POV - Azra'il
Darkness spat me out somewhere else. Without warning. Without kindness. One moment I was floating in the void processing the image of a father washing dishes alone, and in the next—
Light. Sky. The smell of dry earth and sun-warmed stone.
[Temporal analysis based on subjects' physical development: approximately two years since the previous memory.]
I landed, or the equivalent of landing when one is mere consciousness, in a rocky field at the foothills of that impossible mountain. Jagged stones sprouted from the ground like the teeth of a sleeping giant, and between them, stubborn vegetation fought for space. The sort of landscape that wasn't beautiful, but honest. From what I heard from Morgana, Targon did not pretend to be gentle.
And there, amongst the rocks, were they.
Bigger now. Six, perhaps seven years old. Still small enough for the world to seem a place of possibility, yet large enough to begin carrying weight on their shoulders.
Kayle held a stick as if it were a sword, not in play, but with the seriousness of one training for something real. Her movements were aggressive, decisive, every strike carrying intent. Her white hair was tied back in a messy little ponytail, and there was determination in her set jaw.
Morgana also held a stick. But she did not attack.
She parried. Deflected. Retreated. Every movement was a response, not an initiative. Her feet danced on the stones with a grace her sister lacked, but there was no hunger for victory in her eyes. Only... care.
[Behavioural patterns consistent with adult profiles. Kayle: oriented towards conquest. Morgana: oriented towards preservation.]
"You need to attack!" Kayle complained, stopping the mock combat with hands on hips. The pose was a perfect imitation of a frustrated adult. "How am I supposed to train if you just keep running away?"
Morgana lowered her stick, shoulders relaxing.
"I don't want to hurt you, Kay."
"It's just a stick!"
"Sticks hurt too." Morgana touched her own arm, where a thin scratch was already healing. "You hit me three times."
"Because you let me!"
"Because I didn't want to hit you back."
Kayle let out a sound of frustration, half-grunt and half-sigh.
"You are impossible, Morg. How are you going to fight the bad guys if you can't even hit me?"
Morgana tilted her head, considering the question with a seriousness that did not match her age.
"Maybe I don't need to hit them. Maybe I can... convince them to stop?"
"Villains don't stop just because you ask nicely!"
"Some might."
"None might!" Kayle raised her stick again, assuming a combat stance. "Let's go again. This time, attack for real!"
Morgana sighed, the sigh of one who knows she is losing a battle she doesn't wish to win, and raised her own stick.
The 'combat' resumed.
I watched in silence as they circled one another over the stones. Kayle attacking with increasing ferocity, Morgana parrying with infinite patience. It was almost choreographed, not because they had rehearsed, but because they knew each other so well that every movement was predictable.
The thought came accompanied by something I didn't expect: melancholy. I knew how this story ended. 'Everyone' in Runeterra knew. The twins who became enemies. Justice and mercy that failed to coexist.
But here, in this moment, they were just sisters play-fighting.
[Observation: The current dynamic presents functional equilibrium. Each subject compensates for the deficiencies of the other.]
Two halves trying to be a whole. That is what makes the rupture so...
I didn't finish the thought. I didn't need to. Kayle advanced with a wider, more ambitious strike. Morgana dodged, but Kayle was too excited to notice the jagged rock behind her.
The stumble was quick. The fall was brutal. Kayle hit the ground with the wet sound of flesh meeting sharp rock. The stick flew from her hand. And when she tried to get up, I saw the knee.
Ouch...
[Significant laceration. Estimated depth: superficial but painful. Moderate bleeding.]
Kayle's knee was grazed badly, not merely scratched, but rasped down to the raw flesh by Targon's sharp stones. Blood trickled in thin lines, staining the fabric of her torn trousers.
Kayle looked at the wound. Her expression twisted, not with pain, but with something more complicated. Shame. Frustration. The kind of emotion children feel when their body betrays them in front of someone they care about.
She bit her lip. Hard. Hard enough for a second thread of blood to appear, this one on her face.
"Warriors don't cry," she muttered to herself, the words coming through clenched teeth. "Pain is the price of weakness. Warriors don't cry. Warriors don't—"
Tears escaped nonetheless. Kayle wiped them away furiously, as if they were personal traitors. As if crying were a sin worse than bleeding.
I knew the answer, of course. Children don't invent phrases like that. They repeat what they hear. And in a house where the mother was a divine warrior descending from the mountain to dispense justice...
Morgana dropped her stick and ran to her sister, ignoring the 'battle' completely.
