with a shattering splatter on the already-stained wall.
"ISN'T THAT RIGHT, YOU FUCKING BASTARD?"
Jenna fumes.
Eyes wide.
Breaths heaving.
Hair unraveling like her sanity.
The stew drips.
And drips.
The slime still hangs on him.
Before another drop of it hits the ground, he produces a sodden chain from his being and fires it into Jenna's chest.
Jenna's head tilts again.
Her gaze follows the course of the liquid food down the wooden wall.
"Ah...a truly privileged thing, that food is," she sighs. "Wouldn't I like to drip away like that."
She vacantly wanders over to her stool again.
"I wonder if Dad dripped away like that when that trap cut him up..."
Her glance settles on something on the nearby table.
An unfinished watercolor painting.
Done entirely in shades of red.
A jumbled mix of seemingly random splotches and shapes.
It's her own language.
Except she can't even decipher it herself.
But underneath it all...
An old pencil sketch of a sleeping Felix bleeds through.
There are other pieces of art scattered around.
Streaks of green slash through a portrait of Isaac.
Brown dots and squares hop haphazardly over a quick charcoal figure of her dad working outside.
Violet haze swirls around her pastel-rendered mom knitting in a chair.
Jenna shuffles her stool over to the edge of the table.
She sweeps the papers off the top.
They flutter sadly to the floor.
A beat for thought.
She reaches over and picks one of them up.
It's another pencil sketch.
He moves over to see what Jenna is holding.
...his eyes narrow.
A young man.
Beautiful.
But masculine still.
His long hair spreads out like wings behind him as waves splash around his figure.
Only his eyes are colored in so far.
Blue like clear ocean waters.
Jenna hums as she lays the sketch on the table.
She reaches over for a brush and grinds it into a color in her watercolor palette.
Cerulean thunderbolts strike their way across the paper.
Soft and painful all the same.
…
…
…
With one final flick of the wrist, Jenna finishes her latest masterpiece.
She stands up to study it.
She purses her lips.
He waits.
She snatches the paper and rips it to pieces.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
He flinches with every strip torn.
The chains groan with him.
She kneels and rests her palms on her thighs.
A tear escapes.
And another.
"Torn...so t-torn..."
She lets herself fall to the floor.
She catches herself on weakly clenched fists.
One of them grabs a still-wet piece of paper.
Her palm colors itself cobalt.
"Why is...everything so t-torn...?"
Jenna sobs.
"We t-tried...so hard...to put everything b-back together again...but now it's all...crumbled. New Vale is crumbling. Weyard is crumbling."
She hiccups.
"Life...is crumbling..."
She shakes.
He shakes.
And wills himself to stop.
But just barely.
"Raped like my m-mom. Ripped to b-bloody ribbons like my dad. And finally...executed...as a criminal...like Felix."
He sits down beside her.
And stares.
"I..." Jenna hiccups again. "I w-want to see my family again. Mom...Dad...Felix...I want to see you again so bad. I...want to s-see...my family..."
She lays her head down for a moment.
Then...
"I JUST WANT TO SEE MY GODDAMN FAMILY!"
Loud wails issue forth from her throat and pierce the air.
But they quickly die down as she pulls herself to her knees.
Her eyes are wide again.
This time, they gleam with revelation.
She snorts.
"Wh-what am I crying about? I'll just g-go visit them! No big deal!" She wipes her face with her sleeve. "So simple. Why didn't I think about it before? I'll go get ready now!"
Jenna jumps up.
She grabs a tattered blanket from her bed and wraps it around herself.
"I can show them this new cloak I just got from a Xiannese merchant! Mom will love it for sure, she likes floral designs. Felix will probably make fun of me for being such a girl, though..."
She chatters meaninglessly to herself as she heads out the door.
He's dragged along with her like a loose thread fluttering from a ragged dress.
The chains barely give him time to regain his footing.
Jenna's feet take her to a dense forest away from town.
No birds chirp.
The leaves are as still as the air.
There is nothing to welcome the woman to this forsaken place.
But she enters nonetheless.
Running on instinct.
Intuition.
Illusion.
She steps daintily over the obstacles in her way.
A fallen tree branch.
A pile of rocks.
A failed trap hole.
A rotting animal corpse.
Jenna plods onward.
She grips the blanket tightly to herself.
Still muttering.
She weaves in and out of the trees in a random pattern.
He trails helplessly after her.
She walks.
And walks.
She occasionally trips.
She walks.
...she stops.
He almost falls through her.
Jenna shivers and gazes upward.
"...I swear I followed their directions just right."
Jenna turns and looks right at him.
He stops.
"But I've passed that exact blood spot at least three times now..."
He follows her gaze.
Behind her, against a tree trunk, is a stone decorated with a collection of red claw marks...a battle lost to time.
"Maybe...if I can just get a better view...I'll be able to see where they are."
With that, she latches onto the nearest tree trunk and proceeds to climb.
