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It wasn't that she had expected her friends to be just fine after everything.
She just... hadn’t thought about it.
In Veronica’s defense, there hadn’t really been time for thinking, what with Yggdrasil falling from the sky, Her power torn asunder and Her champion robbed of Her gift.
She also hadn’t really expected to be around to witness the aftermath.
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In some ways, Serena was the easiest. Veronica had always had a sense for where her sister was, near or far, and Serena was always content to go where the wind took her.
She stopped in every town, bringing healing and a patient smile, and people were only too happy to give what they could. People were kind to Serena, always had been, and Veronica had always joked that it was because she'd never hurt anyone before in her life, that people could tell that Serena couldn't hold a cruel thought in her head if she tried.
Veronica hadn't meant it as a compliment, but Serena had taken it as one anyway.
It was almost the same, walking beside her twin down the latest dirt track, listening to her comment on the scenery, the smells – and apparently, the whole world smelled different without Yggdrasil – whatever random dessert she had a craving for at that exact moment... It was almost like before, with their friends, or even earlier, when they’d set out from home. Perhaps it was because Serena’s ultimate goal was to return to Arboria, in the hopes of finding the Luminary along the way.
Perhaps Veronica just missed her sister.
It was funny, missing somebody while standing beside them.
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As ever, Veronica went to the Great Sylvando when she needed a smile.
The first few days had been rough, but Davé had been around to smack some sense into him when Veronica couldn’t do anything more than yell fruitlessly at him for moping. As he’d drawn more and more followers to his Smile Parade, Veronica couldn’t help but think that he was in his element. Leading people, helping them achieve their dreams, protecting them... that was Sylvando at his heart. And if he ever seemed wistful at night, gazing up at the place where Yggdrasil used to be, well, it never lasted long; there was always another person to help.
He looked much better with a smile, anyway.
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Jade’s situation was... well, disturbing didn’t even begin to cover it. Every time Veronica checked on Jade, she felt something nasty churn in the gut she no longer had.
It’d been fun at first, following Jade as she traveled, fighting monsters and helping people as she searched for their friends. Jade was a terrifyingly skilled fighter, and it was fascinating to watch her systematically take down every wicked thing that got in her way.
Octagonia changed things.
For a while, Jade was just gone, and no amount of searching or sensing revealed her. Veronica poured herself into looking for hours, but it wasn’t until Jade came crashing out of a disintegrating pocket dimension that there was any trace of her at all. And what happened after...
Veronica was honest with herself, at least; she was an angry person, with fire in her bones and fury in her heart. As angry as she could get, however, not a lot truly got to her.
Booga...
Booga ignited the worst of her rage, and if she’d still had hands, she would throw them wide and call down a firestorm the likes of which had never been seen before. If she’d still had a voice, she would shout the incantation of every bitter curse she’d ever read.
If Veronica had still been alive, she’d have made Booga wish for death.
...as it was, she could only be with Jade for as long as she could bear her own anger.
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Veronica checked on Rab every so often, but it was hard to watch the way he wasted away. His mind may have been hard at work training with his dead master – and wasn’t that an oddity – but his body was on a slow downward spiral.
As the months wore on, the Luminary still fast asleep in Nautica, Rab seemed to transform before her eyes into... well, into a decrepit old man. Veronica had always known Rab was old – it wasn’t like she’d been ignoring that fact – but it hadn’t been so very present in her perception of him until she had to see him starve.
Sometimes, when she sat with him, it was the only thing that she noticed.
Rab was an old man.
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When she’d first found Erik, several days after the Fall, he was sleeping rough under a fallen tree, curled tight around his stomach with his fist pushed hard against his guts. She’d waited beside him, as she had with all the rest, until he woke, ready to try to nudge him in the direction of the others. (It hadn’t worked yet, but Erik had always been the most perceptive of their little band.)
Veronica wished she could forget the emptiness in his eyes when they opened. Erik had been sharp, witty, and ever-watchful, but the way he looked, the way he stood...
Erik was more dead than Veronica. At least she remembered who she was.
Swaying from hunger and exhaustion and possibly a blow to the head, Erik had gotten to his feet. And then, he’d started walking, shambling like a sleepwalker down an unremarkable coastline.
Veronica had followed.
As kind as they were to Serena, people were cruel to Erik. There were bright spots, of course – a woman who’d offered him half of her dinner, a man who let him help out on his boat in exchange for a portion of the catch – but far more often, the hands were hard, the voices harsh, and the words unforgiving. She’d stood beside him more than once as he lay, barely conscious and bleeding, on the ground after a gang of thugs caught him trying to eat their food. She’d watched him drag himself back to his feet.
She’d followed him as he started walking again.
No one had told her how helpless it would feel, being dead.
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When Veronica needed a smile, she visited Sylvando. When she wanted to feel more herself, she went to Serena.
When things felt hopeless, she sat by the Luminary.
Queen Marina’s plan was a clever one; if the forces of darkness were searching for a boy, make sure there was no boy to find. He honestly made a very cute fish, and if Veronica still had a mouth, she’d have made sure that the queen knew it.
Still, it was strange to sit by a big blue fish and know that it was her friend, the prophesied Luminary who would bring forth a new age of light.
Veronica had never been known for her faith – that had been Serena, for sure – but she’d carried a burning brand of belief in her chest, right beside the magic that was more a part of her than her own beating heart. Her heart was gone, as was her body, utterly destroyed in the blast that had taken Yggdrasil, but that faith, that certainty, that the Luminary would find a way to save everyone, still blazed within her.
‘Wake up already,’ she whispered to him. ‘The world needs the Luminary.’
She’d been saying the same things for months.
‘You can’t laze about in Nautica forever, you know.’
Nothing had made a difference yet.
‘Serena misses you.’
Having his gift ripped from him had done a lot of damage.
‘Sylvando’s making an outfit for you.’
There really was no way of measuring the depth of such a wound.
‘Jade could really use a rescue.’
Even Queen Marina, with all of her power, couldn’t wake the Luminary.
‘Rab hasn’t given up yet.’
There probably wasn’t much use in telling him everything she saw.
‘Erik is searching for you, even if he doesn’t know it.’
But she still carried that brand.
‘I believe in the Luminary.’
That faith still burned bright.
‘I believe in you.’
El’s eyes opened.
—Fin