The world blurred into one loud, painful thing as Zero stormed away into the night. The music and dancing and light faded away the further she ventured into the heart of the city. Mortals jumped out of her way and whispered in her wake, but she had never cared before, and she didn’t intend to start now.
Caring about mortals, trying to be like them, was what ruined everything in the first place. Caring about stupid, weak, mortals, with their lofty ideas of love and emotions, their soft glances and their challenging words, and their inconsistent fucking moods, and—something rattled loose in her chest.
It was so jarring that she stopped in her tracks, breath coming in heaving waves. She gripped the nearest wall for support as the feeling inside of her rose up behind her sternum, bled into her jaw, burned behind her nose. Her vision blurred. For a moment she thought she was going blind, but then she blinked, and liquid fell on her face.
Crying. She was crying. She’d seen mortals experience this, plenty in Garlemald and even a few in Radz-at-Han, but she’d thought herself too voidsent to do the same.
It ached, deep in her heart, deep in the cavernous hole where she knew hunger to lie, and yet she wasn’t hungry. She was full of an emotion that demanded release and tore at her chest in the effort to break free.
Why had Helissent dismissed her so suddenly? What did Zero do? And for that matter, why did she care so much about what one insufferable mortal woman thought of her? There was no point. There was no use. Helissent should not be anything to Zero.
She covered her mouth as the emotion slipped out of her in gasps and sobs, an embarrassingly weak display that she could not let anyone see. The street she found herself on was deserted, thankfully, but she couldn’t be sure for how long. She fled until she found a suitable corner with very little foot traffic and dropped to her heels.
With privacy the last bit of resistance came crashing down, and she found she couldn’t stop the tears flowing if she tried. There was nothing to do but ride out the pain until it subsided.
Time moved slowly as she cried herself out. Her senses dulled and her head pounded. She was unbelievably defenseless—should anyone chance across her, she’d never be able to put up a fight.
Eventually her tears ran dry. The world came back in snippets: first the stillness of the night air, then the pattern of the moonlight on faded tile. Then the chirping and buzzing of the insects that only came out under the coolness of the dark. She coughed, the air sticking in her sore throat like a clotted wound, and wiped her eyes.
A pathetic display. It was behavior like this that would get her killed in the void, and that thought made the ache in her heart start anew as she realized just how badly she missed her home. Not truly, she would never miss the struggle to survive, the constant fighting, but she missed how simple it was. There was never any question as to what she should or shouldn’t do. The only imperative was to survive.
She replayed the conversation with Helissent over in her head, trying to figure out where she went wrong. Asking about Minfilia was wrong, but why? Helissent had been insistent that there were no wrong questions when Zero was first brought over to this world, but that was clearly a lie. Zero hated how mortals lied. Zenos had lied to her too.
She sniffed, feeling oddly depleted. She had not exerted any energy but she was drained nonetheless. No doubt it was yet another mortal weakness, another curse of her biology that she would not be able to escape.
The sound of footsteps on tile made her jerk her head up, but they were too heavy and too slow to be Helissent. No, they belonged to a man, one wearing soft, unarmored shoes. Her theory was confirmed when a pair of leather boots entered her field of vision, and attached to them, Estinien.
The elezen man was glowering at her. Perfect, yet another mortal she’d managed to disappoint in the span of a single evening. Zero should just fuck off back to the void and pretend she never knew of the Source’s existence.
“You could rival me in your ability to hide,” Estinien groused. His arms were crossed over his loose, billowing shirt that dipped low at the collar to display the jewelry he wore. His hair was tied into a loose ponytail at the nape of his neck, and he wore a mask that resembled the one Zero had forgotten in Y’sthola’s room. “Normally I wouldn’t bother, but Varshahn has tasked me with ensuring your stay in our realm is pleasant, and this looks…considerably less than.”
Zero bristled. She was not in need of a keeper, much less one who seemed like he would rather be anywhere else. She stood up and adjusted her hat. “I’m fine.”
Estinien snorted. “Right. That’s why you’re sniveling back here like a child and the Warrior of Light about bit my head off when I asked where you’d gone.”
Helissent truly was upset with her. The thought was crushing, and very nearly made tears spring once more to Zero’s eyes, but she dug her nails into her palms until the urge calmed. This entire situation was unfair, uneven, and Zero was being kept in the dark. She hated all of it. She stood, rolling the ache out of her shoulders and back.
“Who is Minfilia?” she interrupted suddenly.
Estinien jolted, gobsmacked. Shock was a funny look on his face, his eyes were comically wide. “Twelve forfend. Did you ask her that?”
Zero let her silence answer for her, her jaw set. If she knew what Minfilia meant, knew the relationship between her and Helissent, then perhaps she could figure out why asking about her was so awful.
Estinien settled his hands on his hips and sighed. “That’s a story better left to Helissent.” At the look on Zero’s face, he reconsidered his statement. “If she has not told you, then it is not my place. But Minfilia was the leader of the Scions. She preceded my employment, but she was a dear friend to each of the others. She sacrificed her life for their safety.”
