[SOLS] 2nd Anniversary ‘The Moon and the Stars’ Episode 3 Interlude: ‘Lone Moon’s Song’
s1nful
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531,887 views 5th May 20XX
i guess i should have expected this background lore to be paid off when Arden’s past was mentioned to be the focus of the Anniversary.
this probably confirms what the first raid of the anniversary is. since we got an Oath after 3-4A, i also imagine this confirms Estelle as our welfare SSR/S-Rank.
the Royal Army and Citadel were mentioned to be moving as well, meaning we’re probably going to see Clarisse and Aleister show up in part 2 or 3. and that’s not even mentioning that all the related banner units are from Tenmai next week. the final (probably) showdown with Cadena is gonna be fucking wild.
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INTERLUDE - Lone Moon's Song
Summary of previous events
Belle successfully invoked the Sixth Spell, Ain Soph Aur, without losing her mind. However, as a consequence, her mind was scarred with forbidden knowledge of the truth of the Sixth Spell’s effect. Terrified by its implications, she destroyed her notes on the topic and immediately made Estelle her apprentice, hoping to give her daughter a means of properly protecting herself from the Void.
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Did you know?
The Symphonia Requiem is Luna’s personal grimoire, given to her as a birthday present by her mysterious mother. But it isn’t just a collection of her own notes. It contains the last remnants of her family’s research as well, which was lost during the Seventh Legion’s return to Manusyara.
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“That was the kind of person my sister was,” Luna softly whispered as the two of them rode on horseback, closing her recollection of her past.
The forest started to come to an end.
In the distance, torches could be seen, lighting up the midnight and breaking through the growing tension.
“She wasn’t a heartless maniac who was obsessed with the Void like the other witches would tell you. She wasn’t some sacrilegious heretic, hell-bent on defying Sol, unlike what her priests would say. Neither was my mother, for that matter. The Helios Engine wasn’t some attempt to usurp divinity… it was just a way to keep her dream close to her heart.”
Albus felt her fingers start to tremble as she clung onto him.
“She was kind, she was gentle. And she was patient. Much, much more patient and understanding than I ever knew, more than I ever deserved to be treated with. She wasn’t insane or cruel or wicked or anything at all like that, she was a bit strange at times, but that was it. She was just a bit… strange. But the most that strangeness ever manifested was with her wanting to become a healer, and her being embarrassing… really embarrassing.”
Luna closed her eyes, holding onto those precious memories.
Every time lunch would come around, she would hear her sister’s dreadful, embarrassing call, silencing whatever conversation they were having, and drawing everyone’s attention.
Everyone at Nindo knew when the Symphonia sisters were around. It was hard not to, given how loudly the older one tended to announce her presence to the younger one.
An embrace that was way too strong and tight. Her own familiar feelings of being flustered as she childishly kicked her legs around, which were too short to even touch the ground while being hugged.
The indignance she had towards her friends, at Elan and Tywil, for just looking away with blushing, embarrassed eyes, and at Mika, for just griping off to the side about her own relationship with her siblings.
It was all so quaint, so normal.
At the time, she never even thought twice about those experiences.
She just remembered that at the time, she hoped her sister would grow up a little and stop treating her like she was still five.
But now…
All of those memories were ever so distant.
“I’d do anything to get those days back,” Luna mumbled, “I wish my sister could tease me again, just for old times’ sake. I wish I could just forget about it all and be embarrassed like I used to be. Sometimes, I hope that this is all just a bad dream… maybe I’ll just wake up one day, and she’ll be there by my side, nudging me awake after I pulled another reckless all-nighter. She’d just laugh at my worries and tease me again.”
She could almost envision the scene perfectly.
She would be frantically explaining everything to a confused Estelle.
Arden being destroyed, the Seven Legions marching upon their world once again. Mother being gone. The panicked scrambling to reassemble the Knights Templar. Her lonely life as an Adventurer, desperately seeking out the mythical Boy in White.
She would tell her about her nightmare, of Estelle losing herself to the Void, of losing her heart and mind, and all of it being the fault of this stupid little sister.
And then that kind and caring figure, as she always did, would just laugh it all off.
She’d flick her on the forehead, and banish those anxieties away.
She’d hug her, soothing and quieting the tears.
She would tell her not to worry about such silly things. There would not exist a world in which she did not love her younger sister. No matter what, she would always be her beloved Luna.
Nothing would change that. There would never be anything that could happen to Estelle Symphonia that could ever shake that love, and there was no mistake her little sister could make to change those feelings.
And then she’d make a terrible, careless joke about it all.
She was already going insane with love towards her, and all the other witches and healers already thought she was crazy anyways, so did anything really change?
Luna desperately wanted to believe in that fantasy.
But reality was not so kind.
That kind, warm gaze, those sparkling lavender eyes, filled with glimmers of starlight…
They morphed in an instant.
