Chapter Text
You find her the second you step through the gate.
Kal’tsit lays in the middle of the village. She is armless, covered in dry blood and enough grisly torture wounds that if you described any of them in detail it would push you over the edge of whatever delicate balance you are trying to hold on to, and looks so, so afraid.
Your student is dead.
You force yourself to walk forward, ignoring the rest of the carnage around you aside from noting that it wasn't an animal attack of some kind, and drop to your knees in front of Kal’tsit.
You knew she was going to die. You always knew you’d be the one burying her instead of the other way around. But not like this.
Never like this.
Seeing your student like this- seeing Kal’tsit dead like this, you don’t know how to react.
Part of you is silent, because this was always going to happen. You’d find her dead one day.
Another part is grieving, because this is your student and she’s dead now what is the point of continuing of all of this-
The last part is angry, because this was not a peaceful death. Someone did this to your student. They calculated how to prolong her suffering. They made her watch the rest of her village get slaughtered. They tortured her to her death.
They killed your student and now she’s no longer here.
Gently, you pull your student’s eyelids closed, ignoring the trembling of your usually steady gloved hands as you brush past bloody skin.
“I’m sorry.” You find yourself apologizing before you even remove your hands. “I’m so sorry, Kal’tsit.” You don’t bother to even try and stop the tears coming from your eyes or the sobs that escape you.
It feels like your entire world just ended.
You should’ve been here for her. You could’ve saved her life and prevented whatever happened here. Your student could’ve been alive and safe instead of dead and tortured.
But you’re late again. Just like the first time.
You can’t save her. Maybe had you not ran away like a coward, you could have, but it’s far too late for that.
You can find out who killed her though. The body is still fresh, the smell still clear, and the blood stained tracks of the culprits clear.
It won’t fix anything. This isn’t the first time you’ve gone to avenge someone.
But you can’t let the people who killed your student get away with murdering her.
You wipe the tears out of your eyes and try to calm yourself down from the breakdown you just had. You force your breathing to even out, your hands to stop trembling, and your eyes to stop watering.
Gently, you drape your cloak over Kal’tsit’s body, ensuring that every part of it is covered and protected from the elements. You ignore the void in your chest, the clawing of emotions that make you want to collapse and scream and cry and die - and you make yourself get up and turn away from Kal’tsit.
There is one thing that you can do for her. One thing that you can’t mess up.
You start walking.
_______________
It takes a week of non-stop traveling to catch up to them.
The surprise and weary looks on the group’s faces are quickly hidden away, and the same Forte that first greeted you all those years ago at the bar greets you again, much older now, hair gray and white, but still alive.
“Ah, Kal’tsit’s old teacher. Well met, Doctor. It’s been a while hasn’t it?” The Forte stretches out a hand with a false smile, obviously not happy to see you but trying to hide it under a polite demeanor.
You don’t shake his hand, merely turn your head to look at his two familiar companions, eyes briefly lingering on their weapons, before returning your gaze to meet the Forte’s.
It’s them.
Whatever look is on your face is enough for the Forte to blanch and stumble back, tense and readying to draw the hammer on his back. His companions move forward to flank him, eyes not leaving you.
You see wariness, confusion, and surprise.
You don’t see guilt.
You lower your gaze, not willing to look at them any longer.
“What were her last words?” Around you, the forest has gone silent, and the three warriors shift in front of you nervously.
There’s no need to clarify who you’re talking about.
The Vulpo with the sawtooth sword inches forward, hands sweaty and tight around his weapon.
“She was crying.” He murmurs. “She couldn’t talk anymore.” His admission isn’t of guilt, but rather a statement, a fact.
You allow his words to sink in for one second, two, and then you pull your gun out.
____________
It takes a month to kill them all.
They are old, likely beyond their primes, but are still faster, stronger, and much more durable than you are. Your first death happens quickly, after you fire a single shot that the Vulpo in front shifts to hit his shoulder instead of his heart and immediately decapitates you.
You get up an hour later and track them to an inn where you almost succeed in killing the Vulpo in his sleep and are only stopped by the surprised Forte who stayed to keep watch.
The next time you awaken, it is above a shallow grave, and you begin the process of hunting them down again.
