The Son of Light

Sua felt a piercing pain stab through his skull as his vision began to swim. It was a familiar sensation by now: the Echo. For better or worse, Hydaelyn often deemed it necessary for Sua to perceive the memories of those around him. Often, it was for ease of gathering information on a situation that had just come to pass, but other times it was to give him a greater understanding of someone’s perspective and emotions surrounding the past. 

Blinking and holding his head a little, Sua found himself greeted with the view of a quaint village, hidden away within the Twelveswood. It didn’t take much for him to recognize the inhabitants as refugees from Ala Mhigo, with the majority being those from the now dispersed Boar Miq’ote tribe. Bordering close to the territories of both the Moogles and the Sylphs, it seemed that the refugees had managed to survive without the aid of the greater Gridania City-State thanks to the assistance of both tribes. Both the Sylphs and Moogles were peaceable groups, after all, so it only made sense they would want to aid those in times of desperation and need. 

Sua gazed around, catching sight of a familiar face walking within the village. He focused in on him, the shorter purple miq’ote disappearing temporarily amidst the ground. However, the Echo soon took hold, whoosing Sua forward to the man’s side. 

B'tala clutched a basket tightly in his hand, lance strapped on his back, as he quickly made his way through the village. Despite looking distinctly younger, lack the facial hair and scars that Sua knew him to have, B'tala was still immediately recognizable to him.Yet, he was simultaneously enamored and taken aback at how the miq’ote before him could look so similar to the one he knew, yet have a completely different air about him. Whereas now B'tala had the air of a strong and loyal warrior to him, this man had yet to be tempered by war. He was innocent, more self-centered, and bore an air of overconfidence as he strolled through the town towards his destination. 

Sua followed closely as B'tala made his way to the far end of town, towards a set of houses clustered close together. The wooden structures seemed very sound, having incorporated the landscape around the village to where trees and other plant life grew on or around the homes, preventing any major damage should a storm or something similar strike the area. Given the tendency of the tempered Sylphs to summon Ramuh, it was a rather well thought out design choice. 

B'tala approached one of the homes, glancing down at the basket in his hand. He took a deep breath, his air of confidence dropping for a moment as he seemed to be steeling himself against something. What though, Sua couldn’t say. B'tala reached out and knocked on the door, loudly calling out, “Mother! I’m coming in!” Taking off his lance, B'tala set it down beside the door before opening it and stepping inside the small house. “I brought you a little something too since you said you weren’t feeling well earlier.” A smile spread across B'tala face as he pulled some pixie apples out of the basket. “I thought maybe some pixie apples might lift your spirits,” he said as he walked into the center of the room.

B'tala’s ears flicked from side to side as confusion became plain on his face. His eyebrows drew together as the miq’ote looked around the room for any sign of his mother. “Mom?” he called out, “Are you here?” Setting the basket of pixie apples down on a nearby table, B'tala began to search around the house, only to find the entire place empty and untouched. “Did she go to visit the neighbors?” he muttered, heading back towards the front door. 

Stepping back into the cool forest air, B'tala hailed down his neighbors, inquiring about the whereabouts of his mother. However, one after another, the answer was the same. None had seen B’yandih. For all intents and purposes, she had just vanished into thin air during the course of B'tala’s outing. Panic began to set in, B’tala’s pulse picking up speed as he headed out further into the village to search. Surely there had to be something that hinted at where B’yandih had gone. His mother couldn’t just disappear into thin air, could she?

The sun had sunk far below the horizon by the time B’tala eventually returned to his home. His shoulders were slumped in defeat as a crushing feeling of helplessness made his legs feel heavy. Pushing the door open, B’tala stopped as he spied the basket of pixie apples on the table. He shook his head and headed to his mother’s room, just to double check she wasn’t there. Strolling through the room, it was then he noticed something he hadn’t picked up on before when he had frantically searched his mother’s bedroom before.

Approaching the curved roots she used as a nightstand, B’tala picked up the small box that rested upon it. He furrowed his eyebrows in thought. The small wooden box seemed familiar but he couldn’t play where he had seen it before. Opening it, he found the interior was coated in some sort of cushy cloth that bore a small round imprint, indicating that something had been nestled inside this box for a very long time. The question remained though, what was it? And did it have anything to do with B’yandih’s death?

