As I've Written/Amphoreus' Saga of Heroes.exe/Chapter 6

1-1

▶ ▶ On the leaves, the rustling wind plays a melody
As the girl looks over this courtyard petite
And exhales, gently dispersing the palm-held blessings —

The entire yard is lit softly,
Like a dandelion bathed in sunlight.

▶ "Is this courtyard a tad too small?"
"It's okay, Clementine.
As long as it provides warmth plenty."

▶ ▶ The girl makes the courtyard tidy,
And in the evernight lands outside the holy city,
There is now a light curing souls' maladies.

1-2

▶ ▶ The girl's skills can bring forth miracles.
But today she welcomes a patient quite special.

▶ ▶ "Welcome to the Twilight Courtyard.
How can I help you?"

The gravely patient shakes their head.
"The end times are coming... and we all wander more and more."
"You may heal our wounds, but you cannot cure despair."

▶ ▶ The girl watches the patient leave,
And her heart swells in sorrow.

"Clementine, prepare some things with me..."
"I want this place... To be brighter tomorrow."

1-3

▶ ▶ The red-head child takes the girl's hands.
"Long time no see, Hyacine!"
"Are you here in Okhema for a visit, or do you need help from us?"

The girl recounts her needs.
"I want some shining things,
Even if they are considered junk."

▶ ▶ Multicolored paper bags… Crystal-clear glass…
Cottons variously dyed… And jingling wind chimes…

The girl brings them back to the courtyard,
And spares no effort to decorate all around.

▶ ▶ And when some fireflies wander in,
The girl is all smiles.
"Little ones, thank you for your light."

1-4

▶ ▶ The patient returns here and opens their eyes wide —

▶ ▶ Multicolored dreams on the rooftop now reside,
And the lawns contain the sweet whispers of sunlight.

A soft breeze passes, with no hint of cold,
Only serving to wake the playful chimes and ocarinas of delight.

▶ "There's light everywhere... What a warm place."

▶ ▶ The news is soon spread by the Grove,
And people with empty hearts visit in droves.
The girl prepares candies and tea,
And listens to every visitor's complaints.

▶ ▶ People say there was once a star called the Sun in the sky,
But now that star is no longer there.

People say that Aquila took away the world's light,
But they still left behind a heart bright,
To illuminate this happy dream in the night.

1-5

▶ ▶ Like the blizzards in the Month of Mourning doth calamity fall,
Burying warmth and dawn's calls.

Orderless tides swallow up the Grove of reason,
And that tiny healing haven,
Is also extinguished, broken and barren.

▶ ▶ When the girl, far from home, hears of such grave news,
The wind brings to her a moment of confusion,
But it also evaporates the tears that briefly sparkle into being,
And the girl still smiles bright and happy.

▶ ▶ Soon, the people of Okhema see once again,
The girl collecting more pieces and tokens,
Wanting to rebuild that pure haven.

▶ ▶ But she never realized —
That wherever she stood,
She herself was that holy courtyard, that light-filled haven.

2-1

▶ ▶ This world may contain thousands of ills,
But the number of sufferers is countless like ocean-going sails.

▶ ▶ The father and daughter who inherited the sky,
Wander this land's paths,
And throughout the cities, they heal the unwell.

▶ ▶ "Heirs of the Sky who once reveled in martial might,"
"Why do you now soothe the world's blistering blight?"
The doctor responds with a smile,
As he cures the injury's agony.

▶ "Father, why did our ancestors revel in war-like might?"
"Because they only have a sorrowful past of lamenting wails."

"Then why are we here, soothing the blight?"
"Because we have a future that needs protection still."

2-2

▶ ▶ The priest who parts dusk from dawn,
Collapsed the sky and sealed her wings,
And dwells in a place where time itself mends,
Bearing the promise to return to the zenith supreme...

▶ "— This is the Twilight Courtyard's story."

▶ ▶ And the father tells his daughter the tale of their line,
Next to the bonfire lit in the wilderness where winds pine.

▶ ▶ Thought he had told this story many times before,
A light in the girl's eyes still shines.

▶ "Maybe I will return to the sky one day!"

"Or maybe that is not to be your fate."

2-3

▶ ▶ The blessings of the Sky
Were passed down through generations of their heirs.

▶ ▶ The brawn of the Titan who molded stars,
Granted a boon fitting and fair.

▶ ▶ Perhaps the girl with heroic blood in her veins,
Will be accompanied by thunderbolts and the sun's merciless glare?

▶ ▶ Childishly, she recited the words —
"O Sky, heed my wishes..."

▶ ▶ And thunder and heat did not descend.
She only saw a sliver of gentle warm flare,
Wiping away mortal exhaustion and others' tired airs.

2-4

▶ ▶ What a gentle blessing!
All said that she must be a savior saint,
Bringing light to the land, even if faint.

