Chapter Text
Chapter 1: An Unforeseen Complication
There was an old saying, that time heals all wounds.
It was something his mother had told him, once upon a time, back when he was young and the world was kinder, when he and Gemma would tear through the village like little tornados, wild and free and unconcerned about consequences, only to end up with scraped knees and bruised shins as they made their way back home. Cobblestone didn’t have any mages or healers; wounds were treated with herbs and medicine and bandages, all of the things that took a while to work—that took time—and so a few weeks after the day he had turned nine, when he fell out of a tree and broke his arm, his mother had told him that it would take a while before he could move it again.
She had told him that he needed to have patience, needed to be careful, but that someday it would heal.
Because all things healed with time.
She had uttered those words once again after his grandad’s funeral, with tears in her eyes and a hitch in her voice, and he had clung to them just as desperately as he had to her. While saying goodbye to the people he loved would never get easier, she had promised that the pain would lessen, that eventually every parting would become bearable.
Because again, all things healed with time.
They were words that he had kept with him, that he had whispered to himself more than once after turning sixteen and leaving his village—his entire world—behind. They had become a mantra, something to cling to, a phrase that had begun to mean something more than what his mother had intended the farther along he went: that in time, everything would be alright.
That eventually, all things would heal with time.
And as most children often do, he had believed the words his mother had told him.
However...
Standing in his room aboard the Salty Stallion, door closed—and for perhaps the first time firmly locked—Eleven pulled his shirt over his head and turned to look in the full-length mirror propped against the wall.
He had already known what he would see, but knowing didn’t make it any easier to accept. Knowing didn’t make the reality hurt any less.
Time heals all wounds. Those were the words his mother had told him.
He was finding it very hard to believe them now.
Right there, in the very center of his chest, was a scar—a horrible, disfigured circle of wrinkled flesh, a few shades darker than the rest of his skin. The outer rim of it was puckered and raised while the rest looked sunken in, like a large indent over his heart.
It wasn’t an unfamiliar sight. It was simply something that he had been hoping he would never have to see again for the rest of his life.
When he turned around in front of the mirror and glanced over his shoulder to get a look at his back, there was another scar sitting right between his shoulder blades, smaller than the first but no less discolored, no less ugly—a small explosion against otherwise unmarred skin.
Two wrongs that he had righted.
Two things that, for all intents and purposes, should not have been there.
He placed a hand against the wound on his chest as his heart began to sink.
He had saved Yggdrasil.
He had saved Veronica.
He had stopped both Jasper and Mordegon from ruining everything, from destroying the World Tree, from ending countless lives. He had changed things, and once they all made it back to Heliodor under the guise of “celebrating” his triumph over a servant of evil and retrieving the Sword of Light, he would find a way to stop the Lord of Shadows once and for all. He would force him to leave Carnelian’s body, one way or another, and then with his own hands—with the blade he had lost the first time around—he would put an end to him, to everything.
He wouldn’t let Mordegon win this time, wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
However...
Eleven’s hands curled into fists as a bitter feeling settled in the pit of his stomach.
Going back in time was supposed to fix everything.
It should have fixed everything, and yet...
He heaved a defeated sigh as he looked at his reflection, at the boy staring back at him with tired eyes and hunched shoulders and a story written in wounds across his flesh.
It seemed that no matter how hard he tried, he would never fully escape from his mistakes.
He had carried all of his scars back with him.
Time had erased his failure, but an echo of it still remained, burned into his skin as a constant reminder. He wasn’t some infallible hero of legend. He wasn’t the savior that everyone had hoped for, the Luminary that they all deserved—a light sent to stop the darkness, to protect the people, to save the world.
No.
Instead he was just Eleven, a boy who had already failed once, who allowed Yggdrasil to fall and the darkness to roam free and was now doing everything he could to try and make up for that mistake.
He didn’t necessarily have a plan, per se, but he had goals, a list of things he needed to accomplish, of wrongs to make right, and this—two wounds that shouldn’t be there, that he wasn’t supposed to have, that should’ve been erased because the events that led to them didn’t happen—complicated things.
He had no way to explain either of his scars. He hadn’t had them prior to Arboria, and because all of his friends knew that, he couldn’t try to explain them away as old injuries. To even further complicate matters, they would also be able to tell exactly what kind of wounds they were if they got a close enough look, because the shape, the color, and the general type of scarring were very specific. Maybe not all of them would realize it right away, but one among them definitely would, which was a problem.
