LEGACY.
What was a legacy?
The Selection of Children was a mechanism fated to choose from a pool of individuals of a specific age, who were thus called chosen. It was the first ideal that lingered in his mind. These Children were the crops, or harvests, by which the higher-ups might determine who was pre-ordained; but why were they supposed to die after drinking from the cup? In the first place, they had not chosen this kind of life, and for seven days, they had to accept it.
Even if he was an Orphan, he understood their situation, for when he was below and they were above, they shared the same destiny as the awakened, only that their paths were not.
It turned out that the nature of the Ceremony was to be the second filter in the life of Children, and even an Orphan like Maze had been affected, as he was a subject of the Hunt of the Awakened. It was far more than a simple test. If the Selection and Hunt were the gathering of the crops, it could be implied that the Ceremony was the threshing.
So what was legacy?
It was the rhetoric Maze could not erase as he steered the boat after he departed from the burning Land of the Mists. Each drip of blood smeared on the oar provided the fathomable numbers that indicated his fate was near him, as a harvested one himself. His choice, even from the start, had been limited.
In every ending, he would always be in this opening trial.
Perhaps, legacy was something to sustain the Towers — forfeits to be returned to the soil. In truth, every Child had been bound by a certain directive, a set of proscribed movements that had been leaked, and Maze had become a victim of it, like anybody else. There was no competition when everything was already set. What would conclude was the play that had already been written for the actors to follow.
Without them knowing.
And so he ceased on.
A water-logged trunk, its bark as white and peeled as bone, groaned as the boat nudged its side, sending a spray of heavy liquid over the hem. Maze did not flinch, and so he simply shifted his weight, as there came a clinking against a heap of splintered wood — the wreckage of a vessel that had not been as fortunate as his own. He pushed aside a floating crate with his sword, its surface slick with some slime, feeling the valence of the obstacles as they scraped against the hull.
Each nudge was a remembrance in the silence of the night, that the battlefield was a cluttered graveyard of failed attempts. The oars caught on a tangle of submerged vines, and as he wrenched them free, the boat surged past a half-sunken barge, its mast reaching out of the swamp like a tithe that it had already collected.
As he continued to row, he sighed as he looked at the heavens, and saw how the darkened sky had glimmering scars. Were they not flaws, burning, but in truth, had already died? Even when the swamp had reflected the burning land and smeared some light on his frame, Maze could merely sympathize with darkness.
"Pray, why name this trial the Ceremony of Patrimony?" It was the first thing he asked the heavens, yearning for an answer, but so should he ask whether his probing would save him. "You passed down hope and sufferance in a given time, solely for some to die. Is this how life should be?"
He thought of his master.
But then, this life . . . why was it too cruel to him?
He felt a stab in his chest.
As Maze was nearing the central land after some time, there were a bountiful toll of Heirs at the opposite edge, while two were standing in front of the Door.
Some had taken notice of his presence.
He looked back.
⠀
IN THE EYES OF GARETH, that Orphan possessed no identity other than that of an error and the damned. How could one such as this, a blind fool, claim special abilities and achieve a certain awakening? To ponder it was a descent into madness. Yet, here he was, sowing seeds of damnation.
First, perhaps, by the very shattering of such precepts bestowed upon them. Second, by the possession of a key, a pass to breach the Door. Had this Orphan never laid hands upon that key, the Eidolon might never have surfaced. But what had occurred? In a mere pulse of time, the beast had risen from the bloodied swamp, manifesting solely to bar this man's entry.
Above all, why was he granted the help from a lone Heir?
At this very moment, Stavros, who was once beside him, had already loosed his spear, and by the thorny blood threads shackled to the shaft, he moved as one with the weapon, as if he and the steel were a singular existence. Truly, Stavros was a genius, experimenting with his Heritage to invent a technique that harnessed the absolute uniqueness of his Fertile abilities.
And what of one such as Gareth?
It was his giant stature alone that took advantage of his Heritage, a vessel to showcase the full capacities of the power he held. Perhaps it was that he possessed ninety-one leaves upon his Soul Tree, and his roots had nearly reached the third. Even so, he had pushed his potential to its absolute brink.
Yet, why was he only observing?
Why would his body not move?
From afar, this Orphan was already there, standing upon the edge of the central land. While his racing heart beat in rapid cadence with the howling of the swamp, a faint tremor shook the earth and created ripples across the water. The tall stalks of grass brushing against his legs continued to fizz. Thus, the culmination of everything was beginning.
Gareth looked at his Siblings on the other side, and they, too, watched the unfolding clash of wills: the Orphan who desired to cross the Door, and the obstructing Eidolon of the Swamp. He gripped the hilt of his sword while his shield lay to the side, abandoned upon the earth and overtaken by the weeds.
Kraa, kraa! Even the crows in the heavens spoke of a bad omen.
On this night, it seemed as though damnation itself would decide which of the two would prevail.
When the behemoth Eidolon, whose head was as vast as a mountain, finally emerged, a spray like rain scattered into the atmosphere as the entity shook its sodden entirety. Its red hay head splattered crimson liquid everywhere. GROAN! Two limbs surfaced from the depths, one already snapping toward the Orphan, while Stavros on the other side appeared to be shouting something at the boy.
This Child of Sufferance hurled his spear once more, and it pierced like a needle into the enemy's limb. It was severed, an effect of the spear's bite. Gareth did not know the name of the weapon, but he knew it was far more than a common spear, and to add the power of someone from the Heritage of the Crown of Thorns negated the passive defense of the Eidolon. It could be said that the Eidolon's limbs were swift, but if one looked closely, it could not move all its tentacles at once, for it drew strength from the swamp to transfer its power into only two limbs. Surely even Stavros would realize this as he experienced the combat.
But the Orphan . . . where was he?
Stavros was currently ascending limb after limb, leaping back and forth to evade the Eidolon's defenses.
In his search, Gareth discovered where the man had gone.
With eyes wide, he saw the blind man fly through the air toward the left, fluttering eye of the Eidolon. His sword shimmered with a light the crows tried in vain to smother. In a flash, the Orphan's blade brushed against the ear-wing, and in the next moment, he slid down as if that giant wing were nothing but thin paper. As the Orphan fell, so too did the severed piece of the Eidolon, which wailed and trembled.
When Gareth blinked, the man vanished, and Stavros had already reached the summit of the Eidolon's mountain-like head. Yet this man — the Orphan — repeatedly disappeared, and Gareth saw him slice his own palm even from a distance.
He did not comprehend the ability, but he saw that, in an instant, the other wing of the Eidolon was suddenly severed.
Glory?
What was glory to Stavros?
In truth, it had been snatched away from him.
Yet, what would Gareth do?
What prevailed in his heart?
He retrieved his shield and tightened his grip on his sword.
He gritted his teeth as he walked and walked.
Lost in his thoughts, he made a decision.
One that he might, in the end, come to regret.