Curiosity

Ariadne Stringweaver had learned many things in her time as Master of Strings; determination, first and foremost. Time and doubt were no allies in the vastness of the Astral Sea. Immortality was more often than not an invitation to madness, a path to inescapable failure, to tragedy. Darkness gathered in the shadows of dying stars, always ready to pounce at the slightest display of weakness, and in the near-infinite time between millenniums, faltering in one’s duty was not a matter of if, but of when. Reality might have once allowed for quiet contemplation, soul-searching, and pondering on the meaning of existence along the recesses of the known universe. Ariadne had never experienced it in such a manner. 

Perhaps she was exaggerating. Perhaps she was not. Perhaps she had a thousand more years to prepare for the arrival of the Enemy. Perhaps she had a couple of months. It did not change a thing. Her actions had to remain steadfast and decisive either way. Hers was a responsibility few understood, least of all eternals and immortals, alive since the Age of the Gods. Only she, along with her fellow Threadmasters, understood the urgency of the present, the expeditious need for change, the desperate rattling against an imminent threat. The future promised an entropic eternity, a hell of nothingness, of non-existence. It was inevitable. Time cannot be stopped. 

Ariadne thought herself capable of defying fate. 

To do so, she needed allies. She could not face the Doom of the Gods without help. Her adventure began hundreds of years ago, when she first journeyed to Iskendar and climbed mount Krath to find the University of Strings. There, she found fellowship, like-minded individuals ready to change the universe alongside her. Then came the exodus, as the Iskendarians turned into religious nuts and shunned anything related to the arcane arts. The City of Strings used their highly advanced magical methods to shift from the material to the astral. And so began the story of the greatest bastion of knowledge in the current age. 

Ariadne rose through the ranks of threadseekers and archivists until she was named Master of Strings, leader of the ascendant City of Strings. That was the first step. The bastion of knowledge could have easily been corrupted by selfish and ambitious pursuits, yet under her steady hand and that of her lieutenants, it maintained its course of progress, a shining beacon of life in a dying universe, a nascent flame in the age of dusk. 

Many believed it could not be done. The mighty immortals of ages past had seen the glory of old Avalon, the blessed spires of the Moonsilver Kingdom, and the starry halls of Vastaria. Each and every one of these great civilizations had fallen, in time. For all their greatness, the Enemy found their weakness, and exploited it. Now, nothing remained but star dust

Ariadne couldn’t care less. What conclusion was she supposed to draw? That it was hopeless? That nothing could withstand the power of Eternity? Oh, that was a certainty. Time trumps all. That was the reason why she could not afford to dwell on fallen empires and hopeless scenarios. 

Her existence was barely a grain of sand in comparison to the vast desert that was Garnathor’s life. Perhaps that is why she could still believe in a better future.

She would remind the Dragon of what the grace of divinity really looked like. 

“Trust me,” she murmured to the Moonsilver Princess, right as Garnathor pounced, taken by the Thread of Twilight. “Someone has to make the call, and I, at least, know what I am doing.”

 

The monstrous shadow descended upon Ariadne like an inevitable, unstoppable doom. Garnathor was acting on his base impulses, drunk on the power of the Thread. She knew exactly how the Dragon was feeling. That reckless emotion, that uncontrollable feeling that bubbled from within, that out-of-body experience that every Threadbearer had to endure… Ariadne had grown accustomed, even fond of it in a way. 

She bore two threads, after all. 

Ariadne caught the Dragon’s maw in her plated hands. Her Unbreakable Stance was as strong as any other spell in the 10th category, yet such was Garnathor’s drive that his bone-white teeth almost pierced her chest regardless. The overwhelming power of Midnight sunk through her magical armor, settling beneath her skin like a corrupting whisper. For a second, she felt the avalanche of an inescapable night, the herald of a dying light, the last rays of sunshine before all turns black. It yearned for her. It asked her to surrender. It promised a restful sleep, in eternal death. She could almost feel the echoing laugh of Eternity behind the Dragon’s unrestrained rage. 

She resisted the call. She dug her heels in the rubble and began to push back. The Dragon felt bewildered, even in his possessed state, at the small creature having such strength. His long neck was bent to the side, then in a jerking motion, slammed against the ground. Before Garnathor could react, he felt a piercing pain as the sword of the knight was driven unto his chest. He recoiled in shock, his eyes scanning for Ariadne amid all the dust the battle raised. 

Then, another strike. This time, a punch square in the jaw that sent his skull flying unto the wall. Ariadne jumped through the air and delivered yet another hit to the face, driving the dragon deeper into the wall. 

