We have confirmed, the attack on Central is centered around what appears to be a dragon. Authorities are working with the army on just how to take down the creature that is causing unprecedented chaos downtown.
Nafury watched the image of himself on the screen as he was when he was possessed by Daath. He was terrifying.
This just in! Our cameras have spotted a young woman on the rooftop with the monster! She appears to be holding on just barely! Oh no--she has lost her grip!
Screams consumed the air then as the camera followed Sybl's fall. But his sister vanished in a blink of stars before she could collide with the ground. Nafury's eyes were already closed. This wasn't the future, but a past he had hoped to never see again.
Ubi turned around and looked at him. He struggled to regain himself as he didn't realize that he had started to cry. She got up and went over to him and hugged him, catching him completely off guard. "I know you didn't kill my mother and that you were possessed by Daath at the time. I forgive you if you tell me that this is true."
Nafury touched her long, dark hair as she pressed her face into his chest. He feared her hot tears would burn his heart right out of him. "I make no excuses for my weakness and inability to keep it from happening. I should be the one who is dead, not your mother. Nothing I do can ever redeem me for what I've done." Ubi pulled away from him and he wiped some of the tears out of her eyes with his cold thumb. "So I don't want you to forgive me, ever. What I do know is that if your mother had known of your existence, she would have turned Earth inside out to find you."
"I know that now," Ubi said. "It's what you almost did. Had she remembered me, she would have likely helped you in its destruction. I can and I will forgive you, but I will never forget what Earth and its Sentry have done to all of us. I don't ever want to go back, but I don't want to put you and Xirel in danger by being here."
"Heh," Nafury replied. "Trouble is like my own personal shadow, anyways. Maybe the three of us stand a better chance at keeping it at bay."
Ubi smiled and touched the pendant on her neck. "I have a family now," she said optimistically. "We are family. I won't let them take you or Xirel from me."
"Same," Nafury assured her. "We all have a hundred secrets, a hundred regrets, and a thousand demons. But if we are honest with each other, I know we will be alright. Even if the truth is as painful as this. Can you promise me that?"
Ubi nodded and looked back at the screen as the memory of the news broadcast faded and left grey static on the screen. "I was so young at the time, but I remember this sickening feeling in my stomach when I saw this. Only when she was gone did the memory return to me that she was my mother. I rushed downtown to try and find something--anything of her, but I found nothing. It was complete chaos, even after the Asterians left. That was when the Sentry found me and put me in an asylum. I guess because of what my mother did made them not want to kill me right there. Or maybe it was because of the dragons being there, I don't know."
"If only Sybl would have told me you existed before she died. It wasn't until she spoke to me as a spirit shortly after that I learned of you," Nafury said and looked to the ground. "I might have been able to save you sooner."
"It's okay, cause it all worked out now. Besides, I probably would have killed you if you came near me back then."
"I suppose you're right," Nafury said.
"Fay govern the will of Aragmoth, and therefore Aster. Of course I'm right."
"Has Xirel inflated your head that much already?" Nafury laughed.
"Hey!" she snapped back. "You watch, when I learn how to use Thread, Aragmoth will listen to me too."
"I don't doubt it in the slightest, Mistress over Awls," Nafury mocked. She punched his arm rather hard. It was enough to wake them from sleep in a fit of laughter.
"What in blazes is going on down here?" Xirel asked from the stairs.
Nafury and Ubi only laughed harder, till she finally curled up and returned to sleep.
Xirel just shook his head as he looked at Nafury. "Caelestis save us all. Their madness has reached the point of laughing at their nightmares..."
"Lighten up you old grump," Nafury said and got to his feet. "It's going to be alright." Xirel's purple eyes suddenly grew wide and Nafury froze for moment. Then he looked around for what might have stumped the Awl so bad. He didn't think till now that it was even possible to surprise an Awl. "What is it?"
The normal Xirel came back around and shook his head. "It is nothing. I am going back on deck."
"By the way, did we have a plan for if we get outnumbered over there?"
"Yes, you just reminded me of it actually," Xirel replied.
"Oh?"
"We pray."
THIRTEEN
It took Kenshe over a week to recover from the Fay's attack. His own shift had inflicted a near-lethal amount of damage to him. He was still on edge as none of his training as a Custos prepared him for any of it. He had been born like a True--he never thought that one day he would be almost eaten by one. He closed his eyes and found his thoughts drifting to those of Nafury. Something had struck the Threads between them hard enough to get his attention.
"Lord Kenshe," Feryl's voice said from across the table. The council members in the room had taken notice of the Atrum Lord's lack of attention.
Kenshe blinked and pulled his focus from whatever the hell Nafury was doing now to the present.
"You heard it too, didn't you? Just now?" Prisca asked from where she stood looking out the window of the War Room.
Kenshe looked at his most devoted ayame, who was always one step ahead of him. She rarely missed the chance to be by his side since she was just a little girl watching him from her windowsill. He had almost lost her to death by Simera at the Sanctus. Had he been a minute more late, she would have died from the amount of blood she lost. That had scared him. The sight of the berserking White Death at the Sanctus had terrified him even more. With some luck, the monster would stay on the Torian Continent. And there was still a Fay out there capable of killing him. He had more fears than he could conjure solutions for as of late. He never felt the need for Sybl's or Kas' guidance as much as he did now.
Kenshe shoved his never-ending worries out of the way and brought his thoughts back to the discussion at hand. "How many Callers can we get back to the Atrum before morning?"
"We will have at least fifty by then," Prisca replied.
"That won't be enough to cover the Harbor and the City from the dragons," Kenshe calculated out loud. We will have to evacuate the Harbor. Send out the Call."