The vision suddenly flashed forward, the bedchamber scene fading away into something much more unsettling. The once peaceful village now lay quiet, the populace much smaller than before. The lively personality the people once had was gone, replaced with an air of unease and uncertainty. It wasn’t hard to guess why, based on how drastically different the earth in the village looked. What was once a sprawling greenery now began to look damaged and a rot had begun to take hold of many of the trees that the houses were built into. The elements of the Twelveswood had begun to fight back against the people they once lived with, setting all the villagers on edge and fostering a hostile relationship between the two groups. 

At the entrance of the village, where there hadn't been before, now stood several guards, B’tala among them. He looked as if he had aged a great deal since the last part of the vision, but perhaps it was simply due to his more sullen appearance. Whereas the man had been clean shaven and well-kept before, the B’tala in this vision hadn’t shaved in quite some time, and had a tangled mess of hair along with torn clothes and scars that adorned his body, likely earned from fighting off monsters from entering the village. Yet, what aged him the most was the tired, empty look in his eyes. Sua knew it well, he had seen it on many faces before. 

Those were the eyes of someone that had seen the Calamity. 

“B’tala!” one of the other miq’ote called out. B’tala’s ears perked up, causing him to turn around and stand at attention to the man approaching him. The larger miq’ote male looked B’tala up and down before shaking his head. “You’re dismissed. Get cleaned up. I don’t want you looking like this on duty.”

B’tala lowered his ears and gave a half-hearted salute. “Yes sir, of course. My apologies,” he said quietly.

The other miq’ote expression softened a bit. He put a firm hand on B’tala’s shoulder and said, “Look, the Calamity has been hard on us all. I understand. You’ve always managed to be so strong, living on your own since we left Ala Mhigo. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, alright?”

An intense pain surfaced in B’tala’s eyes at the man’s words, but he simply nodded and muttered out a “of course, sir,” before heading off. Tears began to rise in B’tala’s eyes as he trudged his way home. He caught bits and pieces of various conversations as he walked, doing his best to put them out of mind, but struggling to completely shut them out. 

“There goes B’tala again. Poor thing has really let himself go these last few months, hasn’t he?”

“He always handled himself so well after fleeing Ala Mhigo. What would B’masna and B’waer think?”

“Perhaps the Calamity finally broke him, like so many others. Or perhaps he broke long before, and none of us ever noticed.”

“He may have appeared normal, but I think the trauma finally got to him.”

“He keeps insisting on the existence of this B’yandih woman! I think I’d remember someone like her!”

B’tala rushed towards his home, slamming the door as he stepped inside and sliding to the ground as tears began to trickle down his face. Opening his mouth, the miq’ote let out a long mournful cry. His hands shook as he sobbed, the uncontrollable flood of emotions drowning him for what seemed like an eternity. 

“Mom,” he said in a hoarse voice, “I don’t know how much more I can endure this.” B’tala’s voice wavered a little as he spoke, tears still flowing down his cheeks in a steady stream. “The whole village thinks I’m crazy because I remember you. They insist I’ve always lived alone, survived on my own, that you… you never even existed. But… but that can’t be true! Right?” B’tala sat in silence for a moment, wiping his nose and eyes. “Maybe I am the crazy one, talking to myself like this.” 

Slowly getting to his feet, B’tala began to walk through the house again, only to stop when he spied the now empty basket on the table in the center of the room. The small wooden box B’tala had found in his mother’s room now lay atop it, the two serving as reminders of the last day he had seen B’yandih. A rush of emotions hit him all at once. Sadness, anger, fury, then determination. He wasn’t crazy. B’tala knew he couldn’t be wrong. B’yandih had lived here, and had disappeared in the wake of the Calamity. It was just a matter of figuring out why. And if there was anyone who was going to figure it out, it was him.

Determination pulsed through him as B’tala set about his mission, gathering his things. He waited until night fell, then slipped out in the darkness. Ascending the rotting roots of the tree that encased his home, B’tala escaped into the Twelveswood that surrounded his home village. As he stood up on solid ground, B’tala gazed back towards the quiet village, the town and its folk bearing many scars from the Calamity, him included. His hands tightened into fist and B’tala raised his gaze to Baelsar’s Wall in the distance. His heart pounded in his ears as he took one last look over the East Shroud before turning and heading towards Gridania. 

Stealing away into the night, the miq’ote switched between running on two legs and all fours until he caught up to a wagon departing from the Hawthorne Hut. Climbing into the back, B’tala soon found himself entering the Gridanian city-state proper, and on the first step towards his new life as Bi’tala Nunh.