03x06 - Twelve Thousand, Four Hundred and Three

[bunniefuu]

The Senate named your uncle Regent,

and he's named Tihomir his Viceroy.

My father?

Alive but sick.

Too sick.

His secret is not a secret anymore.

It gets worse.

The Coriel'Tauvi have launched

an offensive across the frontier,

claiming we're responsible

for the falling sky.

Claiming we att*cked Mene herself.

I need to see my father.

How many is that?

Wait. Don't answer.

I know. It's just, It's the same result.

It's always the same,

no matter when or where

in the orbital path the moon explodes.

Everything dies.

Yet, in the first world,

that's not what happened.

The destruction of the moon

changed everything, but life went on.

Removing the second moon

stabilized the Mad Moon's orbit.

It allowed the prison to hold far longer

than it would in the first world.

But But what if

Here.

Of course.

It was a shield.

When the end came,

its gravity protected the world below.

Mene. Mother. What did that do to you?

Run.

What the

The Coriel'Tauvi are turning tail.

The river is the demarcation point

for the old boundaries.

The bulk of their forces will have

crossed back over it by nightfall.

Only to att*ck again once the moon rises.

It's always the same.

The day is ours, the night is theirs.

No.

This is different. This is new.

It's happening across the frontier.

I'll fly more reconnaissance

over their forward positions.

Perhaps I can work out their intentions

and encourage them along.

For the Slayer.

Wait.

It's from General Drysi,

commander of the Principality Army.

She wants to meet.

An offer of parley.

I need to think.

Your uncle sent the regular army

to the front,

along with most of the Praetorian Guard.

Tihomir's private legion remained to

protect the Imperial City.

"Protect" it.

Dearest niece.

Welcome home.

After the Principality att*ck,

we deployed the Slayer

and inflicted substantial losses.

We're told that their general

offered a parley.

So, the battle nears its end?

Their withdrawal smells of a trap.

My soldiers are already mobilizing

for the counter-offensive.

Our soldiers.

My soldiers.

Let's not quibble over semantics.

The situation on the border

is not what it seems.

I believe the elves withdrew

because they learned what I know.

What threatens us is not one another

but something greater.

Lina will accept parley

and, if possible, negotiate an armistice.

Princess, while you were off

on your little adventure,

Imperium blood was shed. Lives were lost.

You abandon your station in a time of w*r,

return with these unhelpful notions,

and dare to think

you know what's best for all of us?

You're clearly as mad as my poor brother.

Council is concluded.

She doesn't understand.

Never had

so many Dragon Knights in here.

What gods awful monstrosity

could need so many brave souls?

We're going south.

We found an Eldwurm in Barrowhaven.

"An old worm?" Is that dangerous?

Eldwurm. It's the most dangerous.

Biggest kind of dragon.

We're gonna k*ll it before it wipes out

the town and everything around it.

- But we're around it.

- And you'll continue to be safe.

- I could use another round.

- I'll make it two.

Wha Another headache?

I'm telling you,

I don't care how bad those nightmares are.

You need to sleep.

I'm fine.

You look about six-feet-under fine.

What happened to Kaden,

what you saw, it is horrible.

Give it time.

These are on the hous

Was that the old worm?

There! It's coming from up there!

Help!

Help me.

- Bram!

- Huh?

Help me with this!

Go. Go as fast as you can!

Here. Grab my hand.

What the f*ck was he?

Davion.

I know.

The Knights. The squires, they're

I know.

Bram! Bram, sound off!

Here.

Father. I'm home.

Where is my father?

The Spire, Highness.

Regent Shabarra ordered it

for the Emperor's safety.

Sherzi, you're home.

I was just thinking about the summer

we spent picking figs with Mirana.

So cold today.

Sing for me?

It's me, Father.

It's Mirana.

Mirana?

Yes. Send for your mother.

Mother is gone.

Mother has been gone for quite some time.

Oh.

Yes.

Dead five years now.

Five years, almost to the day.

- Five years tomorrow.

- Yes. Yes, yes.

Tomorrow, the day.

I need your wisdom, Father.

I need your help.

I am of two worlds, two lives.

And I keep mistaking one for the other.

Which is fine, except a man is dead.

And another man

the man I loved,

is not the man I loved at all.

And now he hates me.

What is memory? What is imagined?

The world is full of ghosts,

and I'm alone, Father.

Would you believe me,

daughter, if I told you I understand?

I see your mother everywhere.

I can't stop seeing your mother.

And when she is gone,

she takes the world with her.

I remember the day Mother d*ed.

I remember the day you both d*ed.

I held your hand.

I was swept from the palace.

I cried with you. I cried out your name.

Oh, I was barely a woman.

I was just a little girl

who couldn't help her or you.

Not in that world.

And not in this one.

Ooh.

Oh, now I see.

Oh, my poor girl.

You've learned the most terrifying secret

in the universe.

Our parents,

no matter how much they love us,

cannot protect us from everything.

Nor we, them.

Love is not about making a perfect world,

free from harm and free from pain.

Love is living together

in the world as it is, come what may.

Five years tomorrow.

Five years to the day.

I was just thinking about Mother.

I was thinking

about why she chose to live a mortal life.

Why she chose death.

I asked her once before the end,

begged her to explain.

She said,

"Fi, accepting death is the only act

of true power in the universe."

I stormed out.

My heart was broken.

I didn't understand. Not then.

I think I understand now.

In the end, no god, no monster,

no ancient primordial entity

is more dangerous than despair.

There are things you must know.

I saw the book, Papa. I read it.

I know what you've done and why.

I should be horrified, and I am.

I should be angry, and I am.

Yet, I know how I felt when Mother d*ed,

and when I thought you might.