"Of all the things," Feryl grumbled, "why does it have to be dragons? The Awls are enough to deal with." He didn't waste time waiting for answers that weren't available and left the War Room.
Prisca's chilling Call went out across the Threads, reaching every ayame for miles. She too shared Kenshe's belief that this day was inevitable. Sybl's sacrifice had only given them a temporary peace.
"I will have to get my hands on Nafury for the entire story of what's going on," Kenshe said.
"That's dangerous," Prisca said as she followed Kenshe out of the War Room. "If he goes berserk on you, he could kill you."
"I know, but I have an idea. But it's going to take the whole Pack to make it work."
They continued downstairs to the main hall. Feryl, Tank, and the others of his Pack were there waiting.
"Boss, what are we doing?" Feryl asked in concern.
Kenshe looked towards the entrance where Tank leaned against the frame. "Nafury isn't going to help us out, so I'm going to have to bite it out of their Fay. If he does decide to bring the dragons back here, I will kill him first."
"She almost killed you once now," Tank replied. "Then there's no telling what her blood will do to you. Sybl's blood could heal, but I'm willing to bet that a dark Fay's will poison."
"That's a chance I have to take. She won't know it's me this time until I have what I want from her. You will all have to distract Nafury in the meantime," Kenshe instructed.
"Alright," Feryl replied and started out of the Atrum, followed by the others. "I think I'll go grab Nafury's helmet real quick."
FOURTEEN
Nafury fell into a deep sleep to the sound of gentle waves from an uneventful week. It was a long journey across the Eternal Waters to the Torian Continent. What he didn't expect was for Ubi to drop in on his own Dreams like he had hers. In what he hoped would be a Dream this time around, he found himself on the same field where Cirrus had attacked him. Nafury turned from watching the woman across the field to where Ubi took up his side.
"That's my mother, isn't it?" Ubi asked.
"Yes, but this isn't from my memories. I think it's one of Alexia's. We should go."
"Please, let me see her first."
"Ubi..." Nafury wasn't in the mood to take any chances again. If that was Asil before them, then it could spell disaster for Ubi to see her mother when she was hailed as a goddess of war. Not remembering her own daughter could prove to be the least of their worries if Asil tried to kill them here. Such a nightmare would be impossible to forget.
"I know she won't recognize me. But it's okay if only I remember her," Ubi said.
It all felt like a bad idea, but Nafury reluctantly agreed and went over with Ubi.
Sybl turned around as they approached and smiled at Nafury, then looked at Ubi beside him. "It's hard to believe that you are already the age I was when I first came to Aster. It is good to see you, daughter."
"Mom!" Ubi exclaimed and hesitated for a moment before closing the gap between them with a hug.
"Sybl?" Nafury asked, feeling that this wasn't a Dream of the past at all anymore.
"You're the one who wondered what would happen if two Dreamwalkers dreamt the same thing. Reality doesn't seem so wonderful in comparison to how real of a place mere thoughts can create." Sybl looked across the chasm of the Casus Beli field. It looked to stretch as far as she was able to remember it could.
Nafury had come to believe that dreams should always be just out of reach. For if you catch them and they shatter in your hands, then you will have lost everything. For there will be nothing left to pull yourself out of the nightmares with. Now, his one chance to stop it all from happening again stood right before him. She hadn't aged a day, where he was now twenty-six. "It's good to see you."
"You are turning into an old man," Sybl mocked, looking him over. "And you," Sybl said and looked at Ubi, "look so much like Kas I could cry."
She smiled and closed her eyes for a moment. "I know it's hard, but I want you to forgive him for what he did."
Ubi's face changed instantly to a hateful expression on the suggestion. "I can't do that. He banished me to one short lifetime after the other filled with suffering and death!"
"I know that now," Sybl said, and brushed some of Ubi's dark hair back from her shoulder.
"He took me from you! Now you're dead and...and..!"
"Hey," Sybl said and pulled Ubi to her and into a hug. "You have to let the hate go, or our enemies will use it against you. Kas was a Fay of darkness, just like you. But unlike you he didn't have the emotional capacity to always see where he hurt others. What he did at the time he thought was right. He realized it was wrong much later, and for him, it was too late to fix his mistakes."
"I don't care. I will never forgive him," Ubi cried.
Sybl hugged her tighter and looked up at Nafury.
"What would you have me do now?" he asked.
"You must protect Ubi. Earth is assembling a large assault with its focus on Aster. They know Asterians exist now, and their fear of us has continued to grow."
"So who are we to expect?" Nafury asked.
"The Sentry, and as the dragons are a variation of Sentry, they will use them too. Just as they used Simera despite his incredible spiritual and physical strength. Closing the Gates and Rifts won't be enough to stop them," Sybl explained. "They're already here and making a mess of the Animus Threads so that the aeri and estus energy of the Aurs don't kill them."
"So we are going to need an army, and a large one at that," Nafury concluded. "What of the dragons? Can we get them to help us before they side with Earth?"
"I don't know. I fear that they can turn the Awls against us as well."
Nafury's eyes matched hers now with that fear. Such a combined strength would be unstoppable. It was then that he remember Xirel and how he had returned from Earth disabled and unable to speak. "What happened to Xirel..."
"I know," Sybl replied. "I don't know what to make of it."
"We have to find the one pulling all the strings, even if that means going to Earth." Nafury found himself staring at the pink flowers under their feet. This place was overly familiar beyond just his last Dream.
"This was where I first met Cirrus when I was still Asil," Sybl said.
Nafury's gaze shot back up to Sybl's. "The Dream I had--it was more a nightmare where Cirrus attacked me. He spoke of you as well."