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The tripled-lunar glow were bequeathed upon this world, but none shall alight the darkness that enveloped it now.
Songstress halted their tunes, choked by air of fear and ashes of dread. Tides shall not rise or fall to a rhythm; forests shall not bloom in harmony; glaciers shall not hum its haunting melody; stones shall not compose the sagas of neverending eons; lightnings should not chorus in crackles; gales shall not chant its winsome breezes…
Flames shall sing the dirges eternal.
It was a vision her mind conjured, yet her stomach churn, and she gripped her hair and keeled down, for fear was wrecking deep within her chest that it would become all too real.
Her ears barely caught the speech of her fellow prisoner, "…Sonnet… please rise… it'd be bad if…"
Rise? Rise? How could she even will her weakened legs to what she bid? How could she even voice what she wished to say, other than pitiful croaks, "H—How… Ho— How… No… No…."
And how could her serenity remained intact, when the future scene became all too clear; destruction unrelenting, the earth cracking and revealing its hot pure rage, stars slipping out from its orbits and freefall into the land and into the seas, storms set loose upon the landscape and crush the roots of the great white tree—
And Teyvat itself, befall.
"NO! IT CAN'T BE HAPPENING IT CAN'T BE HAPPENING IT CAN'T BE IT CAN'T BE IT CAN'T BE—"
"SONNET!"
Arms shook her convulsing frame, and wrenched her from her seat, wrapping her into a hug.
"Sonnet… Please… It'll all be alright… All shall be alright… All we need to do is to persevere… then…"
Oh, how badly she wished to return her embrace! How she wished to lean into her gentle shoulders and spill all her wordless laments there, and believe to all her utterance of comfort!
But no, no, no consolation shall deflect the imminent doom. No tender caresses and sweet whispers shall be of use to save their souls! This embrace was quick to feel mocking in its effect, and thus, her hands couldn't help themselves but push away her comforter, in rage.
"You," oh she knew her voice was thick with accusatory resentment, but it flooded— came in torrents inside her every sentence she uttered, even though pain crept into the eyes of her interlocutor! "Canon, you know that this would happen, still you lead us here, to the deaths of everything! The crown of blame fits no other head than yours!"
"Sweet sister, how come? I only wish to give you solace, to alleviate the burden of misery on us both. How come you threw such fiery attack against me?"
"Cease your hollow comfort and martyrdom! Your fault has bring us into our ruin, from the moment you let your cowardice rule your being, and licked the feet of our conquerors!"
A loud gasp; not coming from the victim whom her tirade was launched, but to the youngest sister of theirs, a hand on her gaping mouth.
How dare she appeared trembling. "Wipe that shock away from your face, Aria. You are a craven as well! Not once you voiced your refusal then!"
"It is not— oh sister, I— I only wish to maintain peace between us. You— your words are like knives to our hearts. Please, we shouldn't sow discord between us in moments like this—"
"Don't you understand what I am saying?" She grew frustrated. "Don't you realize that moments like this is the final result of your cowardice? It is! We should've spit the ground that that vanquisher walked the moment they dared to touch this earth; we should've cleanse the order from their machinations the moment they extended their evil hands on this world's system! We should've—"
Her fingers returned to her hair and clawed deep into her scalp, "We should've answered the Pyro Sovereign when he begged for our presence! We should've something that could break the chain of events that led to this moment! But no! All of you—"
The eldest among them intervened her sentence, "Sonnet, we couldn't even speak when Xiuhcoatl and his daughter visited us, much less show our presence! Have you forgotten that it was the conqueror you cursed that had—"
"All the more reasons that you are a coward then! I haven't forgotten that it was you who advised us to go low, to cower under the radiance of that false light! That you are a fiendish, traitorous—"
"Sonnet, have you lost your mind? Our entire purpose of our existence, the reason of our birth and why that we are still standing, is to govern the world order! We cannot, and never be, stray from that program…
And who's in charge of the world order now?" Canon gritted her teeth. "Even if we did fight back then, it'd be nothing of use— our own existence will break and keep us teethered to this planet's intended will for us. We have no choice but to obey, Sonnet. Obey or death, Sonnet!"
A scream tore through her throat. Yes, she knew that. She knew that their wills were prisons by themselves!
That there was nothing that they couldn't do anything!