▶ ▶ But where the girl's eyes often gazed,
Was the wine-dark sky, gloomy and bleak.

▶ "The god is also sick."

▶ ▶ That grand longing to save the world,
May be no more than the girl's feeble dream.

▶ ▶ But her father treated it as his greatest treasure,
And taught her all the ways of potions and creams.

▶ ▶ That girl therefore always accompanied,
The gentle master of healing and repair.

▶ ▶ And she brought glowing faint light to the night,
Dispelling pains, and mending the world's pitchy blight.

2-5

▶ ▶ Father and daughter often rested,
In the silent courtyard under the giant tree.
Yet today at that place,
Only one solitary figure can be seen.

▶ ▶ On that night, the healer spoke to a visitor throughout the night.
On that morning, he bid farewell to his daughter for the first time.

▶ ▶ He will heal the ill at a faraway place,
Where the end of days approaches,
And no family of his should follow.

▶ "You have learned the craft of healing and understood the blessing,"
"But a light more radiant still is needed to heal the entire world."

▶ ▶ The departed healer never returned,
And the girl never left.
And that rather lonely courtyard,
Stayed silent, as it was before.

3-1

▶ ▶ "A good student who often did stupid things."
Was the assessment from the Lotophagist Sage.

▶ ▶ "An excellent healer who fails at all scholarly means."
Was the assessment from the Nodist Sage.

▶ ▶ "A shining child who also burns away her own life's rays."
Was the assessment from the Erythrokeramist Sage.

▶ ▶ "A fool who was always wreathed in smiles..."
"While drowning in a weighty and pitiful dream."
Was the assessment from the Nousporist Sage.

3-2

▶ ▶ The girl had visited all the schools,
During her time studying at the Grove.

▶ ▶ She refused to become a scholar,
Despite her exemplary grades.

▶ "Instead of increasing this world's knowledge,"
"I prefer to reduce its pain."

▶ ▶ While the sages faced her words in silence,
The Nousporist Sage alone,
Decided to hire her as assistant post-haste.

▶ "An apprentice who spends wisdom,"
"Is more precious than scholars who hide knowledge away."

3-3

▶ ▶ The faded Twilight Courtyard, long eroded by time,
Now shelters a girl, the sole heir of her lineage.

▶ ▶ Loneliness accompanied her days,
Till the Sage of the Caprists visited her,
And brought her a chromatic pony with a grin.

▶ "It may be the Eye of Twilight's creation in times gone by..."
"For it shines with the Sky's rainbow hues within."

▶ ▶ Could it be the war-like winged beast of her father's tales?
But the sleepy and dreary-eyed pony before her,
Was soft as freshest-plucked cotton.

▶ ▶ The girl still took this gift,
For from the little creature,
She smelled the scent of clouds distant.

3-4

▶ "If it weren't for her, I would have suffered more accusations."

▶ ▶ The Nousporism Sage says in admission.

▶ ▶ The scholars coming to deliver arguments and reproach, often stopped before the door, not coming to fruition.

▶ ▶ For the girl before the door soothed their blazing anger,
Like the soft clouds, gentleness in cumulation.

▶ "Do you know what sacrileges he has committed!?"

▶ ▶ The girl muddles her answers,
Yet her heart knows in full admission —

▶ "Like you and me, he too wishes to heal all of this world's afflictions."

3-5

▶ ▶ The girl treated ailments for many years in the Grove,
Composing her medical treatises into tomes.

▶ ▶ When scholars seek medical help,
She realizes with a startle,
That kindness too can grow into its own bloom.

▶ ▶ By that time, the twilight already lost their eyes,
And the world drowns in evernight,
While the girl and the healer again traverse the world in gloom.

▶ ▶ Seeing the golden thread and ivy in the night,
Though it has been long since she recalled her past,
She once again thinks of her childhood dream:

▶ "Should the sun be dimmed by destiny's decree..."
"Then the dawn that heals the world... I shall replace."

4-1

▶ ▶ On that day,
The dawn promised by the sky father shattered in haste,
As the black tide surged, breaking through the walls with relentless grace.

▶ ▶ In a quaint yet exquisite courtyard,
Two bitter foes meet at journey's end, their fates entwined in fate's regard.

▶ ▶ With no escape, no road behind,
They trade a weary smile in kind,
Together they gaze at the heavens afire —

▶ "If I can ever see the faint light again and stay alive..."
"Then, outlander nemesis, you I will forgive."

4-2

▶ ▶ Not long ago,
As the romantic demigod closed her eyes,
The girl bottled her tears in sorrow,
And once more opened the dim-lit garden wide.

▶ ▶ Two figures step into the courtyard's gate —

A general of Kremnos, her body torn, by vengeance bound, by fury swayed.
A noble of the holy city, once wrapped in gold, now haunted by a fate betrayed.

