Breeze moves through the Tower that appeared in the Hedge maze of the Rook and Rose to Viktor's study. She stands in the doorway, looking at the desk where he had once sat, writing in his journals. The pain in her chest is acute, both sharp and dull. The Tabaxi feels as though her chest will collapse under the pressure of her grief, as though the Lord of Blades is trying to squeeze the life out of her once more. The office becomes blurry through her tears, but she steps forward, approaching the desk. She reaches out, touching the wood, looking at the letters neatly stacked there. There are letters from most everyone. Most of them are from her. They are letters of goodbye. Letters of apologies. Letters that declared love and expressed regret.

A sob rises into her throat and shakes her chest, breaking the silence.

She sifts through them, finding hers to Viktor,, her perfect, beautiful script writing out his name. She turns it in her hand, checking the seal. She hopes that he read it. But it is intact, and for some reason, it hurts more than anything else she could have found.

Another long, painful moment passes before she sets it down among all the others.

Like a a ghost, the bard moves around the desk until she is sitting before his chair. She touches the back of it, running the soft pads of her fingers over the leather. She pulls it back and sits. She stays still for another long, agonizing moment, letting the feelings wash over her. She spent so much time trying to stay separated from them, trying not to fall apart, but now she was home, and it is so difficult to keep it all together.

She wipes her eyes and pulls out some paper and sets up the ink pot and quill. She takes a deep breath and stares at the paper. This will be the last letter she ever writes to Viktor. It seems a waste of time, but it will join the pile of letters she never actually shared with him. Writing him was more a journal than communication. Of course, now maybe he could read them. She had no idea what he could do.

Dearest Viktor,

I do not even know where to start. We both knew that after all of this, we would never see one another again, but I have to write this, even if you never read it. It is the closing of our chapter. The end of an era. A brief, vicious era, that brought me joy... if only for a moment.

As you know, I have emotionally detached myself from the others for various reasons. I have tried so hard to be considerate and consistent. I have done what I can to uphold my values and not lose myself and what grounds me. I knew that I would be saying good bye to everyone after this. Red planned on taking Green and Dawn off into the country to retire into a quiet life of the mundane. Rocio and Gunne can never return to society, not after what they have done, and I planned on returning to Sharn to resume my goal in working with others to protect Eberron or, if I could not clear my name, return to Xen'drik to live my own version of a quiet life.

We prepared carefully. We spent almost every gold we had and exhausted ourselves. We had scrolls, potions, items, and deals with entities we had no business speaking with. We found an empty plain that had already seen more than its share of death and destruction and then we waited. We waited like the exhausted adventurers we were. Once, I would have called us heroes. Sometimes, I imagine that we were, in that moment, but it was simply resignation. The Lord of Blades would never give us peace. He would chase us down into other planes of existence if he could. Why he despised us in particular, I have no real notion. Red revealed that she had the ability to offer help. Help that would make us faster, more resistant to the Lord of Blade's attacks, and so much more.

He appeared. One moment we were waiting and the next the world was vibrating with power none of us could muster and he was in the sky, looking down on us. I cannot remember all he said, but he called us roaches. He condemned us for opposing him and disrupting his plans. He called us roaches. He said that if we gave him the Eye of Syberis that we had, he would kill us quickly and not desiccate our corpses with his madness. He didn't refer to it as his madness, though. He simply said he would not turn us into warforged. That was his mercy. His compromise.

We refused. Rocio said something along the lines of, "That is a lot from someone who is basically 3 years old."

That seemed to infuriate the Lord of Blades more than anything else we had said or done up to that point. He descended quickly, flying down at an alarming speed until he landed with a heavy thud to the ground. The entire world felt heavy then. I fell to the ground. I lacked the strength to stand up to such magic. The others, however, stood their ground. The oil of slipperiness we had all used kept him from keeping us still. Rocio, Gunne, Green, and Dawn clashed with him. Gunne and Rocio were giants. Beyond giants. All I could do was take one laborious step after another and do my best to keep them healed. Gunne took the brunt of the assault. He was a tatter of blood, mostly coming from his nose and ears, by the time I got to him. Red gave me the ability to move faster than time. I used beacon of hope and healed Gunne, though it was a drop in the bucket to what he really needed.

It was enough to keep him alive, though.

I was worried Gunne would not make it, but they managed to cut the Lord of Blades down, making him stagger. He reached into the ground and a fissure cut across the landscape and from it poured an army of warforged and siege equipment and metallic nightmares with fiendish energy. Green had been flung afield, but he managed to rejoin us. I made the best use of my healing that I could as we took hit after hit from the army. The others fought valiantly, but we were barely hanging on.

