Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

Leaving Azure Prime takes less time than finding the right trail after it.

The Peak of Divine Laments sits away from the commercial routes, in an elevated range northeast of the capital. There’s no known dungeon, no meaningful mining, no creature worth an expedition. The maps record the region because it exists, and little more than that.

That’s exactly why almost no one comes here.

The climb starts along an old road, wide for carriages that haven’t passed in years. Then the path narrows between pale stones and thin-trunked trees. The vegetation changes as I gain altitude. Blue-green leaves give way to silver canopies, fields of small white flowers grow between the rocks, and streams run down shallow grooves without carrying the metallic smell that follows almost every water found outside the cities.

Even the wildlife seems to belong to another world.

I come across small quadrupeds covered in blue fur grazing near the trail. One of them lifts its head as I pass, chews for a few seconds, and goes back to the flowers. Further on, two translucent birds land on a rock to drink and show no interest in attacking me.

In Thirstfall, that alone is an aberration.

The higher I climb, the less I hear of the world I know. No metal, no screaming, no monsters fighting over territory, no OXI exploding in some distant fight. Only wind crossing leaves, water running over the stones, and small animals hiding in the vegetation when I come close.

Maybe that’s why Freya likes it here.

It takes me a while to search.

The peak opens into several summits linked by natural trails, and I know the place only from the descriptions of a woman who spent years trying to accept a loss. I cross two wrong rises before I recognize a tree Camille mentioned so many times that, though I’ve never seen it, I know it’s the one I’m looking for.

It grows near a cliff.

The trunk is pale, almost white, and wide roots wrap the stone before disappearing into the slope. The leaves hold a very faint blue tone and reflect the light of the ocean sky, leaving the canopy with a soft glow even without any visible OXI.

Freya sits a few meters ahead.

Her bags rest near the tree.

She holds the edge of the cliff with her arms resting on her knees, looking at Azure Prime in the distance. From that height, the capital looks small. The great towers blur into the terrain, the transport lines look like scratches over the land, and even the movement of the airships nearly vanishes.

I don’t call her name.

I keep walking.

Freya tilts her head while I’m still far off. My advance to Rank C makes my presence harder to hide, and probably she knows my OXI signature after fighting at my side.

"I thought Dean would show up first," she says, keeping her eyes on the city.

I stop beside the bags.

"He’s searching."

"I imagine so."

I sit near her, leaving space between us.

For a few minutes, neither of us speaks. The wind at that height is cold, but not harsh. It passes over the summit and carries on toward the valley, lifting small petals from the flowers scattered among the stones.

Freya finally looks at me.

"How did you know I was here?"

I smile.

She watches me a moment longer.

Then her mouth starts to curve too, into a wide smile.

Freya looks back at Azure Prime before I can say anything.

"Of course."

The way she says it makes clear she’s already understood.

Even so, I need to tell her.

"You’re going to meet a woman named Camille."

Her smile shrinks, but it doesn’t disappear.

"Will I?"

"You will. And she’s going to become your best friend."

Freya looks at me again.

That name still means nothing to her. To me, it carries years.

I point to the tree behind us.

"When you died, Camille brought your Echo Fragment to this peak. She buried it near that tree."

Freya doesn’t follow my finger right away.

She keeps looking at my face, maybe waiting for some sign that I’m using this as another attempt to convince her.

Then she turns.

The pale leaves move slowly above the roots.

"Why here?"

"Because you loved this place. Camille said it was your favorite."

My throat tightens before I go on.

"She said Thirstfall had spent your whole life trying to take things from you. So if there was one place where you could rest without the world asking for something more, it should be here."

Freya keeps looking at the tree.

One of the small creatures I saw during the climb appears among the flowers, catches sight of us, and goes on walking, unhurried.

"Camille sounds like a good friend."

I lower my eyes to my hands.

"She was the best."

Freya catches the change in my voice.

She doesn’t ask right away. She waits until I look back at the valley.

"How did you meet Camille?"

I draw a deep breath.

There are things about the future I can tell without feeling anything beyond distance. Names, battles, routes, deaths I learned to store somewhere they wouldn’t get in the way of the next step.

Camille never stayed in that place.

"She was my ex-girlfriend."

Freya turns her body toward me.

"Your ex-girlfriend?"

I nod.

"And my best friend," I go on. "For a long time."

The confusion shows on her face.

"So you knew my best friend, you were in a relationship with her, but you said you never met me in person."

"You weren’t exactly easy to find."

"That doesn’t make much sense."

"It does when you account for the gap between us back then."

Freya waits.

"You were a celebrity. Your name already circulated through the trenches, the big guilds, the Forum. By the time I started getting near people at that level, you were already several steps above. Camille climbed the same ladder, a little behind. I was trying to come up a different way."

She looks at herself, then at the city far below.

The idea seems strange even to her.

"A celebrity."

"Unfortunately."

That pulls a small breath through her nose, but it dies when she sees I’m still looking at the tree.

"What happened to Camille?"

The question comes more carefully.

I spend a few seconds watching the pale leaves move.

"What happens to everyone one day down here."

I let out a breath.

"She’s gone."

Freya doesn’t ask for details and I’m grateful for that.

