Tharja couldn't breathe. She dropped to her knees amid out-of-place grass and flowers. Placing her hands on the back of her head and interlocking her fingers, she desperately tried to suck in a lungful of salt-tainted air. Her chest was tight. Her clothes suddenly felt constricting. She squeezed her eyes shut and, trying to hear past her own heartbeat hammering in her ears, listened for the water.
She couldn't have gone to the ocean, who's steady rumble could be heard in every corner of Port Ferox. You couldn't even see much of the water from the harbor anymore, eclipsed as it was by a forest of black and purple sails. And the docks themselves had become overcrowded -the last thing she needed, as the captains of the Plegain relief ships had offered their vessels as temporary shelter to the displaced Feroxi citizens.
Tharja wouldn't have gone there anyways. The hostile, uncaring, sea; stretching all the way to the horizon, was too reminiscent of the endless dunes of her homeland to bring her any piece of thought.
She couldn't have gone to one of the dozens of rivers and canals crisscrossing the city that, from what she'd heard, would have been ideal before the battle. Now, the once pristine waters ran red and polluted. Coalition forces -at Robin's suggestion, had used the waterways as barriers to trap and separate the occupying army. To the astonishment -and horror, of the liberators, many of the Valmese chose to throw themselves into the rivers instead of surrender. It would take months to fish out all of the drown, fully-armored bodies.
That only left the church.
Unlike the singularly pious Ylissians, the Feroxi didn't much care who or what you worshiped, as long as you didn't bother anyone else. In most Feroxi cities, this led to the construction of special districts known as the House of Ways.
Before the invasion, dozens of different places of worship could be found here, one for each of the many faiths of the world. Now, only the Church of the Divine Dragon stood; conspicuously untouched amid the rubble of its neighbors. It appeared the Valmese were just as much sycophants for Naga as the Ylissians.
Tharja would have never come here on her own. But, a love of Naga ran parallel with a love of nature. Every church had a garden. Every garden had a fountain.
Through her panic, Tharja finally picked out the constant, steady splash of the stone fountain positioned in a secluded corner of the church's courtyard. Opening her eyes, but unable to get her legs to work, she reached out a hand in the direction of the noise and manifested a short pull of wind.
The fountain was silenced for an instant as her magic disrupted its flow. Droplets of icy cold, crystal clear water misted across her face. Tharja gasped at the feeling, forcing a great rush of air into her deprived lungs. The sudden breath made her feel giddy. She sat on the ground for a long moment, only focusing on the pure joy of inhaling and exhaling.
Finally able to stand, swaying slightly as her vision tunneled, she stumbled over to the fountain and seated herself on its stone rim. It was a simple affair: a large, circular basin with a dragon rising from its center, water drooling from the creature's open maw.
She remembered the year her tribe had discovered a natural stream that had produced this much drinkable water. It had been the happiest of her life. The celebrations at the tribal summit had continued night after night. The prospect of being able to add another oasis to their maps had made every man, woman and child ecstatic. It meant surviving another day when you might otherwise have perished. For the rest of the world, it was a pretty decoration.
Deep in whatever was left of her soul, Tharja could still hear the trickle of those oases. That sound still meant life. It meant full canteens and slaked thirst. It meant that crackling feeling of water running down a parched throat. It meant safety.
She carefully ran a hand under the dragon's mouth, shuddering with pleasure as the cold water cascaded across her palm. She brought the moisture to her lips then, brushing her long, black hair to one side, she massaged the remainder onto the back of her neck; smiling as a few droplets ran down her spine.
Her peace was shattered by a polite cough from the entrance of the courtyard.
"I didn't think you were capable of setting foot on church grounds without bursting into flames, Tharja."
The man who had spoken could have been -and often times was, mistaken for a woman. With his delicate, angular face and flaxen hair even longer than Tharja's own, it wasn't a completely unreasonable error to make. However, the white priest's robes he wore denoted to anyone who knew the first thing about Naga's faithful that he was, indeed, a man.
Libra smiled at her to let her know his words were only meant in jest. His face fell when he met Tharja's eyes.
