Mythos: Last Stand
Chapter 26 — Celeste
by Caide Fullerton
Celeste had never wanted to be a warrior.
That day she woke up in the middle of the swamp, all she’d wanted was to curl up and die a second time. To this day she could remember it clearly. Her body had changed, new and Undead, but it still felt the pain of her own death. She would come to learn that her reincarnation had taken years, but in that moment, from her perspective, there’d been no pause at all between dying and reliving that death in her mind.
Reliving it might have been painful, but memories alone could not bring real harm to her new body. She lay motionless for hours, half-submerged in the murky water of the Ley-charged swamp that had birthed her. Pain came to be replaced by resentment—against the land itself for daring to be so attuned to the Ley of Death; to the twin Gods for daring to forge the Cycle that had reincarnated her; to every person, God and otherwise, who had contributed to the Cycle’s existence becoming necessary. All of them bore responsibility for forcing her to be revived and suffer her pain a second time.
A patrol came, eventually. Undead appeared frequently in the endless swamps of Gravemarch, so its people had become quite adept at locating the newly-spawned, even if they did not want to be found. Celeste had been one such individual; she remained still and silent, hoping the patrol might pass her by, allowing her to simply starve to death.
They did end up finding her, and for that she resented them as well, at least at first. She was brought to the nearest village, provided a home, cleaned, given guidance, introduced to others—some that were newly-spawned like her, some that had similar experiences with traumatic memories inherited from their past lives.
One of them offered her a piece of advice. She had been reborn as an Undead, and though she’d retained the full memories and personality of her previous life, she was, at least in body, a different person. Were she to assume a new identity, she might be able to distance herself from the pain—it wouldn’t go away, not entirely, but she could manage it better if it was someone else’s suffering.
It was better than nothing, so she decided to give it a try. Another suggested a name for her new self—Celeste. It was a pretty name, so she stuck with it.
Though hesitant at first, she found that this strategy did work, at least a bit. She was still jumpy and paranoid and could hardly raise her voice loud enough to be heard, much less to hold a real conversation, but she managed to reach a point where she could live a somewhat normal life.
She was happy—as happy as she could be, at least, and certainly much happier than she’d ever been in her past life. Once she realized that, however, things began to go downhill. One would think it a wonderful thing, to realize you were happy; to Celeste, it only meant that her list of fears was finally capstoned by the only one she’d been missing—now that she had something to lose, she was afraid of dying.
She turned to work to keep herself sane. She wasn’t a particularly good worker, given her frailty and more antisocial tendencies, but she was nothing if not dedicated in her pursuit of something, anything to give her purpose. She jumped from task to task; she was thankful to the others in the village for allowing her to experiment despite being such a burden.
She struggled to find a task that was truly suited to her, but what she did discover was that she was especially compatible with her racial magic. She’d been reborn as a Ghost, capable of levitating and becoming incorporeal; she grasped these effects quite easily, and as she struggled with job after job, she found that she was capable of pushing her magic beyond its normal limitations.
She could extend her incorporeality to things she touched—things that didn’t belong to her, that the spell should not have recognized as ‘part of her’. It was more difficult than simply applying the effect to herself and her belongings, much more so, but she could do it, and she discovered that the other Ghosts in the village could not. Emboldened to experiment further, she next discovered that she could even make other living things incorporeal, with their consent.
Then, she discovered that she could make only a part of her body incorporeal. She could reach an arm through a wall while the rest of her body remained physically obstructed. She could reach inside of a box, make her hand corporeal, and grab an object from within.
It was an amazing ability, one that few—if any—other Ghosts had performed before. It didn’t take a genius to tell that the applications for such a skillset were nearly infinite. She truly felt hope, excitement for her future, for the first time in either of her lives.
It did not last. Tragedy struck.
There came a great, incessant rumbling one day. Fearing it to be an earthquake or worse, Celeste cowered in her home. The sound did not stop, however; it only became louder, and soon it was accompanied by crashes and screams. She curled up into a ball, making herself small, invisible. Her mind ran through the tortures of her previous life over and over. She felt all of the progress she’d made crumble away, thrusting her back to being the scared, helpless girl in the swamp who just wanted to die.
Someone took her hand, dragged her outside. The same someone who’d helped her become Celeste. They were running, fleeing into the murk of the swamp. This person did not want Celeste to die. They’d gone out of their way to save her.
