2019-04-14: Will of the Departed

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  • Cutscene: Will of the Departed
  • Cast: Lunata Croze
  • Where: Luca
  • Date: 14th April 2019
  • Summary: Lunata lets a letter loose to the waters of Spira. Takes place during I'll Walk into the Sun.

Content Warning for suicidal feelings, thoughts and explorations thereof.



It hadn't been long since she said farewell to Jacqueline Barber. Since she let what feelings she could out, what she could bear to be known. Another step in what it is she has to do.

Lunata Croze was meeting with a mysterious figure. Marivel Armitage, one with strange insight that she wasn't quite certain of... and a fellow undead, like her, yet not quite. She quietly slumps as she grabs hold of a bottle... a bottle with a rolled, tightly sealed piece of parchment within it. She seals it with a tight cork lid and gazes to it for a moment longer, then towards Marivel, whom she is speaking to.

"Promise me one thing, then, if you've promised that to Ge Ramda."

Then she finally tosses it, to the now-darkened waters of Luca.

The bottle floats away ever so gently...

Wave by wave, it bobs, with the strength of a bottle from the Great Sea region. Once, twice, it goes underneath the waters of Spira. But it continues to bob as it floats away from the nearby piers...

And where it goes, no one may know.

It may shatter and fall to the bottom of the Great Spiran ocean. A great fish may have devoured it, to sit in its belly until it regurgitates it long after. It may be stuck on reefs, embedded with the supernatural beauty of Lunar's other half.

It may even float to a shore of dreams, bordering another world.




To the people I spent time with onboard the Caravan Kinship.
To the other Drifters I've met and befriended throughout these two years.

To the Guardian spirit I believe in, Zeldukes.

To my mothers, Meredin Croze and Emma Hetfield. To my father, Atheron Croze.
To my family in Adlehyde. Uncle Tom, Aunt Hilda.

To my family onboard the Yggdrasil: Bart, Maitreya, Sigurd, Franz and Section 2 Engineering.

To the most important people in my life:
Shalune Amira and Jacqueline Barber.

I do not know where this letter may wind up. I do not know if anyone may wind up reading it. I do not know where its destination lie, and I do not know what its fate is to be. When I finish writing this, when I am done with what I need of it, I will have cast this to the oceans of the land of life and death that I have decided to remain in:

Spira.

To whomever finds this that is not familiar with me, for the first sixteen years and nine months of my life, I was a waitress working in the city of Adlehyde in the Adelyn region, Ignas, Filgaia. You may know of it as the Blue Star or Gaia.

My life was one of peace, but not quietude. It began at four thirty every morning, when I would help Aunt Hilda with the sourdough starters, when I would help with the daily roast of three varying levels: cinnamon, city and Ellurian. I would mop the floors of the Starfall Saloon and ready the tables and chairs at the first bell of daybreak, right as the couriers and postmen leave through the gates.

At six, I would go to the statue of Zeldukes and wash it, from base to the top of its proud head. I'd take my time, removing all the soot and even the moss that I would see time from time; it had seen better days, but I believed the Castle Guardian watched over us.

At seven thirty, I'd greet my close childhood friend Jacqueline as she readied herself for service at their shop. I'd give her whatever she wanted to pep her day up. I always looked forward to that time.

My life was one of hospitality and service, and I wore it with a smile. That's always free, because that's just how the Starfall Saloon's service is.

I wonder now, at what point, that life began to change.

I never really thought twice of the kinds of Drifters that wandered through Adlehyde. They were a strange and unique lot, all of them with their own stories, all of them with passions and hangups and the kind of baggage that even a nearly-seventeen year old like me could understand. I didn't even think it was particularly odd when I could see and serve a guest no one else could see, a Seraph.

Maybe I should've.

I often wonder what it is that propels one to the Drifting life. I always thought that it was because society and the system failed them. Oftentimes I would see people who have fallen through the cracks, who have no more place left amidst a life of comfortable certainty in suburban avenues.

I didn't think the call would reach me, though.

As I write this, a lot of people have answered that call. At their own pace, at their own levels of willingness, with their own circumstances gripping them. For some people, this was a no-brainer, a simple step forward to what they were doing. Ex-Kislevi special ops, mysterious weirdos from places I can't even imagine, Shaman of the Guardians who already have dedicated their lives such. Some of them I understand. Some of them I do not.

