As I've Written/Amphoreus' Saga of Heroes.exe/Chapter 9

1-1

▶ ▶ Okhema, a city that warriors look back upon before marching toward the battlefield,
the holy city, the sanctuary of all the citizens.

▶ ▶ Just as the poets of the city have sung:
"The epitome of magnificence, unbounded benevolence."

▶ ▶ And the beauty of the holy city is like Aglaea herself,
dressed in finery, and of noble birth.

▶ ▶ She is the Dressmaster of Okhema,
the one who weaves with golden threads.

1-2

▶ ▶ "But there's one thing she'll never be able to achieve."
A jealous whisper can be heard.
"She will never be able to produce something seamless."

▶ ▶ Golden threads quiver, and a gentle wind rustles by her ear.
She maintains her silence,
but others fan the flames.

▶ ▶ Is that so hard?
Her scissors and rulers are better than any garmentmaker,
sculpting forms as perfect as the gods themselves.

▶ "Lady Aglaea!
Grace our eyes with your most elegant creation!"

1-3

▶ ▶ No.
"Ingratiating words do not sit well with me, nor do duplicitous machinations."

▶ ▶ Her gaze flits across the stoa,
equally regarding every member of the public.

▶ ▶ They used to wonder,
how exactly do her eyes perceive if something is beautiful or not?

▶ ▶ As with the holy city that's perpetually bathed in light.
How do people tell apart cozy mornings...
and frosty nights?

1-4

▶ ▶ For the Weaver, the answer lies in her golden threads.

▶ ▶ Golden threads of the goddess of romance
now serve as her hands and eyes.

▶ ▶ The colors of the world,
intertwined with the undertones of human hearts,
come flooding toward her.

▶ ▶ These golden threads are no less prideful than the master they now belong to.

▶ ▶ "As long as the thread has form,
it is enough to craft seamless finery."
Be it stitched finely and tightly, or cut cleanly with a single stroke.

1-5

▶ ▶ "Hardly a challenge. None of these pose a challenge..."
The rhyme rolls off like seams,
like a soft sigh from lips.

▶ ▶ The one who weaves gold gazes past me,
fixed on something much farther...
The network of threads that entwine all between the heaven and earth.

▶ ▶ The only challenge that she relentlessly dedicates herself to is...

▶ ▶ weaving the fate of Okhema,
into a flawless, seamless outcome.

2-1

▶ ▶ A long line stretched across the square.
Merchants, shopkeepers, and even high society elite...
All lined up together without distinction.

▶ ▶ At the head of the line...
was the path to Aglaea's abode.

▶ ▶ Is the holy city's fashion trendsetter...
going to reveal her newest masterpiece?
Hmm—

▶ "She's about to get rid of her failed pieces."

2-2

▶ ▶ "Now I see why the holy city is free of worries...
Even as the end nears, they're still obsessed with lavish clothing!"

▶ ▶ It is said that a family of priests who worship Mnestia,
go way back with the Weaver.

▶ ▶ But her impeccable gift for weaving isn't meant to serve anyone's pursuit for pleasure.

▶ ▶ What was once a sacred duty...
was misunderstood by the beauty-obsessed,
who mistook fallen shreds for priceless treasures. New to Okhema,
a visitor from elsewhere ends up utterly bewildered at the sight.

2-3

▶ ▶ "Are flawed creations... really still worth the people's adoration?"
The weaver shakes her head.

▶ ▶ She seems to have forgotten something.
It is precisely the flawed hero who walks ahead of the crowd,

who casts a long shadow over the world, and
who strides toward everlasting daylight.

▶ ▶ There are, nevertheless, people whom the Weaver is willing to sew and tailor for.

▶ ▶ Her conditions are...
"Beauty sharp as a blade, and the pursuit of beauty." New to Okhema,
a visitor from elsewhere ends up utterly bewildered at the sight.

2-4

▶ ▶ Me! I want to be showered with a thunderous ovation! And lots of flowers!
A melodramatic poet speaks out.

▶ ▶ I want to stir her emotions...
The voice of a blushing young boy.

▶ "Do I... fit the bill?"
"My sister and I are refugees from the Abyss. I want to get a pair of shoes for her."

▶ ▶ A seated child speaks up.
Next to him is a barefooted girl,
staying silent with her head kept low.

2-5

▶ ▶ Unfortunately, gold threads are willful things.
They are never swayed by sympathy or pity.

▶ ▶ A tense and worried look surfaces on the young child's countenance.
The specks of dirt on his face...
brought back memories of a past encounter.

▶ ▶ "Go."
The Weaver begins.

"Go to the three children in the city."

▶ ▶ As messengers of Janus,
they will bring him the shoes he hopes for.

3-1

▶ ▶ A solo lyre's sound flows along the streets.
"O, my lover,
Why does your mood change faster than the clouds above?"

▶ ▶ The audience's face is covered in sorrow.
"Ahh! How I wish she has clear eyes that are quick to anger and laughter,
And dimples that crease in smiles and frowns."