"Kay!" She knelt beside her twin, hands hovering over the injured knee, unsure where to touch. "Let me see."
"No need." Kayle pushed her sister's hands away, still angrily wiping tears. "I can take it. It's nothing."
"It's bleeding a lot."
"I said I can take it!"
Morgana didn't argue. Instead, she looked at her own tunic, simple fabric, likely one of the few pieces of clothing she owned, and without hesitation, tore a strip from the hem.
The sound of the fabric yielding was small, but significant. Morgana began to clean the blood with care, movements gentle yet firm. Kayle protested at first, trying to pull away, but eventually yielded. She let her sister tend to her.
"You don't need to take everything alone," Morgana said quietly as she worked. "Let me take care of it."
"I'm not weak."
"I know you aren't." Morgana finished cleaning and began tying the strip of fabric around the knee. "But being strong doesn't mean not needing help."
Kayle stayed silent for a moment, watching her sister work. The anger was dissolving, replaced by something more vulnerable.
"...Thank you, Morg."
Morgana smiled, that small, gentle smile I recognised from her adult version, the smile that hid more than it showed.
"If I stay," she said, holding her sister's hand after finishing the makeshift bandage, "it will be to help you get up."
Ah.
The thought died before fully forming. The scene was sweet. Pure. Two sisters caring for each other in a field of stones, under a sky that had not yet learned to be cruel.
[Oxytocin levels elevated in memory log. Sororal bond: intact and strong.]
Seeing that, seeing how they cared for one another, how Morgana was the softness to Kayle's hardness, hurt in a way I hadn't expected. They weren't opposites trying to destroy each other. They were two halves trying to keep each other whole.
"Thank you, Morg," Kayle murmured again, face red with mixed shame and gratitude. Then she hesitated, eyes drifting to the path leading up the mountain. "Do you think... do you think she's coming today?"
The hope in her voice was fragile as glass.
"It's been a week since our birthday. She promised she'd give me a new wooden sword the last time she came."
Morgana squeezed her sister's hand. There was hope in her eyes too, more contained, more cautious, yet present nonetheless.
"Papa said the war is far away. Maybe she's just late." Morgana bit her lip, thinking. "Maybe she's bringing those Madeleines she promised last year."
[Temporal record: The twins' birthday occurred seven days ago. Probability of a cosmic entity recalling an arbitrary date from the mortal calendar: statistically irrelevant.]
[Merely presenting data.]
Morgana opened her mouth, perhaps to reinforce the hope, perhaps to say something comforting she didn't believe herself. But the word never came out.
Because the world turned golden.
It wasn't the sun emerging from behind a cloud. It wasn't a gradual shift of light. It was instantaneous, as if the air itself had caught fire, as if someone had lit a star in the middle of the afternoon.
The shadows of the rocks became sharp, ink-black, cut by a light that did not warm. It only revealed.
The wind stopped.
The birds went quiet.
Even the insects fell silent, as if nature itself were holding its breath.
[Energy signature detected. Magnitude: immeasurable. Classification: divine.]
Footsteps crunched on the gravel. Heavy. Rhythmic. The sound of metal striking rock with the certainty of an announced earthquake. Every step was a declaration, not of arrival, but of presence. Of something that did not ask permission to exist.
Kilam appeared running up the trail from the house, panting, face covered in cold sweat. He must have seen the light through the window. Must have felt what was coming.
He passed his daughters like an arrow, placing himself between them and the trail, arms open in a protection we both knew was futile.
"Mihira?" he called, voice cracking in the middle of the name. There was longing there. Hope. Terror. All mixed into a single word.
The figure stopped.
I looked at her.
And for the first time in many, many lives, I felt a shiver that had nothing to do with temperature.
Oh.
It wasn't the entity itself that disturbed me; I had seen strange things in too many lives to count. Gods, demons, creatures defying categorisation. After a while, you develop a certain... immunity to the supernatural.
But the Morgana I knew, the woman who raised me, who carried shadows like extensions of herself, who faced the world with unshakeable calm, that Morgana feared nothing.
And here, in this memory, at seven years of age, she was afraid.
Seeing fear on her face, even as a child version, made something inside me contract.
Mihira wore armour shining in gold so intense it hurt to look directly at it, every polished plate reflecting not the surrounding world, but something beyond. Stars. Constellations. The void between worlds. Wings of starfire crackled on her back, not yet fully formed but already promising judgement. Promising finality.
And the face.
The face was the worst.
