This is the last standalone chapter before the epic, 3-part finale. So hold onto your seats and take a deep breath, everyone. This is the calm before the storm.

Chapter 35: Why We Sing:

Lykos

Mars

March 4th, 2841

Darrow was nervous as he and Mustang crept quietly through the tunnels of Lykos. The mining colony was dark at night, with the tunnel lights turned down so the Reds don't go crazy from an eternal day. Elsewhere, the nightshifts weave silk clothes and mine the Martian soils. But here in the wide tunnel, there was no motion or sound except for the murmur of HCs showing old terraforming holos and the hum of distant machines. It was cold in the tunnel, but still he was sweating.

Mustang was silent as she walked beside him. She hadn't spoken since they'd descended to the floor of the colony's Common, gliding down on gravBoots and shielded from lingering drunks with ghostCloaks. It was nostalgic being back here in Lykos after all these years. He'd arrived a few hours ahead of Mustang so he could visit Eo's grave. He knew she wasn't there. Her body had been exhumed and returned to the gallows to rot as soon as he'd been caught burying her, but it was the last place where his world had felt calm and stable.

It had been sad to realize how much his perspective had changed in only four years. Grass he'd remembered as perfect and soft he now recognized as being filled with weeds. The beautiful flowers turned out to be withered and paltry. What he'd once ignorantly assumed were stars shooting through the sky were the many ships of Mars streaking through the plant's orbit bound for either the belt, the rim, or the core. Seeing this perfect place tainted by the reality of what he'd seen, he'd wondered if Eo would seem as perfect as he remembered her, now that he knew the truth. Not only that the world was so much larger than she'd imagined, but that she'd been pregnant when she'd been executed.

After his silent vigil, Ragnar had accompanied him to meet with the mine magistrate Timony cu Podginus. After making the sleazy copper sweat with fear over the possibility of the mine being exterminated for not meeting production quotas, he forced the man to give the Reds working beneath the surface a feast with the food he'd brought with him. It was more food than his people would receive in a week, so he knew that everyone would smuggle as many leftovers home as they dared to. He felt satisfied that he'd at least be able to do something like this for his family before the war began. Once they took the war to Luna, he didn't know when he'd get another chance for this small act of kindness.

Mustang had met him in the viewing room during the feast as Darrow pointed out his mother Deanna, his brother Kieran, and the other Reds he'd grown up with, most of whom were now married with children of their own. They'd talked as the celebration went on. Darrow shared stories of his childhood growing up in Lambda township as his people sang and danced among the tables beneath their feet. Mustang had a story of her own to share, one that Darrow was both surprised, overjoyed, and scared to hear. A wave of sadness washed over him when he saw a Red boy sweep a girl into a dance after kissing her cheek, the scene slightly distorted by the glass at his feet. As much as he had wanted to, he'd never be like that boy ever again. His innocence had been lost the day that Eo died.

And no matter what future he brought them, the Reds of Lykos would never accept him as one of their own. To them, he was just another conquering hero. He had no place here, but he couldn't leave. There was still one last thing he and Mustang came to do before they returned to her father's estate to prepare for tomorrow's Triumph. His wild, nervous heartbeat calmed as Mustang placed her hand in his. He looked to her and saw her nod through the ripple in space created by the movement of her ghostCloak. Whatever came next, she wouldn't leave his side.

At last, they entered Lambda township, where he grew up for the first sixteen years of his life. After everything he'd seen and done, the place seemed so much smaller. Especially for two Golds. The ceiling was lower. The rope bridges and pulley systems that led to the upper levels of homes seemed like children's toys. The HC screen that once glowed with Octavia au Lune's face was revealed as an ancient relic with missing pixels dotting the surface. Mustang deactivated her cloak as she looked around, her eyes dancing from bridge to bridge to home like she's seeing something wonderful. It warmed Darrow's heart that she found a simple place like this so interesting.

Darrow climbed the stone steps to the bridge leading his old home just like he used to as a teenager only four years ago. Funny how four years of infiltration and deception make him feel like he's aged decades when he's barely twenty-one years old. Now, his limbs are too large for the steps, and he didn't want to use his gravBoots in here. Mustang kept hers off as well, dusting off her hands as she made it to the landing where the thin metal door to Darrow's old family home had been cut into the wall.