▶ ▶ For the maiden he longs for,
Has a body of alabaster and fingers carved by scalpels.
In her runs blood of gold, and a heart woven from threads.

▶ ▶ She has neither eyes nor dimples, lacking even a face.
For she is Aglaea's Garmentmaker.
Merely a demigod's serf.

3-2

▶ ▶ The gilded dressmaster, the executive of romance.
How resplendent would her mansion be above the radiant dawning clouds...

▶ ▶ Nervously, the visitor opens the doors,
Like parting curtains at a theater.
The one with golden thread in hand is revealed, standing betwixt figures of stone.

▶ "Lady Aglaea,"
"I am Apollis's retainer, here for an outfit to take to my master."

▶ ▶ He casts sideways glances as he bows,
For the Garmentmaker he adores is flanking her mistress
Silent as a leaf accompanying a flower.

3-3

▶ ▶ Slender hands sculpted of ivory pull up the dress's train,
As if with one breath alone,
The maiden will be revived.

▶ ▶ "The creation of love and beauty indeed..."
As the visitor thinks thus, his thoughts prickle the golden threads in the room.

▶ ▶ "If you wish to embrace such fantasies..."
She declares thus on the other end of the golden thread —
"You must beware of the scissors that can pierce through the chest."

3-4

▶ ▶ In the ancient theater,
There are thousands of plays, millions of shows,
Where even the god of romance was once an actor.

▶ ▶ The weaver below the stage savors the show for inspiration —

▶ ▶ The ostracized poet, finally returned home...
The adoring lovers, separated by misfortune...
The hero betrayed, fires his deadly arrow into the traitor's heart...

▶ ▶ The thread known as romance is knit by all beings.
By all love and hatred, beauty and sin, memories and prophecies.
All that occurs... are clothing indeed.

▶ ▶ Look! The despondent servant buried his love.
The dressmaster plucks it up, and into the Garmentmaker's dress she weaves.

3-5

▶ ▶ The elegant Garmentmakers once had beautiful faces,
Some as knights with swords,
Some as impassive priests,

And put on pantomime after pantomime in the golden thread's light.

▶ ▶ Till the stage shook in the storm,
And the black tide tainted the dancers' skirts.

She wiped clean their visages,
And instilled armaments instead of silk.

▶ ▶ "Use the needle and thread as your sword."
She requests the servants who cannot answer.

▶ ▶ The "Garmentmakers" are elegant still.
They turn bloody and stained slaughter into lithe rondos,
For only then can they still dress in new gowns.
Only then can romance survive into the morrow.

4-1

▶ ▶ In the past when strife swallowed the earth,
And schemes disrupted the hearts of friends,

The maiden who was yet a weaver was wrapped in a cocoon most grand,
Untouched by the storms sweeping through the land.

▶ ▶ She spent her youth in a palace of romance,
Surrounded by treasures,
With even maids beautiful beyond belief.

Often bathing in the praise and admiration
Of wealthy nobles.

▶ ▶ Till warfare set the threads aflame,
And the devoutly praying priest was slaughtered before the altar,
The family adored by all perished before their courtyards,
And the blood of her maidservants dyed her golden mantle red.

▶ ▶ The golden threads covering her eyes snapped,
And the concealed truth finally appeared firsthand —
"Before a strong wind, a weak nobility cannot stand."

4-2

▶ ▶ In the long, endless war,
The Goldweaver family was shattered by the sword,
And the legacy of romance became a tragedy.

▶ ▶ She had a broken mansion
And an empty house.

The nobles who once loved her,
None now willing to help her.
All the romance, talent, peerage, and beauty,
What use are they in a disaster?

▶ ▶ As she closed her eyes in melancholy,
The maidservant pushed a broken loom to her earnestly.

"Miss, would you like to pick up the shuttle again and weave for me?"

The young miss wanted to laugh,
But could only respond with shock —
For the maid's face was now covered in scars,
As she fought to protect her mistress' safety.

▶ "Though I can no longer see,
I still want to don the garments you weave."

▶ ▶ And yet, when she heard this,
The desire to weave overcame her fears.

Therefore, in the broken shadows of a house,
The loom of romance moved once more.

4-3

▶ ▶ The garments were exchanged for copious gold,
Buying back her renown of old.

Yet beside this mistress most noble,
There was always a blind maid in tow,
Dressed in luxuries unfitting.

▶ ▶ As the weaver attended banquets,
The praises of her youth returned.
"That majestic lady must be Mnestia in the flesh."

But harsh words also joined —
"The mistress' beauty is quite reduced by a maidservant so unsightly."

▶ ▶ The maidservant apologized in embarrassment, lowering her head:
"My mistress, I have brought you shame."

Yet her mistress brought her to the middle of the ball,
Having her garbed in the latest dress, as the model.

▶ ▶ She now knew that praises and ridicule were both untrue,
And that romance cared not for beauty of the face.
The golden thread of gods exists only within.

4-4

▶ ▶ She is no longer that helpless girl.
She already carries the god's authority and walks the hero's route,
But she still cannot hold back the calamity of strife.