After all, every time they stayed at an inn or set up camp, he and Erik shared a room or a tent, and the thief was more perceptive than most. There was no way he wouldn’t notice, that he wouldn’t immediately realize what they were.
Dark magic often left scars if the wounds weren’t treated in time. That was something they had learned pretty early on in their travels.
Running into Jasper in Gondolia was a moment that would probably stay with him for the rest of his life, due in no small part to the events that had transpired not long after. It was the first time he had ever encountered dark magic, the first time he had seen exactly what kind of damage it could wrought.
Erik had a starburst shaped scar on his chest, directly over his heart. The discoloration had lessened significantly after repeated healing sessions, but it was something that he would carry with him always. The thief claimed not to be bothered by that though. He didn’t care what the wound looked like so long as it didn’t hurt or hinder him (and sometimes, he even seemed a bit proud of it).
When Rab had first noticed the scar not long after joining their party, he had explained to all of them the mechanics behind dark magic, how unlike other magic, it sank into the skin and stayed, sometimes bypassing things like armor and clothing completely. The magic would continue to slowly eat away at a person until the wound was healed, which was why certain spells could leave such drastic scars if too much time passed. The strength of the caster had a lot to do with it too, apparently.
Erik had gone more than half a day with Jasper’s magic burning its way through his chest before Serena had been able to heal him. The scar it had left was about half the size of his fist.
And now...
Now Eleven had an almost identical one on his upper back, almost the exact same size and shape—courtesy of the exact same person, even—and that was to say nothing of the significantly larger one on his chest that looked like someone had tried to reach in and tear his heart out (it wasn’t that far off from the truth, all things considered).
A part of him that he very quickly tried to push away was starting to panic.
How was he meant to hide this?
How could he possibly keep something like this from them? If he were to suddenly start asking for his own room or his own tent, it would only make everyone suspicious, and that was the last thing he needed given the number of secrets he was keeping.
Taking a deep breath to try and calm his racing heart, he tried to look at the situation before him objectively.
His friends didn’t know it yet, but their quest was almost over. They wouldn’t actually have to go searching for Mordegon because Eleven knew exactly where he was.
Everything would end once they made it to Heliodor. They would stop Mordegon, save the world, and then after maybe a few celebrations, everyone would go their separate ways for a while (that thought still hurt, but he was getting used to it, because he had always known that this couldn’t last forever).
Rab and Jade (and Hendrik) would remain in Heliodor and probably start discussing plans to rebuild Dundrasil; Sylvando would return to his life of wandering or to Gallopolis (not to his home, to his father, because they haven’t fixed that yet this time around); Serena and Veronica would go back to Arboria, back to their parents, but whether or not they would remain there was pretty up in the air; and then last but certainly not least, Erik would...
Erik would...
Eleven would go with Erik to Sniflheim, would use his powers to save Mia, and once the brother and sister were reunited, the duo would set off on a journey to see the world.
And Eleven...
Eleven would return to Cobblestone, alone, to sort through the list of things he still needed to do and people that he needed to save.
Because Mordegon hadn’t been the only thing wrong with the world (Miko and Ryu definitely came to mind).
There were still plenty of non-Luminary things he wanted to do, some more dangerous than others, and if he came back from those things with a few “new” scars, well...surely no one would question it. Surely he’d be able to find some explanation that would satisfy them all if the topic were to ever come up. He would have plenty of time to figure it out, after all.
Eleven breathed a small sigh of relief as the panic began to recede.
This could work. He might actually be able to pull it off, to keep all of his secrets, even the ones he hadn’t realized he would need to keep.
They would arrive in Heliodor within the week.
He could manage for just one week.
With a plan (sort of) in place, the Luminary walked over to his dresser, pulled out a pair of sleep pants and a shirt, and proceeded to get ready for bed. They had several long days of sailing ahead of them as they followed the king’s boat across the ocean, and he planned on getting as much sleep as he possibly could so that he’d be well-rested when the time finally came to confront the monarch. All he needed to do was come up with a way to lure out Mordegon that didn’t involve killing Carnelian. His entire plan for his future was kind of riding on that after all (reincarnation of the Luminary or not, regicide was still regicide).
It was a strange turn of events really, where the “fulfilling his destiny” part of the plan actually seemed the least daunting. Stopping an ancient evil vs. constantly hiding things and lying to his friends?
