AN: Yeah I know, it has been a slow updating period for me, I've been embeded in an instructor course for the last few weeks that left me very tired and with little free time, but hey, I passed and got my certification, so... yay me. I have been trying to get these written and edited for a bit now, hope it was worth the wait, today you get a Synod and a God Rising Chapter each. Enjoy. :)
...Illyana's House…
Neia looked up at Pestonya from her position with her head in the dog woman's lap.
When the woman finally spoke it was with a very motherly voice.
"You shouldn't feel guilty over your feelings." Pestonya said, and she began to caress Neia's head.
"How did...?" Neia started to ask.
"Because you love them." Pestonya answered.
"Them?" Neia asked uncomfortably.
"Your friends, your family, the ones waiting beyond these walls." Pestonya replied, letting her hand linger on Neia's cheek.
"You feel bad about putting them at risk, and you feel bad about making them feel afraid for you. When the impulse hit you, and then when you understood how it would affect them for you to end your life... It's only natural to feel these things, to feel 'guilt' over everything that went wrong, over what almost happened, even over your desire for it all to end."
Neia could only look up into the matronly canine face and curiously, her eyes of terror did not cause the maid to even flinch.
"Did you ask to feel that way? Did you say to your god, 'Give me pain I can't bear, give me fear I can't live with, make me feel like everyone is better off without me.' Did you say any of that?" Pestonya asked, and Neia shook her head vigorously in a negative response, though she could not bring words to pass her lips.
"Then we have to help you come to terms with your own mind, with your thoughts, and learn to regain control. I won't lie to you and say you'll be who you were before this all began. But I will say that there is still hope that you'll learn to live 'today', and come to terms with everything behind you."
"Thank you…" Neia whispered.
"My dear… haven't you enough weight on you? You cannot bear the weight of others' hearts. Nobody can."
"Father does..." Neia whispered.
"Father?" Pestonya asked.
Neia blushed and tapped her finger tips together self-consciously.
"Ah... I... Well, Lord Ainz feels like a father, so sometimes without thinking I uh... call him that." She bit her lip. "He knows and... he doesn't mind." She added.
"I see, but he is undead, his emotions are always under control, you are a human." Pestonya replied, letting the word slide past without further comment.
"Also, you spent a long time pretending nothing got to you. But it did, didn't it?" Pestonya asked.
"I... didn't want it to, because I had to do those things... The first time, at the wall that day, everybody else died, but father gave me life again, so I had... I HAD to live to serve him...! The sin was mine but the price was theirs! When I shot my friend, my followers, I couldn't let anyone else pay the price again... don't you understand? It had to be me!" Neia's body started to tremble.
"I... Yes, it got to me, but because it got to me alone it didn't have to haunt anyone else! That was the reason, they wanted my followers to suffer, but so many already had... so when my wife said one of my orders was monstrous, well what could I say? I know she didn't mean 'I' was a monster, but what else kills children? What else kills its companions? What else shoots the fleeing in the back?! She might not have said I was a monster, but can I be anything else?"
"In my head, I heard Remedios, she said I was poison, that I was drawing my friends to their deaths... after killing so many innocent people, how could I not believe her... myself? Skana died, taking poison meant for me, I almost killed Lakyus in a fit of temper... if I just die... they'll be safe. So I ask you, am I wrong?" Her voice went thick as if choked off as she spoke.
The eyes of terror were blurred with glassy waters welling up, and Pestonya lowered her face to Neia's and gently nuzzled against her cheek.
Pestonya was softer even than she looked. It felt good to be touched like that. "Do you trust your friends and family?" Pestonya asked kindly.
"I do." Neia said confidently.
"Then… don't you trust them to decide their association with you for themselves?" Pestonya asked reasonably.
Neia bit her lip. "Will that stop them from dying when I lose myself again? I'm a danger to them, you know by now what happened, I'm sure you were told before coming to see me." Neia had a bitter smile form on her face as she said that.
"I'm falling apart inside, and poison seeps from every crack. I don't know what to do, but sometimes... like... like before, I can't and couldn't see any other way but my own death. I don't want to die… I know that now… but what else is there?!"
