citizens of hope and glory

---

The garrison is quiet, in that last evening. The evacuation ships and shelters have been prepared; the rations are ready and all there is left to do is pace, but they don't.

Hedwyn, a citizen of Torna for little more than a month, lays his arms tight about Kali and Kelly's shoulders, and wonders if he should return to Torigoth. Why? If there is to be peace, it will be brought about via justice for all of us. The rebuilding will still be there for the commencing, after Torna is safe. After our home is safe.

Vronka and Augustus inspect each other's armor, make sure it's in its most pristine polish, for though they have no further part in fighting against Malos, they shall represent Uraya with honor to the end. Those famous self-inflicted wounds do not come without proper discretion, after all.

Up on the parapet, Kaleena and Noowl, borrowing Yrrith's spyglass, peer up at the Titan's Core. "Gee," says the Gormotti, "I'm sure glad it's not us up there. But Lord Addam'll take care of it." Kaleena gives him a kind but shaky glance, which he returns, ears drooping. Here comes the realization. "Right?"

They put away the spyglass after that, but remain huddled along the wall, cautious hand in cautious hand. Towards the entrance of the manor, two others also lean worriedly, hands clasped.

"Lady Origo, aren't you scared?"

She looks back at him, suddenly seems all too pitifully, anti-endearingly short, and her voice hitches. "No," she says, and her tone is quite peculiar. "I believe in Addam. I know he'll..."

Her left eye twitches shut, just for a moment, the literal blink of an eye. That's a tell, but Vez doesn't know. Vez isn't stupid, not by any stretch (or at least not by most), but that's still something he doesn't know. "It'll all be alright."

Eventually. Maybe. Under her breath.

Even those who aren't fighting the good fight hold their breath in anticipation. Ashigu snaps to, perhaps at, her younger brother, "Why don't you do something about this?" as Zettar sits in the throne room with his head in his white-gloved hands, and for all of her venom she really means, "Please, can't you do something about this?" The tremble in her voice is just as much fearful as it is inflectionary towards asserted dominance.

She and Chaghan have spouses to lean on, it's true, but somehow they're even more impotent than the High Prince, who himself is terrified of the bastard prince and the Quaestor more because of what they haven't failed to do than what they have. Will the Aegises sink Torna? Perhaps. But it is the greater sociopolitical phenomenon that this inglorious heralding represents that has the step-contingent quaking.

The golden country, the land of Lasaria and Dannagh and bounding moors and looming towers, of engineering and handicrafts and the generational matrix and equality's blessed grace...Zettar may be rotten, may even know that he is, but it is still Torna that he loves all the same. No one can ever take that away from him, and no one really even wants to.

Except Malos. Except Amalthus. Power-hungry idiots, both and all. And so if they are, then what are you, Zettar? You only want what's yours. You only want the safety and security of your home. You only want...

"Zettar." Chaghan stands, straightens, makes an awkward half-salute to the king, who waves him down. "Why do you sulk?" He is only twelve years older; they were once children together. Zettar scrubs rueful palms over his cheeks but doesn't sit up.

"Brother...I fear--" What? What is he afraid of, and then again what is he afraid for?

Khanoro smiles, if grimly. "This I know all too well. We all fear. But, it is as our forefathers have always said: peace shall surely prevail. And if it doesn't..." For a brief, grave moment, his fist goes to the hilt of his sword. Then, he closes his eyes, shakes a bowed head.

"You must have faith, my brother. In Addam, in our good Lady Lora, in the Paragon and in the Aegis who shares her strength with us. Noble Hugo, of the Ardainian realm, has deigned to assist our cause as well. He would not do so if it were a losing proposition."

"Losing proposition," snorts Zettar, suddenly emboldened. "Anything you have that caitiff son of yours do is a losing proposition." The very first venture lost him his marriage, after all - purely through fault of his own.

"Blade and Driver are equals," Khanoro states calmly, unflapped by the biting dig. "Addam does not do this alone. He acts with the support of Mythra, and Minoth as well - another of our lost treasures, and you would do well to remember it." For whatever good it serves, when the Core has been corrupted. "Your hope cast against them only defiles the ideals of our Titan."

What can Zettar say, in the face of this? Does he love Torna, or doesn't he? Does he want them to win, or doesn't he?

Charlet built stained glass windows for the shelter in Spefan's basement, and when Gio passed by to comment that they were too pretty, that they'd get smashed the minute a tremor hit, she bit her lip, reached for Tarres's journal, and scanned her finger over the line she'd read so many times there was a visible depression in the already pressure-worn page.

All things in time. If the glass is tempered well, no amount of ornamentation can undermine its strength. In Torna, our infrastructure is grand, but the love that binds us all together is grander. Have patience above all.

Together with Aquin, Gedd, Wayton, Lyta and Kaeda too, along with countless other familiar faces from the marketplace streets, her intricate windows were implemented, and they could have hidden immediately, but they didn't. The children were still out playing, Freja and her friends reveling in her newly recovered strength and Marena and the other residents watching fondly on. Joey and Teeco were still tending the Armus, even after the great cows had gone to sleep.

Komemi and his brother Muskerpon, Shanelle and Palva and all associates, Leo and Azzarn the bravest bards around, Martha and Mireille together with old Teo in Hyber, Jerry and Morumo and Piper and everyone else from Arb to Yrissa (make that Zettar, then, for completeness, too!)...they all had met our heroes, and of course, truly, the heroes always win in the end.

Don't they?

Call it pride, call it foolishness, call it folly, but they had belief, they had faith, they had hope, and they had glory. To the very end.