Someone I loved well quick and lost quicker. Helissent’s words from before rang in Zero’s mind. “She was more than a friend to Helissent,” she surmised.
“Like I said, it’s not for me to say,” Estinien said, moving to cross his arms again. “But I know Helissent, and I know that she’s likely feeling guilty for running you off, even if your words did hurt her.” He paused, long enough that Zero thought the conversation was over, but then he spoke once more. “Minfilia’s sacrifice left scars on Helissent’s soul that have never truly healed. Some say that she died with her that night, and the Warrior of Light we see today is nothing more than a ghost.”
It was hard to imagine a fuller, livelier version of Helissent, who was already larger than life, but Estinien’s words lent context to the woman she believed she knew. There were times when Helissent seemed to be a little distant, and it took a few attempts to get her attention. Those moments were rare, though, and in Zero’s experience Helissent had always been present for her.
It made the moments that she wasn’t, the moments when it was clear that Helissent was lost in her mind with Minfilia, all the more unbearable. The thought brought with it another wave of terrible emotion, a bitter sense of unfairness and rejection, and yet that response in and of itself was illogical, because Zero wasn’t supposed to care.
Zero was so tired of these constant, godforsaken feelings. “So Minfilia was important to Helissent, and she died. Now Helissent’s source of strength is gone.”
“I suppose it could be put that way.” The way Estinien responded led Zero to believe he wasn’t giving her the full story, but she decided she was too exhausted to care. Her head still pounded from the strain of her tears, and now a muddled, foggy feeling set in, slowing her thoughts and dulling her senses.
“Is this what it is to be mortal?” she asked. “To be constantly at the whim of your emotions?” What a complicated way to live. What a ruthless, vicious, raw way to live. There was a lot to be said of the violence of the Thirteenth, but Zero would wager that the Source was just as gruesome.
She wasn’t looking at Estinien, but she heard the smile in his voice when he responded. “You might think us weak for it, and to a creature of the void, we must certainly seem so. We spend years as victims to our rage, too consumed by our own fury and quest for vengeance to see the extent of our self-destruction. We are blinded by our hubris and invite the downfall of everything we built. We are devastated by grief, left as shadows of ourselves, merely going through the motions of life without truly living it.” He paused. “But we are not alone in our struggles. We find commonality with the strangers around us, no matter what land they hail from, nor what path they led to cross with ours. We share our joys, our sorrows, our losses, our victories. We open ourselves up to joy, peace, friendship, and the immeasurable strength that comes with it. We rise above. And then some new disaster happens, another crisis strikes, and we risk losing ourselves to despair—but we overcome, we fuel our spirits with our determination and willpower to survive, we rely on one another and we try again.”
“So you are trapped in a miserable cycle.” It was not unlike the eternal wheel of life and rebirth that plagued the Thirteenth. She had thought it had been too good to be true when Alphinaud and Alisaie explained that mortals do things for each other because they wanted to, or because it was just, or because they cared for the person they were doing it for. Mortals did require payment, it just came in the form of an emotion, and those emotions were what enabled them to struggle and fight and persevere.
Estinien shook his head. “It is a cycle, but it is not miserable unless you treat it as such.”
Zero considered his words. “And all mortals live like this? Willingly?”
“There is no other way we can live.”
Despite the solemnity of his words, Estinien did not seem disparaged by his reality. In fact, he seemed amused that Zero found it so disagreeable. There was one thing, though, that required clarification. “If sharing your emotions has such an impact on your lives, what emotion do you gain from this conversation?” she asked. Were all shared experiences conducting an exchange in the background?
Estinien shrugged. “The satisfaction of knowing that should you two work it out, neither you nor Helissent will raze a small village to the ground tonight.”
Zero affixed Estinien with a glower of her own. There would be no razing, Radz-at-Han was far too valuable to Zero to raze, and Tertium was too far away.
“Speaking of, you should speak with her,” Estinien continued. “Start with an apology. Don't take it personally if she's angry, Minfilia is a sore subject for her.”
“Mm.” He was right. It would not do to leave the situation between them as soured as it had become. Zero did not want to think about what kind of emotions she possibly exchanged with Helissent during that tense conversation, but Helissent had only given her anger and restraint, so it was not unreasonable to assume they hadn't been good. Helissent did not need more bad emotions in her life. Zero pulled the brim of her hat down and set off to find the Warrior of Light.
Helissent found her first, out in the clearing outside of Ruveydah Fibers. She was still in her dress, but her hair was mussed like she’d been gripping it. Her makeup was smeared in black streaks underneath her eyes and wiped from her mouth. “Zero,” she said, her voice full of something that sounded weak and cracked.
Zero made Helissent look like that. The guilt crushed her, but she stayed the course. “Helissent. I need to apologize–”
“I’m so fuckin’ sorry–”
They both stopped and stared, bewildered. After a moment of silence, Helissent spoke. “Ye first.”
Zero swallowed her nerves. “I need to apologize. Our conversation was…bad…and I do not know what I did, but I have caused you pain, and that was not my intention.”