"Darrow," she said quietly. "Are you sure you're ready for this?" His hands trembled as he looked down at her.

"I'm not," he whispered nervously. "I don't know if I'll ever be ready for this, but if I don't get it over with now, I fear I'll never get another chance." She nodded in understanding.

"Are you sure you want to go this far?" he asked, still anxious and self-conscious about how well she's handling everything.

"I told you, helldiver," she whispered playfully as she held up the engagement ring on her hand. "I'm not leaving your side. I'm with you, Darrow. Always." He gave her one last kiss before he turned to the door.

"Wish me luck," he said quietly as he gently pushed it open. As a Gold, he was so much taller than his old Red self that he had to duck to enter his childhood home. The house was cramped, smaller now in comparison with the castles of the Institute and the warships of humanity's empire. Despite the quiet and the size, the first floor was the same as he remembered it. The small metal table hadn't changed. Neither had the plastic chairs, the small sink, the drying clay dishes, or his mother's prized teakettle hanging on the stove. There was a new rug spread out on the floor, the work of a beginner judging by the quality of the carpet. Darrow almost didn't recognize his old work boots sitting at the base of the stairs, right where his father used to place his own. Only they were more tattered and worn that they had been when he'd last worn them. Once again Darrow marveled at how small he used to be before Mickey carved him.

The house was cloaked in silence. Everyone but his mother was asleep. The teakettle hissed on the stove as the water reached a boil. Soon it began its breathy murmur. Feet scrape over the stone stairs of the house. Darrow fought the urge to run out of the room, rooted to the spot by terror as she came closer, until she was in the room with him. She paused at the last stair, her foot suspended in midair and forgotten. Her eyes found him and never left, completely ignoring the rest of his Golden form. Darrow panicked as she said nothing. A second passed. Then three. Then ten. She doesn't know me, Darrow thought, a mixture of sadness and fear. I shouldn't have come here. She doesn't recognize me. I'm a lost Gold poking his head in out of curiosity. I can leave. Run away now. My mother never has to know what her son has become.

Before he could make a decision, she finished her step and came towards him, gliding across the small space of the room. It had only been four years, but she looked like she had aged five times that. Her lips were thin, her skin loose and webbed with lines. Her hair was worked through with sooty gray, hands tough as oak and gnarled like ginger roots. When her right hand reached her face, Darrow had to kneel. She still hadn't taken his eyes off him. Now they let out tears, ignoring the teakettle screaming on the stove. She brought her other hand to his face, but was unable to open and touch like the other. It remained twisted and clenched like her son's heart.

"It's you," she whispered softly, as though Darrow would disappear like a night vision if she said the words too loudly. "It's you," Darrow could tell that her voice sounded different, slurred.

"You know me?" he managed to say desperately.

"How could I not?" she replied. Her smile was twisted, her left eyelid sluggish. Clearly, life had been far less kind to her than it had been to him. She's had a stroke, Darrow realized. It broke him to see his mother's body fail her. To know he wasn't there for her. To know her heart had broken. "I would know you… anywhere," she continued before she kissed his forehead. "My boy. You're my Darrow." Tears welled up in her son's eyes.

"Mother," he whispered. Still on his knees, Darrow threw his arms around her and let the silent tears continue to flow. For the longest time, neither of them say anything. His nostrils took in the lingering scent of grease, rust, and the musty tank of haemanthus. Her lips kissed his hair the way they used to when he was a child. Her hands scratched his back as though she remembered it just as brought and strong as it was now."

"I have to take the kettle off," she finally said. "Before someone wakes and sees you like…" She trailed off, gesturing to his golden hair.

"Of course," Darrow replied.

"You have to let go of me," she told him.

"Sorry," he said, laughing at himself as he let go of his mother.

"How…?" she asked, standing there looking at the Sigils on his hands, shaking her head. "How can this be? You… your accent. Everything."

"I was carved," Darrow explained. "Uncle Narol saved me. I can explain." She shook her head, trembling so slightly that she probably thought he couldn't see it. The kettle shrieked louder, and she told him to take a seat while she took it off the stove. She pulled her late husband's clay drinking mug from the high shelf, pausing as she slipped into a private moment where she remembered the mornings when she and Darrow's father would prepare for the day together. After taking a deep, long breath, she dropped the loose-leaf tea into the pot and poured in hot water afterwards.