"But how cowardly," she pushed between her racks of sobs, "how feeble, how fragile…
Is our existence then… Forever bound, couldn't stop singing a song… even if the melody of love is replaced by one of destruction!
Our own natures shall be the harbingers of our doom!
Oh! Why are we born like this? Oh, why are lifted from the amniotic sea and the earth womb, and into the spirited sky…
If we are not free?
Tell me… tell me…"
Tears of silence flowed through her streaked cheeks, and agony stabbed deep into her chest. She was crying— she knew. And how hypocritical of her to show it—
Now, it was she who was a coward, letting her weeping thought tore the air of the room.
She could hear Aria followed her in sobs, and that, was the fuel that fanned her despair.
Canon stood all too still. Sonnet dared not to meet her face.
…How harsh were words. How inane was her tone. How hurtful was her feeling…
Why did she shout in wrath, when the accusations she flung toward her sisters, could be applicable to her also?
…Why she didn't dare to fight against that stormed-wings of celestial might, those wretched gold eyes that scrutinize the world with cold malignity? Why she too, felt terrible fear, and followed the advice of shutting the doors of their palaces, letting order changed as their claws sunk deep into the Teyvat's veins?
"…Forgive me…" she muttered. "For my wounding, acerbic spite. My… terrifying words… sisters… I am truly…
A coward too…
…A hypocrite, I am."
She pulled herself toward her sobbing younger sister. Unable to recreate their eldest sister's comfort, merely a worthless touch on her quivering shoulder. "I… Aria… my deepest apology. You're right, we shouldn't let discord make enemies between us right now…"
And she turned her gaze toward the sullied gown of Canon, torn by wars and misery. It dawned on her too, that her elder sister…
"Oh… do forgive me, Canon, even though I deserve it not. You bear the heaviest guilt, and yet you still stand and give comfort to all of us… Oh, you're right— You only wish to uplift us both and yet I only let you down…"
Her hand rested on Aria's shoulder, but her conscience had been thrown deep into the ground. "Forgive me… oh do forgive this impudent sister of yours…"
She heard a sigh, a deeply profound sigh. And an exhalation that came out heavy and shaking. It was Canon's, and she could hear her clicked steps approaching, and then the arms that enwrapped she and Aria both.
An embrace, a true and tight embrace.
"…I don't know what to do." She muttered, fingers digging into their skin. "I truly, fully, don't know what to do. I am the eldest amongst us, and it should've been my duty to guide us all into this darkest night and shine our veritable light. And yet… and yet…"
Aria's sobs got even louder, and her hands enwrapped her and Canon back. "Do not be, sweet sisters! Do not be! We all failed— we all utterly failed. But we shall not— not—" her tears got in her speech, but she persevered through it, "we shall not wallow in our failures, as I did. We shall cerebrate, scheme, and ultimately reclaim our triumph. Isn't that what our sisterly bonds are meant to do? Say—"
Alas, that sweet bravery that exuded from Aria's gentle heart was broken short by a soul-rending scream from above— from the approaching, black gloom that tore away the clouds and filled the sky, casting immense shadow over already blackened bars of their prison.
The massive gust of winds confirmed it— it was the once—majestic limbs of their winged titan— now full of holes, and nightmarish visages.
The scream itself was one full of pain— not too indifferent of one that she voiced before— yet this was on altogether different decibel. It was kind of a voice that shook the world.
"Father…" Aria whimpered, her tone lacking the boldness she shouldered before, and her knees went limp and her hands clung to her just for support.
Indeed, dread had seeped inside their bones, because what reaction could suffice, to face the jailer that was marching back toward his prisoners?
Especially the ones who shared his blood?
Canon's shaky breaths returned, and she held their hands even tighter than before.
She herself must withstand the waves of the previous nausea of fright— crashing the shores of her consciousness once more with renewed intensity. The destruction incarnate blowing its deathly scent into her senses as its host came nearer and nearer to their vision.
Oh, how deadly, how terribly wretched such vista was!
She didn't even dare to describe it in her mind. The comparison between their father's current state with the one of their past; the one of pure pair of wings, protecting the world from any harms. One that used their wings to shade their nights and ushered their dreams; whose snoot nudged the once tiny limbs of theirs to stand and eventually soar into the sky; whose ears had listened patiently to their once falsetto tunes of their melodies until it grew into a heavenly one that maintain the harmony of the world…
Until now…
Oh, to saw that incongrous limbs and fangs shrinking and sizzling away with black smoke! His skeletal frame as fragile as dust!