It was not the face of a woman who should bring sweets, who should give wooden swords as gifts, who should have been here a week ago for a birthday. Rather, it was a face carved from something that was no longer flesh. Expressionless marble. Beauty that did not invite, only declared.
The eyes were slits of white light. No iris. No pupil.
No one inside.
[Analysis: The biological entity known as Mihira has been completely subsumed by the Aspect's consciousness. Estimated integration: total.]
[Stars possess no emotional capacity.]
"Mihira..." Kilam whispered again, taking a hesitant step towards the light. The step of a man approaching something he knows will hurt him. "You came back."
The thing wearing Mihira's form tilted its head. The movement was mechanical. Precise. Like a jointed doll being manipulated by invisible strings.
"Evil does not rest." Her voice was a chord, many voices speaking in unison, harmonic and terrible, echoing like distant thunder. "And justice does not sleep."
She didn't say 'Hi, darling'. Didn't ask how he was. Didn't look at Kayle's bleeding knee, still bound with the strip of her sister's tunic.
But Kayle... Kayle didn't see the monster. Ignoring the pain in her leg, she pushed herself up to stand. Limped past her father's legs, wide eyes reflecting the golden fire like mirrors. There was a hunger in her expression.
The hunger of one who sees a god and wants to be noticed by it.
"Mum!" Kayle shouted, voice trembling with overflowing emotion. "You came! We waited so long! So, so long!"
She took a step forward, small hands clasping in anxious expectation. Then she looked at her mother's hands. Hands gauntleted in incandescent metal.
Empty.
Something in Kayle's face faltered, just for an instant, too fast for anyone not paying attention to notice. But she recovered, hope too stubborn to die so easily.
"Did you remember our birthday?" Her voice was high, anxious. "It was last week! Papa made a cake and everything! Last year you promised you'd bring me a new wooden sword, remember? And the Madeleines for Morg?"
She looked at her mother's empty hands again, smile trembling at the edges.
"Did... did you leave the present somewhere else? Is it hidden?"
The Aspect lowered its gaze to the child. There was no maternal recognition in those eyes of light. There was only... appraisal. The look of one examining a tool to determine its utility.
"Birthday." The Entity repeated the word as if testing its flavour in her mouth. As if it were a foreign concept needing translation from a dead language. "The passage of time is a mortal concern, Kayle. Dates are arbitrary. Only duty matters."
The sentence fell upon the rocky field like a verdict. Kayle's smile wavered, but didn't break. Not yet. She was too desperate to break.
"But... you brought justice, right? You defeated the bad guys?" Kayle took another step, getting dangerously close to the heat emanating from her mother. The kind of heat that was unnatural, that did not warm, only judged. "I want to see! I want to be strong like you!"
She pointed to her bleeding knee as if it were a trophy. An offering to the altar her mother had become.
"Look, Mum! I got hurt, but I didn't cry! Warriors don't cry! You always say that!"
The light in Mihira's eyes intensified. Not with affection. With something that could be mistaken for approval if you didn't know what you were looking at.
"Pain is the forge." The Aspect extended a hand, fingers of incandescent metal glowing like living embers. "You have the right metal in your soul, child."
Kayle vibrated. Literally vibrated with joy.
She reached out to touch her mother's fingers. She didn't care that there was no present. Didn't care that there was no hug, or affection, or promised wooden sword, or birthday Madeleines.
She had received validation. To Kayle, that was love.
"Don't touch her!"
Kilam grabbed Kayle by the shoulders and pulled her back with a violence that didn't suit him. Fear had finally overcome shock, hope, longing. A father's fear.
"It's too hot! You'll burn yourself!"
"I won't!" Kayle struggled in his arms, eyes still fixed on her mother. A moth fighting to reach the flame. "She's Mum! She shines! She's beautiful! Let me go!"
"She is not—" Kilam swallowed the words before they escaped completely. Tears finally streamed down his face now, and he didn't try to hide them. "Mihira. Please."
The plea was small. Desperate. The kind of thing a man says when he knows he is speaking to a wall but cannot stop trying.
"They are your daughters. They turned seven. Seven years, Mihira. They just wanted... they just wanted their mother."
The Aspect raised its gaze to Kilam. There was no compassion there. No recognition of shared years, of a life built together, of daughters conceived and birthed and nursed.
There was only light. Cold and impartial.
And then the gaze swept the scene and landed on Morgana.
Morgana was still where I had last seen her, near the rocks where Kayle had fallen. She hadn't gotten up to run to her mother. Hadn't asked for a present or a hug. Hadn't offered wounds as proof of worth.
