un: any fin is possible (audio & text)

[lancifolium]

While I doubt any of us expected it to be an especially happy one, I believe I’ve learned a piece of the ending to the story of our ghostly escort and the lady he gathered an army to rescue. Drawing from my notes in part and for those of you who might be making your own, I'll switch to writing this out.

[ Nevermind the prying ears, and how fed up she is with getting the third degree from the ghosts. ]

My friend the soldier has found peace - entirely due to the help of Wei Wuxian, but before going off to rest, he spoke to us about what happened when the army reached Taravast. Given the circumstances, I don’t have his recollection written down word-for-word, but this is what I wrote down as soon as I was able to:

Arha’s army was bound for Taravast to take the lady Hatisse from her Attaryl sisters during a time of conflict with the Bessis. The lady Hatisse told Lord Arha that she would open the gates so that his forces could slip into Taravast. They arrived to find the gates shut, and both sects of witches on the wall, raining down fire, tar, and arrows.

He mentioned seeing the lady Hatisse on the wall, and the last thing he had to say on the matter stuck out to me - he said he saw her and met her eye, “it’s long hurt, burning, but she watched me through it.” This stuck out to me. It almost sounds as though her eye were an object, or that she only had one eye.

I know at least one of you that I've spoken with encountered pictures of an eye when you were pulled into the caverns beyond the walls, and I can't help but wonder if it's related, and what it could mean. If her eye is an object, and it’s still in Taravast, it would be wise to know before we arrive, particularly if it’s something dangerous (my friend did say her eye burned) and still in someone’s possession.

Comments

[bearshermark]

Time is a strange thing.

[downswing]

An ability of frustration.

[bearshermark]

Yes. And we don't know too much about hers- whether or not her visions were divinely imparted or Seen through a magical eye. It might be that she never had a vision of this specific event.

[downswing]

She did not know the mind of her own betrayal?

[bearshermark]

We don't know that for sure, do we?

[downswing]

None are truly tricked into betrayal. She chose.

[bearshermark]

[It shouldn't bother him. The events happened decades if not centuries ago and he holds no personal affection for Arha nor connection to this past oracle. But even so, it sits ill with him]

Perhaps she was the one betrayed.

[downswing]

By her intended saviours?

[bearshermark]

By whomever closed the gates.

[downswing]

Would you watch on, your beloved slaughtered?

[bearshermark]

You speak as though you were there.

[downswing]

Would you watch on?

[bearshermark]

Of course not, but there's only so much one person can do to stop something like that.

[downswing]

Stand by them.

[bearshermark]

It's a bit harsh to judge someone whose actions we know little of.

[downswing]

Is it.

[bearshermark]

Yes.

[downswing]

Noted.