Helissent blinked at her, wide eyes glowing in the dark and slightly illuminating her facepaint. “ I—thank you. I’m sorry, too. Cannae very well get mad at ye for poking about what ye didnae know.” She sighed. “I should have told ye. Just, talking about her has always been hard. Impossible, seems like.”
“She was important to you. You loved her. She’s gone.” These were the things that Zero knew to be true of Minfilia, and they were underwhelmingly few. Helissent winced as she listed them, but she did not yell or let her expression shutter closed in that cold, horrifying way it had back on the bridge. Zero would take what she could get.
“Aye,” Helissent croaked. “Look, I—I love her.” She looked helpless as she said it, suddenly small in the moonlight, her broad shoulders hunched and her expression so naked it hurt to look at. She moved her hands like she didn’t quite know what to do with them, gesturing vaguely before finally letting them rest. “What do ye know of marriage?”
Zero said nothing, only crossed her arms. She knew of marriage, but she wanted to hear where this was going.
Helissent sighed and twisted the ring she wore around her fourth finger. “Well, it’s what ye do when ye love someone enough ye want to spend the rest of yer life with them. Ye go and get yer bond recognized by the Twelve and all the world, and make a vow of eternal devotion, so everyone knows that yer hers and she’s yers. I was married to Minfilia.”
She fiddled with the ring some more, then removed it and held it out for Zero to see. “My love. My life.”
Zero took the ring, a simple gold band, and turned it over. It was worn smooth and slightly oiled from constant use. On the inside there was a tiny inscription: from now til forever.
Helissent had done a lot of explaining how much Minfilia meant to her, but she hadn’t answered the other questions. Zero understood that it was hard to talk about Minfilia because Helissent missed her, but she didn’t know why Helissent would so willingly keep mementos of a woman who caused her so much pain to bring up. Would the memories not be suffocating? Was it not time for her to move on?
Helissent must have caught something in Zero’s expression, because she answered her without being asked. “When yer partner for life…passes…it ain’t easy to just carry on. It’s damn near impossible.” She held her hand open for the ring, then slid it back on. “But they say that grief is just love with no place to go, so I’m fine if my grief never runs dry. My love won’t, either.”
“Why love at all? Why love if it brings grief?” Zero asked. As soon as she had, she was afraid Helissent would get angry—but Helissent just chuckled humorlessly and tilted her head to the sky.
“Mortals ask the same question all the time,” she said. “We cannae help it. We love whether we want to or not.” She looked at Zero out of the corner of her eye. “We were built to love.”
She said it so simply, presenting it like any other fact of the Source. The people here needed food to eat and water to drink, to love and be loved.
Could Zero find it within herself to love? It seemed bigger than her or anything she was capable of mustering up. Then again, she had thought herself incapable of crying, so maybe she should give herself a little credit.
Helissent spoke once more. “And here’s the rum thing: Minfilia would’ve loved ye.”
For some reason this made Zero feel better, not worse. Perhaps it was a mortal quirk to seek approval and affirmation. Either way, hearing that someone who had loved Helissent would have liked her was nice. “Would she have?”
“Aye. She always had a thing for strays, and anyone who could get me out of my head. It's funny, I can almost hear her telling me to stop letting the world pass me by.”
“Estinien said something similar. He said you were too devastated by grief to move forward.”
Helissent snorted. “Did he, now? He's become too much of a gossip. …He’s right, though.” She stretched her arms above her head, then let them fall to her sides. “Sometimes it feels like I've been underwater ever since she died…and I'm finally coming up for air.”
Zero could understand the sentiment. She felt like she’d been underwater in the void, stuck in a constant state of paranoia and survival instinct, then under Zenos’s contract, when she'd been drained of her power until she was barely there at all. Coming to the Source was like breaching the surface for the first time in her life, air forced into her lungs as she was dragged, kicking and screaming, into an entirely new world.
“You need air to live,” she pointed out.
Helissent laughed. “Aye, that’s true. Maybe it's time I start breathing again.”
“I’ll clear time in my schedule to teach you.”
Her deadpan delivery made Helissent’s jaw drop. “Was that a joke? Ye do jokes now? Hells, and that one was funny, too!”
Zero glowed under the praise. The emotions filling her now were light and soft, like sunlight through the curtains of her borrowed room. Was this the type of sharing Estinien referenced? She could understand the appeal. Perhaps the spinning wheel of pain and peace, joy and sorrow, was not as miserable as she had believed. “Are we…ok?” she ventured.
Helissent sobered up, shifting her weight from heel to heel. “I want to be. This whole friendship thing…is new to me. It was only recent I started letting fowk in proper, an’ I’m afraid I'm not the best at it.” She met Zero’s eyes. “But I want to try again. Can we try again?”
She asked Zero, as if Zero should not be the one groveling for a second chance. The rush of fondness that filled her chest was almost expected. Helissent had a way of making Zero feel exceptionally mortal. “I want to try again too.”
The smile she received was blinding, and the tidal wave of happiness nearly lifted her off her feet. The air around them once more was charged with something pleasant and cheerful that made her want to prolong the moment forever.
Yes, perhaps being like a mortal wasn't too bad.