"Would you like anything else?" she asked. "We have those biscuits you liked."

"No, thank you," Darrow replied.

"And I took my portion from the feast tonight," she continued. "It's delicate Gold food. Did you do that?"

"I'm not a Gold," he said. But he couldn't keep the blush from his cheeks, telling her all she needed to know.

"There are beans too," she added. "Fresh fro Leora's garden. You remember her?"

Darrow spared a quick glance at his datapad. Fitchner, in a fit of admittedly justified paranoid would only let him bring Mustang to Lykos if she consented to bringing a tracker with her to prove that she was on their side and not heading into Agea to sell them all out to her father. As both she and the rest of his friends had assured Fitchner, she was still right outside, although she'd sent a message letting him know she'd had to turn on her ghostCloak and gravBoots to avoid being seen by some drunk miners returning to their homes for the night. He didn't need the tracker to know where her heart was in this, but knowing she was still there was reassuring with the uncertainty of what he was doing now.

"I remember everyone," he said to his mother as he looked back up. "I'm still me." She paused when he said that, facing the stove. When she turned, a lopsided smile crossed her stroke-ravaged face. Her hand fumbled one of the mugs, but she recovered swiftly.

"Got something against the chairs?" she asked sharply when she noticed that he'd seen the clumsiness of her hand.

"Other way around, I'm afraid…" Darrow said with a chuckle. He hled up the chair. The plastic was only durable enough for a Gold child, not a Peerless Scarred who stood just over seven feet and weighed as much as any three Reds put together. She chuckled darkly, a laugh that, as a child, always made Darrow think she'd done something sinister. She gracefully folded her legs and sat on the ground instead. Darrow did the same, feeling gangly and clumsy in his childhood home as his mother put the steaming cups between us.

"You don't seem terribly surprised to see me," he said.

"You talk funny now," his mother pasued so long he wondered if she would even continue. "Narol told me you were alive. Failed to say you'd gone and dip yourself Gold, though." She paused to sip her tea. "I bet you've got questions."

"I thought you'd have more," Darrow replied with a laugh.

"I would," she answered as she eyed his Sigils. "But I know my son. I know my son. I'm more patient." And so, mother and son began to get caught up on what Darrow had missed after his "death". Darrow was surprised to learn that his uncle Narol was dead. The old drunk had fallen down a mineshaft with his son Loran two years ago. His mother laughed however. The bodies had never been found, and given Narol's personality and connections to the Sons of Ares, she told Darrow that she would believe her brother-in-law was dead when she met him in the Vale. The way she said that made Darrow think that she understood that there was more to the world beyond the mines. She probably didn't know the whole truth, but she did know part of it, Darrow speculated that his uncle and cousin faked their deaths to be with the Sons full-time.

Darrow's younger sister Leanna had remarried since he'd been gone. She'd moved in with her husband and his family in Gamma Township. Darrow had sneered learning that his sister had married a Gamma, but his mother had smirked threateningly, a message that he might wear the trappings of a Gold, but he had better shut the hell up about her daughter. In any case, Leanna had two daughters who looked more like Darrow and their father than any of the children from Gamma.

Kieran, Darrow's older brother, had grown significantly from the sniveling child that Darrow remembered screwing up his chores all the time. He'd become the HeadTalk for the Lykos mining crew after Uncle Narol's alleged death. His wife Nora had died in childbirth though, and he'd recently gotten remarried a few months ago. To Eo's sister Dio, as a matter of fact. She was pregnant, and Darrow's mother was hoping for a girl, but she said that with her luck it would be a boy who wanted to dodge pitvipers and steam burns his whole life if he could. After reassuring his mother about her fears that the mine was running dry, he finally told her what had happened to him. He told her everything, started from the moments after Eo's death and unding with the promise he made to the ArchGovernor.

His mother believed him, but she also pointed out that the other Reds wouldn't be as accepting of the truth of who he was and what really laid above the surface of Mars. After Darrow had finished his story, she admitted to him that she'd never liked Eo as a romantic partner for him. She felt that the girl could be manipulative, and had kept things from him, referring to the fact that she had kept her pregnancy a secret from him even when they were both being whipped for sneaking into the Bubble Garden where he'd buried her a few days later. Deanna reassured her son that his wife hadn't been a cruel girl, that Eo had loved him with everything she had, and Deanna loved her for it. But she had always been afraid that Eo would make Darrow fight her battles, and she knew how much her daughter-in-law loved to fight.