That had been a mistake. The monster caught their scent, its rumble louder than ever as it pursued them. Celeste couldn’t bear to look back at it. She held tight to the hand that pulled her forward, running even as her feet ached.
That hand, it released hers and shoved her from behind. A voice begged her to continue on, to keep running without pause. She couldn’t help herself; she stopped and turned to see her friend standing against the monster, weapon drawn. It was a terrible thing, an expanse of bladed limbs and jet-black scales that seemed to stretch back forever.
Her friend didn’t stand a chance. She tried to reach out, to call their name, but it was pointless. They were dead before she found her voice. Every fiber of her being was terrified beyond belief of that thing, but she moved despite herself, rushing to her fallen friend’s side.
It was too late. They were gone before they hit the ground—no last words, no dying breaths. One of the few embers that had lit up Celeste’s life, snuffed out faster than she could even comprehend. The monster turned its ire to her, studying her, but she couldn’t even find it in herself to be scared. She felt cold, empty.
It burned. The chill bound her mind and soul like a snake, its icy venom searing her blood. Unable to feel anything but that cold burning, her trembling hands found their way around the hilt of her fallen friend’s weapon.
The claymore was far too heavy for a frail girl like her to lift, but she didn’t care.
The monster lunged for her head, but she didn’t care.
Paying nothing else in the world any mind, she let her instincts take control. She swung.
There was a terrible, terrible screech. A cacophony of sound, a personal hell for her ears and none other.
Silence followed, and she found herself hanging in the air above the creature. Held up in her shaking hands was the claymore, a burning scar cutting across the base of its blade, the rest of its length caked in green blood. Below her, the monster lay still. In a single strike, its life had been ended. Its scales were undamaged, its blood spilled nowhere but the edge of her blade. The only evidence it had even been struck was a fading orange stripe of heat.
In that moment, Celeste realized there was no greater application for her abilities than killing.
She and the other survivors were taken in by another village. They cared for her, doing whatever they could to nurse her back to something resembling normalcy, but she felt disconnected from the world around her. Nothing was the same after losing the first people to truly care about her. She was once again terrified—terrified that she might lose someone again if she dared to form a connection.
She withdrew from the others, and in her solitude, her mind nagged at her, scaled chains of thought twisting around her, tickling her skin with that terrible, burning cold. She’d kept the sword with her, but she didn’t dare touch it again. She could remember clearly how natural it felt to swing, how effortlessly she’d executed her powers.
Had the Cycle created her only to kill?
She couldn’t reach any other conclusion. The Cycle, the Leys, both had conspired to birth her as a perfect soldier. She’d failed at every other thing she tried her hand at, but just a single outing was all it had taken to prove she was perfectly suited to killing.
If she’d picked up a blade sooner, if she’d honed her skills properly towards the purpose she’d been designed for, could she have saved the people of her village? Could she have saved her friends, the only people with whom she’d ever formed a real connection?
She could have. There was no doubt. She’d killed the monster in a single blow; if she’d just realized her purpose sooner, everyone would still be alive.
It was her fault.
If she refused to resign to her fate and pick up the blade, how many more people would die? How much blood would be on her hands if she refused to shed it herself?
It was in her hands before she even realized. When had she picked it up? It didn’t matter; she squeezed the rubber of the claymore’s hilt, feeling the warmth of the soft material on her fingers.
She forced herself to step outside.
She forced herself to walk to the guild.
She forced herself to speak to the taskmaster.
She forced herself to band together with others.
She forced herself to journey through the swamp.
Monsters. Weak ones, but treading too close to town.
She forced herself to swing her sword.
She forced herself to swing her sword.
She forced herself to swing her sword.
She forced herself to swing her sword.
She forced herself to swing her sword.
She forced herself—
They were dead. The day was won.
She still felt cold.
This repeated. She traveled from village to village, then to larger towns and cities, eventually leaving Gravemarch and wandering between different countries. It always went the same—she visited the guild, she picked a task, she joined a team of strangers, she journeyed with them for a few days, and she killed.
She nearly died herself numerous times on these journeys, but somehow she survived, and with each passing attempt she grew more skilled, more efficient. Her mistakes became fewer, and before long her life was no longer in danger. She dedicated herself entirely to killing.