A city in flames. Demons running rampant. Innocents screaming as they were ripped apart and devoured, running for their lives futilely.
And that terrifying figure that stood in front of her kneeling, scared body.
A singular, cold lavender eye glared at her, freezing, almost hateful.
She stared into the closed eye opposing it. The mistake she made all those years ago that led them to that situation.
She flinched at the unfamiliar look on her sister’s face.
An ugly, vicious snarl warped onto that gentle face.
‘Get out of my sight. You’re an eyesore.’
That was the last she ever saw of Arden before it disappeared from the world.
That… thing…
Could she really call it her sister? Was that really her?
That couldn’t have been the ever-loving, ever-patient protective figure who had shown her nothing but smiles ever since the first time they called each other ‘Sister’.
That couldn’t have been her.
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Or…
Or was that just a lie that she was telling herself to avoid the other potential explanation?
That her sister really did have lingering resentment, that at that moment, after losing their mother, after seeing Arden fall in front of them, after giving in and letting the circuit of Nirvana complete itself, she really did hate her.
“I see,” Albus nodded contemplatively.
Family, hm?
He had to say, he was a bit jealous, as an orphan himself.
The closest he had to a mother or older sister was the Eternal Voice, and she… well…
She was a rather strange person, and their relationship was no less strange because of it.
His horse slowed down, arriving at its destination.
“Well, sorry, Luna, but I’m afraid I’ll have to keep you in this bad dream a little longer. The worst of the nightmare is still yet to come.”
He hopped off the white horse, holding his hand out to Luna.
The witch stared at it for a moment.
“Thanks, Albus… for listening to me. No one… no one talks about her anymore. The person she used to be, I mean.”
It was always ‘White Witch’ this, ‘Void’ that.
No one ever talked about the fact that she constantly held study groups for all the stragglers in her year whenever she could.
No one ever talked about the fact that she would rush to help people whenever she could without thinking, not even asking for thanks afterwards.
No one talked about the endless pile of debts they owed her from the mind-boggling amount of times she ran up to the dangerous frontline and risked her safety just to heal them.
None of the underclassmen would ever admit they all had a crush on her while she was still attending, or that they even looked up to her for those short two years between her graduation and the incident at Arden.
She took Albus’s hand and hopped off the horse.
“No problem,” he shook his head gravely, “I’ll be here to listen to you any time… do you think you’re good now? We need you to focus up. We have a war we need to win, and an invasion we need to stop. All of Manusyara could be counting on you.”
Luna bit her lip, clutching her grimoire.
In it, were the notes of her mother that she had carefully reconstructed over the past six years.
Some of it was out of guilt. Some of it was out of hope. There was another small part of her that was simply doing it out of spite and want for revenge.
Learning her mother’s research was the least she could do to compensate for the fact that the dream of the Paradox Engine was now extinguished.
And maybe by doing so, she would find a way to reverse what had happened to Estelle, and they could go back to just being sisters again.
But a final treacherous, hateful part of her just wanted to use it for selfish reasons. That magic was powerful. It had proven itself to be incredibly effective at killing demons. The very demons that had taken everything from them.
All it would take was blowing out five candles.
That would be all it took to wipe those filthy creatures off the face of the planet.
She shook her head, clearing her mind of those terrifying thoughts.
“Alright, let’s go.”
The war encampment was crowded and restless.
Armored knights ran back and forth, shouting at one another as troops shuttled supplies across the tents.
A line of injured soldiers were carried on stretchers into an endlessly busy and loud medical bay, where overworked priests did their best to impart Sol’s blessing of life onto them.
Torches flicked in the harsh wind of night, which howled ominously as it swept past them.
Cadena had disappeared into the night, but the chaos she had created as a diversion across Sangferrus to buy herself the time to gather the necessary components to invoke Belle’s unique variant of Nirvana still lingered.
Rogue demons were still rising all across the country, splitting the forces of the Knights Templar. A Lunatic rank disaster had already been called, calling all S-Rank Adventurers, both active and retired, to arms.
But still, the destruction rupturing throughout the land was only a distraction.
Everything, for the past two years, ever since the remnants of the Seventh Legion started being active again, had been a distraction.
No matter how much the Citadel of Magi and Church of Sol refused to acknowledge it, Manusyara did have the White Witch to thank for diverting the apocalypse for at least a few years.
Her actions had closed the Hellgate in Arden, cutting off the full march of the Seventh Legion, leaving only remnants of its advance force scattered across the continent.
It couldn’t last forever, though.
Sooner or later, the time would come for the Seventh Legion to open a Hellgate once more to resume their promised march.
And that time was now.
Cadena had gathered the pieces. A power to grant certain victory through the Void, and with it, a way to break the barrier between the Realms and open another Hellgate.
Their concern could not be with the skirmishes going on in the present as a distraction.