"Are you-"
"I don't need your help, priest," Tharja cut him off, speaking with more venom than she normally would. "I don't need to be proselytized to. I need to be alone."
It was unfair, and Tharja knew it. Libra wasn't the type to preach the path of the goddess at every opportunity like some of the faithful she had met. He also looked as if he needed some time to himself as much as she did.
His normally crisp robes were soiled and stained with blood. His forearms looked as if they had been scrubbed recently, but there were flecks of brown viscera dappling his long sleeves that had been pinned up and out of the way at his elbows. His hair was tied back in a disheveled ponytail and his own eyes were hollow and bloodshot.
It had been three weeks since the Valmese invasion, and Ylissian, Feroxi and the newly arrived Plegian troops were still working day and night to pull survivors and bodies out of what was left of the Longhouse District.
Four entire Feroxi neighborhoods -laid out in the spiraling design that so achingly reminded Tharja of tents encircling a central wagon, had been reduced to rubble. Both the why and how of it were still a mystery. Captured Valmese were, to a soldier, silent when questioned about the destruction, while the Feroxi who had been in the city at the time claimed it was done in reprisal for their staunch resistance to the invaders. None could answer how the Valmese mages could produce such powerful magics.
Libra and the Shepherd's other healers had joined the ranks of the combined medical staff of the three armies to provide aid. The priest's current state told Tharja all she needed to gauge how the effort was progressing.
Without another word, Libra turned and walked away.
Tharja wrestled with herself for a moment before calling out: "Wait! You can stay, if you must."
He returned and sat down hard at the fountain's edge, being sure; she noticed, to position himself a respectable distance away from her. An exhausted silence formed between them as Libra dipped his cupped hands into the basin and drank deeply. His whispered prayer of thanks only just reached her.
"Do you wish to talk about it?" He asked after a time.
"And just what, exactly, do you think I would want to talk about with you?"
"You aren't the only Shepherd who has suddenly become… a parent, since the negotiations on Carrion Isle."
The word hit Tharja so hard she flinched. Parent. It was impossible. Should have been impossible. How many times had she promised herself? How many nights had she awoken in a cold sweat, haunted by the nightmares of what going down that road would bring? And yet, no matter how far she had fled into the city, she couldn't escape the look that the girl -Noire was her name, had given her. The pure adoration in her voice when she had called Tharja 'mother'.
"It's not the same for me," she said in a small voice.
"I… imagine it is a unique experience for all involved," Libra said carefully.
"Oh, you imagine do you? Before you offer me your wise council, why don't you wait until one of these future Shepherds arrives and calls you 'father'." She caught his raised eyebrow and cackled. "Don't act so surprised. We all see the way you and Olivia gaze at one another. All of your vows to the Divine Dragon didn't survive one pretty, little dancer, did they?"
Libra chuckled, not the response she had hoped to get from her barbed words.
"I am no celibate monk, Tharja. The goddess doesn't deny her followers happiness in the arms of another. As for whether one of the still-lost Shepherds to travel back with Lucina is a child of mine, well, you are right. Naga knows how I might react. But, right now, my own what-ifs and maybes aren't a concern. Many of my friends are in need of guidance at the moment."
He looked at her expectantly. She sighed, not sure how to even begin.
"What do you know of demons?" she asked finally.
To her shock, the priest let out a bark of laughter, quickly smothered by a hand and a sheepish look.
"My apologies, that was rude," he said, sensing her building rage. "It was not directed at you. It is only… there is no small amount of irony for me in that question." Seeing that his explanation hadn't mollified her, he quickly continued.
"I've heard a sermon or two about the dangers of the beings of Grima. The grand cathedral in Ylisstol has an extensive library. I must have read dozens of accounts of demonic possession and exorcism. Although, none struck me as particularly reliable. Stories told by priests and nuns who had heard it in turn from others.
"Besides that, I am most familiar with so-called hedge demons: the kind who steal milk from farmers and cause the blacksmith's daughter to run away with a vagabond. I've always found that such issues grow from normal, non-demonic roots."
