*
"Alright, shall I walk you back?" (Lastia)
"... Thank you, but no thanks. I'm good by myself.
I'll head back now, take care of yourself. You can't rely on Arin forever. " (Sariel)
She lifted herself from the ground as she spoke. Lastia nodded to her while approaching to unlock the door. It was less than half an hour after Arin and Juri left, they had a casual chat before Sariel finally left off. Lastia saw her off with a smile before shutting the door close. Exhaling, she layed her back over the door and her shoulders dropped down in relaxation. She was conscious of Sariel, more so than usual. It was hard to remain composed.
Turning the lights off for the living room, she plodded to the bedroom, collapsing onto bed like a sack of potatoes. Thinking closely, there were many roles that Eterna fulfilled when she was alive. Lastia only took over worldly defence, management could be tossed to actual politicians and the conglomerates. No matter the era, there would be those who would mean malice on others, and those that fought back to bring order. Corporate fights in the commercial zones had nothing to do with her, stepping in and helping one side might destroy the balance and cause more harm instead.
Then... If she took that 'role', in terms of arcane positioning she could reach the boundary of the universe and find Giselle. Having connected to Giselle in the early days with Arin and Sariel, the 3 of them had a conceptual tie to her. So when Arin and Lastia came back from the dead, they could be updated with her knowledge. She in turn could use them as nodes and learn of the state of the world all at once.
Using a 'role' is like determining 4 could be 5 because there was a +1= in the middle, it was much easier said than done. For those knowledgeable in the arcane, it would be a 'shortcut' instead. It's like saying you are a constellation since you were born under the month of said constellation. In the first place, what was her role? An entity that preserves the natural order of this universe, devoid of any external influences. Then under her purview, should the Primordial One invade, she'll be the first to react. There was no logic to it, fate will weave itself into such arrangements.
Coincidences become certainty. Even so, this was just one 'shortcut' to reach Giselle. What about what happens after? There was no way she could fight without at least... Reaching the SS grade of mythology. Was that even possible? She was two grades away, and they become exponentially more difficult. Perhaps in an era filled to the brim with bloodshed and war, the chance of becoming S grade would be a lot easier. But much less SS... A human declaring they can attain godhood, it's on the level of proclaiming insanity.
That's right... To save Giselle, she needed to be at least a little insane. To defeat the Primordial One is to be able to defeat all of existence, a being beyond ancient that has come to embody embodiment and lord over all things. As her thoughts ran while, drowsiness silently took hold of her conscious, plunging her into infinite darkness. A ceaseless memory beckons her from the dark, waving its fingers, goading her while no thought could coherently form connections and no superego could revise decisions.
She steps through the door, and her mind reaches completion, reclaiming domain over her thoughts and actions. An unbelievable light consumes everything in a flash, blinding her before fading away. This is a dream. There's no doubt. She could only see this castle in the dream, the actual castle was lost to the tides of history. Not even rubble remained of it. Someone erased history. It wasn't hard to tell when she floundered around before, during the period when her curse acted up and erased her memories everyday.
Beyond 11509 years ago, history is cut off and the paragon of that old history is here now. The castle boasting an architectural style lost long ago, yet made with materials that could withstand a nuclear explosion. Grandeur beyond what the eye could detect fills the expanse and plants itself within the curtain of gold, an erect foundation of glory piercing space from atop a cliff. For what lay beyond the reinforced glass and financially maximised aesthetics, was a deep abyss that couldn't expose an end.
She takes a step, then two. Her footsteps echo in the vast hallway, the ceiling reaches so far above no normal human could jump that high. It was twice as tall as her current house, and this was just the base floor that housed the throne, an ancient form of a reception room. She wondered if their society also broke up into these roles, visitor and host, audience and regality. Subscribing to social contracts like loyalty and devotion, vowing away their purpose and life. For a modern person like Lastia, she couldn't conceive a reason to abandon her freedom like that.
These were concepts preserved from the origin era, thoughts that tickled the fancy of modern readers, filling the imagination with allure of a zeitgeist long gone. There is exotic value in things that no longer exist, inviolable worth in scarcity. Her thoughts jumped to and fro, her eyes licked every detail and her purpose remains muddy since the very start. Why come here? To this castle once more... To a time that could never change.
Changing the past was a taller hurdle than reviving someone from the dead. To ressurect a person, people have devised countless ways to trick the heavens, the precepts that make up and enforce the rules of the universe. Physics was one such precept that punished countless pioneers, such as icarus. It wasn't to the level of a divine concept, still the people of society call these governing forces 'the heavens' for a reason, grouping them with famines, pestilence and death was not a conflation.
It was a subtle trick of superseding, the heavens are the forces that include the governing laws of the universe and much more. Eterna embodied the heavens for 11509 years... What happened at the end of the era of mystery? It all came back to that, and she supposed that's why she's here. Memories that once belonged to her, yet feel exceedingly foreign. Architecture that isn't familiar one bit, decadence beyond what her humility could handle...
Back to that fateful day. To the time destinies converged and began a new path.
"I know you're in there." (Lastia)
This time, you won't leave alive. No matter how many times she opened this door, she won't let them live a single time.