Neia's eyes snapped wide open and she all but shouted, "What else is there?! People like me don't 'get' lives! We don't 'get' happily ever afters! We don't go home again! I'm lucky enough that I got what happiness I did! But after…" Neia briefly fell to tears and rolled over, pressing her face into Pestonya's stomach. When she calmed herself after the dog woman spent a long time just stroking her back.
"When I drew my sword on my wife, that was… How can I? Yes, she can take care of herself, but we'd talked of children, having a life after everything, adopting some orphans, or maybe finding a… a body father to help, but I can't be trusted around children! I've killed too many of them, I react too violently. Imagine what might happen if we had a little girl wake me up from sleep with a nightmare?! What happens then?! Will 'I' become the monster she dreams about, or will I be the one to make her sleep forever after?! I can't give my wife what she wants anymore, maybe… maybe I never could, I don't know, but I can't now! I don't want to be just some miserable wreck to burden her and my friends all the way to the grave. I don't want to die… but I don't even know how to live." Neia rolled back away from her and looked up. "Some legend I am, huh?"
"More than you know." Pestonya said, "You called the Sorcerer King, 'father' didn't you?" She asked, and when Neia nodded anxiously, Pestonya added, "Well, he sent you here hoping for you to get better, do you think he would do that if he didn't think you could?"
Neia shook her head, "If the one I see as a father has hope for me still, I will embrace it. But I don't know what to do. Last year, Tinamoc told me about a question he couldn't answer. He wanted to know how to live with himself after a terrible thing he'd done, weighed on him. I didn't have an answer then, and I don't know the answer for myself either. But do you know what question really haunts me?" Neia asked desperately.
"No, what?" Pestonya prompted.
"What if I can't?" Neia whispered. She bit her lip hard enough that it bled, and did not notice. "When I drop that 'what if' all that remains is 'I can't' and then...". She trailed off and looked away. Silence remained for a while until Pestonya broke it.
"Come with me, why don't I show you to your room, and we'll get you into some comfortable clothing." Pestonya offered, helping Neia up, she walked her out of the magnificent little paradise.
...Outside Illyana's House...
CZ, Lakyus, and Skana found themselves looking out over a great green field at the marvelous building the Sorcerer King had created to heal the wounds of war. "So this is where she is?" Skana asked, biting her lip.
"Something wrong?" CZ asked.
"Really, CZ?" Lakyus asked incredulously.
"Something 'else'." CZ clarified.
"It's just that I 'know' Neia, for all the wonderful things about her, she tends to deny things are wrong, but she can't deny them now, not anymore. So if she can't deny them, what will she do?" Skana replied with a voice full of concern.
"Recover?" CZ only half-asked.
"I don't know, I honestly do not know." Lakyus responded.
"Will she even want to see me?" Skana asked, "Maybe we shouldn't have come."
"Then leave it to her, but if she doesn't, just be patient, and try not to be upset over it." Lakyus cautioned her patiently, placing a hand on Skana's shoulder.
"It isn't you." CZ added her own cautious warning.
Skana took a deep breath and swept her hair back with one hand, "You're both right, all we can do is go, and leave it to her to decide what she wants."
Despite her brave words, the walk towards the entrance was the slowest Skana had ever moved as the courage that drove her to run full tilt into hundreds and hundreds of fights, flagged and all but failed her. Had it not been for her companions, she felt she would surely have tucked tail and run 'somewhere'. It made her uncomfortable to do this, but as she thought over the events of the last few days, she could see no other option.
There was no conversation as they walked towards the building, Skana could only turn things over in her mind. She thought back to when Lakyus had warned her, she thought about finding that Neia had hurt herself in the night, she thought to all the denials her wife had made that she had tacitly accepted just because it was easier.
'Hmpf, 'Bold' my saddle-chapped ass.' Skana grumpily thought to herself. 'I let all that go because it was easier than dealing with it, CZ warned me at Prart that Neia wasn't fine, then Lakyus warned me at Kami Miyako that she needed time to stop, and I never listened. The Sorcerer King says I didn't fail her, but even if I can't admit it to him or his guardians, I did. I took the easy route and just let the signs and symptoms go, I let Neia… I let my wife, slip deeper and deeper, and what did I do about it? How could I have been so stupid?' Skana's thoughts rushed around like wild horses in her mind, she ground her teeth hard enough that her jaw ached as she walked forward.