By the tenth attempt, an entire day has passed, and you kill off the silent Liberi with a swift slice of your knife.
By the 40th, it’s been about a week, and you gouge out one of the Forte’s eyeballs.
68th, you turned the Vulpo’s sawtooth blade against him and removed both of his legs.
70th, you’ve killed the Vulpo.
80th, the Forte doesn’t bother trying to hide his fear of you anymore.
Finally, on your 96th attempt, about four weeks of murder attempts on your part, and you finally bring the Forte to his knees.
He is dishevelled, hair dirty and clothes stained with both dry and fresh blood. Dark circles lurk beneath his eyes and one of the wounds you had given him during the first week is infected due to lack of treatment.
He looks up at you with his one good eye, the barrel of your gun levelled to meet it, and he asks one question.
“Do you even care why we did it?” He says it like you should care. Like what he and his group had done was justified.
Like killing your student would be something forgivable. That removing her from this world was something done for the greater good.
Your reply kills him, and you leave his body for the animals.
____________
You blink back into awareness, smoke and burnt flesh having temporarily overtaken your senses, and glance up at the village.
The flames have finally spread to the outer wall, dancing along it in colorful blurs. What’s left of the villagers is likely ash or near it.
Your student’s body is wrapped in your cloak and at your side, kept separate because you couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her here again.
When the flames finally die down, all that’s left is ash, and the single gravestone you had commissioned two villages over in the middle of what used to be a happy village.
It’s the least you could’ve done after they looked after your student for so long.
You grab your student, carefully holding her in your arms, and start walking.
____________
You burn and bury Kal’tsit in the forest you first met.
It is selfish of you. Undeniably selfish that you’ve chosen to bury her somewhere only the two of you know, rather than back in the village with all her friends and loved ones.
What right do you have after abandoning her for years?
You don’t have any right, but no one is left to care, so you allow yourself to be selfish.
You remember guiding her little hands, showing her the proper way to grind herbs and administer treatment. Can remember the first hesitant hug she gave you. The first time she smiled from happiness.
The haze of memories is what gets you through the process, and you only when you finish burying her is when you allow yourself to collapse.
The tree you settle against is the same one as when you first met her, and it gives you a direct view of your student’s grave. Part of you wants to close your eyes in the hope your student will appear, tugging on your herb bag with curious eyes and a desire to learn.
The other part of you wants to close them and never open them again.
But neither of them happen, no matter how many months you stay there, just listening and waiting for the patter of small footsteps to reach you.
So you do what you always do. You brush the tears out of your eyes, tug your gloves firmly against your itchy hands, ignore the ash clogging your throat-
And you start walking, mourning your student with every step.
___________
It is hard to stop thinking of Kal’tsit.
Moving on (as best as someone like you could) is generally easier than this. Yes, their death hurts, and yes, you grieve for them, but eventually you bury them in the past and keep moving as you always do, until eventually your friends are nothing but blips in your past, only thought of every now and then with a bit of sadness on your end.
Your parents and your teacher took even longer, but you moved on eventually. They barely even cross your mind these days.
You just wish Kal’tsit didn’t replace them in your thoughts. Like a sick trade you never wanted to make.
You’d think that you would’ve mastered the art of moving on. Of persisting past the ones you’ve left behind.
But you just can’t move past Kal’tsit.
She was more than a blip to you. More than another friend you’re doomed to outlive. She was your entire world for 40 years, even when she wasn’t with you, and it is so, so hard to convince yourself otherwise.
Kal’tsit was family. She’d been family the moment she asked to learn from you even though neither of you knew it yet. She’d made you want to live to see the next day and broke down walls that withstood the rest of time.
She made you happy. Truly happy.
You wish you had told her how much she meant to you. You wish you hadn’t thrown it all away.
But your student is gone now, dead, nothing but ashes in the ground. She’s no longer here, so she can’t be your world. You have to move on past the student you buried.
You hear her at your side, see glimmers of her at the corners of your eyes, but she is not here. Not anymore.
_____________
You are in Leithanien when you see her.
You are simply passing through the area when a speck of green catches your eyes amidst the snow falling around you, and so you look over at it.