She was pale. Motionless. Blue eyes so wide I could see the white all around the irises.
While Kayle saw glory, Morgana saw the truth. She saw that that 'thing' didn't care about the grazed knee. Didn't care about the birthday. Didn't care about the crying father or the sister begging for a touch.
She saw an entity that would burn the entire world to prove a point. Including its own family.
Morgana moved, not forward, but backward. She ran to her father and hid behind his legs, clutching the fabric of his trousers with trembling fingers. Using his body as a shield against the light that should have been her mother.
"Papa." Her voice was choked, barely coming out. "Papa, she's scary."
Kilam placed a protective hand on her head, but couldn't answer. What could he say?
"She isn't Mum." Morgana continued, words coming between suppressed sobs. "Her eyes... Papa, there's no one in there. There's no one."
The Aspect focused on Morgana.
The surrounding temperature seemed to change, not heating up, but tightening. As if the air itself were being compressed around that child hiding behind her father.
"Fear is the confession of the guilty." The Aspect's voice boomed, every word a hammer. "Why do you hide from the light, Morgana? Only shadows fear the sun."
Morgana sobbed louder, pressing her face against Kilam's leg.
"I'm not guilty! I didn't do anything wrong!" Her voice was high, broken, the desperate protest of a child being accused of something she didn't even understand. "I just want my mum back! My real mum!"
The Aspect observed the child for a moment. No expression. No reaction.
"The mother you want," the harmonic voice said, cold as the space between stars, "was merely a draft. An incomplete version. I am what she should have been from the beginning."
Then she turned her back on all of them, beginning to float towards the mountain peak.
"No."
The word escaped Kilam like something that had been trapped for too long. It wasn't a scream. It was worse. It was the sound of something breaking.
Mihira stopped. Turned her head, that mechanical movement that made my stomach churn.
"You dare interrupt me?"
"I dare." Kilam took a step forward. His legs shook, but he stood firm. "After all these years swallowing everything, I finally dare."
"Kilam." Her tone was one of warning. "You do not comprehend the magnitude of what—"
"No. You are going to listen to me." He took another step towards her. "For the first time, you are going to stand still and listen to me."
The light around Mihira pulsed, but she didn't move.
"I tried, Mihira. For years. And I can't anymore." His voice cracked. "How many times did I stay silent so I wouldn't lose you? How many nights did I cry alone whilst you weren't even here to see?"
"I was protecting you." The harmonic voice carried something that might be indignation. "Whilst you cried, I faced horrors that would destroy your mind just by—"
"And I thank you for the protection!" Kilam cut her off. "But you could have come home afterwards. Could have held me and held your daughters. Could have asked how we were."
"Duty does not wait. Evil does not—"
"Evil does not rest, I know. You repeat that every time." He ran a hand over his face. "But do you know what I repeated? 'I'm fine'. Every time the girls asked why I was sad. 'I'm fine'. When in truth I was drowning."
Mihira remained silent for a moment.
"I did not choose this, Kilam. We climbed that mountain together. Neither of us knew what awaited us at the top."
"I know." His voice was low, laden with something ancient. "I was there. I held your hand the entire way. And when the light took you... I waited. Waited for you to come back to me."
"And I returned."
"No." Kilam shook his head. "Something wearing your face returned. But you... the woman I married, the woman I dreamed of building a life with..." He swallowed hard. "She stayed on that peak."
"I am still—"
"You are what's left of her. And I stayed. Even when you vanished for months. Even when you returned and barely looked at me. I stayed because I still loved you. Because I thought that somewhere inside, you were still the Mihira who held my hand on that climb."
"And I loved you." The words slipped out before she could contain them. For an instant, something trembled in that voice of cosmic harmonies.
"Loved." Kilam repeated the word as if it had cut him. "Past tense."
"I still—" Mihira stopped. The light around her flickered. "What I feel now is... different. Greater. It transcends the limitations of—"
"Transcends." He laughed, a wet and broken sound. "Is that what you call it? When you look at your daughters and feel nothing, is that transcendence?"
"I feel. Just not in the way you comprehend."
"No, Mihira. You don't feel." Kilam pointed at Morgana, still clutching his leg, shivering. "Look at her. Look at the fear in our daughter's eyes. If you felt anything, this would destroy you."
Mihira looked at Morgana. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then the light around her dimmed. Just a little. Just enough to notice.
"I..." she began, and for the first time the harmonic voice sounded almost... human. "I did not choose this. Do you think I wanted to become this? That I woke up one day and decided to abandon my family?"
