A New Old Friend

 She (They?) guides and protects us through the Maelstrom. It was a harrowing experience. At one point, we are spotted by a Ship-breaker Behemoth, and we DIVE. Just cut the float crystal and ride the drop. We arrive at the core, shaken but unscathed. It is a barren, dark, crimson, rocky orb. We land near a house-sized metal structure. We have found Hector's capsule. Some yards away, maybe 1/4 mile, there is a small, tattered tent. As we slowly approach, a figure emerges. Hector is an automaton?! He and She reunited! A beautiful moment, somewhat marred by the urgency of the situation. We have only days before the adversary awakens. Fiona does something, and I find myself refreshed, and stronger, and with some interesting new ideas rattling around my skull. Interesting, indeed.

My Final Entry?

 This may be the last entry in this journal. I guess it depends on how this goes, or does it? Do I make an entry after a success? I guess that depends on what follows success? Again, I get ahead of myself. Indubitably a consequence of such heady, overwhelming occurrences and stakes. 

Mimi's sextant leads us to a tiny cottage on a tiny island on the very edge of Vorathis. It's obviously been abandoned for centuries. Nature has almost completely reclaimed it, even the interior. Inside, there is a field of a flower that is strange, but somehow familiar? As if it was used as a symbol by people I've only read about. Of course, I'm pressing a couple examples into this journal. Even if I am unable to return to the temple, someone will have the opportunity to study it. Apart from the vegetation, there is a large brass ring set into the floor. It looks similar to the hatch we found under the lake on Titan Prime, but as a seat for something rather than access to somewhere. Aerathor, bless his eyes, finds a letter on a bookshelf. It is dated 9 years after the last we've found. In it, Hector describes creating a capsule to traverse the Maelstrom, realizing that Fiona IS the aether that tries to hold the world together, and discovering another "that roams these skies" -- Zephyr, who he says is also her. This letter makes clear that Hector took his capsule into the Maelstrom, expecting to never return, but nothing remains to enable us to follow.

In a bolt of lightning, Zephyr stands among us again. She says that she remembers him. Suddenly (and yet gradually somehow?), the One also graces us. They both talk of their fondness for the flowers. They say they are two aspects of the same being. I notice that they wear identical engagement rings. Have I never noticed? Or were they never there until I was ready to see? The captain asks how they can both manifest if they were one being?

  "We sealed the adversary away and thought that would be enough. But he fractured the world on our wedding day. So I tried my best, used all of my power to contain the fracture and hold the pieces. I had to be everywhere on the planet. That fractured me into the aether (and these two beings). The spires have been absorbing the aether and weakening me."

Zephyr suggests that they can work together to get us to the center, maybe find Hector (?!?!), and try to defeat the adversary once and for all. (How we might expect to find him after more than a millennium is anyone's guess.) They grasp each others' hands and, in a flash of light, fuse into one Fiona Sterling. She looks like a mortal woman now. I struggle to grasp what that even means. Is she still divine? Was she ever? I don't know. I'm not sure those words have the meanings I once attributed them. I pledged my life to Her when she was merely an idea -- a concept I couldn't quite encompass in my head. How can I give less when she stands before me in literal flesh and blood?

In any case, I must send this journal to the temple. If we, or I, do not return from this trip, the Order should know all I have learned thus far. 

Finally Some Rest

 After weeks of constant travel and trials, it feels odd to tarry in one place, but needs must. We cannot travel without the ship, and the ship cannot travel without repairs. So, we wait on Vorathis.

But, though we do not progress physically toward our destination, we still progress emotionally with each other, and that may, in the long run, prove to be the more important journey. Mimi and I confronted Captain Averyn about her self-destructive demeanor. A few things that came to me in the moment: 

    "If Zephyr sees the good in you, why can't you?" 

    "Good is not an attribute; it's a choice. You have to continue to choose to do good." 

    "If you let yourself die early, you limit the amount of good you can do."

I have hope that we have gotten through to her and that she can find the acceptance in her own heart that already exists in others'. 

Over the course of a couple weeks, I tried to battle the curse that afflicts the captain's arm. With repeated sessions, I was able to slow its progression, but not halt it (never mind removing it). Given that failure, she had the arm amputated and grafted on a Gailatian replacement.

After three weeks of this, Mimi has a new reading on the Sextant that leads to a small island on the edge of Vorathis.