Kal’tsit graces your view, dressed in a similar outfit as the group chatting with her, a book tucked under arm, and smiling like the world’s burdens have never graced her shoulders.
You blink, because Kal’tsit never smiled that freely around strangers, and then you blink again to dispel the illusion of your dead student living a life you never could have given her.
She’s still there. Still moving, still talking, and still breathing.
You’re overcome with a sudden bout of nausea and weakly brace yourself against a nearby bench.
That can’t be her. You remember burning her body to ash and burying them with your own two hands.
You look at her again, taking in every detail of the lookalike's face.
You see the same mouth that smiled at you whenever you made her happy. You see the same nose that would wrinkle in dismay and the same eyes that pierced and perceived the world.
They look painstakingly similar to your student. So similar that you even begin to feel your eyes water from looking at her.
Was it possible she had children and some of them left the village? By the time you left you figured she was too old to want kids, and she never told you she wished for any, but that could’ve changed.
You would’ve known had you been there for her.
The guilt that comes with that thought is brushed away temporarily because this is possibly your student’s descendent.
You’d assumed there was nothing left of her in this world. That the only part of her remaining would be of the somber child you raised and left behind in your memories and the ashes you buried.
But part of her is still here. Still daring to face this world and all the horrors included in it.
You could help her descendants. Do for them what you couldn’t for Kal’tsit.
Don’t abandon them to their death.
You take a step forward.
But could you do it?
You pause, something that could be mistaken as the snow around you stalling your steps.
Could you stay by them until death? Could you put up with visiting on and off and watching them wither away?
You couldn’t before.
You watch Kal’tsit’s descendant smile and laugh among those around her, free in a way your student never was, and you take a step back.
You said you would do it for your student, but saying and doing are two different things entirely. Had things gone differently and your student lived, would you have followed through with your words?
Is it snow falling, or is it ash? Are your hands numb from cold or coated in layers of blood?
You don’t know.
All it’ll take is 20 steps forward. Just 20 steps and you’ll be right in front of her. 20 steps and you can try to be a better person. Just 20 small steps to fix your failures.
You feel frozen in place, like a statue bolted into the ground and forced to watch those passing by.
Kal’tsit’s descendant and her cohort break away from your line of sight, walking into the cafe they had been idling in front of, and you turn away in response, finally unfrozen.
Being better isn’t easy.
You start walking. Away from your redemption and away from your mistakes.
And perhaps it’s for the best you don’t try.
____
Kollam’s grave is just as you left it.
His sword still lays buried in the dirt, undisturbed from anything that could, and does nothing to help you with your grief.
Maybe you should’ve begged him to erase your memory before he left on his last adventure.
You ignore the thought and sit down so that your back is against the cool metal of his sword and try to imagine it is instead your friend against your back.
You’re tired. So tired that you almost can feel Kollam at your back. Can almost hear him encouraging you to speak your feelings.
But death dares not to embrace you, so all you get is cold metal.
A sigh leaves your mouth, and then you start to tentatively talk.
“I had a student-“ the words come out raw and painfully, but before you can even begin to vent out your feelings and mishaps, a high whistling noise cuts you off.
A shape cuts through the air some distance away in front of you, and you hear the impact it makes once it hits the ground.
It shouldn’t mean anything to you, isn’t even a part of your business, but the rawness you felt just from the first four words is a good enough motivator to excuse yourself from trying to talk about Kal’tsit.
Kollam would understand.
You stand up, give the sword a pat, and start walking towards your excuse.
___________
A spaceship is embedded into the ground 20 feet in front of you.
It’s not one of the primitive designs humans first started using. This one is more modern. Designed like a plane yet clearly built to withstand space and its many challenges.
You watch from a distance somewhat startled as a door opens, and a humanoid figure stumbles out coughing.
It has shoulder length dark brown hair, light skin, light brown eyes, a white coat that looks a lot like what a researcher would wear, and a black skirt that leads into dark stockings.
Overall, not very space-proof looking clothing.
She, you correct yourself once she notices your presence and starts to approach you.
Her eyes meet yours underneath your hood, and she smiles at you like you’re old friends.
“Hello there. Can you kindly tell me what planet this is and what sector of space surrounds it?” Asks the human.