"I don't know, Mihira. Did you?"
"I was called." The word came loaded with something ancient. "The Aspect chose me because I was the only one capable of bearing this burden. Do you have any idea what I faced? The things I had to do?"
She took a step towards him, and for the first time she didn't seem like an entity judging a mortal. She seemed like a woman trying to be understood.
"I held the line against horrors that would have swept away everything you love. I sacrificed..." her voice faltered. "I sacrificed my humanity so you could have a life. And you accuse me of not caring?"
"I accuse you of forgetting how to show you care." Kilam didn't back down. "Do you remember the last time you hugged me? Kissed the girls goodnight? Asked about their day?"
Silence.
"Do you remember their birthday, Mihira? Seven years old. A week ago. Kayle waited all day. Sat by the door waiting, thinking you'd appear."
Mihira's light pulsed irregularly.
"Dates are—"
"If you say dates are irrelevant again, I swear..." Kilam closed his eyes, breathing deeply. "They aren't irrelevant to them. They aren't irrelevant to me."
Morgana sobbed. And I saw the exact moment the sound pierced Kayle.
The girl who was mesmerised by her mother, the shine, the power, the promise of everything she wanted to be. But when Morgana's sob cut the air, Kayle's head turned as if someone had pulled an invisible string.
She looked at her sister. Saw the tears. The trembling. The fear. And something changed in her face.
I knew that expression. The confusion of one who doesn't understand what they are feeling, but feels it nonetheless. The moment the world reorganises itself around a single priority.
Kayle moved before thinking, limping to her sister with her knee still bleeding under the makeshift bandage. She said nothing. Simply took Morgana's hand and squeezed. Hard. The same way Morgana had held her hand after the fall.
Morgana looked at her, eyes red, face wet. Kayle had no words, it was obvious by the way her mouth opened and closed soundlessly. She didn't understand what was happening. Didn't understand why Papa was shouting, why Mum wasn't hugging anyone, why everything was wrong.
But her sister was hurting. And for a moment, just a moment, that mattered more than the shine.
"You want to talk about sacrifice?" Kilam continued, voice lower now, but no less intense. "I sacrificed too, Mihira. I sacrificed my dreams. My peace. Entire nights of sleep. Everything to keep this family functioning whilst you were saving the world."
"That does not compare—"
"I'm not comparing." He cut her off. "I'm saying you aren't the only one carrying weight. The difference is I carried mine alone. Without anyone to come home to and ask if I needed help."
Mihira fell silent. The light around her continued pulsating, unstable.
"Remember your last visit?" Kilam asked. "Months ago. I told you I was at my limit. That I couldn't take it anymore."
"I remember."
"And what did you do?"
Silence.
"You laughed, Mihira. Laughed like it was drama. And left the next day."
"There was a threat on the border of—"
"There is always a threat!" Kilam's voice rose. "There is always something more important than us! But that day, I just wanted to disappear. And you turned your back on me."
Mihira's light wavered.
"I didn't... I didn't know it was so—"
"Because you never asked!" He took a step back, as if finally moving away from something that had been burning him for too long. "You never asked if I was truly okay. Never looked beyond the smile I put on so I wouldn't worry you."
Kayle and Morgana watched, motionless. Two children watching their father shatter before them, learning in real-time that adults break too.
"I gave you everything, Mihira. My fears. My traumas. My flaws." Kilam shook his head. "And when I was on the ground, you said I was too sensitive. That I needed to be stronger."
"I was trying to help you—"
"You were silencing me." His voice was cold now. "And I let you. For years. Because I loved you more than I loved myself."
Something passed across Mihira's face. Something that wasn't light or judgement.
"Kilam..."
"But I'm tired." He crouched, getting to his daughters' level. With a gentleness contrasting all the fury, he stroked Morgana and Kayle's heads. "Tired of erasing myself so I don't bother you. Of putting your pain above mine. Of dying inside and smiling outside."
Morgana looked at him with red-rimmed eyes. It was the first time she saw her father like this. Without the mask. Without the forced smile.
Kilam stood and faced Mihira.
"Even broken, I still wish you peace. Even shattered, I let you go." His voice was strangely calm now. "Because true love sets free. But yours... only imprisoned me."
"You are being unfair." Mihira's voice trembled. "I gave everything I had. Became something I barely recognise to keep the world safe. And you..."
"And I did the same to keep this family whole." Kilam cut her off. "The difference is you had a choice. You could have visited more. Stayed longer. Tried harder. But the world was always more important."
