act47side

You could have died... you should have stayed in the Convallis.

There was nothing more I could do for the valley, for Laqeramaline, for the children.

You've already done so much. The lies you weaved for the sake of all the Banshees...

I knew it... they couldn't fool you.

I began to sense that something was off soon after you brought me to the Convallis.

I've kept the lie going for two hundred years. This was my greatest achievement as custodian of the valley, and my greatest sin...

Two hundred years... do you mean... that war?

Yes.

The King of Sarkaz at the time was old and foolish. It was not just the Royal Courts; even outsiders thought they could turn him into a puppet and thus control all Sarkaz.

It was already a bad year. Catastrophe raked the land once, then the alliance's guns raked it again.

The green Feline appeared on the horizon, leading a wall of steel that stretched as far as the eye could see. Which were the Steam Knights, which were the spire casters, and which were the Vieux Vanguard? I couldn't tell.

I don't know when they learned to build ships of steel, and tubes that breathed fire.

All I remember is that the towering Wendigos could only whimper as they were crushed beneath the ships, and our kin fell burning from the sky like broken kites.

No one who heard the wailing that day would ever forget it.

...The wailing of the Banshee.

We couldn't tell if we were delivering death, or delivering the dead. All we could do was wail and howl, hardly able to put together a single coherent elegy.

There were less than a thousand of us left when the allied forces withdrew from Kazdel. Half of us had lost our voices.

Because of our nature, the Banshees have never missed a single war of the Sarkaz. But such losses were unprecedented.

I survived by sheer chance and left the blood-soaked land of sorrows, trying to find a place where life still remained.

The Convallis?

The Convallis.

The vast Mist Lake separates it from the outside. The seasons come to a still in the golden woods. It is a quiet place... one that seemed like it didn't belong to the Sarkaz.

There's nothing that shouldn't belong to Sarkaz.

Yes... we believed it at the time. Me, Laqeramaline, and the new king chosen by the crown.

We believed in a new life for the Sarkaz.

Laqeramaline and I took our remaining kin into the Convallis, built a dock by Mist Lake, and built our court in the forests.

For the first time, we added symbols of life into the song of the Banshee, guided the trees to bear rich fruit, and the vines to weave themselves into bridges with incantations.

For the first time, the Banshees settled in a single place. They no longer had to sleep with only the night sky as their blanket, traveling from one death to another.

But 'tokens' from outside soon came flying in like snowflakes.

Tokens announcing death.

...Yes.

Not even Theresa and Theresis could solve the problems left behind by war overnight.

Yes. Death lingers, long after the smoke has cleared.

We made dried fruit out of our first harvest. It was barely enough for a few hundred Banshees to make it through the coldest month of winter.

But the tokens in my room... the murky blood crystals of the Vampires, tattered shrouds of the Nachzehrers, the shriveled, rosen hearts that Djaj become...

They soon piled higher, much higher than our dried fruit. I knew that if we went out to deliver the dead at that time...

We would return to our old path. But the catalyst for change was won with the lives of thousands upon thousands in war.

So you made a choice on behalf of all the Banshees.

I made the choice. I convinced Laqeramaline.

I concealed all the tokens announcing death coming from outside.

Occasionally a Banshee might leave the Convallis to deliver our kin, but I chose the people carefully and sparingly... Laqeramaline faced much criticism outside.

For a long time, we believed that we could cast aside our nature and lead a different life. If the Banshees could do it, so could all Sarkaz.

Even if the price was that the owners of the tokens would never find their way to the myriad souls.

Even the price was that the Banshees, having violated their nature, are swallowed by a lifetime of emptiness, destined to endure a long and painful journey of forgetting upon their deathbed.

Two hundred years passed. Two hundred years we had endured.

Until I met you.

...That's why I had to leave.

How many deaths did you tell the others about each month? More people die in Kazdel every day.

You could fool the others, but you knew that I knew from the beginning.

Laqeramaline was right. You were too smart, and you grew up in Kazdel... I could not have fooled you.

But I hoped you could live in the Convallis.

Not just because your mother was one of the many thousands of souls that I turned a blind eye to... not just because I owed you a happy childhood for failing to respond to the last wish in time.

But also because I hoped that the Convallis, the sanctuary that was built in the hope of seeking a new life for the Sarkaz, would at least be able to take in a child from outside after two hundred years.

I took the child who was most likely to expose my lie in, as my daughter.

You carefully kept me away from other Banshees.

Ultimately, your hopes for the Convallis fell through.

I...

I made many mistakes in my life. But there is none that I regret more than your departure.

You were always a smart girl. I've thought about it many times... that if I had told you the truth about things, you would have understood and played along whatsoever.

If that was the case, then perhaps you wouldn't have...

No, I would have left regardless.

I remember the day we parted.

You called out to me. I didn't turn around, but I looked down at the water.

There was no wind on Mist Lake that day. The boat sailed across the water like a knife cutting through a piece of paper. I saw your face clearly, reflected in the still water.

You wept when I said I was leaving, but let out a sigh of relief... so small, so imperceptible, that perhaps you didn't even notice it yourself.

Deep down, you wanted me to leave, didn't you?

We were co-conspirators in the parting.

Haven't you realized it, Væla?

It is the Convallis, not me, that is truly your daughter.

You discovered it, entrusted the Sarkaz's future to it, and built it with pavilions and boats, fruits and cakes.

Your love for it grew as time passed.

There were two reasons why you brought me back to the Convallis: to make amends for the price you paid for it, and to verify whether it has grown the way you hoped it would.

My departure brought relief, because the one who could expose the fragile lie that ties the Convallis together left.

But my departure also brought anguish, because it proved that the valley could not carry the burden you hoped it would, even after two hundred years.

It was too fragile to accept a child who grew up in Kazdel, much less become the future abode of all Sarkaz.

Nasti, don't...

Do you know the answer, Væla?

You left the Convallis, came here, and merged with this tree, which is like the Roosting Tree, yet different... did you do it for me, for yourself, or simply out of obsession?

What are you running from, Væla?

Are you running from death, from the failure of the Convallis, or from the fact that you are dying and there is nothing else you can do for the Convallis's failure?

Tell me, help me understand, and put an end to this error.