She didn’t want Celeste to be a killer. That version of her should remain the softspoken, nervous girl that knew happiness—and she doubted it was capable of filling the role of killer, besides. That task was handed to a new persona—one that was strong, silent, confident, bold. One that was better than her. She didn’t grace it with a name.
One of her jobs brought her to the island of Tarme, a small, remote place just southeast of Mirres Island with no major settlements. She was tasked with slaying a monster that was assaulting passing ships. It should have been a simple job, if not a long and boring one given the lengthy boat ride there and back.
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As she used every ounce of strength just to remain standing, she cursed the world, the Leys, and the Cycle just as she had all those years ago. The outing had been anything but boring. Most of her comrades lay dead, else close to it. Her powers proved ineffective against the thing she’d been sent to kill—a Wraith, it called itself. Wherever she cut, its body shattered like glass only to regenerate moments later. It seemed to derive joy from toying with her.
All at once, all of those fears she’d bottled up through years of bloody work came rushing back to her. She didn’t want to die. It hurt to move, but she dodged attacks and swung her sword, cutting, shattering, cutting, shattering. She lost track of whether she was Celeste or her persona, her mind cutting away everything but her blade and her opponent.
And then, without even realizing it, she wasn’t fighting anymore. She was on the ground with her back against a rock. Her sword was no longer in her hands. Someone was touching her—wrapping bandages around her wounds. Her vision expanded, blurry colors forming shapes—the dappled crags and greenery of a tropical beach. A group of unfamiliar people seated around a fire.
Blood. Far, far too much blood.
Sitting across from her with her legs crossed was a tall, lithe woman with dark grey skin and pointed ears. She was dressed like a sailor, with baggy pants, leather boots, and a white poet’s shirt shirt with its frilly sleeves rolled up past her elbows. The neck of her shirt was cut low—Celeste quickly averted her gaze.
Whether it was due to the sudden movement or the embarrassing peep of a sound she made, the woman noticed and looked her way. She had a calm, disinterested expression—almost bored, despite the bleeding wound on one arm. She was holding a cigar to her mouth; she pulled it away and breathed out a puff of billowing grey smoke before speaking,
???: “You awake this time?”
Celeste just stared back at her, unsure how to even respond. Before she could think of an answer, something fluttered down right in front of her face.
???: “Oi, th’Admiral’s talkin’ to you!” The voice came from a very angry-looking, golden-haired fairy, her hands on her hips as she hovered right in front of Celeste. “Don’t be rude! Go on, answer!”
The elven woman sighed. “That’s enough, Sils. Don’t scare her.”
The fairy turned her way. “Hah? We saved ‘er life, an’ look at how she’s treatin’ ya, Kenera! We can’t just—”
Kenera: “I said it’s enough.” The elf snapped, cutting Sils off. At her command, the fairy reluctantly fluttered away from Celeste, maintaining a glare in her direction.
???: “Poor thing’s scared shitless, Sils. Gotta give ‘er space.” So spoke another voice—a man whose skin bore a greenish tint. He took a swig from a bottle before looking to Celeste, “Besides, if ye set ‘er off like before, I doubt there’d be much left o’ ye.”
What? Was he implying she might’ve hurt the fairy? Celeste tried to raise her voice in objection, but no sound came. She glanced around between the different strangers’ faces, eventually landing on Kenera’s. She studied Celeste, her eyes piercing deep beyond her expression.
Kenera: “We found you fighting the Wraith. Doubt you were even conscious, but you kept fighting, even after we killed the thing.” She raised her bleeding arm, unbothered by the open wound. “Got a new scar trying to settle you down.”
Sils: “That’s right! You oughta appreciate that we didn’t just cut you down for attackin’ th’Admiral!”
Celeste’s eyes widened, homing in on Kenera’s bleeding arm. She tried to speak again, managing a hushed croak, “i-i’m sorry…”
Kenera shrugged. “I’ll get it treated once it looks like you’ll survive. You got it a lot worse than me.”
The dark elf returned to smoking her cigar, leaving Celeste with her thoughts. For a while, the burning cold she always felt was drowned out by the warm flow of her own blood.
After treating her, Kenera and her crew took her with them to recover. She found herself in the city of Avek Tirion, once again being cared for by others. Her recovery took months; by the end of it, she felt like she might claw her way out of her own skin for a chance to fight again and beat back the cold.