Garnathor roared, fury overtaking him as he spun around and lashed out in a deadly onslaught that toppled the wall whole. The dragon attacked in a frenzy, trying to hit the purple knight by chance more than aim. Above the ground, Ariadne flew out of range of the creature, her boots allowing her the pleasure of levitation. She assessed the situation. At this rate, the entire Hold might come down on the Dragon, and Garas would never forgive her if they had to extract the Thread of Midnight from a corpse. She gingerly floated away, back to the entrance, on the other side of the hall, as Garnathor continued his blind rampage. His size was quite an encumberance while fighting such a small foe. When Ariadne reached the doors of the hold, she called on the Dragon. 

“I’m over here, darling!” 

Garnathor lifted his head, his eyes fixing on the shining knight. “You… insignificant creature!” He jumped in a fury, assisted by his wings, and broke through the gates of the Hold with Ariadne between his powerful teeth. He flew like a streak of black among the twilight sky, the purple knight grabing unto his jaws to avoid getting crushed. The dragon had bloodlust in his eyes. 

Wind rushed in Ariadne’s ears as the dragon took her into the sky. She felt the terrible sound of Garnathor breathing in, his teeth burning hot with the black fire in his belly. She was about to be turned into a shiny piece of purple coal. Her hands pushed the creature’s jaws open just as the dragon unleashed the full power of his breath. 

Like a show of fireworks in the sky, the midnight realm coalesced around the shadow wyrm, and the cursed flames of Nyx enveloped Ariadne whole. A column of fire streaked across the heavens, purple and red and black mixed into an abominable torrent of corrupt energy, straight unto the Master of Strings. 

She would have died. Instead, she took the strings of fate in her hands and pulled. The power of the Unbreakable Stance left her like a wisp, and with it, her godlike strength. She had no further use for it. Ariadne was very good at wrestling, and had more experience than most grappling gargantuan monsters, but her true power did not come from that one trick. 

She wielded Curiosity. The drive to discover. The unmarred will of those that believed in change. The spark that begins any pursuit, noble or otherwise. To be curious is to strive. To advance. To extend a hand beyond the veil, no matter the consequence. But more importantly, she wielded Fate. The power of Destiny. Given to her by the Oracle, she was told it was a curse, not a blessing. To see the future is to be powerless against it, for Eternity is the master of all endings.

Ariadne never quite saw it like that. She was just glad to have the power to change it. 

Instead of dying in Garnathor’s flames, she chose another path. As if by sheer luck, Ariadne’s entire suit of armor unbuckled on the monster’s teeth, creating the smallest of openings as the dragon readjusted his jaws. She slipped through the deathly maw of the creature just in time to avoid the torrent of dark flames that lit up the sky. The dragon let out a deep roar that shook the foundations of Catherine’s Hold. 

“DIE! DIE! BURN IN THE FLAMES OF GARNATHOR, THE BLACK SCOURGE!”  

Ariadne fell, her dusk eyes still fixed on the creature as it bellowed. She focused on the threads once more. Pulling on a string, her silver sword returned to her hand; a sword that had slain Gods before. With a powerful vertical slash, she unleashed the power of the blade. A brilliant streak of white energy was released from the tip of the blade, hitting the dragon right below the wing and across his chest, where Ariadne had previously wounded him. 

Searing pain was all Garnathor felt for a moment. He thought… no, he was certain he had killed the knight. Burned her to death in his jaws. Yet now he found himself falling from the sky, his wing unable to keep him afloat, shadows leaking from the open wound on his chest. Instead of blood, white smoke streaked from the opening, as if the twilight within him was being cleansed from his body. 

Fury no longer clouded his mind. His dense draconic form fell faster than the woman’s. Quickly, he found himself looking at the shining, diminute figure above him, wielding a silver sword and channeling the strings of fate. The attack of the weapon she carried had parted through the twilight realm, dividing the black skies and allowing sunlight to shine down atop Catherine’s Hold for the first time in centuries.

Garnathor felt himself slipping under. The blaze of Twilight escaped him like a dream, his red eyes turning gold once more, still fixed on the smiling woman. 

It was only then that Garnathor realized the knight also carried a thread. Or was it more than one? He could feel it. A mortal, wielding the power of the gods.

She carried the strength of the old Pantheon with such ease she might as well have been born to do so. And that was not all; she seemed to channel such different powers. She was not subdued by the influence of divinity. She was barely even affected by it. 

It was truly beautiful.