'Not this time. Not this time or ever again, if Lakyus hadn't listened, Neia would have been a corpse on a bathroom floor, she'd have died all alone in agony. If I can face demihumans and demons, then damn it, I can deal with this!' She forced her mind to focus, she took slow, even, deep breaths in and out as they drew closer and forced herself to look up, her stride lengthened and became more confident.
Lakyus looked over at her as they came to the base of the steps, "We've got her back, but we've also got yours. Don't forget that." She reassured, and Skana looked over at her and smiled with more confidence than the adventurer expected to see on the one eyed woman's face. Skana reached up and covered Lakyus's hand with her own.
"Thanks. I mean that, to both of you." Skana said, and walked up the stairs without further hesitation. The room was large and open, there were numerous people sitting in comfortable looking chairs along the walls with various people seated along them, not only were there humans, but there were elves, dwarves, orcs, and a variety of other beings.
When the trio entered, they were immediately recognized by many of the people waiting there as patients and visitors. It drew gaping looks of disbelief, and normally Skana would have been happy to stop and talk to them, but now there was only one thing on her mind. She approached the counter and for a moment her tongue caught before it could form words as she looked at the woman opposite her..
She found herself looking down at a familiar face. "Enlaith? Right?" Skana asked in surprise.
The elf girl looked at her in shock. "Lady Skana!" She rose immediately to her feet with a joyous expression on her face. She rushed away from the desk, out the entry dividing the waiting area from where she worked, and hurriedly embraced her auburn haired savior. It was a tight embrace that caught Lakyus and CZ by surprise to see.
Skana embraced her in return. "I'm so glad you're alive, I didn't see you after… well, you know." She said. The beautiful blond elf stepped back and nodded. "No, it's alright, I made it out of Kami Miyako just fine, I ended up going to the sanctuary lands the Sorcerer King bought, I lived there for awhile, but when word came…"
"Yes?" Skana asked as Enlaith trailed off.
"Well, the agents of the Sorcerer King came among us asking for volunteers or people in search of work, they told us of how many Black Justice warriors and other soldiers were suffering badly from the wounds of war. They said we could help by working in facilities like these, so of course I volunteered immediately, how could I not? You all did so much for us…" She let the sentence hang, then went on. "Anyway I work here now, imagine my surprise to find... well, I suppose you're here for her." Her voice went grave and serious. What she said wasn't a question, and the trio nodded seriously.
Enlaith took Skana's hands in both of her own, "Yes, of course, I took her to the rest area, but Pestonya has probably taken her to a private room by now."
She leaned over into the window and said quietly to another elf sitting at a nearby desk with a stack of documents, "Sabine, I'll be handling these myself, cover the window for me."
The elf smiled back gently and stood up from her position, she then went to the window where Enlaith had been seated and took her place. As Lakyus looked at the woman, she noticed that while her hair was long, as most elf women wore it, it was not back, it was shaped to fall in front of her ears, most elves didn't do that. Most showed off their heritage and did so proudly. The fact that she concealed her most obviously elven feature suggested that she was among those who bore lasting scars, either the physical sort they refused to heal, or the mental sort that they had yet to recover from.
It brought up a lingering sense of loss, one she'd felt since the horrors of the interior of the Slane Theocracy had been laid bare, but about which she could do nothing but let pass. Part of her ached to speak with the girl, she almost approached the window to offer some words of comfort or hope or 'something'. But she aborted the half step and turned her face away and back over to where Enlaith was explaining things to Skana. Sabine was another she could never help. Instead she focused where she could, and turned her ears back to the pair as well.
"...So now she's going to be an inpatient, and per the orders that came for me from His Majesty after having settled her in, she's to be allowed unlimited long term residency if that is what it takes, she can stay here until she says she wants to go, even if the staff had already deemed her ready months or years before. I promise you, Lady Skana, there isn't an elf in this place, who won't move the world itself if that is what is needed. She's a national hero for us, we'll do anything for her, no matter what." Enlaith squeezed Skana's hands as hard as she could and her voice was firm as steel as she emphasized what she was saying.