▶ ▶ A simple injury, or so the girl believed,
Yet the two women met with scorn, their words like blades.

▶ ▶ Because —
Their children fled, in love's embrace,
While bloodied pasts left scars in place.

4-3

▶ ▶ A feud unbroken by countless years,
A chasm carved by blood and spears —
This was a sickness beyond the girl's touch.

▶ "Just do your duty as a healer, girl."
"The family feuds are like sunlight and storm clouds. They cannot mend."

▶ ▶ At last, the girl saw it clear —
The courtyard's birth, in days of yore,
Was born to mend the rift of dusk and dawn.

▶ "Then, I will make every effort...
To have you cast aside your difference in this faint light."

4-4

▶ ▶ Before long,
the general's wounds were healed,
And the noble's worries gently repealed.

▶ ▶ Yet when their gazes met once more,
The loathing within remained unswayed.

▶ ▶ The girl then spoke the tale of her Sky kin,

Of a grandmother's sacrifice,
A father's flight from within,
Of ancestors who descended,
Leaving their feud behind.

▶ ▶ Their hands in hers,
She held them tight,

Yet flames of hatred burned too bright.
She did not waver or despair,
She just smiled and gazed upon the sky.

▶ "I will use my own fate to prove to you —"

4-5

▶ ▶ The courtyard, once bright, lay steeped in night,
Hanging blossoms and wind chimes all swallowed by the black tide.

▶ ▶ The general raised her spear for the noble's sake,
While the noble whispered prayers for the general, gentle as a lake.

▶ "If I can ever see the faint light again and stay alive..."
"Then, outlander nemesis, you I will forgive."

▶ ▶ The death they awaited never came.
Instead, a cascade of colors fell from the heavens,
Simply there, protecting them both.

▶ ▶ The sky still burned, dark and low,
Yet her words lingered,
A gentle ember refusing to fade.
"I will use my own fate to prove to you —"

▶ "Day and night can be mended,
And so can hatred be undone."

5-1

▶ ▶ Sky Castrum,
Its ruins, like a blind and weary eye,
Gazes upon the earth in its dying sight.

▶ ▶ Alone, the girl remained upon the battlefield.
No time to shy from the searing gold,
No will to wear her usual smile.

▶ ▶ She fought her way to destiny's edge.
Of the crumbled mural, but one piece endured —
A corner portraying the Daythunder Knight, dazzling in blaze.

▶ ▶ She placed her hand upon the mural,
Pain seared through skin and bone,
As the picture claimed her within its lines.

5-2

▶ "Nothing is mightier than the sky!
It holds countless wonders within its clouds,
And each opening and closing of the eyes brings dawn and dusk."

▶ ▶ In that painted world,
The "girl" Seliose's eyes glowed,
Watching her father, steel-clad and unyielding,
Cross the land beneath the searing sun.

▶ ▶ But the girl known as Hyacine recalled her father's fragile light in the dark,
The journeys into lands unknown,
Marked by endless sunlit days and restless winds.

▶ "The sky is the gentlest of all...
It watches over all things with compassion,
Showering them with soft rain and morning light."

5-3

▶ "And yet, the sky remains so cold!
It witnesses believers tear each other apart,
And still, it cowardly flees from all responsibility."

▶ ▶ Within the frame of that image,
The one called Seliose bore fury in her gaze,
Her golden blood trailing as she turned from home,
Sharpening arrowheads beneath the wide and barren sky.

▶ ▶ Hyacine remembered her grandmother's song.
She recalled her prayer to Aquila before her grandmother's journey,
And how bitterness followed her to an unknown land.

▶ "But the sky is so lonely too...
Forever distant from the world beneath,
It watches every sorrow, unable to intervene."

5-4

▶ "No. The sky must be merciless
It must scorch the wicked, temper the fragile,
And pass divine judgment upon all human wickedness."

▶ ▶ Within the mural,
The "girl" named Seliose became the divine eye,
Gazing down without mercy,
A titan passing judgment upon her own kind.

▶ ▶ But in memories deep, Hyacine heard their call,
The golden threads that shielded all,
The burning sun, vast and unyielding,
Carrying the weight of all the world had known.

▶ "No. The sky must not forsake kindness.
Through its boundless embrace,
It carries the Coreflame of hope for humanity."

5-5

▶ ▶ "The sky... it's so dark, so cold."

In the depths of memory,
The "girl" named Seliose pulls her knees to her chest and trembles.

▶ ▶ "Then please, come sit in my courtyard!"

A gentle ray of light seeped through,
The celestial mural now fused anew,
Once more, the land knows favor and boons.

▶ ▶ The girl who has now become the Sky,
Takes the hand of the "girl" who once was.

▶ "I want to tell you the secret of the Sky's greatness —

Whenever the anguished earth looks to it,
it always offers a smile in return!"