It has been a long time since the fear of loss had gripped her heart in its iron clutch. It had been an old friend, the bindings by which she had held the shattered pieces of her heart together, just enough to get through the day, to place one foot in front of the other.

But it was misery, a life barely worth living.

It took time and yet, even as she smothered the feelings that would rise every so often, her heart began to mend, its bindings coming undone. Unwillingly, resentfully, the sinew connected, the nerves reattached. Each part of herself banished into the dark returned, over and over, until the wounds scarred over, their edges wore down.

The world shone brighter, despite the shadows.

She walked upon foreign lands, traversed the cosmos, found a man just like her, from another time— a monster born from grief, one who refused to let his heart mend, were it to become anything less than before. Unwilling to accept change, he cloaked himself in the fiction, dove deep into the ocean’s abyss, all to escape the light.

Could that have been her, forever chasing the memory of an unbroken shield?

Perhaps they could have been the same, once.

But the man chose a final absolution, while Eithne continued on in repentance— For those who still live, those she might yet save. The light found them both, willing or not.

Then, finally, clemency, wrapped in blood-stained auracite— a promise.

An adventure, together.

Tomorrow is never promised, she thinks, but the Exarch stares onward, proud and smiling.

She chooses to believe, regardless of it, one more time.

And after they cross the seas, soar to the heavens and beyond, the unbroken promise continues, days full of struggle and sadness ─ and joy, too ─ continuing onwards and onwards. On his lips a vow, its covenant forged in their clenched fists, their unwavering smiles. That this won’t be the end, and finally, finally, the belief stakes its claim in her heart. After all the loss, and grief, when the light has faded and surrounding them is naught but the abyss, she believes once more; that the flame yet flickers, that it will continue to burn, tomorrow and tomorrow.

Isn’t that what Venat had wanted for her, after all was said and done? Hope in tomorrow, to live a life all-encompassing, its tapestry rich with the full spectrum of mankind’s possibilities.

To cry, to laugh, to mourn, to love.

“Has your journey been good?” Venat asks her.

“So this is your answer...” Fray responds.

The villain is slain, the hero victorious— and then what?

The hero, bruised and bleeding, smiling— and then what?

At the end of it all kneels G’raha Tia, ruby red eyes glistening with tears, and Eithne can only think of how beautiful he is— how beautiful life was, with him in it. “You... How can you keep your promise, if you’re not here?”

She holds G’raha Tia close, tells him of all that had laid deep and dormant within her heart, tries to fit together the pieces of the woman she has become with the man he’d come to be, different than before, but Eithne Cuinn and G’raha Tia all the same. He cradles each part, kisses the scars, mends that which she cannot do alone, and held fast within intertwined fingers is yet another promise— an earnest vow, for love everlasting.

Perhaps tomorrow would never come, but this ─the love, and light, and hope─would continue, beyond the two of them, when their bones laid to rest and their names faded into memory. His hands caress her face, finding the softness between each cut and bruise, and Eithne knows that to be here, together, is enough. Devotion, true devotion, went beyond loss, beyond death — it changed the world around them, wove their memory into the warp of existence. That kind knight would forever smile, even when reality burns in the eventual heat death, just as G’raha Tia’s gentle touch would linger all the same.

This moment was all they needed.

Love had always been enough.