"So, now if you'll come with me, I'll show you where she is, I can't promise she'll want to see you… I've dealt with a lot of cases like hers now, and do you know what hits hardest right at moments like this?" Enlaith asked as she started to lead them away from the lobby and down a long corridor.
"No. What?" CZ asked.
"Shame. Worse, at the moment at least, than the feelings that led her to try to end it all, is the fact that she tried to end it all. For all our efforts to erode it, there is still a strong, vile stigma against suicide and mental health problems. The Sorcerer King's edicts against such beliefs, his public statements, did much to erode it, but the private opinions, cultures, and upbringing of his subjects are a lot to change, even for a god. She's a good example, she feels like she failed somehow, irredeemably. It's strange isn't it?" Enlaith asked with a note of sadness and irony in her voice.
"What is?" Lakyus asked.
"Here we have a warrior woman of the highest caliber, she has braved arrows, magic, fought armies and even killed the most dangerous paladin in the modern era, she literally forced an entire army to kneel and started to crush it, ripping her flesh open and bleeding. She was ready to die by drawing on the very power of god… but she's afraid of how people will judge her over this one single desperate act. Fearing death less than contempt and judgement… how strange are people? She bore all that physical agony and psychological torment, but do you know what she was frightened of not but a few hours ago?" Enlaith reached into her pocket and began going through a set of keys as she asked the question, but she did not wait for their answer.
"She was frightened about what her wife would think of her, what her friends would think of her, what her 'father' would think of her for it all, even having heard from him that he didn't think less of her, only feared for her, and she's still more frightened of how she'll be seen and thought of, than anything she ever faced in the war. It's a dark, dark thing, to have one's own mind become an enemy." Enlaith somberly said as she turned a corner, leaving them to dwell on that as they walked the rest of the way down the hall until she'd stopped at a large door.
She slipped the key into the lock and turned it quietly. "You lock her up like a prisoner?" Skana asked in surprise, her eye widened and her fingers clenched and unclenched anxiously.
Enlaith froze, "We take the utmost care with the lives of our patients, I don't 'want' to secure her this way, but the degree of her stability has yet to be assessed, and this keeps her safer, and everybody else as well. Tell me, has she ever been violent towards you or anyone else?"
Skana and Lakyus both looked away uncomfortably. "I withdraw the question." Skana said softly.
Enlaith looked… very sad in that moment. "If this could be her, it could be anyone, and yet still, there are people out there who won't come to us when they need it…" She shook her head, dismissing the depressing thought, and cracked the door open.
"Lady Neia?" She whispered, "Will you take visitors?"
"Oh god… oh god, oh god, oh god…" Neia's voice was such a soft whisper that even she could barely hear herself, but thanks to the power gained by years of war and violence, and in the case of CZ, her innate nature, the anxiety laden little voice… so small and contradictory to the powerful voice they were so used to, was as clear as a little dinner bell.
"I… Yes, send them in." Neia said from within.
Enlaith nodded to the group, and opened the door the rest of the way. As the door swung in, they found themselves in a moderately sized light blue colored room that vaguely reminded them of an open sky. There was a small bed in the corner, a table, a private restroom complete with actual plumbing, a small table fit for a few people to sit at, which was made up of a light colored wood that Skana did not recognize. In the corner of the room was an easel on which a canvas sat and the beginnings of a painting.
Neia herself sat at the table facing away from them, her hands held her arms at the bicep and moved up and down anxiously as if cold, despite the warmth of her quarters.
Skana went immediately over to her wife, and knelt down beside her where she sat. "Neia…" She whispered.
Neia's eyes were squeezed tightly shut, she didn't look over. "Neia please…" Skana whispered with no more noise than a light breeze, "Please look at me."
Neia didn't look, Lakyus and CZ held back, allowing Skana to speak.
"Neia, please let me apologize to your face, give your wife that much." She whispered further.
