Prominence Revolt

Haze is a memory, except she isn't. Haze is the same face, except...she isn't.

Let's start there, shall we? With tautology. With ontology. With what's true is true and what isn't true you'll have to wait for someone else to tell you, unless you want to make up another lie yourself. And what was the first? That you've even got a you to think with in the first place. It's all in your head, right?

Pyra met Haze - the real Haze - four hundred ninety-six years ago. Standing on grass, bowing heads and leaning staves. Back then, Haze was the alive one. Haze was the real one. Haze was the one who belonged, and Pyra wasn't.

She's never met this "Fan la Norne" and more than that she's never even heard of her, because she hasn't really had the chance. And she's not complaining! It's just...

Considering the fact that all she is is bravery (all a brave face is is a false face, after all), liquid sloshed into a girl-shaped container and called good enough (better, even, aren't you, aren't you supposed to be, don't you wanna be, better than her, better than them, better than me), she feels a tremendous burden of compassion, and the shape of the pitcher that holds it is a loose fist held over something like a heart that isn't there (heartless, monster, how can you pretend all you are and all you do).

The original Blade. Its original owner.

And finders are keepers, if you're that determined to find your own truth.

Pyra is. Pyra finds solace in the small, evil thought that Haze is her old friend, but also isn't anymore. Is more her new acquaintance. Is more her foreign, febrile love.

Haze is not more than she used to be. It is impossible. Fan la Norne is less than the old sum of parts, because Lora was replaced with Amalthus, which even polite Pyra has to admit is a hell of a downgrade.

Addam was replaced with Rex, wasn't he?

And what does that say?

...how it is that you happen to be here...

But who cares about how? Isn't it so much more important to know why, and what of it?

Mythra might want to speak to Haze, thinking it's useless because she won't understand, but Pyra finds herself wanting to speak to Fan; she thinks, maybe, it'll be useful (not useful, but worthwhile, not umbraging but wonderful) because she won't understand.

Because, because, because, because...

This is worse. Pyra knows that. She's transfixed on a fungible relic, a walking half-Core, whose ambitions are worse than backwards because they don't exist.

Pyra doesn't exactly want anything of her own either, because it's not like she ever actively, directly disagrees with the modus operandi of the body and the soul.

Not normal resonance. Not a normal Blade!!!

She couldn't have turned faster, when she came to the front. The entire impetus of her gentle rage (her sweet, full-feeling anger, because she's Pyra the bright and the bold, and that means that she's a sundered sister) swung her head about.

"Fan..." she calls out, willing away any first-jerk discussion with the envoy about her sudden change of...appearance (identity?).

Both hands go to her chest. Neither is occupied holding a sword.

Fan stands, and sways, and stills, and stays. She gives the distinct impression (and so, so little about her is anything anyone could actually call distinct) of a person plucked out of time, frozen forever, yet Pyra knows that the time she has to share with the other Blade is limited.

In some way or another, whether you feel freed by it or not, sleeping always comes.