Then something unexpected happened. Vextrix was over us, golden even in the odd light. Red protected us with a wall of force as Vestrix decimated what remained the forces. Then he was plucked from the sky and flung far afield. I could not believe he came to help us. I wonder if he came to help Rocio. I wonder if some sort of familial guilt brought him... or maybe he knew something we did not.

Either way, the Lord of Blades was back and he threw a meteor storm at us. We weathered it well. Gunne came out better off than how he went in. We stood there, resolute and ready. I cannot remember what he said. Only that he was even more angry with us and he seemed to be initially. He pulled us into a demiplane. It was black and red and confusing. We existed in a space that seemed to be darkness, but we could see each other perfectly. The Lord of Blades surrounded himself in a large shield and made it so that shrapnel flew around him, slicing us when we got too close.

We quickly discovered that our spells were not working on him and that Gunne could not scratch him. We scrambled. Rocio became the target of his ire, and for a terrible moment, I thought that Rocio would die. We bent time and reality to keep them alive. The Lord of Blades cast me back onto the battle field and away from everyone else. I had no idea how long I would be separated, not that I could think straight. But I knew what I would do. When I appeared back, I pulled out a subtle spell mind crystal and cast wish. I healed us all completely, but it left me weak and barely able to move.

Dawn was the one doing the most damage to the Lord of Blades and she was also the most frail out of all of us. I kept being banished from the fight, but I did my best to bolster and heal her. Still, it was not enough. Nothing was enough. His power was simply too great and we could not hit him hard enough often enough.

He cut off her head.

Red screamed. it was a terrible sound.

And then she did something foolish, but expected. And it saved us all. She wished for Dawn to be alive. And then Dawn's head was back on her shoulders. She was barely clinging to life, but she was alive. We healed her. We gave her everything we had to give her just enough life to continue.

And then she finished him. And it was over.

The Lord of Blades seemed surprised and he laughed before collapsing. i could only stare. I didn't know what to say. Part of me wanted to comfort him. To promise him a better life than this one.

But then Red collapsed. We ran to her, and I knew that wish had demanded something from her. It was taking her life. She coughed blood and grew weaker and weaker. She spoke to Dawn and Green, telling her she loved them. They told her she promised them retirement, told her they couldn't go on without her, begged her to stay. They demanded I help. They demanded I summon Viktor. I took the watch, telling them that there was nothing to be done. She didn't belong in Eberron. Her time was borrowed. It had always been borrowed, but they didn't want to hear it.

The watch vibrated in my hands and I opened it. Alec came out in a collection of blue light. It was bittersweet seeing him. In our brief adventure, I had grown fond of him. But he simply said goodbye to Red, told Green that Borovia needed him and that he could not stay as he was still hunted. He said goodbye and left with his watch.

Then you and Albane arrived. You had the eyes in your hands like they were nothing more than blue marbles. A storm gathered so quickly and only your voice could be heard. I wanted to hug you one last time, but i was frozen in place. I was scared that if I held you, I wouldn't be able to let you go. You said your goodbyes and departed in a storm. The rain was oddly fitting. You even healed the land, getting rid of the necrotic mists over Cyre and Argonesson.

All I could do was fall to my knees and cry. I couldn't even be bothered to listen to Dawn or Gunne. Gunne left a rabbit foot on Red's body as a goodbye gift and left. I have no idea where he is. I have no desire to look for him. So long as he stays away from Chell and their children, that is all I can hope for.

It took a long time to clear our names, but at least we were given the chance. I still don't know what I was accused of exactly. Convincing people that I am not actually able to control people was rather tiresome.

But you left me the guild. You left me your son. Our son. He is a human, but I should still think of him as such. I have named him Zephyr Khorad. I wish to honor you, but I also wish to honor my late brother. I hope you like it.

Thank you, Viktor. Thank you for everything. I know you blame yourself for all that happened, but it wasn't. Not really. You were just a young man living a awfully lonely life. I am glad that I could make it bearable, if only in brief spurts. I know I was in and out of your life so quickly. You had to spend such long stretches of time without me. And yet, I feel like you were never too far away in time. Moments apart from you... for me were just blinks of an eye. For you they were years.

But thank you for loving me. I wanted to be loved by someone as much as I loved them. You surpassed that. It was a brief time, but it was ours, and I will cherish it forever.

I love you, Viktor.

Goodbye,

Peaceful Breeze of Chime Valley