It was Tharja's turn to laugh, her merriment tinged with scorn.
"And your church truly believes they're the best suited to protect humanity from the greater evils of the world? At least all of the Ylissian peasants must feel safe from fairies and hobgoblins."
Libra smiled self-deprecatingly.
"Yes, I am well aware that the church has a habit of tailoring certain understandings to better fit its 'mission'. Why don't you fill the gaps in my education that the church has so carelessly caused."
"I can't speak for the entire world," Tharja began. "But, in Plegia, demons aren't a mere story to scare children into behaving. They also aren't of Grima. If the Fell Dragon is a cat than the demons are the fleas in his fur. They are parasites feeding off of greater darkness.
"Do you know of my people? The wandering tribes who light up the deserts around the Dragon's Table? We spend our lives drifting from oasis to oasis. Outsiders always shake their heads and tell us how harsh and impoverished our lives must be, unable to believe that 'primitive people' like us could manifest magic and weave enchantments the same way they do. A tribe lives and dies by its spellcasters. The position of tribal mage was one of the most honorable one could attain, and we guarded our tomes jealously."
"You were one such mage?" Libra asked.
"My tribe didn't survive long enough for me to earn that title. But don't interrupt! If you were to ask a question, it should have been 'how did your people survive before the Golden Age of Magic?'.
"Demons," he responded flatly.
Tharja nodded. "So, the priests of Naga are capable of learning. Yes. In the days of antiquity, before humans had learned to mine and refine lyric and could only manifest a few sparks or a meager flame, my people turned to what they thought was their only means of survival. To deal with demons was preferable to watching the slow death of your tribe."
"Without consequences, I'm sure."
"To join with a demon gave anyone who was magically inclined the ability to cast powerful spells without the need of a focus. Hundreds of years before the creation of the first tome or staff, my people were shaping their world with magic. But yes -your sarcasm aside, there were consequences.
"A demon can only be pulled away from the scales of Grima with the promise of a new host to infest," Tharja continued, the words spilling out faster and faster. "You became a slave to the demon's whims. Only once they were satiated could you use their power for yourself. And they would be hungry again soon enough.
"From what is now the border between Plegia and Halidom of Ylisse to the Archanean Sea, tribes led by demonic mages tore each other apart, simply for the amusement of parasites."
Libra made no comments, staring at her with a mix of fascination and horror.
"But, demons are inherently selfish creatures. They have no sense of tribe. A demon will never try to supply a host for others of its kind. The only way for a demon to exist as a human is if we allow ourselves to summon one.
"It became taboo to practice demonology. And the demon's own bloodthirsty nature meant their hosts were dying more and more. There are even tribes today who can trace their heritage back to the so called Fell Hunt: demon hunters who made it their mission to cleanse the deserts of demonic taint. Now, that time is little more than an uncomfortable chapter in our history."
"And what does this have to do with Noire?" Libra asked.
Tharja swallowed hard. She couldn't just recite Plegian history anymore. It would be her own memories from here.
"My… My tribe stayed mostly in the Red Howl: a tract of sand to the south of the Dragon's Table. Our route was easier than most, harder than some. The most difficult stretch came in… well, I guess it would be at the same time of year as Ylissian winter. To go from our territory to a midpoint oasis where we would trade with the neighboring tribes, was a two week trek across open desert. No water, food or shelter other than what we would carry.
"Each year we'd load down our caravans with the medicine and herbs we had become so adept at cultivating and return with new clothes, repaired tools and refreshed enchantments. Despite the harsh journey, I was always so excited to see the other tribes; how strange their own methods seemed compared to ours. Each year was like getting a glimpse into what I naively thought was the whole world outside of my tribe. Each year, until…
"I remember the screaming. I remember my mother dragging me from my tent, thrusting Pela's bloody tome into my hands. I don't know how she had managed to get it away from the raiders. We buried ourselves in the sand, like lizards when a buzzard is circling. We couldn't get deep enough to muffle the sound of the slaughter.