Celeste: “l-let me join your next voyage..!” Before she even realized it, she found herself in Kenera’s office, its glass southern wall overlooking Avek Tirion’s bay.
What was she doing? How could she speak that way to her? Not only was Kenera the highest authority in the Scurvysands, she’d also saved Celeste’s life. Who was she to make demands of her?
Kenera: “Sure. We’re leaving tomorrow.”
Celeste blinked. She could hardly believe the words, replaying them in her mind again.
Just like that, she became a member of Kenera’s crew.
She accompanied them on their voyage. She ate and drank with them. She fought alongside them. She cried when they got hurt. She laughed with them after a hard day’s work. She even got into arguments with Sils, her voice louder than she’d ever thought it could be.
One day, she woke up and realized the cold was gone. It had faded without her even noticing—just how long had it taken her to realize? The line between Celeste and the warrior was blurred, and for the first time since those days in the village, she felt happy.
Evendel declared war on the Scurvysands.
Everything changed in the wake of war. She had more to deal with than mere monsters. She was fighting people—real people with their own lives and friends and families. People who could match her skill in battle. People who could account for her unique abilities and subvert them.
People who could kill her comrades.
She’d started to wonder, after getting to know her friends in Avek Tirion and Heapwatch, why she’d spent so many years before that avoiding others. She’d never traveled with the same group twice, never pried into their lives, avoided speaking with them at all, if she could. Why had she gone to such lengths to avoid making connections?
She knew now. Because she was scared.
She was scared of losing people she cared about. That couldn’t happen if there wasn’t anyone she cared about, but she’d forgotten that for too long. She knew so many people now. She cared about so many people.
And some of them died.
She felt cold.
She started to withdraw from the people around her once more. The blurred line between Celeste and warrior was reforged stronger than before. She had a reason to fight now, one beyond mere obligation. She wanted to protect her home. She wanted to protect her friends. She wanted to protect her family.
Celeste held tight to those emotions. The warrior was segregated from them. There was no room for emotion on the battlefield. To protect Celeste, she needed to draw out the perfect killer she had once been.
But she couldn’t.
She pretended. She convinced herself they were two different people. But no matter how many walls she erected between Celeste and the warrior, they always blurred into the horizon. The warrior spoke like Celeste. The warrior trembled like Celeste. The warrior thought like Celeste. The warrior felt emotion like Celeste.
The warrior was scared like Celeste.
Her mind and soul were stretched thin between these two spires of personality. Who really was she, anymore? How was she meant to feel about anything anymore?
Just as Celeste had crept into the warrior, it had infected her just the same. Rasha had been her friend. A member of the Admiral’s crew. She should have collapsed sobbing from such a loss. It should have taken her days to get over the grief.
She’d felt nothing.
She felt cold.
How was she meant to honor her friend, if she couldn’t grieve for him?
There was only one way. She would fulfill her original purpose, the thing the Cycle deigned to create her for. She would become the warrior. She had to become the warrior. Once Celeste was gone, she would avenge Rasha and everyone else the war had taken from her.
She couldn’t afford to be weak.
She couldn’t afford to be weak.
She couldn’t afford to be weak.
She couldn’t afford to be weak, so please—
Please just fade away.
? ? ?
Celeste soared above the bay, a smattering of improvised weapons and tools in her arms. The water below her was painted gold by the light of the rising sun, her shadow long across the rippling surface of the waves.
Beneath the twinkling gold, she caught glimpses of hulking silver—the figures of the Volundr mechs marching across the seafloor. Most of them had fanned out across a wide area, each heading to different parts of the port. A collection of them were huddled together near the very center of the bay, all marching straight toward the area Kyte was defending. Mixed among them were smaller, darker shapes that twisted through the water with grace, converging behind one of the mechs.
She didn’t have time to think about what they were. All that mattered was that they were responsible for keeping Kyte occupied. She would fulfill her purpose, kill them, and turn the tides of this battle.
Her shadow disappeared as she went incorporeal, and she descended beneath the water’s surface. It would be wrong to say she ‘dove’; there was no splashing sound, and the water’s surface did not break. She simply phased through the water, gliding forward rather than swimming.