Neia's eyes flew open as if she'd been slapped and her head whirled over to face where Skana knelt. "I'm so sorry, I'm sorry I let you down, I wasn't there when you needed me, how you needed me. I knew something was wrong… I knew it but I didn't say anything, I was afraid to speak up. I just kept waiting for you to be alright when everybody warned me you weren't. Please… please forgive me. I almost let you die because I was afraid, and…"
As Skana spoke, Neia's bottom lip quivered and she shook her head in small, jerking motions, "No, my love you didn't… it wasn't on you…"
"Yes, it was." Skana said, laying her hands in Neia's lap. "It was because I was there and I could have said something, done something, and didn't. It was easier to do nothing and just wait for the problem to fix itself. But leaving you to your own suffering was no better and no different than leaving a wounded soldier on the battlefield, even worse, because I'm the one person who should be 'first' to rush to your aid."
Neia's eyes welled up, "I never wanted to you to worry, I never wanted to hurt you, any of you…" Neia said, looking from her wife to her friends. "I thought," she froze, she almost looked away, but held her gaze and carried on, "I thought if I were gone, I'd be keeping you safe, so many disasters followed me, and I lost myself. Tinamoc once told me not to lose myself in all this, and I did anyway. When…" She looked down at Skana and touched her cheek, caressing it lovingly, "you died, shaking and in pain, from a poison meant for me, after I'd already done so much, all I could see for any of you was suffering if I remained around. Skana, I promised you a life, we talked of children together, a quiet rest after everything was over, and what could I offer at the end? I thought you'd be safer, and… I thought at least my own hurt would pass away."
Skana let Neia's hands cup her cheeks, then wrap around her as she slipped down from the chair, she knelt in front of her wife and each drew the other into an embrace. "Maybe we underestimated each other, maybe we were both afraid, but that stops now, I promise you, I promise you that." Skana said, drawing back to look Neia in the eyes. "I told you at Prart, you're stuck with me to the end, and I mean any end."
"If it helps to know, we got them." Lakyus finally said, and Neia looked over to her.
"The ones who…?" Neia began.
"Yes." CZ said, cutting her off. "Most are dead." She added with an underlying hint of satisfaction to her monotone.
"Who were they? Former Theocracy loyalists?" Neia asked.
"Sort of." Lakyus said, "They were from the Slane Theocracy, but they were a Zuranon offshoot, they targeted you hoping that the Sorcerer King would raise you as an undead, and that you would kill vast numbers in his name, and in so doing, fuel their own magic. There were two survivors among the guilty, they are now in Nazarick, probably wishing they hadn't survived." There was a surprising edge to Lakyus's voice, a viciousness that Neia had never heard in her before.
Neia's mind went into overdrive, they could see her moving to a tactical emotionally dead mindset, the sort she had when she ordered people's deaths. "I see, they'll be interrogated, probably Vanysa and Demiurge will make a game out of who can get the most information fastest, they'll identify any other known Zuranon agents or hiding places, and father will have the lot of them hunted down… depending on size, Zuranon will be wiped out of the region within a year or less except for long silent offshoots…" She trailed off as she muttered the implications of the fragment of information she'd just learned, before finally giving a nod of satisfaction at some unspoken conclusion.
Lakyus had seen her think quickly before, she'd seen her decisive and destructive, but she'd never seen such a rapid set of conclusions drawn with such casual naturalness, such automatic competence made her glad they were on the same side. She looked over at CZ as if to confirm her own thinking, and as if the maid demon could read her mind, she nodded. 'Is she really the same squire from years ago?' Lakyus thought to herself.
Neia however, had moved on and was talking quietly with Skana, "I was ashamed, I know I shouldn't have been, but I was. I thought if I just denied everything, told myself I was fine, I would be, if I made myself numb, I wouldn't… if I… no, I was wrong. I'm 'not' fine. The truth is I don't even know if I ever will be."
Lakyus approached and touched Neia's shoulder, "We'll help you every step of the way, we're a team, rose or not, you're a dearly treasured friend, and friends 'are' family, and the point of a family is to help one another."
"Right." CZ said with her characteristic succinctness.
Neia started crying quietly and let herself slip into her wife's renewed embrace. It was only the utterance of a tiny 'thank you' that told them that Neia's tears were those of relief.