For me...

I don't know if I've answered that call still.

It was more like the call answered me. After our city was consumed by mythical demons turned reality. After I thought I would help my mother search through the Singing Ruins -- Rujm el-Hiri. On that day, when we excavated the mysterious Gear Rephaim...

The day I thought I would lose my mother forever.

And also the day I chose sacrifice over safety.

Now, today, my mother lives on. Hers is a life granted back to her, through the power of Ge Ramtos by the cycle of Gilgal Rephaim, the Wheel of Spirits. The Wheel, you see...

The Wheel makes pact with you. A trade.

It grants you a wish, which it will fulfill to the best of its abilities. A wish that shall make you its heir... vested upon the power of Ge Ramda, a spectral and undead servant of Ge Ramtos.

And in exchange...

Your soul.

To this day, I do not know what transpired with Ge Ramda that made her so. Or what her connection to Ge Ramtos is. I know there was a tale of great sorrow in the distant past that made the ruins what they are today. But...

It may not be something this latest heiress will know.

For it is not the first time the Wheel has pacted with someone -- and it will not be the last. For those that it has pacted are forever devoured within it. I know, because I witness the past lives of all these heirs desperate enough as I have been.

And one day, soon, if I fail in what it is that I endeavour to do... my past life will be one of them to spectate. Let's hope you aren't the one to witness it, if you are reading this. And if you are...

I hope the wish you made was one you made without regrets.

Anyway.

I sacrificed my life for my mother's.

It's strange, as I write this. There is no anger left in me. No righteous indignity or any of the big words smart people would use to express just how pissed off they are. I used to be really angry. Venomous. I'd lash out and get into fights off the drop of a hat. I once shot a creepy guy in the face at for just threatening Jacqueline. He was magic, though.

I used to think that anger kept me alive, kept me going. But I was wrong.

I was a fool, and still am a fool. I thought privately inside myself, through our journey into the Temple in Milama, through the struggles within the Badlands and November City and Lost July, and even all the way to Meribia and Glenwood in Lunar and back, to Elluria where Aunt Hilda came from.

That once Mother was defeated, maybe things would settle down. That I could get the life I wanted back. The life that started at four thirty, with sourdough starters and bean roasting, the life that had me washing the now-destroyed Statue of Zeldukes, the life that had me making tea or coffee or a pick-me-up for Jacqueline at seven thirty.

That was a fool's assumption.

Mother wasn't the end of things. It was hardly the end of things. A short break, and we were back again... going into the heart of Krosse to fight against a world-tainting curse, Malevolence, and the people that inflicted it to our neighboring country. Then chasing, of all things, a paramilitary organisation known only as 'Odessa' to Elru.

Why, I thought. Why does this keep happening.
Where is the end? Is there an end in sight?
Where one problem is solved, another replaces it.
This isn't a sprint. But this isn't even a marathon.
This was an endless race against the inevitable.

I think I understood all this subconsciously as far back as the Photosphere. When I looked upon the face of the Metal Demon that nearly choked me to death when I was just a mere waitress, Yellowbellied (as I have now come to learn him).

As I looked upon the gaze he gave me at that point and intuitively understood... I told him:

'I will be the coward in your stead.'

And now.

It's time for this coward to come face to face with the truth. It's time for this coward to stop pretending that things that will never ever come to pass, things that have been lost to the sands of time, will ever come to fruition once more. It's time for this coward, who never answered the call like other Drifters did, to finally do something for herself.

Because I know now...

I know now the truth is that I died on that day.

The body, the vessel that is now writing this letter to you in my stead... is a vestige. A remnant that continues to linger on and won't die. A ghost of the past who is continually and increasingly at odds at everyone who has moved on past that time of their lives. Someone who can only feign pretense of this frightening and dynamic life of fighting and fighting and more fighting. Someone who should have been buried with everyone else lost in that funeral procession, on the day after the Metal Demons' attack on Adlehyde.

I do not regret sacrificing my life to save my mother's.

But a sacrifice should come with an ending. With rest. With repose.

So with these final closing words, I'm saying farewell to everything that I was in life. Everything that I struggled to understand myself to be in my two years of unlife.

I am letting the struggle that is Lunata Croze go.

Here in Spira, where I sense something pervasive and significant about death...

I will end it.