“Fuck.”

It really seemed this was her mantra, lately. A mixture of ‘fuck’s and ‘shite’s coated by a plethora of other words – but here’s where she was at, and here was where she was staying.

After several bells of nothing but sitting awake, Anri decided to get up. She’d stare into her mirror for a solid twenty minutes, contemplating...everything. Sleeplessness. The concept of sleep itself. What she dreamed about. What even are dreams? … Well. There was one thing she’d dream about near constantly.

Death.

“...You’re sure you can do this, Silverlake?” she’d ask in the mirror, her green orbs staring into themselves through the reflective surface. “Are you ready to risk your life for them? For...her?” She stopped there, as the flash of her brunette friend shot through her mind. ‘How beautiful you are’, she would think. ‘You shouldn’t have to deal with this. I’d stop you if I thought I could. I just...can only be there by your side.’

But, could she do more? Could she even do that? It wasn’t the first time the thought of running crossed her mind – this was Deitra’s demon. By all accounts, this wouldn’t be her problem. Nobody would blame her, as she’d been told several times, for running away from this and living her life. Nobody’d blame her for taking the safe route...but she had before. She’d done it back then, back in Coerthas, and by the Twelve she wasn’t gonna do it again.

A deep sigh escaped the Miqo’te’s lips, and she raised a hand, punching the porcelain sink she’d rested on. Her mind trailed back to then, back two full cycles, when her eyes were still filled with stars. Back when she thought she could take on the world. Her and a bunch of friends – Friends she’d considered indestructible. She considered herself as such, as well… But this was before everyone died. What she’d seen – the friends she’d grown up with, mutilated, butchered. She was lucky. She and T’Mari were the only two who actually got out – and even then, T’Mari hadn’t been blamed, as she’d arrived in Dragonhead with a decoration of arrows in her back.

Anri was. Anri got the worst of it.

Even when she arrived in town, she’d been given dirty looks from her fellow Conjurers. Called a coward, a turncoat. T’Mari did what she could at first, but she soon left Gridania herself without a word. Seemed the whole of Stillglade Fane, while she wouldn’t immediately be removed, hated her. And for what? They hadn’t experienced what she did. All they knew is two people lived where several more had died, and only one of them could’ve made a difference…

Would that happen here? Would she fight, or freeze? Would she have to watch a void demon kill her teacher? Eviscerate or enslave her friends? Take the girl she’d grown fond of? Or would everything she’d learned, everything that’d happened thus far, and everything her friends had learned be enough?

“Just in case.” she says, patting a leatherbound journal on her bedroom table. “Just in case this...is the end of the line.”

With that, she flopped down onto the floor. Her parent’s floor, for what it mattered – this last night, possibly the last night she’d have on this plane, since Serys was nowhere to be found, she went home. Had a nice dinner with Richard and Emilia, her adoptive parents, and even spent the night musing to her mother over a glass of wine about Serys, about her closest friends, and about Deitra, though less so.
“Whatever it is, I’m grateful for her renewing your lease on life, even if you’ve strife with her.” Emilia would say, patting her daughter’s shoulder. “Just remember – don’t take her for granted. Teachers aren’t always so forthcoming with their lessons, and it seems like this one might be a particularly taxing one.” Oh, if you only knew. These, though, were words Anri would wish she’d heeded, upon a revelation and conversation with the renewed Kastner moons later.

The night, however, held no such comfort, as one could already tell. She’d gone from the mirror, to her table, to her floor. “...you have to do this, Silverlake.” she told herself. “For everyone. For yourself. … So why am I still thinking of this?”

How easy it’d be to run.

How easy it’d be to leave them to their own devices, to secure her own life as a woodworker.

How easy it would be to let herself stray in fear of losing everyone again. Of losing herself.

So why wouldn’t her heart let her?

Tears began to flow again, for the last time that night. She struggled so much with herself for cycles – and this was no different. The girl couldn’t bring herself to definitely say she’d go, but she couldn’t find the will to run away. All she could do is slam her fists against the floor and say ‘fuck’ over and over. The scenarios played out in her head like a movie reel – images of Anhe, or Zihji’li being cut down, of Deitra’s body, lifeless. Failure and death – that’s the only future she saw ahead, for all that bravado she spouted out.

“Bravado. Courage. What a fucking joke.”

Another time her fist would strike the wooden floor of the house, and another time tears would fall. She’d ball up, shaking, crying, fearing whatever tomorrow held...and she’d fall asleep, just like that.

The next day, she had her answer. As she awoke, she’d found that in her thrashing, she’d knocked down the notebook she’d held, ‘just in case’. Idly, the sleepy Miqo’te opened it.

“To my parents--” it started.

“I may not have been the best daughter, and I may have worried you, and made you less than proud with my antics before, but I hope you’re proud of me. I hope I can become someone you love, and can truly look upon happily, and know you’ve done a good job.

What I’m to do is dangerous. It’s stupid. I’m...not sure I’ll come back alive, but I need to do it. I need to do this – just as much to save Deitra and keep my friends safe, but to prove to myself I’m better than the fear that took me before. To absolve the blood on my hands. I know you both did what you could for me, but it hasn’t gone away.

This won’t be fully doing right by them all – Sasaji, Almeux...I can’t avenge them yet, and maybe this is, for me, the first step in doing so, but I need to do it. I need to be strong enough...to forgive myself, too.

I love you. You’ve both been the best parents a girl can ask for. All I ask is you forgive your foolish daughter for falling into death-inviting circumstances once more.

I’m sorry. Truly.

-Anri.”

She stared at it for a full ten minutes, reading. Re-reading. These were words that she wrote. Words...proved nothing. The book continued with letters to everyone – Anhe, ‘Li, Serys, Saki. Even Fiona and Mareth, though those were much shorter and to the point “Sorry we barely talked” letters.

She did this, but...running away, after putting her convictions to paper, as dumb as it might sound was unforgivable to her. Anri couldn’t run away again, regardless. She’d sit up and get dressed. No lingering, this time, or the doubt might come back. So, as she left, she’d hand that to her mother with the instructions not to read it until a bell had passed. Enough time to get going, and meet with everyone. She’d find herself bolting to the meeting point – enough waiting, enough doubts. And sure enough, when she saw their faces, all doubt died. Her resolve found itself ironclad.

And of course, they won.

-----

“And...that’s how it happened.”

Anri found herself this night recounting these stories beside two graves moons later, marked for the two friends named in the letter.

“...I learned a lot, that day. About how strong I was and could be. About how afraid I was to lose everyone again...” The girl sighs. “...I won’t make that mistake again, guys. I can’t. I’ve got a girlfriend I’m in love with, and friends – those very same friends – that count on me, that care for me. I can find strength through them now.”

She took a swig of a whiskey bottle placed next to her. “...And I’m close to avenging you both. Just...wait a little longer, yeah?” Anri stands, raising the bottle as if to toast them. “I’ll see you soon.”

Nearly three cycles now, she’d been carrying a chip on her shoulder. She had been weak, even after Samael, and after the Ixali that killed them died. All because she was too weak to let go of her pride, but after today, no more. She’d settle back into bed next to the sleeping Serys, and doze off to sleep, content in one thing.

She wouldn’t run away again.