All of a sudden, she's 10 years old again.
Free from the world.
He remains on terra firma.
A sentry for oblivion.
Jenna deftly swings up to another tree branch.
Her frail figure bounds gracefully from limb to limb.
Halfway up, she pauses.
She perches herself on a branch like a starved bird.
Jenna removes the blanket from her shoulders and kneels down to tie one end to the branch beneath her feet.
Her hands knot the other end into a gaping circle.
She lifts up the blanket loop and threads herself through.
Now is the time.
He grasps the chain still hooked to her soul.
"Mom...Dad...Felix...I'll be seeing you soon," she whispers.
She closes her eyes.
And for the first time in a decade, Jenna smiles for real.
He yanks.
She falls.
The tree moans with her weight.
He shivers.
Something clenches in his heart.
He turns away.
Even he cannot bear to watch.
Jenna's body swings like a pendulum.
Ticking off the seconds to midnight.
He exhales.
Still not looking.
Minutes pass.
Her skin is as blue as her shredded painting.
The last of life dissipates from her.
And she hangs.
Hangs...
Jenna falls from her cocoon of a body and lands on the hot, stone ground like a crippled butterfly.
She pulls back her soaked hair and rubs her eyes.
She looks around.
Her hands massage her arms.
She giggles again.
"Wow...it's so warm here..."
Jenna stands up and gapes at the flesh-pink clouds.
She reaches out a trembling hand.
"The sky is so red...like blood..."
She takes a step forward in awe.
"I want to paint this sky..."
The young man watches.
Jenna suddenly notices him.
A teenage awkwardness returns to her, unbidden.
"A-Alex?" she stutters, blushing. "Wh-what are you doing here?"
"I have come to kill you, Jenna."
She blinks.
"You mean...I'm not dead yet?"
He shakes his head.
Jenna stares at him.
Unbelieving.
She laughs uncertainly.
"Gods, Alex...you're such a jackass, you know that?"
He doesn't answer.
"You were so stuck-up, so arrogant..." Jenna's voice trembles as she tries to put her heart into words, delving into feelings locked away. "I can't count the number of times I wanted to wring your neck. You were so sweetly cruel, hiding insults under layers upon layers of words that I had to ask Kraden about. Saturos and Menardi never caught the real meaning of your sentences. But I did. And as much as I hated you for your heartlessness..." Her eyes connect with his. "I loved you for the sheer aesthetic of your word craft...your power game."
The young man is taken aback.
But he is careful to retain his cool composure as he listens to Jenna's words.
"I loved you. Mars help me, I loved you. Even though you never turned an eye to me, even though you turned your back on us all for your own selfish desires! Everything about you was so painfully beautiful and calculated. There was no way I could ignore you." She looks away in shame. "You're a living sin, every last part of you. And I'd commit you again and again."
The young man stares.
Unsure of how to react to this sudden bout of sanity.
He tries to touch her shoulder—
"Even now, you hurt me..." Jenna's head snaps up, catching him off guard. "I died back there, you asshole, and you tell me I'm not dead? What game are you trying to play now, huh?"
His body tenses.
"That is none of your concern."
A bitter smirk from Jenna. "So, you're playing a game still, even in this bloodless land."
For the third time, the young man cannot respond adequately.
He's just realized what Jenna has done with his words.
"Who are the players?" she murmurs, her voice biting into him. "The pieces? The board?"
The wind howls around them.
"What are the stakes?"
"Everything...and nothing," he replies, finding his voice again.
Jenna opens her mouth to protest.
But something else crosses her mind.
"Alex...where are my parents?" she asks timidly. "Where's Felix?"
"They are not here."
"Oh no you don't!" Jenna snarls. "Don't you dare play any of your little mind games with me now! Tell me the truth!"
"They are not here," he repeats firmly.
Jenna searches his eyes.
And for the first time...she finds truth in them.
Cold, hard truth.
She stumbles back.
"N-no..."
Another step.
She falls to her knees.
"No! It's not fair! It's not...it's not...!"
She sobs again.
Her tears hiss into steam as soon as they hit the heated slate.
The young man watches.
"F-fair...it's n-not fair..."
He gazes down at her.
"I want to see them," she whimpers. "I thought...if I joined them here...I could see them..."
He kneels down and reaches out. "Rest, Jenna..."
Jenna suddenly looks up.
She looks at his outstretched palm.
Then at him.
"If I rest...will I see them again?" she asks.
He freezes.
"Y-you know...'cause I'll be d-dead...like them."
He inhales.
And swallows the breath.
He closes his eyes.
"Yes."
Jenna smiles gently. "Then...I'll rest."
She lays down.
Content.
Peaceful.
And with a touch, her expression is rendered into hard, black stone.
He sits for a moment, eyes resting on her tranquil form.
Remembering.
He sighs tiredly and tries to stand up.
But more chains weigh him down.
He cries out.
He falls.
First onto the ground...and then through it.
Kissing the shadows once again.