He would take the former any day.
As he got into bed, his head sinking into the pillow, Eleven allowed himself a small smile.
It was almost over.
One week, and it would all be over.
Sure, he had more he needed to do, but just this once, maybe he could allow himself that one small comfort, just one small semblance of peace.
Surely that wouldn’t be too much to ask, after everything he had gone through?
Surely he could have just this one thing?
(In a week’s time, he would curse himself for being selfish, because he should’ve known that as the Luminary, he wasn’t allowed to simply want something for himself).
...It was funny, in a way, how life worked sometimes (in a very morbid, everything-that-can-go-wrong-will-go-wrong sort of way, that is).
In hindsight, he should’ve known.
He should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy.
He should’ve known that cheating death and cheating time would have consequences, that solving one problem would only create another.
He had forgotten about the star.
He had forgotten about the star and the dark spirit that had looked like a tockle. He had forgotten how Mordegon, the Lord of Shadows, had been the one to destroy the Lantern while the rest of them had simply stood there in a panic as it fell towards the Celestial Sands.
Eleven had undone all of that, and like a chain reaction, undoing one thing had led to several other things being undone, and clearly not all of them had been for the best.
In the end, it felt like all he had managed to do was trade one evil for another, traded a tragedy he knew the outcome to for one he did not. What if this new disaster was worse?
What if this time around, they lost everything?
Eleven heaved a deep sigh and leaned against the railing of the balcony, chin resting on his arms as he looked out over Heliodor. A few torchlights flickered in the distance, but most people had retired for the night given how late it was. He was technically supposed to be in bed too, but sleep had evaded him to the point where he had simply given up on getting any rest and had taken to wandering the castle instead. Eventually, after a lot of aimless walking, he had found his way to the grand balcony that overlooked the city and the sprawling fields that lay beyond.
The fresh air was nice, and the view was pleasant...as long as he didn’t look up.
So far he had been doing a very admirable job of not looking up.
The night sky helped to hide it from view, but that didn’t matter much when he knew it was there. He didn’t care to see the darkness looming in the distance. It was bad enough having it constantly at the back of his mind.
Tomorrow, they would be heading down to the Emerald Coast to get a better look at the swirling mass of dark energy and to hopefully figure out what was going on. He prayed they would be able to discover something that could help them solve this newest problem, because Eleven, as much as he hated to admit it, had nothing. He had maybe a vague idea about what the dark star was and nothing more. It was definitely something dangerous though—dangerous enough that Mordegon had felt the need to destroy it in the future, to leave his lofty fortress and handle the matter himself.
That didn’t bode well for any of them.
Why couldn’t anything ever just go right for him? Sometimes it felt like his life was just a series of mistakes.
What if he failed this time too? What if he had to shatter the Sphere a second time and undo everything again? What if, no matter how hard he tried, it was simply Erdrea’s fate to be destroyed? How many times would he be willing to go back to try and fix things, to live the same series of events over? How many memories could a single person hold before the lines of reality, of time, began to blur?
How much could he take before losing himself?
With another sigh, Eleven ignored the tiny voice in his head that told him not to and turned his eyes to the night sky, to the stars above and not the darkness in the distance, and tried his best to untangle his jumbled thoughts.
He really needed to sleep. He knew his thoughts kept spiraling because he was running on only a few hours over the course of two days, and the amount he had gotten leading up to their arrival in Heliodor hadn’t been too impressive either despite his best efforts. He needed a full night of uninterrupted sleep, but he knew he simply wasn’t going to get that given everything that had happened.
He had half a mind to just lie down on the flagstones. Maybe sleeping in the open air would be easier than his guestroom.
Perhaps he could even go down to the courtyard and sleep under the tree, right next to the Yggdrasil root. That might work.
Maybe then he’d finally find the peace of mind to actually get some—
“So this is where you wandered off to.”
Eleven whirled around, startled. He hadn’t been expecting anyone else to be wandering the castle in the middle of the night (aside from the guards, of course, though none of them had had the nerve to approach him so far).
Walking through the doorway and out onto the balcony was Erik, dressed down to just a sleep shirt and pants, and although his gait was relaxed and his smile easy, there was a worry in his eyes that he couldn’t quite hide, that only seemed to shine brighter as he looked at the Luminary.