The silence that follows isn’t uncomfortable. We sit looking at Azure Prime, each lost in a different version of the same world. For Freya, the city down there still holds people she’ll meet, choices she hasn’t made, and a death she now knows exists along some possible path.

For me, several of them are already memories.

After a while, Freya speaks.

"No one knows I like this place."

I don’t answer.

"Dean doesn’t know. My colleagues don’t know. I come here when I get a few free hours, and I’ve never brought anyone with me."

She looks at the tree again.

"And I never told you about it."

This time, when she turns back to me, there’s no resistance on her face.

"I believe you, Dryden."

Hearing it doesn’t bring the relief I imagined when I decided to tell the truth.

Part of me preferred it when she still had doubts.

"Is that why you came here before heading to the trenches?"

Freya folds her hands over her knees.

"If that future exists, I don’t want to sit around waiting for it to happen. You said I go to the trenches, get strong, and die there. So I thought maybe the problem was to keep making the choices that lead me to that point."

She runs a hand through her hair, pushing a few strands back.

"If I start earlier, without Dean deciding my steps, maybe I’ll find something else. Maybe I can build a life that doesn’t end that way."

I understand.

That’s the problem.

"You should try to change the future."

Freya seems surprised.

"But not like this."

"Why?"

"Because going early to the place where you died doesn’t remove the reason that killed you."

She turns more toward me.

"You said it yourself, things are changing. You are creating situations that didn’t exist. You just fought a monster you never met in the future. How do you know going now would be worse?"

"I don’t."

The answer makes Freya frown.

"Then why did you come to stop me?"

"Because I don’t know what happens if you choose a different road, but I know the obstacle that’s still standing in the way."

She waits.

"The cause of your death already exists."

The wind crosses the summit.

Freya speaks lower.

"Which one?"

"The Deepwarden."

The name changes her expression.

Even now, no one needs to explain what that guild represents. Standing at the top of Thirstfall already puts its name in nearly any conversation about power.

What Freya doesn’t know is the size it will still reach.

"The Deepwarden that exists today is small next to what it becomes," I go on. "A few years from now, it won’t just be the number one guild. They’ll control contracts, routes, companies, political decisions. They’ll place people inside other guilds, buy families, pressure governments, and push their influence into Earth’s economy. You’ll manage to go a whole day without seeing their symbol and still pay for something they control."

Freya looks at Azure Prime.

"And they killed me."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because your name grew until it started to bother them, and you never agreed to lower your head."

Her mouth goes rigid.

I continue before she can turn it into pride.

"You became a symbol. One of the people who showed you could still rise without asking the Deepwarden for permission. Keeping you alive started to cost them more than removing the problem."

"So they sent someone."

"A Rogue."

Freya takes her time answering.

The news is already different from just knowing she would die. Now there’s intent. An organization. Someone decided her presence needed to end.

She looks at the bags beside the tree.

"If I go to the Front now, they might notice my tie to Dean before I even build my own name. Right?"

"They might."

The conclusion keeps forming on her face.

"Because Dean doesn’t bow to them either..."

"Exactly. Dean is a pain in the ass, a control freak, and he probably thinks the whole universe should ask his permission before changing direction, but at least he has principles. The Deepwarden never managed to put him on a leash."

Freya lets out a short laugh and lowers her face.

"You’re trying to convince me to go back to him while insulting him."

"I’m not trying to convince you to go back to Dean. I’m trying to convince you not to walk into the trenches alone, years before you understand who’ll be watching your every step."

She goes quiet.

"Changing the future doesn’t mean choosing any road just because it’s different," I go on. "If you don’t understand what you’re trying to avoid, you can change twenty decisions and still walk into the same problem from another side. The Deepwarden is the factor we need to remove. If you want to change your story, that’s what we work on."

Freya spends a few seconds looking at her own boots.

"’We.’"

"I’m already working on it."

She lifts her eyes.

"Since when?"

"For a while now."

"And you were planning to tell me when?"

"When knowing wouldn’t make you pack your bags and run for the trenches."

She lets out a breath and shakes her head.

This time, the irritation doesn’t last.

Freya goes back to watching the tree where, in another timeline, Camille will bury the fragment that remains of her.

"Thank you."

The word comes out calm.

There’s none of the discomfort from the plaza. She knows exactly what she’s thanking me for now.

I hold out my hand.

Freya looks at it, then at me, and takes it without hesitating.

I stand and pull her up with me. The bags stay beside the tree, waiting on a trip that no longer needs to happen tonight.

"Let’s head back," I say. "And stop doing this kind of thing alone. I already had it handled."

She keeps my hand a moment before letting go.

"Handled how?"

I grab one of the bags before she can stop me.

"The part where you stop needing Dean’s permission to choose what to do with your own life."

Freya goes still.

"What did you do?"

I start down the trail back.

She takes the other bag and comes after me.

"Dryden, what did you do?"

I look at her as we descend among the pale flowers of the peak.

"You’ll find out soon. I still need to convince a very irritating man to accept the terms."

Freya doesn’t try to force the answer out. She just walks beside me, casting one last look at the tree before the trail drops and the summit begins to disappear behind us.

Azure Prime stays small in the valley, waiting for our return.

This time, Freya is heading down to it because she chose to come back.

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