Mihira didn't answer. She couldn't answer.
"When you leave, and I know you will, if one day you remember me..." Kilam swallowed hard. "Remember that I stayed when no one else would. That I fought even whilst bleeding inside."
He pulled his daughters close.
"And that my goodbye was the greatest 'I love you' you will ever receive."
Silence hung in the air. The wind didn't blow. Birds didn't sing. The whole world seemed to hold its breath. Mihira stood still for a long moment. The light around her pulsed irregularly, like something trying to remember what it was like to have a heart.
"I..." she began. Stopped. Tried again. "I no longer know how... to be what you need."
"I know." Kilam's voice was soft now. Almost gentle. "That is why I am letting you go."
Mihira looked at him. Then at the daughters. Kayle, holding Morgana's hand, bleeding knee forgotten, eyes still shining with something between confusion and concern. Morgana, clutching her sister's hand as if it were the only solid thing in the world, face stained with tears.
Two halves of a whole. Still together. Despite everything.
And for an instant, so brief I almost missed it, the eyes of white light seemed to have colour. Seemed to have depth. Seemed to have someone behind them.
"I remember," she said, so quietly I almost didn't hear. "You. How it was. I... remember."
It wasn't an apology. It wasn't enough to fix anything. But it was something.
Then the wings of fire crackled. The light returned to shine, cold and implacable. And Mihira began to ascend the mountain, leaving behind a family that would never be the same.
She didn't look back.
But this time, I wasn't sure if it was because she didn't want to, or because she couldn't continue climbing if she looked.
I watched Kilam approach his daughters. He knelt before them, enveloping both in a hug that seemed to want to protect them from the entire world. Kayle and Morgana's hands were still interlaced, even within their father's embrace.
Kayle began to cry; this time she couldn't contain it, biting her lip and repeating that warriors don't cry. She cried like a child who didn't understand why Mum had left, why she hadn't stayed, why the validation hadn't come accompanied by a hug.
"She's coming back, right, Papa?" Kayle's voice was small. Broken. "She just... she just needs to finish a mission. Then she'll come back. Right?"
Kilam didn't answer. Just hugged her tighter. Morgana wasn't crying anymore. She was quiet. Very quiet. But her eyes weren't empty.
They were on Kayle. And as I watched, Morgana released her sister's hand only to raise her fingers to Kayle's face. Wiped a tear. Then another. Gently. Automatically. As if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Even terrified. Even having just seen her father fall apart. Even having discovered her mother was merely an entity dressed in light.
Her first instinct was still to care.
The memory began to unravel at the edges, colours bleeding into the void like ink in water.
[Memory dissolving. Prepare for transition.]
The last image I saw, before darkness reclaimed me, was Morgana's face. Seven years old. Torn tunic. Eyes that had just lost their innocence.
She didn't look at the mountain where her mother had disappeared. Didn't look at her father, who wept silently whilst hugging them both.
She looked at Kayle. And there was something there, something I recognised, because I had seen it in the mirror of a thousand different lives. The silent decision to protect someone who might not want to be protected.
Darkness swallowed me before I could finish the thought. But the weight of it came along.
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💬 Author's Note
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Yeah… this chapter hurt to write. I'm not even going to pretend otherwise. 💔
This scene was never about battles, power, or future conflicts. At its core, it was always something much quieter, and much more cruel:
A family… slowly falling apart.
Kilam was extremely important to me here. I didn't want him to be just "the mortal husband left behind." I wanted his exhaustion, his love, and his breaking point to feel genuinely human. Because sometimes the bravest thing a person does isn't facing monsters…
…it's finally admitting they can't keep bleeding in silence.
And Mihira, even wrapped in divinity, even nearly consumed by something greater, did not come out untouched. Power did not save her marriage. Ascension did not save her family. Sometimes becoming something greater just means losing the parts of yourself that knew how to hold the people you loved.
Another very important point here was showing Kayle and Morgana as sisters first and foremost. Despite the differences that are already beginning to surface, in this moment they still choose each other without hesitation. They still care. They still protect. They are still two children trying to exist while the world around them quietly breaks.
And maybe… that is exactly what will make everything hurt so much more later.
Anyway…
What did you all think of Kilam in this chapter? 👀
And how did the twins' dynamic feel to you?
Ah, and before I forget: today is my birthday! I am officially turning 27. 🎂✨
So if you want to give me a present… drop some birthday wishes in the comments. I'll be reading all of them. 😈💙
See you in the next chapter.