"But in the end, Mother," he said. "Eo was right about this. About Gold."

"I'm your mother," she retorted. "I don't care about what's right. I care about you, child."

"Someone has to fix all this," Darrow said. "Someone has to break the chains."

"And that someone is you?" she asked sarcastically.

"Yes," Darrow said, wondering why his mother was doubting. "It is. I'm not being foolish. I can lead us out of here. Out of slavery."

"To where?" she retorted. "To the surface? Where we will do what? All we know is the mines. All we know is how to dig. How to harvest silk. If what you say is true and there are hundreds of millions of Reds on Mars, how will there be enough homes for us up there? How will there be enough work? Most won't leave the mines, even if they know. You'll see. They'll just stay miners. And their children will be miners. And their children's children, except the nobility will be lost. Do you think about these things?"

"Of course, I do," Darrow answered.

"And do you have an answer?"

"No," he admitted.

"Men," she groaned, rubbing her right temple. "Your father was one to jump without looking." Her expression told Darrow everything he needed to know about what she thought of that. "Helldivers all think they provide for the clans," she continued, gesturing around. "No. The women do. Everything you see, made by a woman. But you know how to shape the world, don't you? Know how it should be."

"No," Darrow said. "I don't. I'm not the one with the answers. No one man or woman has all the answers. A thousand, a million bright minds will be needed to answer what you've asked me. That's the point of all this. What I can do, what I am good at is tearing down the men and women who would keep those minds shackled. That's why I'm here. It's why I exist."

"You've changed," she finally said after a moment of silence.

"I know," Darrow replied as he picked dust up from the floor and rubbed it between his palms, noticing how strange the familiar dust looks on his Golden hands. "Do you think… Is it possible to love two people?" His mother picked up on what he was talking about almost immediately. He didn't need to explain to his mother that he had found love again with a Gold.

"I'm happy for you, child," she said. "But I'm worried for you as well. She was raised to maintain these shackles you want to break. If you tell her the truth I fear she'll leave you in a heartbeat."

"Mother," Darrow replied as he sent a message on his dataPad for Mustang to come in. "She already knows, and still she loves me." His mother looked at him, and he knew that she'd realized why he was telling her about Mustang."

"You want my blessing," she said. Darrow nodded, and his mother leaned forward and gave him a hug. "My boy, you don't need permission to follow your heart. If this girl knows who you are, where you come from, and wants to marry you anyway, then go right ahead and marry her." Deanna jumped to her feet as the door pushed inward and Mustang walked in, Darrow quickly calmed his mother down and introduced her to his fiancé. His mother was closed off and guarded at first, but as she and Mustang talked about the Gold's relationship with her son, Darrow could see that his mother was beginning to warm up to Mustang. But before the conversation could move towards a topic that Darrow had planned to talk to his mother about, one of Kieran's daughters came down stairs to talk to his mother, forcing him and Mustang to activated their ghostCloaks and quietly slip out of the house while his mother brought her niece back to bed. Telling his mother that Mustang was pregnant would have to come another day.

It's theorized by fans that Mustang knew she was pregnant with Pax Jr. when Darrow told her the truth in canon, and that was part of why she was so disoriented by the revelation that Darrow was a Red. And to clarify for those who might get confused, Darrow is at least a head taller than Mustang, so he has to look down to look her in the eyes.

The mining colonies of Mars are divided into multiple clans. Gamma, Lambda, Omicron, etc. Gamma clans are the ones who are given special treatment by the Golds as a way of keeping the Red divided against each other instead of uniting against their masters. As such, everyone who's not in Gamma hates those in Gamma clan.

Terminology:

Haemanthus: A flower grown on Mars. It's name means "blood blossom", and its oils can render a person unconscious and give the appearance of death. This is how Darrow's execution was faked in Red Rising. His uncle gave him drink from a mixture of Haemanthus oil and beer before he went to bury Eo.

The Vale: Red culture's depiction of the afterlife.