"Once it had all gone quite, my mother dug us out. Our camp was gone. Any tent that hadn't been taken was a smoldering ruin. The big caravan wagons had been pulled a ways away and then torched. The pack animals had been butchered, and our supplies had been taken. Dozens were dead. We were reunited with my father as the three of us laid the bodies out for a sky burial."
Tharja reached back and let the feeling of the fountain's cold water soothe her aching heart.
"There was less than twenty of us left, and our attackers had hit us at the very middle of our route. We were a week away from help in either direction, and many of us were injured. We pushed on to the oasis, where the other tribes could give us aid, leaving a trail of those who had given in to their hunger and thirst in our wake. Our tribe was dying by inches.
"Our mage, Pela, had died in the attack, and I had yet to learn how to properly use his old tome as a focus. I traced those spellworks every day before slept, but I just… I couldn't understand how to use the magics that would have saved our lives.
"My mother believed we would make it even without magic. She was so strong, the only spark of hope any of us had. But my father…
"That… man, he was afraid. We were all afraid, but his fear was different. It was so… smothering. Where my mother was a lighthouse, he was an oppressive fog. He would only speak of death: my death, that of my mother's, and the inevitability of us being just another set of forgotten bones to be buried by the desert. So, I was surprised when he came to me on the fourth day of our march and he seemed almost excite.
"As we were settling down for the day, crawling under the shade of this big rocky ledge, he pulled me aside and asked me to follow. He led me over a dune, and out of view of the rest of the tribe. I was beginning to feel the effects of dehydration, barely able to stumble up the sand, but he was bursting with this nervous energy. I'd never seen him like that.
"Our destination was an unusually flat depression in between two dunes. On it, my father had created a perfect circle with what looked like moist, clumped sand. I asked him how he had done it; we didn't have any water left. He just laughed and told me it was something to help me with my magic, something that would save our tribe.
"He sat me down in the center of the circle and began to hum. It wasn't a song, not really. It was tuneless and random, as if he was trying to match a note that kept changing. I was about to tell him to stop, tell him that I was going to get my mother and that she would scold him out of this nonsense, when I felt the demon.
"It grabbed my face and forced my mouth open. I gagged and tried to scream as it crawled down my throat, tearing its way into my lungs. From there, it grew, sending tendrils out to infest my body. I could feel it in my heart and gut, pushing along my veins to the tips of my fingers and toes. I could feel it wrap around my spine and bury itself in my brain.
"I don't know how I survived; I'm not even sure I did. But, I woke up back among my tribe, as if it had all just been a nightmare. The next night, my father told me my mother had died, given up, like so many of the others. He wouldn't let me see the body. I was fifteen."
Tharja's heart sank as she watched Libra's inevitable reaction: the disbelief followed by disgust at the realization that she was the very embodiment of everything his faith stood against.
"Your father was a monster," the priest said after a long pause.
Tharja inhaled sharply. Was that pity in his eyes?
"I don't disagree," she said, shocked. "But-"
"I don't believe there is a 'but'," he interrupted. "You were a child, Tharja. You were a victim. It's a parent's duty to care for their children, not to sacrifice them for their own survival."
"We made it to the other tribes," she pushed onward, not acknowledging Libra's words. He could act noble now, but she knew his pity for her wouldn't last as she continued her story.
"I was able to cast spells -not simple manifestations, but full spells, without the need of the tome; although, my father insisted I carry it when preforming magic. 'So as not to confuse the others,' he would say. And for the days left in our trek, I felt no demonic pressures. No sign that I was any different than before the ritual.
"I couldn't conjure water from nothing. Even with the demon as my focus, I still needed to understand the spells I was trying to cast. But, I was able to chill the air. So, at sunrise each day, my tribe would place their scimitars, the blades pointed downward, into our last remaining cauldron. I'd freeze the steel, causing it to gather the moister from the air. After an hour, the condensation didn't produce much; a few small cups, but it was enough to survive. We didn't lose anyone else.
