Ravens of Eternity

417 Genocide & Absolution, Pt “Stop!” screamed Azrael.

Freya instantly stopped mid-thrust, with the very tips of her talons mere millimeters from Azrael’s face.

The girl was breathing heavily, just as heavily as Orsethii behind her. It seemed she used every bit of her own energy to speed towards the drogar and defend her with her own body. Despite her obvious exhaustion, she kept herself on her feet, and even extended her arms out as far as they could go.

“Out of the way!” Freya said through gritted teeth.

“No!” Azrael countered. “You’re gonna haveta remove me if you want her!”

Freya’s other arm reared back as though to swat Azrael out of the way. But she struggled to swing the moment it reached its peak. She fought desperately against herself to the point that her arm visibly shook in the air.

“Why are you even defending her?!” Freya shouted, frustration deep in her voice.

On seeing her hesitate, Azrael pushed her advantage.

“Because you’d do it if you were in my place,” she said simply.

.....

There was a firmness in her voice that seemed to pierce through all their minds and hearts. It seemed as though her words weren’t just meant for Freya, but for everyone on the bridge, or on their fleets. Or perhaps for the warring nations themselves.

“On top of that, how many more people do you have to kill before you stop all this?” Azrael continued. “It’ll never be enough, will it? Orsethii’s right, you know. Justify it all you want, but all you’re doing is wrecking the galaxy over how you feel.

“And just because they’re in the wrong and helped cause all this doesn’t mean what you’re doing is right! Whatever retribution you think you’re meting out is equally as insane as the retribution Orsethii wants to mete out on you. Why is that?

“Do both of you think that because you’ve got the power and the authority and the willpower that you can run roughshod over the galaxy? Do you honestly believe that your grief or your anger or your revulsion or your blood is more important than everyone else’s?”

Azrael watched as Freya’s face wavered. As a ripple of hesitation and regret washed over her, but only for a moment.

She then lowered her arms all the way down, which Freya mirrored somewhat. She also lowered her guard somewhat, but only just a little.

“But look okay, it’s not like I’m not angry too,” Azrael continued.

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This time, she poured more warmth into her voice and eased up on its firmness. Now that she had cracked through Freya’s defenses, she needed to slip through and reach in.

“I love Lucifer too. And Xylo. We all do. We all miss them deeply. We constantly think about them and everyone we’ve lost, practically every cycle. We think about what they gave to all of us – a future. They made sure that it wasn’t the end of the universe for all of us.

“Sure, it cost them their universe. But that was the choice they made, you know. If you wanna be mad, be mad at them.

“And we get it, it feels like you lost your universe too. I know exactly how that feels. It’s like losing every good thing that’s in your life all at the same time over and over. No, not even losing. More like having them ripped away. How many times has that happened to us already? Also, how many more times is it gonna happen in the future?

“Truth is, you didn’t lose your universe. You’re still here. I’m still here. Raijin. Amarok. We’re all still here. You’ve still got us. And we’ve got you. The Republic has got you…

“We all miss you deeply. And we think about you practically every cycle. We think about the future you’ve helped give all of us. Most of all, we need you. We need each other.”

Azrael stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Freya comfortingly.

“Come home,” Azrael said finally.

Freya softened as the moments ticked on. Azrael’s words sunk down into her, seeped into her very soul. At the same time, the warmth of her body seeped into Freya’s own.

She also felt her heart beating through her chest. It drummed on her skin with such ferocity that shockwaves seemed to course through her body.

The feeling caused something in her to flip around, which caused the entire ship to shiver. More than that, she withdrew her talons completely and let her arms hang limp.

A bittersweet sorrow filled Freya as the memories of the Ravens danced in her mind. Her, Claire, Xylo, and Raijin aboard the Spirit of Amelia all laughing at some ridiculous joke one of them had made. They were rolling all over each other from the absurd hilarity, with Raijin practically in tears from nonstop laughter.

It was such a great moment.

Freya couldn’t even remember the joke itself – that was the least important thing about the memory. It was the laughter and the camaraderie and the sheer joy of living.

She thought about Lucifer, about how the two of them made that daring escape off that Fed prison planet. It was all laughter and gunfire the entire way. Well, and a bit of arguing, but no-one’s perfect.

Memories of how much fun they had flying and fighting in that crazy little orb… they filled her up and washed over her.

Whatever vast emptiness she held inside her slowly receded as the memories came at her one after the other. The emotional weight of each one struck her with equal fervor, and chipped away at the freezing cold that permeated that same void.

Tears began to pour out of her eyes as she slid down to her knees while clinging to Azrael’s body. At the same time, she subconsciously disconnected herself from Thanatos and every circuit line on her body receded.