Eleven wasn’t sure if he was grateful for the unexpected company or not. He had been content to brood alone, but as Erik walked up to him and proceeded to lean against the railing at his side, a tiny bit of peace settled over his chaotic thoughts.
It turned out that having someone with him was a comfort. Having Erik with him was a comfort. His best friend’s presence had always had a sort of calming effect on him, helped to ground him, to make him truly feel like he wasn’t alone, that he would never be alone, no matter what he might face.
He kind of needed that right now.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Erik asked.
“No,” he replied as he turned back around to lean against the railing once more, looking out over the quiet city.
“Can’t say I blame you...”
Eleven glanced at his companion from the corner of his eye. Erik had his attention fixed upwards on the stars, and if anything, the worry in his eyes only seemed to deepen as he stared off into the distance.
“What about you?” Eleven asked. “Couldn’t sleep either?”
Those sharp blue eyes darted over to him for just a moment before a somewhat sheepish smile crossed his partner's face.
“Not exactly,” he said, which wasn’t really an answer. “You weren’t in your room when I checked, so I went looking for you. Figured you’d either be here or in the courtyard.”
That also wasn’t an answer to Eleven’s question (not only that, but it created several more questions). However, instead he chose to focus on the last part.
“The courtyard?” It was kind of amusing, really, that Erik had come to that conclusion when Eleven himself had just been contemplating the idea of heading down there.
“There’s an Yggdrasil root there, right?” the thief said, sounding more than a little unsure as he continued. “I just thought...I don’t know, maybe it had something to show you? Because of what happened?”
Erik rubbed the back of his neck nervously as Eleven looked at him in confusion.
“Look,” he continued, “I don’t really know how it all works. I know you can’t actually ‘talk’ to Her, but She can talk to you when it’s important, right? What happened today seemed pretty important, so...”
He wanted to tell his friend that that wasn’t exactly how it worked, that he couldn’t just go up to any of the roots and expect to be shown exactly what he wanted to see. Yggdrasil amassed memories—every memory ever created across all of Erdrea, across all of time, existed within the World Tree. However, the roots generally only showed him memories based on their locations. When he had touched the one in the courtyard (in another time but not another place), it had shown him Hendrik’s past. It had shown him events that had taken place in Heliodor. He was pretty sure that there was nothing it could show him this time that would be of any help.
However...maybe talking to Yggdrasil wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Even though She wouldn’t be able to talk back to him through any normal means, that didn’t mean She couldn’t listen. As one-sided as the conversation would be, maybe it would be enough to put his mind at east, at least a little. There were things he wanted to say to Her, after all, and he could really use an unbiased party to talk to, one that would listen to what he had to say without judgment.
One who probably understood what was going on, what had already happened, and knew exactly what Eleven had done.
“She didn’t wake me up to talk to me, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said, answering Erik’s half-questions. “...But it might not be a bad idea to try talking to Her later.”
He folded his arms across the railing and once again leaned forward to rest his head on them, looking out over the sleeping city. Despite everything that had happened, Eleven liked Heliodor. It was the first place he had ever traveled to, the start of his journey, and even though things hadn’t gone according to plan, he had met a lot of kindhearted people who called it home. He wanted to build better memories of it this time, to get to know the place and the people that he probably would’ve spent a lot of his childhood visiting had things been different.
This time around, he wanted to protect it.
Because in the back of his mind, he could still see rubble strewn across the streets, homes and shops destroyed, and a once proud castle abandoned, lying broken and crumbling in the dark.
(He wondered just how long it would take for him to stop seeing ghosts).
As if sensing the drastic downward turn of his thoughts, a hand suddenly settled atop his head. Startled by the unexpected touch, he turned to look at Erik, who was watching him with a thoughtful, pensive look on his face.
Despite his somewhat rough-around-the-edges demeanor and his less than hospitable upbringing, Erik was a surprisingly physically affectionate person most of the time. He regularly placed a supportive hand on Eleven’s shoulder or against his back whenever the Luminary started fretting or got a little too lost in his own head. He would throw an arm around him in a half hug, would occasionally pull him into a full hug (mostly after difficult battles where they were all lucky to have come out alive), and he never hesitated to grab Eleven’s arm or his hand in order to pull him out of harm’s way in the cases where his own strength and speed just weren’t quite enough.
This, however, was new though. It felt a little like how his mother used to pat his head as a child, and yet despite being the youngest out of their group, he knew that Erik didn’t see him as a kid.
