Battle Hymn of the Republic

“Th-that’s my robe!” Smart objected as Willow made a runner’s adjustment to the hem. It was then that the Allomancer realized that this was why the garment ran a little small on her. Smart looked to be trying to come up with something to say, looking stricken, but Clever just laughed, especially with the human’s sudden exit.

The first run to the tower had taken Willow roughly an hour to find the tower again. She had stopped by Noble’s place first, but then had to navigate the circuitous line up through alleys, turns and streets. It was up-hill, which made the jaunt more difficult, but she also didn’t need to carry Bjorn, which made it a little easier. He kept close to her the whole time, speaking on her behalf as she blew on by in the streets. After a certain point, he flew ahead of her, just warning people to get out of the way. Nothing was really going to stop Willow at this point, nothing could.

By the time she had arrived at the circle, it had only been a third of an hour.

When she appeared in the chamber again, the man on fire was still staring off in the distance, towards the mountains. His fingers drummed on the railing, but not in response to her arrival. Despite her sudden, demanding greeting, he made no motion to answer her.

“Fairburn,” rang his voice from the walls.

“Sorry~~~~♡” echoed Willow’s voice as she ran off.

It was a hard run. There was no arguing that. A few miles uphill? Yeah, her calves were howling at her. Once she’d made it to the tower in a faster time however she felt that classic runner’s high. That was the feeling she went through the portal with. Honestly, Willow had expected to need to dive into a somersault to try and avoid something, or at least get ready to greet Smart again. Instead, once she’d heard the voice say her name she found she was still in the room.

“Do you literally just stand there all the time? It’s been, like, an hour. Is that why Vengeance is running amuck? Y’re too busy brooding, an’ starin’ off the balcony?”

"I have already lived out the world where I unmake Vengeance," explained the Man of Many Names, "I have already lived out the world where I solve every problem. I have lived out the world where I solve nothing. They live, they die, they emerge again; so many times. Yet, each time they succumb to the encroaching nightmares. This time, I am so close. So close. They have kept Vengeance to one part of the world, they have become independent, they have become inspired. They build, they laugh, they love, they cry."

The man turned towards Willow now and began to walk over to greet her. "These 'artisans' mean more to me than you will ever know, Fairburn. They were my mentors. My caretakers. My defenders. My friends. My guardians."

An ethereal jade glow began to overtake the wall. Flames were rising higher, spreading and growing in dangerous heat. A dark silhouette cut sharply in the light, the near blinding brightness of the fire joining with the chamber.

"Do you want to know why I do nothing, Fairburn? Every time I do, or do not, one of them dies. This world is mine to make, but unless I surrender control, they all die. They who never deserved to be slain gods. They who needed to be slain to save me."

The heat was starting to become unbearable.

"Sorrow."

The chair Clever had appeared in within the chamber illuminated.

"Doubt."

Then, the chair Smart had taken was lit up.

"Fear."

Creative's chair then illuminated.

"Shame."

The long seat that Noble owned glowed.

"Loathing."

Among the circle there were the shattered remains of a limestone chair, and it was then shone in the light.

"Vengeance."

The unoccupied chair gained its own light, before they all dimmed in the presence of the man's fire.

"All of them had to die to heal this world, but Vengeance eluded the god slayers. In every world, she appears, setting out to unmake anything that is not made in my image. To break the cycle, she has to die, but without her sacrifice, there would be no Elementalia."

His dark hand, ice cold, wrenched her shoulder, wreathed in flames. His words stopped ringing from the walls of the tower and instead rang from the walls of her skull.

"So tell me, wise Fairburn. Unimpeachable Fairburn. Who will you send ahead of you to die? Who will bear the burden of the entire world in your stead? You; who can do anything but this one thing?"

Willow cast herself in metal as the Lord finally started to act like a person. She needed to be unflinching against his rebuke, and couldn’t shy away from the man’s intensity; not if she wanted anything else she said to be taken seriously. After goading him for so long, she’d come across as simply childish if she didn’t stand her ground. So she held his gaze as best, channeling every bit of her hot summer farm work conditioning to stand in the heat. Then the man turned the questions on to her, and after quelling a knee jerk reaction to continue needling the man actually took time to measure a response.

“I feel bad for your common folk. The spriggans dying because you care more about your artisans. Do they come back too? The ones just trying to deliver cabbages?” Willow started, “And I don’t know who I’d send. I don’t send people. I do, and if I couldn’t do then I’d ask my friends for help. You got friends?”

“My friends are malignantly benign, if I told them, they would come without question.”

The Man of Many Names dropped his eyes to the floor, “I can’t do that to them again. I can’t give them a reason to put their lives on the line for me. Not again. Not even for them.”

Flooding warmth filled Willow’s shoulder as he let her go, hand dropping to his side. The intensity bled away, and the voice that filled the chamber was somber.

“You weep for the small folk? What do you take me for? What am I to do? When I tell you I am close, I am close because this reality is the best circumstance. The spriggans exist because she lives. If one artisan dies, their people, their land goes with them. The death of one represents tens of thousands and everything they have created.”

A black hand went to his head, the gaze of luminous eyes staring off into the distance.

“The goal is to one day give them everything. My power, my control, but they must all be there. All six. Yet I cannot simply make it so. They must find the way. It is why you are dangerous. Humans are a variable that I cannot account for, that the realm cannot account for, that Vengeance cannot account for. Your mere existence may have doomed this world already, or it may have edged it along to solution, but not even I can see it. No one can…”

The fingers on his dark scalp curled into a fist.

“... and I have held their lifeless bodies in my arm so many times. I cannot bear to do it anymore.”