What news would his scratched throat and parched tongue would bring? Victory? Defeat? A new hope?
Yet another bout of… agonizing wrath and blind hatred?
Another round of—
Silvery scales turned soot and ash. Typhon-like savagery razing their palaces and drowned their wheels. Father's bludgeoning fury shattering the luminescent statues and glasses, howling, "You're no daughters of mine. None of you are any kin of mine! Traitors, the vilest of betrayers, harlots of that brutish scu—"
Ache flared once again inside her brain. She couldn't help but letting her head hang low and her hand pressing pathetically on the pained area.
Canon, Aria…
Was there any hope?
Any hope that it'd be all better?
…Inside the swirling neuralgia, the ever-thrashing dread, and the hot pain of torrents she tried to hold in her eyelids…
She wondered, cerebrated, recalled… with every part of her psyche… those that still retained their sanity, that is…
A moment remembered, one that she had shouted earlier, resurfaced once more in the nerves of her mind.
Sunlight and its darling star visiting the pale halls of the moons… Pointing one of its accusative rays toward the eerie quietness that flowed between the lunar dust…
'…I dare you this, oh sisters of poetry and night, daughters of the Great Forger! Hark! If silence is your answer, I shall raise my own reply to it! Strain your eyes to the magnificence of ours, the powerful nation of Natlantea!'
'Lord Father! Please, let us return. Let us not provoke their wrath—'
'Wrath? Dear daughter of mine… their tongues are tied, yet if their ears still listen, they shall hear me say this! I proclaim that your broken tunes shall be fixed with our fiery odes; your silver harmony shall be replaced by our golden order; your deafening silence shall be changed by the hymns of victory!
We shall raise a new moon, brighter and grander than your calcified false light! A moon that reflected our glory, and hear our cause!'
'Father! Please do listen to your own words! You couldn't be declaring us as the enemies of the moons. That would be an usurpation against—'
'So let it be! I shall be the usurper of Nibelung, and save our own kin!'
…Her breaths froze, but immediately resumed with frantic intensity.
Of course. Of course. This could work. This have to work.
Her feet dashed away from her wary kin. The enormity of the cage was a suppresing force on its own, but it gave her a room of liberation, to seek few gaps of freedom from where she could send her final flare of hope.
"Sonnet! What are you—"
Her sisters' screams were daunting, especially when accompanied with the nearing gigantic steps of their father. But she shall persevere in this tick of boldness; or else, there might be no other chance than this.
So close, so close, her destination was so close—
She reached it. The slight breeze coming from the opening of the bigger part of the bars, facing one of all the seven corners of the planet.
To the direction of the flaming, ever-burning kingdom.
She clasped her hands, and prayed.
Slowly, trickles of light seeped from the pores of her skin. Her eyes were wet, and her lips tremble in a shiver-like trance.
A little faster… a little stronger…
She unclasped her fingers, sharpened the glinting point of her nails…
And stabbed it, deep inside her beating chest.
And pulled out the shining silvery marrow. Still attached to the veins and glowing blood.
She coughed— the pain was everywhere. In her eyes, bones, limbs and heart— but it was nothing she couldn't bear for the sake of their salvation.
Her free hand gripped one of her bar, and the other trespass the border of their imprisonment.
With the last of her deserting energy, she hummed the song of scorch and requiem.
the Moon Marrow hummed along with it. With each notes she hit with her melody, it faded, as if being sent to the realm of dream.
Not quite— she was sending it to the realm of the sun.
At last, the Moon Marrow completely faded. She fell to the floor as her energy was just as completely spent.
It was cold. Yet her body felt colder.
…This, she would survive. She knew she could live for this. Just for all her hopes, even the tiniest fragments of it.
Her weakening auditory organs still caught the tones flying in the air— her sisters panicked and desperate supplications, the low-hanging tune of dark judgement…
And finally, the echoing steps, issued by none other than her approaching father.
She coughed the last itch in her throat. Collecting all the force she had left to at least stand on her knees. This might be her last attempt to ever speak. And it'd be to keep her plan a secret, or risk further ruin.
A new moon shall rise, indeed.