Garnathor was witness to Ariadne’s full power. In one hand, she wielded Curiosity, a fractal of infinite possibility, the audacity to entertain any pursuit without fear of failure. A true, unbridled, unquenchable thirst for what comes next. Hope, distilled to its purest form; an almost childlike wonder for the future. In the other hand, she wielded the silver sword, infused with Fate itself. It was destiny that saved her from the dragon’s breath, just as it was destiny that led her blade through Garnathor’s defenses and unto his core. 

A mortal. 

Those were his thoughts as he plummeted towards the ground, painfully flightless. The silver slash across his chest still spat out corruption from inside his core, making for a dark comet, mixed with white light, streaking across the sky. 

“I… understand, father.” Garnathor murmured, his mind at peace as he neared death. “I think I finally understand.” It could never have been him. He was immortal. He was a Dragon. He was the son of Ylwe, blood of the Xildur, champion of the Age of Gods. He was eternal. He was closer to Eternity than anyone else. How could he ever hope to defeat it? To vanquish the very concept that made him who he was… If there was hope in the Universe, he was never going to carry it. Time, after all, is a slow poison, an entropic monster that smothers the flame of life, little by little, until nothing of it remains. Only the young can deal with the problems of their time. Garnathor’s age had long passed.

 

The Dragon closed his golden eyes. Perhaps the woman would make better use of his Thread than him. Twilight was quite an unruly fragment of Divinity, but if the Purple Knight had managed to defy all odds and bear a second Thread, Garnathor was quite sure she could achieve anything. Perhaps, among the dying light of the universe, the darkest of shadows could indeed be banished, if only mortals held unto hope. Perhaps, now that the Gods were dead, Mortals were finally ready to shine. As long as they did not end up like him.

Garnathor did not die on impact. Quite the contrary, before crashing into the Hold, his entire momentum was arrested, and he fell as light as a feather, gingerly slipping through the broken ceiling of the Main Hall and softly landing among the rubble of his previous onslaught. He was barely awake when he heard the voice of Elizabeth. 

“Garnathor!” She had managed to shatter the bindings on her legs, though the ones on her wrists maintained their hold. The Princess stumbled through the debris and dropped to her knees at Garnathor’s side. “O fairest Moon, bright queen of the heavens, release thy humble servant from these bonds. O Moon, cast thy radiant glow in this darkest of nights, and grant unto me the strength to heal and tend, that I may fulfill thy holiest of mandates.” 

Her prayer words were sacred as could be–desperate, pleading, infused with holy power. A divine intervention. In a flash of light, her moonsilver staff answered her call, materializing in front of her, despite the powerful enchantments that repressed her magical ability. With a power word, the chains shattered into a thousand pieces, and Elizabeth began to glow with the essence of the moon. She put her hands on the dragon’s fallen form. 

Yet he was not as wounded as she believed him to be. The strike had drained him of the dark night of his soul like poison from a wound. Twilight would of course find a way to come back, to build up again in the heart of the Dragon, but such a release was more effective than a hundred vials of Tears of the Moon. Elizabeth gazed upon Garnathor’s golden eyes. He was tired, but he was alright, in a deeper sense than just bodily health. 

“That was good!” a voice came from above. “He should recover in a couple of days, dear. You could also speed up the process, with that nifty clericking you do.”

Hovering over the ruined hall, Ariadne was shining in an array of different colors. Elizabeth stood up, staff in hand.

“Don’t you dare come any closer” she growled, moonsilver coalescing around her wrists in patterns like crystal snakes, ready to pounce. Perhaps the knight could defeat a weakened Garnathor, but Elizabeth was much more powerful than the dragon. “If you are here to defile him, to take his Divinity, the moon will forever scorn you. Not a night will pass by that you don’t feel her gaze upon your wicked form, and your sins–” 

“Don’t be so dramatic. I did you a favor, my dear.” Ariadne smiled, her hands on her hips. “He is not taken by the Thread, yet, or else the Sword of Aegeus would have killed him. And I have no interest in Twilight. On the contrary, I’d much prefer it if Garnathor could continue wielding such an unruly thread. He might just be the only creature capable of such a feat.”

Elizabeth looked puzzled. “What… do you want? What are you here for?” 

“I was passing by. You’ve hidden for long enough, I think. The Enemy thrives in these sort of places… Dark corners, forgotten glories.” Ariadne spoke with flair as her gaze fixed on an old tapestry. She made a flourish to extend her hand to Elizabeth. “Well, I say; no more! The universe is finally taking notice of us, Wielders of Divinity. The future is uncertain. And I will not live forever.” The phrase, often used as a lamentation by mortals, was more of a declaration of intent in Ariadne. It wasn’t that she couldn’t, she simply refused such a fate. 