"The other tribes ran to meet us, carrying food and water and medicine for our wounded. My father, a new man, told them all of the attack and our struggle, and how lucky they had all been that his daughter had just finished her studies with the tome. I'd never heard him so eloquent. We were able to recover in the oasis, nursed by the kindly elders of the other tribes.
"On the third day of our recuperation, I felt the demon stir. I left my tent early one morning, the shade of the palms and abundance of water made it possible to move around during the day. Upon hearing our story, the other tribes placed sentries around the gathering. I went to speak with one, a young man I had known for most of my life. I incinerated him with the wave of a hand.
"There was nothing to fight, no command to undermine. Like waking in the middle of the night with a dry throat, you don't have to think before you reach for your canteen. I was anxious, like something was wrong but I couldn't place my finger on what, and I instinctively knew what would sooth that minor discomfort. You don't stop to question the morality of a sip of water before returning to sleep. I didn't stop with the guard.
"The oasis was cinders by the time the demon had taken its fill. All those people: the kids I had played with each year, the gossip circle of old wives, the mages who had, on our last visit, finally let me join their conversations, all of them were ash; choking me. The palms were kindling.
"My father grabbed me. He wasn't scared or angry at what I'd done, he was just bouncing with that same, nervous excitement. He had… used my massacre as a distraction to steal food and supplies. He'd even moved a wagon and team of scalebacks away from the devastation. We escaped into the blistering sun."
Tharja drew her legs up and onto the fountain's edge, hugging her knees to her chest.
"I… I don't remember feeling remorse," she whispered. "I can't even think about it without wanting to throw up, but not because I'm sorry for the people I killed. I'm horrified by how not horrified I am. Even now, I can't find the shame. The demon burned it out of me. Every life I took was the same way."
She heard a rustle of cloth as Libra moved to sit closer to her. Mercifully, he didn't reach out to touch or console her. He knew her well enough to know that, even in this moment, she couldn't stand anyone touching her.
"But, I've seen you fight," the priest said gently. "You aren't a mad berserker. You don't revel in killing. You've never endangered another Shepherd. You've even volunteered to help heal the wounded of Port Ferox, and not entire as an excuse to avoid Noire. You aren't possessed anymore."
Tharja's laugh bordered on a sob.
"I thought you'd be a better listener than this, priest. Do you ask so many questions during sermons?
"When me and my father fled, it wasn't back to the Red Howl. We went north. He was tired of wandering as a nomad his whole life, he told me. With my new strength, he thought we could lay claim to one of the old forts that dotted the desert; leftovers from countless self-proclaimed lords and kings who fancied themselves rulers of the sands.
"We found one almost buried among the dunes. It only had a few vagrants as residents. My father left them for my demon to satisfy itself with.
"The fort would have been impossible to live in without magic. My first task was to restart the well on the parade ground. It took me days to blast away the sandstone to find where the water flow had shifted to over the years. From there, I grew the garden and cut stone to mend the crumbling walls.
"Soon, we began to attract travelers to our fort. They brought with them goods my father could demand for a day's rest and water. Over the years, we became a regular shelter for what felt like half the desert. So many that; if one or two disappeared during their stay, who would notice?
"My father would bring them to me, bound and gagged but still awake and aware, in a room deep beneath the fort. The stone insulated their screams. It was one of these victims, a bespectacled old Feroxi, who gave me the first taste of what would one day be my freedom.
"'I know what you are!' he cried as I flayed the skin from his bones. The demon didn't care what he said, but once it had withdrawn, leaving me to wash the blood from my hands, the man's words sparked something inside me.
"I found his wagon, my father hadn't gotten around to destroying or selling it yet, and discovered he was a book seller. It would have been a novelty in my tribal days, but such things were becoming more and more common. Chrom's father had declared war on the Plegian congress some years previous, and the Ylissian army had brought with it all manner of travelers and hangers-on; who filtered out into the desert.
"We'd never been worried about the fighting; so far away from anything that mattered. But, in an odd way, I guess I owe the Ylissians my freedom. This book merchant followed their troops across the border, and his own misfortune brought him to me.
