"What Remains When the Light Leaves"
White eyes stare directly into Weaver's being.
Not searching.
Not confused.
Fixed.
Allium stands at the center of the ruin, feet planted in fused glass where sand once lived. The white still crawls beneath his skin in tight, compressed bands, coiling around his arms, his chest, his throat. It hums—not loudly, not violently—but with the pressure of something barely contained.
His hands are clenched.
Energy condenses between his palms, folding in on itself, brighter with every breath he takes.
His jaw tightens.
"What do you want…?" he asks.
The words scrape out of him, raw and edged, like they were dragged through his chest instead of formed in his mouth.
Weaver does not answer immediately.
He takes a step forward.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Every instinct in him is screaming not to rush, not to spook the thing standing in front of him. His threads hover low, trembling, refusing to extend unless called.
"Allium," Weaver says carefully, gently, as if speaking to someone waking from a nightmare. "Varos is gone. Rose is being taken to medical. The others are already on their way back to Solara HQ."
Allium's fingers tighten.
The energy between his hands flares brighter.
"You need to let this settle," Weaver continues, voice steady even as his chest tightens. "You need to control this."
Allium snaps toward him.
"If I control," he growls, "then you… control."
His arm lifts.
The light follows.
Weaver freezes.
For the first time since Allium's creation, real fear breaks across his face.
His hands rise instinctively—not to command, not to weave—but to surrender.
"This is not you," Weaver says, horror bleeding into his voice despite his effort to hold it back. "Don't do this."
Allium's eyes flicker.
For a heartbeat, neon orange surges up through the white, fighting for space.
Then the white slams back down harder.
Sparks tear from his arms in violent arcs, hissing as they strike the glass beneath his feet.
Inside Allium's mind, something fractures.
Voices press in—not loud, not chaotic.
Persuasive.
He's using you.
Allium snarls, shaking his head.
"No he's not," he snaps—to them, not to Weaver.
The pressure increases.
He wants you to sleep.
Allium's breath stutters at that.
His grip wavers.
White and orange collide inside him, grinding against one another like tectonic plates locked in slow disaster.
Weaver sees it.
Sees the hesitation.
"Allium," he says urgently, stepping closer despite the danger, "don't listen to them. It's trying to use you."
Allium whips his head back toward him.
"Would you shut up," he roars, voice cracking, "and stop telling me what to do?!"
The energy between his hands swells—larger now, unstable, screaming for release.
The voices return, sharper.
Kill him. Free yourself.
Allium's head drops.
His shoulders shake.
"No," he growls, more plea than defiance.
His fingers loosen.
Just slightly.
Weaver steps back, heart hammering.
"Allium, don't do this," he says. "Please."
Allium screams.
The sound tears out of him, ripping the air apart as the energy finally discharges.
But not forward.
Not at Weaver.
He forces his aim upward.
The beam erupts—white, blinding, absolute.
It carves through the mountain face like it isn't there. Stone evaporates. The Temple of Stillness disintegrates in silence too complete to be called sound. Ancient pillars vanish mid-existence, erased down to nothing as the beam climbs higher, higher—
until it pierces the sky itself.
The heavens split.
Atmosphere scars.
Stars blink out behind a widening wound of light.
Weaver stares in mute horror.
"…No," he whispers.
Allium pours everything into it.
Everything.
He empties himself violently, desperately, as if trying to rip the white out of his bones. Slowly—agonizingly—the glow begins to leave him.
White bleeds away.
Orange crawls back in.
The beam fades.
The mountain stops screaming.
Allium stands there steaming, chest heaving, breath dragging like every inhale is a battle. His eyes flutter, struggle to stay open.
Weaver turns toward him.
"What have you done?" he asks softly. "The Temple is… gone."
Allium sways.
"I…" His voice breaks. "…I freed… myself."
Then his knees buckle.
He collapses—not dead, not broken—just emptied.
Weaver moves instantly, catching him before he hits the glass. His threads rise on instinct now, gentle, careful, cradling instead of binding.
He checks Allium's pulse.
His breathing.
The white is gone.
Orange remains.
Stable.
Weaver exhales shakily.
He looks up at the battlefield.
Glass stretches in every direction, black and warped. Fragments of Varos's remains twitch and writhe weakly, half-alive, half-forgotten. Above them, the sky bears a massive scar where stars should be.
The world will remember this.
Weaver gathers Allium carefully, lifting him with threads that shake from exhaustion and guilt. He does not look at him the way an engineer looks at a creation.
He looks at him the way a father looks at a child who almost destroyed himself.
Together, slowly, they move away from the ruin.
Toward Solara HQ in the distance.
Weaver's mind races—calculations, regrets, what-ifs—each heavier than the last.
Behind them, the sands settle against the glass.
They clatter softly.
And if you listen closely—
Click.