The Master of Strings descended unto the rubble. Elizabeth had not lowered her guard, still pointing her Moonsilver staff at the woman. She would not be caught by surprise again. Ariadne raised her hands. “I am not here to hurt you, dear. I promise.” 

“Oh, yes, I definitely got that.” Elizabeth raised one of her hands to her temple, where she had cut herself on her struggle to be free from the chains. 

“Alright. I understand your trepidation.” Ariadne paused; her jovial expression suddenly replaced by a hardened look. “I only had to check; you understand. Twilight is a terrible thread. Many wielders have been going rogue in the last few years. You know his strength,” she said, pointing to the fallen dragon, “can you imagine Garnathor as an agent of the Enemy? What would that cause?”

“Watch your tongue!” replied Elizabeth, agitated. “He would never betray the ideals of his forebears. Everyone he ever loved was killed by Eternity. You will not insult his–” 

“Greater scions have fallen before him.” Ariadne’s face became darker, all of a sudden. A shadow of herself took over, almost as if another person was talking entirely. “It is inevitable. We become numb to our eternal struggle. The call of the void is a seductive one, indeed. It’s a matter of time before we all… give up. We cannot bear all agonies forever. One fateful night, we will succumb to the darkness.” 

The woman spoke with a low, uncertain voice, unlike anything she had said until then. Elizabeth was immediately taken aback by such ancient grief. She spoke with the voice of prophecy. 

Ariadne turned on her heels, and began to walk out, sunlight from the rift cascading down her shoulders. “But it is not night yet.” 

Elizabeth gazed upon the woman as she made her way to the broken-down doors of the hold. She whistled a whimsy tune, seeming the very picture of innocence, and almost tripped on a piece of fallen debris. “My, we really did a number on this place. Still, I believe it to be a much-needed improvement, don’t you think?” 

As if on cue, the sun shone through the twilight, the clouds still parted, and unto Elizabeth. Her moonsilver staff waned in power, becoming dust under the light of the sun. Ariadne let out a chuckle. 

“You… What–what did my brother want?” Garnathor’s low, rumbling voice echoed through the hall, startling Elizabeth. His golden eyes were fixed on the purple lady, who was already at the entrance. 

“Ah! I knew I was forgetting something!” Ariadne took out a crumpled note from her cloak. “Garas wants to see you. Something about visiting your mom in Hell. He does not want to do it alone, understandably enough. I think he also reached out to Syara and Yuna, though we’re not holding our breath for a response from them.”

Ariadne flicked her hand, and the note appeared in Elizabeth’s hands, alongside a mysterious magical envelope, marked with a purple seal. “And that,” she pointed to it, “is my formal invitation.” 

Elizabeth and Garnathor looked at each other, before staring once more at the strange woman. 

“We are… quite content… in the Hold” managed to croak out the dragon, still reeling from the fall. 

“You’ll have more than enough space to do as you please in our bastion!” Ariadne replied, with a smile. “And of course, we can make bearing a Thread such as yours a much more… well, bearable endeavor. Trust me, one of my colleagues carries Wrath, and she’s doing dandy!” 

With that, Ariadne inscribed several runes into the ground, whistling all the while. Garnathor managed to pull himself up, his gargantuan form slithering into a more comfortable position amidst the rubble. His eyes were still fixed on the woman. Elizabeth could tell how different he looked compared to the incident in the early morning. 

Is this your doing, O Moon? Did you send me this insufferable woman to remind me of my failure? Must I abandon my task? Delegate it to some… arrogant mortal? Elizabeth shook her head. That line of thinking would go nowhere. There was no contesting the fact that they needed help, quite desperately. Garnathor’s… condition was reaching critical levels. She still did not think he would turn to the Enemy, but the citizens of Iskendar were sure to suffer and die. 

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. Just think about it. We are in need of experienced Wielders like yourselves.” Ariadne smiled at them, before shifting her hands and activating the spell. She was using an anchored shift, meant to guide a teleportation across the planes of existence. “We might have a shot, you know. At changing things.” The Master of Strings narrowed her eyes. “Remain idle, and that wretched prophecy will sneak up on you. Do not give in to despair! There is much to live for, yet, O Twilight, O Moon.” Purple energy began to burn at her feet, and in a flash of mauve light, she was gone. 

 

Only an echo remained of her last words, a reassuring whisper. A promise of a new beginning. A glimmer of hope half-believed.

“Cheers, and Happy Threadseeking!”