Her targets became clearer as she shot towards them. Long, sleek bodies with blue skin, humanoid from the waist up, serpentine from the waist down. Fins ran down their long tails and stuck out from behind their ears. Their shoulders were broad, their builds muscular, their bodies clothed only in a few scant pieces of armor, if at all. Merfolk, six of them, half carrying daggers or shortswords, the rest holding spears.
They noticed Celeste’s approach before long, breaking away from the Volundr mech they’d started to push. Shooting out in all directions, the aquatic warriors surrounded her. One darted towards her, thrusting its spear at her head.
Naturally, it passed straight through her.
She threw her arms out, letting the weapons she’d carried scatter throughout the surrounding water. They remained incorporeal, hovering in place; she selected a rusty sword from the mess and swung.
The resulting squelch was muffled by the water.
The blade passed through the Merfolk’s torso, leaving behind a faint char across the warrior’s blue skin. That scar would fade in minutes, leaving no evidence of the internal damage she’d caused—organs punctured, bones cleaved, and blood vessels severed. The Merfolk’s body tensed, their hands clawing at wounds they could not reach. For good measure, she swung a second time, passing the blade through their neck. The weapon snapped, its edge shredded away as it exited their body once more.
Five left. The others kept their distance now, eying her cautiously with weapons raised. One tossed a spear at her; like the previous attack, it passed through uselessly.
She darted after the nearest enemy, grabbing an incorporeal shovel as she passed it by. What ensued was a game of deadly cat and mouse, the Merfolk leading her in circles. She could soar quite fast, but the Merfolk, expert swimmers as they were, could swim much faster.
It didn’t matter.
She raised the shovel over her head and threw it. It did not sink nor fall nor slow from the water’s enveloping contact; passing through everything, the shovel followed a perfectly straight trajectory to its target. A terrible squelch sounded as the object became corporeal just as it was passing through the Merfolk; unlike the previous, clean attack, this one stained the water with a billowing cloud of blood.
Celeste gave no pause. She moved to the next of her tools and the next of her targets. A Volundr mech tried to strike her from below, but it passed through like everything else. She soared and slashed and threw and soared and slashed and soared and soared and soared and soared and soared and soared and soared and—
Ah.
The weight of the ocean crashed into her all at once. Her lungs had already been screaming for relief, but now it felt as though she was punched in the gut and crushed under a rock at the same time. Those screaming lungs were flooded with water as the sensation of wetness enveloped her skin. Her clothes and hair billowed out in the water.
She’d spent too long incorporeal. How long had she ignored the blurring of her vision, the dark shadows overtaking her peripherals, the ringing in her ears, the splitting headache, the numb tingling in her fingers?
One of the Merfolk appeared in front of her.
Then there was a spear in her abdomen.
Stacking all those intense sensations, the world seemed to move in slow motion as she watched herself get impaled. The enemy cautiously darted away, leaving its spear embedded in her body. Crimson gushed out of her, blanketing her vision as her death stained the water.
Ah, I’m dying, aren’t I?
In that moment, was she still the warrior, or was she Celeste? She was utterly terrified. Would the warrior be afraid of death?
Her hands swatted at the water, a desperate paddle carrying her upwards. She didn’t want to die. She was terrified of dying. She was terrified of failing to fulfill her purpose. She was terrified of failing everyone who’d put their trust in her. She was terrified of never seeing any of them again. She was terrified of drowning. She was terrified of the darkness taking over her vision. She was terrified of the numbness spreading up her limbs. She was terrified of the pain in her abdomen. She was terrified of the blood spilling out of her. She was terrified of failing Sils’s mission. She was terrified of everyone in Heapwatch suffering because of her. She was terrified of the war.
She was terrified.
As she struggled her way towards the surface, another one of the Merfolk passed through her narrowing vision, this one wielding a shortsword. They charged towards her, ready to end her life—only to be intercepted by a glow. Something shot down into Celeste’s view, piercing the Merfolk’s outstretched hand. They darted away as the glow pursued them; at the same time, a volley of glows descended around Celeste in a spiral, forming a ring of twinkling defense.
Her stomach twisted into an additional knot. Despite all of her mistakes, Sils was trying to save her life. It only made her inevitable failure all the worse.
She reached up towards the golden glow of the ocean’s surface, feeling tears escape her eyes.
A shadow reached down to take her hand.