“So… it sounds like you have options, but just don’t want to use them,” Willow’s response was matter-of-fact. Now that the man had released her shoulder she returned to a nonchalant pose as she tried to seem more mature. After everything this guy had said she felt like she knew what she should do, and the easiest and most obvious solution was for her to head home; to take this man up on his offer to be returned.

“Let me help,” Willow’s voice was steady, and she spoke without hesitation. “If you give me some supplies, then I can throw that human variable into the mix for you while letting you not worry about inconveniencing your friends. As for a claim you made earlier that you didn’t let me refute, now that I know what I’m dealing with I can shield myself. Eat a bit of Copper, and bam I can avoid emotional and mental mind games. As for what I can do, if you got Noble’s sitrep, then you would have heard I can also manipulate emotions. Feed me Brass like I’m a Christmas goose and I can see about calming Vengeance down. Keen?”

Narrow eyes widened, evident clarity showing on the man’s face.

Then, he turned, returning to his spot on the balcony. His posture was tense, dark fingers tapping on the marble railing. Again, he looked out at the mountains, as if they were begging for his attention.

“I’m so close.”

Those words rumbled the room with a painful yearning.

“If the shade were ameliorated long enough, deeply enough… She could be removed without killing the sixth artisan.”

Flames burst in a sudden flurry of energy, before dying down again. The man seriously considered it, that much was certain by the way he pondered.

“I cannot ask you to do this,” he denied, gripping the marble so tightly that his fingers sunk through it, “but by some cruel twist of fate, you might be the only one that can. Ruarc… Smith… Riley… Miyuki… Hammers… every single one of them, but you… You are unique…”

He threw his arms up in frustration, “But I can not ask you to do this. No.”

With a wave of his arm, a door opened at the edge of a chamber, and Willow could see light spill from the threshold. Peering from where she stood, she could see familiar features just peeking through. She could see her mother’s office, and, at her desk, her mother.

“I can only offer the way home,” said the man, finally turning to face her. The fires on his body started to die down enough to where she could almost make out the features of a human underneath. “You are free to stay here and do as you wish. Mingle among the artisans and their creations. Seek a destiny against Vengeance. Frolic with the Spriggans. Whatever the artisans will allow. But do know; I will be watching until you leave. Should I even think for a moment you are coming close to your own demise, you will be put through that door, and you will never see this world as it is ever again.”

With that, he turned, and stared off at the horizon again, ensconced again in arcane fire. “If you need your choice of metal, speak to Diligence. His hall is in the Yormundyaw Mountains, currently to the north. Otherwise, the world is yours.”

Just as Willow was about to chide the man about his inability to ask her to do something she had just offered anyway, he started mentioning names. He had mentioned Miss Smith before, but she had attributed it to weird, dreamscape lord mental stuff. Something to rattle her a bit. Now he was just casually name dropping the teachers; The Menagerie as Drysi called them. Realization dawned on her that the humans that had destroyed this world before, the friends that would come to help this flaming man, were her instructors back at Safeholme.

”Oh Willow, you really did step in it this time,” she thought. She was gutsy, pugnacious, and some would even say headstrong, but did she really think she could… Then Mother’s office was shown; offered to her as a means to return to her own world. Willow shrank away from the door while clutching at her stomach.

“I’ll help you,” Willow made her voice project on a wave of gritty determination. “I’ll head to the Normandy Mountains, or whatever their name was, and get supplies. BUT don’t you go yeeting me through any doorways over scraped knees, ya dig? I do some of my best work when I’m points behind and the buzzer is looming.”

The man chuckled, dark and low, like an ember hissing out its last.

"Of the Menagerie, of those who could define proximity to death," said he in a loud whisper, "There is none with a finer line than I."

The laughter was haunting, and echoed in the chamber until Willow found herself staring across a courtyard. She was somewhere in the city, but it was nothing she was familiar with. The yard was a place for the youth of the smallfolk to play, and others to lounge. It was a gentle spot.

Across the road nearby was another mural, of a large demonic creature, surrounded by what looked like humans. One was a cowgirl, riding a serpent into a blazing fire. The other was a large man wreathing a storm into a sword. Another was a dark haired woman forming a glacier into a spear. The last was a small woman, driving a flaming sword into the heart of the demon. Last of them was a small, one armed man, staring into the demon's eyes as the others drove into it. A word was chiseled at the base, under it all.

DENOUEMENT

A finger raised, mouth slightly ajar, and blank stare showed Willow caught pre-question and processing the fact that had, once again, been bamfed. A few rapid blinks and the teen reset herself enough to let out an aggravated Peanut-esque groan. With an accompanying huff of indignation she leaned onto one heel as she examined the mural. It was definitely impressive, and with the revelation that the Menagerie had been to this realm added weight and meaning. Miss Smith was easily identifiable, the large man she figured to be Mister Flynn although she didn’t know if he used swords, the ice lady was probably that one Miyuki lady, she had no clue who the fire sword person was, and the one armed person made her think of Mister Caxton govern his association with warriors like Smith and Flynn and his own not doing anything in the mural except standing there.

“Denouement? Pfft, dumb-dumbs misspelled denouncement. That’s embarrassing,” Willow scoffed while giving an overconfident shrug. Looking around to get her bearings, she quickly determined she had absolutely zero clue where she was. Surrounded by small smallfolk and the smallfolks' small folks, Willow couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d; one, been put in daycare as a slight from The Flaming One, and two, that this mural seemed inappropriate for a place that catered to children.

“Alright Bjorn, where am I? I need to get back to Smart’s so I can gather supplies.”