He wasn’t sure what to make of it.
A small grin began to form on the thief’s face, even though his eyes still looked worried.
“If you keep frowning like that,” he began, his thumb rubbing a tiny circle against Eleven’s temple, “the lines on your forehead might stay that way, and you’re way too young to have a permanent furrow in your brow. I promise there’ll be plenty of time for you to work on that when you’re older, so how about you just give it a rest for now, alright?”
Eleven simply looked at his best friend for a moment in quiet disbelief, a bit stunned by the words that had come out of his mouth, but it wasn’t long before a smile began to tug at his lips and a snort of bright laughter escaped him.
His shoulders shook as he tried (and failed) to stifle his mirth, burying his face in his arms to hide his undeniable amusement.
Honestly, of all the...
Erik gave the Luminary’s head a gentle pat before withdrawing his hand, a quiet “that’s better” falling from his lips that Eleven was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to hear. Nevertheless, those two words brought with them a warmth that helped to settle some of his slowly fraying nerves after the rather terrible day he had been having.
Still laughing, he raised his head and looked over at his very pleased looking companion.
“You’re ridiculous,” he said, a smile splitting his face.
“Maybe,” the thief agreed. “But I’m not wrong though.”
With one more peal of laughter, Eleven raised his head and turned towards his friend.
“Thanks, Erik,” he said, putting as much gratitude as he could into his words. “I needed that.”
A hand settled on his shoulder, solid and grounding.
“Anytime, partner.”
With a small but genuine smile still on his face, Eleven returned his attention to the quiet city below, and although the worry wasn’t completely gone from his mind, his heart felt a little bit lighter. Eventually Erik’s hand slid from his shoulder, and the two of them went back to leaning against the railing and looking out over Heliodor in a companionable silence.
The moment was ruined by a rather large yawn from the thief, and from the corner of his eye, Eleven could see him trying to hide it behind his hand to little avail.
“Maybe you should go back to sleep,” he suggested a bit playfully.
“Probably,” Erik replied with a sigh before turning towards the Luminary. “You coming? It’s getting pretty late.”
“I...think I’ll stay out here a while longer.”
There was something he needed to do.
He watched as his friend’s eyes narrowed a bit, the look on his face searching. It was an expression he was familiar with, one that he had been given a lot during the beginning of their journey, back when the two of them were still getting to know each other and everything had been new. It was the look of someone trying to figure out a puzzle, trying to put the pieces together even though several didn’t seem to fit (and this time around several more were even missing).
It had been a while since Erik had looked at him like that, and he quickly realized that he was going to have to be more careful. His partner was an observant person after all, and Eleven, unfortunately, was a really bad liar.
He had never been very good at keeping secrets.
Thankfully, however, instead of calling him out on his behavior, Erik simply heaved a sigh and ran a hand through his spikey hair.
“Okay, fine,” he said, even though he didn’t look entirely satisfied with the situation. “Just don’t stay up too late. We’re supposed to be heading out early tomorrow, and you’re not exactly the easiest person to wake.”
The Luminary rolled his eyes at the light jab towards his sleeping habits.
“I won’t,” he replied. “Goodnight, Erik.”
“Goodnight, El.”
And with that said, the thief walked away, disappearing back inside the castle, and as soon as he was certain that Erik was gone, that he was no longer in range to see or even hear him, Eleven turned back towards the peaceful city of Heliodor and began to gather his magic.
Zoom was an interesting spell, one that didn’t take much to cast and was only as complicated as a person chose to make it. He had picked it up rather quickly after Veronica had taught it to him, and while he hadn’t used it too often during their travels since it only worked for places he had already been to (and he sadly couldn’t zoom an entire ship across the ocean), it had still saved him a lot of time while running errands and doing favors for people.
It was about to save him a lot of time now too, not to mention a great deal of unwanted suspicion. No one would notice him leaving in the dead of night, and he could be there and back before anyone even realized that he was gone.
Perfect.
Taking a deep breath, Eleven closed his eyes and focused on where he wanted to go.
It didn’t take long. It never did.
Without a second thought, he cast his spell.
But as the magic took him, lifting him off the ground and into the clear night sky, he failed to notice a pair of wide blue eyes watching him, failed to hear the frantic call of his name.
He failed to notice anything.
The entire world simply disappeared in a blinding light as every sound was swallowed up by the wind.