▶ ▶ The unsightly maidservant blocked the dagger aimed at the mistress' soul,
And blood once again dyed red something she wove.

That was the last time in her life,
The maid's face, she clearly beheld.

▶ ▶ When sewing the death shroud,
She could not control how her fingers shook,
Often pricked by the needle sharp and acute.

Thus that pristine white cloth,
Wept with tears of blood and gloom.

▶ ▶ And when the day of the funeral came,
She saw the commoners' endless graves,

And the nobles dressed in silk,
Frolicking in the groves,

And sadness overwhelmed her, in droves.

4-5

▶ ▶ Is this the destiny unleashed,
For their act of chasing gods' "Coreflames"?

She kneels before the divine statues
And prays to Mnestia of Romance,
To look at these garments soaked in blood from the flames of war.

▶ "Why are those that appear so fair
In fact ugly in truth?"

"Why do faces unsightly
Contain souls cut from noble cloth?"

"Why can the blind see the light?"
"And why do those with eyes only see night?"

▶ ▶ The dying god remains silent.

▶ ▶ "If you no longer have the power to see,
Then with my destiny..."

She grasps the burning Coreflame.

"I'll exchange for eyes that can see everything."

▶ ▶ Warm liquid flows,
From her eyes that now see all.

In that instance,
she is sure that she saw,
The manifestation of "beauty".

5-1

▶ ▶ She can see the most delicate colors,
The most distant contours.

She can see the most secret desires,
And through the most perfect liars...

▶ ▶ "But being able to see everything is the same as seeing nothing."

Countless mirages and cacophony,
Surround her with stimuli plenty,
Casting her into another kind of blindness overwhelming.

▶ ▶ So she soaks herself in the bath,
And lets her golden thread go beyond the Palace.
When the water drops on the thread vibrate and shiver,
She closes her eyes and listens to the echoes silently.

▶ ▶ She hears how a mother's feet were wounded for treading over too many stones,
And is soaking her feet in the hot water bath.
She hears children playing next to the pools,
And someone is saying loudly —
"I heard that the golden goddess also likes to visit the baths."

5-2

▶ ▶ She is used to bathing alone,
At the start of the hours of Lucid or Parting.
Her golden hair spread in the water like a throne,
Like the scattered golden threads, wrapping her again in a cocoon...

▶ ▶ Janus' Holy Maiden silently walks over,
Scooping up water to wash the weaver's hair
As if cleansing the bough of a laurel tree.

▶ ▶ That is when the one who seized the Coreflame finally knows,
There's no difference between a "demigod" and a true deity.
The golden blood that congealed through divinity,
Only in this heavy heat can temporarily flow,
And let this "golden butterfly" feel a fleeting warmth.

▶ ▶ Just as she had once touched her own face —
Falls the final tear her eyes will ever produce.

5-3

▶ ▶ "Teacher, I had a dream."
She recounts, like a young girl on a whim.

▶ ▶ The sound of the water repels all disruptions and speech.
Such peaceful rest, such sweet dreams.

▶ ▶ She dreamed of how she was a naive noble girl, ignorant of the world...
She dreamed of the countless nights when she worked, in the courtyards she weaved...
She dreamed of being before the vine-covered temple where the wind blew by in a violent stream...

▶ ▶ Lastly, she dreamed of the prophecy that she heeded,
How the ancient sound came through the thousand waves,
And could not be heard clearly in her dream.

▶ "Do not stare directly into the future of your people,
For that blinding prophecy will burn you all..."

5-4

▶ ▶ "The Dawn Device is always glittering,
And birds are always chittering..."
The children of Okhema like these kinds of songs.

▶ ▶ Why not trust in the promise of an Era Chrysea unending,
Like how children believe in fairytales passed down unceasing?

▶ ▶ But will the Dawn Device truly shine forever?
Will the voices of songbirds not one day turn hoarse?

▶ ▶ In the golden bath in times gone by, she pierced her eyes.
For she saw the
All-too-dazzling future of everyone.
That future was nothing compared to false promises.

▶ ▶ "That is the price you must pay for listening to my prophecy."

The gods have already determined her destiny and her passing.
She knew. She has long known.

5-5

▶ ▶ The red-haired child appears worried.

"You are aware of everyone's fate,
Yet never speak of your own future."

▶ ▶ The child who passes along the prophecy understands,
That to lay such a heavy weight on one person,

Is comparable to the dawn the Worldbearing Titan shoulders.

▶ ▶ "There's only one future for silken threads —"
"That is, to weave magnificent clothes for others."

She takes the children's hands,
Inviting them into the pools,
Intending to use warm water to wash away their concerns.

▶ ▶ Yes, before the toll of the bell that announces the hour,
Before the meeting to judge the Flame-Chase begins,

Do not waste the rare good dreams,
Or the languid waves warm as tears.

▶ ▶ She mutters
As destiny slumbers in her arms:

"The one that wears this elegant attire in the future must bear the weight of the silk threads."