It occurred to Freya that she hadn’t wept in all this time. She had bottled up all of the grief and pain and anger from losing Lucifer. Not once did she allow herself to wallow in that grief, afraid that it would drown her.

More importantly, she was afraid that her grief would have made Lucifer’s death to be a meaningless one. As though somehow the acceptance of it would have cheapened hir life.

Instead of confronting any of it, she pushed all of them down further and further. It didn’t matter that it had been gathering all this time and pressed down on her soul more and more. She simply kept on packing it all up and in until it couldn’t take any more.

And because of its overwhelming mass, it created its own kind of black hole deep inside her. It continually kept the void in her strong and swallowed up everything that came near.

Now that the floodgates had opened up, everything that she was made of quickly rushed out, like a star being born.

And alongside all of the memories that made her were also those that unmade her. She saw the faces of those she had also burned and crushed and obliterated along her path. There were countless drogar all around her wailing, screaming, pleading, cursing, dying.

Each one struck her with a deepening remorse over and over as though they were banging right on her heart directly. That guilt spread all across her body in waves and threatened to completely topple her all over again.

Their images swirled around inside her, intermixed with her happier moments and memories. For every great and kind and beautiful memory she saw, they were accompanied by the fire and destruction all around them.

Then the memories of entire planets filled her mind, of their hollowed-out cities and burned forests and evaporated lakes. She had set thousands of planets on fire, across hundreds of systems. Each one she left in absolute ruin, and ensured none would ever rise up again.

All for what? Freya asked herself.

But she didn’t have any answers just yet, only sorrow.

Azrael stroked her hair, even as she wept ceaselessly. The sounds of it echoed around the bridge and filled everyone around her.

Orsethii evened out her breathing as her stamina recovered and normalized. She picked herself up off the ground somewhat unsteadily. But once she was back on her feet, everything cleared up instantly.

She looked down at Azrael, who was busy physically comforting the traumatized Freya. The thought rushed through her that she could, in a single stroke, end all things. But she had also heard what Azrael said, and those words bit deep into her as well.

The massive drogar glanced down at her beltknife in contemplation, then slid it neatly into its sheath behind her waist.

She turned away from Freya and instead walked towards Konleth. Although he was still practically a pile of bones and scales, he was now sitting up thanks to Azrael’s quick treatment. More importantly, some color seemed to have returned to his face.

Equally as alarmingly, she could also see that his scales drooped from his bones in large flaps, a remnant of his formerly rotund self. He had clearly been starved for who knows how long…

His body practically mirrored his seemingly shattered mind – it seemed feeble and disjointed. Konleth babbled incoherently about armageddons and cataclysms and the end of all things.

But she didn’t feel anything for his state. Some part of her wondered if she was supposed to feel sorry for him. Or perhaps if he deserved it – he helped orchestrate the war in the first place. But that would mean that she would have also deserved the same punishment.

After all, blood of their blood, she reveled in the war he made. And that lust for it led them both to their miserable defeats.

Is this what it means to be drogar? Orsethii asked herself.

“I apologize for having brought you into this situation,” said a small voice next to her.

She glanced down and saw the relatively diminutive Raijin floating alongside her. The girl hovered upwards serenely until the two were eye to eye.

“You see, we could have simply taken control of your ships’ systems,” she continued. “And we could have left you depowered and defanged without worries. But some of us realized there was an opportunity, so we took it.

“Fortunately for us, your fleet’s security software is far too outdated and easily compromised.”

“I’d better get the circuits tuned, then,” snorted Orsethii. “...And I suppose what you did’s only fair, considering I wanted to wipe you all out in the first place. War’s indiscriminate like that, I suppose.”

Raijin nodded in agreement.

“But I am glad things ended this way,” Raijin said. “Things could have gone much, much worse for all of us.”

“What, like Ra’ventrii actually slaughtering all of us or something?”

Orsethii waited for Raijin to respond, but nothing came. Not for a few seconds, anyway.

“That was always a possibility,” she eventually said. “But more probably something much worse than Freya losing all sanity. We needed this to happen because of… How can I describe this… I must start from the beginning. Tell me, have you heard about the Benefactor?”

Orsethii curled her brow at the mention of the name. Although it sounded familiar, she couldn’t place where she heard it.

“Mighta heard it somewhere, maybe,” she replied. “Why?”

“You are hearing it right now,” Raijin replied.

Then she pointed straight at Konleth sitting down on the floor.

It suddenly dawned on Orsethii that as he babbled on his nonsense, the word slipped out here and there. She had been hearing it all this time, but it simply didn’t register. It made her wonder how many other times she had heard it and shrugged her shoulders.

She looked over at Raijin for answers.

“We believe there is someone in the galaxy named the Benefactor,” Raijin kept going. “At first we thought this person only operated within the Federation. But now I see the Empire has been afflicted as well.”