They had to stop the end of the world.
The eve of war drew near.
Albus and Luna squeezed their way through the knights, making their way towards the commander’s tent.
“Any word on the movements of Cadena the Chained?”
The familiar stern, grizzled voice of General Hywind could be heard as they came close.
“No, sir. The scouts around Arden Crater have reported no movements, and we are sure they have not been compromised. All major cities have already been ordered to evacuate, and the king has already given his speech. The Second Princess and the Royal Army are already on their way here.”
“Reports from the Citadel?”
“Null energy levels are still at zero, sir. Their contingent of battle magi have mobilised, and have started to clear out the rogue demons, though it’s no telling how long they’ll take to reach us. I believe their current concerns are with using the rural towns as outposts to set up the proper beacons and sens-”
The black and white pair stepped into the tent.
The soldier blinked at the strangers.
A tattered black witch’s hat sat upon a messy blonde head of hair, framing a pale face that highlighted sharp, almost glowing, yellow eyes.
The girl wore a sleeveless black cloak, weathered and worn at its edges, lined with gold and coloured red underneath. Her shoulders, which would have been otherwise exposed, were covered up by a collar of magpie feathers dusted with star-like glitter.
There wasn’t much visible underneath her cloak, but one would barely be able to make out practical black leather armour if they looked hard enough, matching the fingerless black gloves on her hands, which themselves nervously clutched a massive tome.
The man next to her was dressed much more familiarly, if a bit strangely ancient. He was still recognisable as a holy soldier though, probably one of importance, too, given the ornate chestplate he wore, which was strangely the only bit of armor covering him.
It was a slender piece, sitting flush against his broad chest, adorned with golden carvings that swirled the core of a bright blue star, shining so brightly it almost appeared to be white, resembling ancient depictions of the symbol of Sol.
He almost mistook him for a priest at first glance, as aside from the chestplate, he only wore long, white flowing robes and loose, baggy pants, which almost resembled the garb of traditional priests.
“Um, sorry, madam, sir, this is the commander’s tent, you can’t jus-”
“At ease,” Hywind held his hand up, “I called for them specifically. The young lady is our expert on dealing with the Void, her knowledge will be necessary in coming up with a battle plan against Cadena the Chained. This is Luna Symphonia.”
“S-Symphonia!?”
The soldier’s eyes widened in realisation, leading him to gape at the girl.
“T-that means, s-shes-”
“Yes,” Hywind snarled, “she’s Lady Symphonia’s daughter, and that witch’s sister. She takes much more after her mother, though. You can actually trust her. She’s one of our prized contractors, and we’re seeing this through to the end with her. For the sake of Arden’s memory, and all of our beloved within.”
He sneered lightly at a forgotten memory, before remembering his professionalism and pushing it aside.
"Are you ready, young miss?"
Luna bit her lip, doing her best to hold her feelings in.
"Yes. All my notes are in here," she nodded shakily.
"Good, then let the briefing commence."
Luna gulped, before tearing the Symphonia Requiem away from her chest and opening it on the table.
She couldn’t let his words, and their hidden implication, get to her.
She had to remember why she accepted his contract to work alongside the Knights Templar, which started this whole mess.
The two never met or interacted directly, but they were aware of each other, and were implicitly tied together by their histories involving Arden.
The ‘White Witch’.
There was a reason he held so much disdain for that name, no matter how much Luna hated that fact.
It wasn’t just a matter of being a believer of Sol. It wasn’t just a matter of distaste for the witch’s actions and the forbidden magic she utilised.
No, the level of hatred in his voice was something that came from beyond just professional reasons.
It was deeply, deeply personal.
That level of disdain could only come from one place.
Betrayal.
He had once held expectations for her, maybe even looked up to her because of a certain incident, but in the end, that trust was destroyed and betrayed when Arden was wiped off Manusyara.
Arden.
That was his birthplace.
But still, why was it betrayal? Why did he know of her and expect something from her before that moment, aside from her connection to the well-respected Belle Symphonia, who had revitalised his hometown?
Well…
…
No one liked to talk about the person Estelle Symphonia used to be.
They liked even less to talk about the title of ‘White Witch’.
They didn’t just call her that because of the clothes she wore, or because of her mysterious connection to the Void.
You wouldn’t hear anyone talk about it, but the title existed long before the Disappearing of Arden.
It was the people of Arden who gave her that name.
A long time ago, a wicked creature rose from the dead and plagued the lands.
Breath of rot, and wings of bone.
The shadow lurking underneath all life. The visage of hell itself.
The Pale Dragon, the Black Death.
A long time ago, those vicious, skeletal claws threatened to destroy Arden itself.
That was where everything started.
Maybe none of them would have been here if not for the events of that time, for better or for worse.
A long time ago, there was the White Witch and the Black Death.
