Chapter Text
“...You made it.”
Elster wasn’t surprised to see Isa in her family’s old bookstore. She looked even worse for wear than before, with the majority of her face, including one eye, bandaged up, but, she smiled when she saw her, and stepped to the side, revealing an almost identical-looking brunette Gestalt sitting on a chair behind her.
“You found her,” Elster said. She slowly rested her rifle on one of the bookshelves and walked toward the two siblings. Isa still smiled, but now, she also cried happily.
“This is my twin sister, Erika.”
Erika stood up. She was just as beat up and bandaged as her sister, and she didn’t smile like her, but she still greeted Elster with a short bow.
“What are your plans?” she asked.
Elster was taken aback. “What do you mean?” she responded.
Erika clasped her hands together in front of her chest. “Are you… going to save her?”
Eyes widened. She understood.
Her visions of the school, the train. Her friends she spoke of.
“I’ll try, but…” Elster paused. She looked away, unable to meet their eyes. “I may only be able to fix the damage I’ve already caused.”
She still couldn’t look. Eventually, one put a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m glad she has you.” It was Erika.
Elster slowly turned her head back toward the siblings, but kept her gaze low, toward the ground.
“If it helps, in a way, this is also my fault,” Erika claimed.
Elster slowly looked up as she blinked. Now Erika was the one who couldn’t meet her gaze.
“We were both fated to be assigned to Sierpinski,” she started to explain. Isa stepped forward to be at her sister’s side, hugging her from the side. “But, someone discovered… a poem I’d written for her… he decided to approve her application to the Penrose program, and I arrived at Sierpinski in chains, rather than my uniform.”
Elster slowly exhaled and nodded. The hand on her shoulder tightened.
“He taunted me about it as the gendarmes arrested me. Said it was what people like me deserved. To know the woman I loved was doomed to die slowly in space… but… at least she had you.”
Elster gave a quick nod to Isa, who let go of her sister and stepped back. She then hugged Erika, letting the girl cry quietly into her chest.
“I’ll save her, I promise.”
“...Thank you.”
She faded from her grasp.
No pain, or regret, or torment.
She’d given her peace.
Elster looked at Isa, who handed her a tarot card: Death.
“It can also mean new beginnings,” she told her. “Death doesn’t have to be an end.”
Elster nodded. She was about to turn and leave, but Isa stopped her one last time.
“Oh, and, were you looking for this?”
She looked and saw an iron key in her hand with a hexagon enclosed in a ring at the end.
Elster nodded and took it from her. “Thank you,” she said.
Isa left as well.
She found her peace.
Elster stopped and took one last look around the bookstore. She walked behind the main counter and saw a small shrine containing pictures of the two sisters, along with a few sticks of incense.
She lit the ends and took a moment to take in all the feelings.
Maybe she could find peace too.
…..
They’re at a busy, bustling cafe by the water on a bright, sunny, Vinetan summer day.
Ariane told a great joke; she and Isa laughed.
She held Ariane’s hand just under the table. She rubbed her thumb over her knuckles.
Elster returned with a tray of drinks. “Sorry, there was a bit of a line up,” she apologized.
Everyone got their drinks as she took up the final seat at the table.
Ariane reached for her hand as well. Elster took it, feeling the cool, metal ring on her hand.
Isa smiled. “I’m glad we could all get together like this,” she said.
Ariane cried a single tear of joy. “It’s all I could have ever wanted.”
Erika looked across the table at Elster and smiled at her.
Elster briefly looked up and saw a quartet of birds outlined by the sun as they flew by.
She smiled.
Perhaps, this was peace.