"Most of the books were what you'd expect: treaties and histories and philosophical texts, the kind idiot lords purchase for outrageous sums to appear intelligent and worldly. But, at the back of the wagon, under a loose floorboard, I found the real treasures. Mage's tomes, raw lyric and looted artifacts, and books that had been outlawed for decades. Books from the time of demons.
"There was a journal, a diary of a demonologist -not the book seller, the entries clearly stated the writer was a she. She wrote of her descent into the study of the Fell, archiving her attempts to conjure and control them. From her, I learned the two things that would release me from my demon.
"A demon cannot be killed. Even when the host dies, the abomination will simply return back to a place where Grima's power seeps into our world, where it will be able to nourish itself forever. It can, however, be sealed away; imprisoned within the very body that it had made its puppet. The journal contained instructions for the closest thing to an exorcism I could hope for. But, I couldn't simply perform it and be done, the demon would know and stop me.
"There was a brief span of time, just after I had taken a life, that the demon would pull away from me and my soul would be my own again. I had thought of using this respite to take my own life, but I could never entertain that option when the time came. Now, it would mean an opportunity. I simply needed one, last victim. Luckily, the journal had provided that for me, too.
"In one of her last entries, the demonologist had written of the summoning ritual. Of what was needed to pull a demon away from its attachment to the Fell Dragon's magics. Of what one had to sacrifice.
"My mother didn't simply give up to the desert, like my father had told me."
Tharja couldn't stop the hateful smile that spread on her face. Libra looked away.
"I chained my demon as it slept, satiated and sluggish from what I'd done to the man who had turned me into a monster. Then, I ran. A long time later, I found myself with your axe and Chrom's Falchion at my throat. You know the rest."
The church courtyard was silent, save for the burbling of the fountain. Even the ocean seemed to have quieted to hear Tharja's tale. Realizing that it was his time to speak, Libra shook himself.
"And what-," he coughed and reached back to the fountain for another long drink. Tharja joined him. Her throat was sore, unused to speaking so much.
"And what does this have to do with Noire?" he finally asked.
"The demon is sealed within me," Tharja said. "It's imprisoned, dormant and powerless in my blood. It only has two ways to escape: my death, or the continuation of my bloodline."
"Could she be adopted?"
Tharja was surprised by his tone: calm and thoughtful. Why wasn't he cursing her, or calling on Naga to strike her down?
"I thought, if ever I wanted to be a mother, that is what I would do. But, no, Noire is my biological child. She looks just like how I remember my mother. She has her eyes."
"But I've spoken to her," Libra insisted. "She is a shy, bright girl, not unlike her mother. She has lived through horrors, yes, but not like yours."
Tharja threw up her hands and leapt to her feet.
"I don't know!" She shouted at the sky. "I promise myself, every day, that my lineage ends with me. I've taken no chances, risked no lovers. I will not burden a child with my blood. My demon ends with me. My father ends with me.
"But apparently, I fail. My future self, through stupidity or selfishness, ignores each and every promise, every nightmare. One day, I will inflict all of this onto a child. One day, I will be no better than he was."
She sat down hard in the grass, swiping angrily at a too-happy looking flower, her rage spent. Libra walked over to stand above her, a kindly smile on his face.
"But," he said, and waited for her response.
"But," Tharja muttered. She stood up, taking a step back to create a more comfortable distance between them. "But… Noire is beautiful! She doesn't stand apart from her Shepherds, like I do. She laughs with them, knows how to talk with them. And, I see no demon in her. It is there. It can't not be there, yet she has no knowledge of it."
"Perhaps, the future you is a better mother than you give her credit for," Libra said carefully.
"It's not possible."
"And yet…"
"And yet," Tharja sighed.
"Would you like my wise council now?" he somehow managed to ask without a trace of teasing.
Tharja nodded, exhausted.
"Tell her what you told me." he said.
She scoffed. "Oh, is that all? Should I say a prayer to the Divine Dragon as well?"
Libra laughed, because of course he did.
"Tell Noire your story. And, listen when she tells you her's. Talk and listen, Tharja. That's all any parent needs to do."