I'd have done anything,

anything at all to make it different.

But all of this, for me?

A multiverse

and innumerable souls gone, for me.

Except that is not what happened.

That is not all that happened.

This is neither the first iteration

of a remade universe nor the second.

It is not the tenth, the one hundredth,

or one-thousandth.

This universe is experiment 12,403.

Twelve thousand

Creation is a delicate thing.

It took hundreds of iterations

simply to learn

how to make a stable universe.

Most d*ed in infancy,

the stars boiling away into the void.

But you, daughter.

Making this world,

this specific world,

causality was the second lesson.

And all of that for nothing.

The Ancients will escape,

the Mad Moon will explode.

Only now, it means the end

of all life on this planet.

As I said,

our Tower will survive the holocaust.

As will you. As will we.

You say that

like the thought makes it better,

like it's not a nightmare

I can never wake up from.

Another dead world, all for me.

But I have to watch this one die.

Father of Fire!

Welcome.

My dream. I'm back in my dream.

Which means

You are not dead.

Nor do you dream.

In time, you will remember,

just as the ember soul remembers you.

The ember soul.

Reborn in you.

We are he who was.

You are he who is.

A vessel dies, a vessel is chosen.

Even now, your true nature emerges

to repair the form

you call "self."

The ember soul.

Lifetimes ago, we hid the ember soul

inside a form like yours

to deceive the demon Terrorblade.

The form carried us to the Eye.

The princess.

That's the princess.

Part of us. A part of you.

You feel the truth of it.

I I can feel it.

And the princess

Everything she said

I need to see her. Talk to her.

A futile gesture.

The moon will crumble

and destroy this world.

New death and rebirth are upon us all.

Wait. What are you talking about?

Get the hells off him!

Stay back.

Stay back!

- What? Where is he?

- Bram.

- What have you done with Davion?

- Bram.

It's me.

Help me k*ll these f*cking things

before they k*ll anyone else.

Our brothers.

They just

They tore each other apart.

And you.

Whatever changed all those people,

did it change you too?

No.

It was something you'll like even less.

I never stopped to think,

to step outside myself,

to see this this world as it truly is.

I was so hells-bent on reshaping it

to suit me and

Gods. Terrorblade. The Invoker.

How am I so different?

I owe you more.

I owe you better.

And you will have it, I swear.

Forgive me, Highness.

I have orders from Regent Shabarra.

Your father needs you most right now.

You're to stay by his side.

My uncle doesn't have the authority

to give you that order.

Shabarra says you're mad.

He says exposure to that red rock

and the Oracle whispering in your ear

have changed you.

And the Legati agree.

Your uncle thinks the Senate will, too.

And you? Do you agree?

Don't fight this.

He will use it against you.

He'll make things worse for you.

You are captain of the Praetorian Guard.

The Guard serves our family.

If you follow the Regent's order,

it can only be because you agree.

You entered the Oracle's temple one person

and came out another, speaking nonsense.

You You disappeared without explanation.

I I had to hunt across hundreds of spans

of hostile territory to bring you home.

What do you want from me?

You have my loyalty.

And my worry.

I know my behavior seems erratic.

I won't even try to explain,

other than to say the Oracle presented me

with a choice.

And more and more,

I realize I choose badly.

It doesn't need

to be a perfect world.

But I am no one's prisoner.

Princess, if I support you, you must stay.

And you have to lead.

Summon what remains of the Guard.

Make way, you sorry bastards!

Princess?

Give me a reason.

It doesn't even have to be good.

On your knees.

Beg for my forgiveness.

Beg my father's forgiveness

and pray he hears you.

Pray it's enough.

You have two choices.

The first is to take the knee.

So much for not coming down

off the throne.

What would your mother say?

She'd say I finally understand

what she meant.

If I am to become a god,

I must act like a god.

Guess what sort of a god I am today?

All of you lot, stand down!

They won't stand down.

They'll fight.

These soldiers belong to me.

Perhaps they do, but she doesn't.

Down, boys.

Welcome back.

You've been busy.

Busier than I expected.

You left the front.

You accepted the offer of parley

on your own.

Someone told me I'm capable

of more than just destruction.

Did I wrong you in another dream?

Quite the opposite.

Highness?

Five years to the day.

Sherzi?

I hear you.

I hear you singing.

Father!

Father.

Father, I'm with you.

It

It's all right.

Mirana.

Your mother is here.

Can't you hear her?

She sings for both of us.

Goddess, I thought it fitting

to come to you here.

Somehow, this feels closer to you

than the Woods.

I have spent a thousand years

defying death,

pretending to be the master

of cosmic forces that shape our world.

It feels empty now.

More like,

a little girl's wishes than magic.

I'm a fool.

You feel powerless.

Responsible.

My father has done monstrous things.

He did them out of love,

but that makes them no less monstrous

or less in my name.

And you would undo these things.

I was like you.

I thought I could fix the world

and make it look how I wanted.

It doesn't work that way.

I can't tell you what to do

or how to feel.

But I can listen.

I can ask the one question that matters.

What can you live with?

What weight can your conscience bear?

Wow, so So you

You're You're an Eldwyrm?

I'm something. It's complicated.

The princess. We have to find her.

I have to find her. I need to see her.

Whoa, whoa, wait.

The The crazy one from the bar?

She'll know what to do. She always does.

- Do about what? Davion.

- All of it.

You wanna go to the Helio Imperium.

On foot. From Haupstadt.

Hey, you're a dragon. Dragons can fly.

What if you became a dragon

for just a tiny little bit, and

Yeah. He hasn't eaten in 20 years.

Oh, yeah, right. Bad idea.

Come, little mouse.

Hey, watch who you're calling a mouse.

Dragon or no dragon,

I will lay you out.