And so the gates open once more

When next she wakes Euryale........Can't quite place where she is exactly. There's no discernable landmarks, she's certainly not in her cockpit, there isn't much of anything really, just a seemingly endless expanse of flowers that stretches out past the horizon. They're lovely but unfamiliar, this place should be pretty, but Euryale can't help but feel something's off about it. The sky is overcast, a cloudy grey contrasts the colorful fields and despite the signs of a brewing storm the air is stagnant, nothing stirs, and there's no signs of non-plant life. That is until, as if she'd materialized in the blink of an eye, Euryale spots Blessings not too far away.

"Not the company I quite expected, but I can't say I'm surprised you're here either. Did I keep you waiting long?"

"Hmph, I wasn't particularly waiting here for you. Why are you even here? Didn't you win?"

"Well we might have beaten you, but with you out of the way the greatest threat to ourselves was each other......I couldn't trust my team fully nor they me, I made a run for the casket and Strigy pointed her nailgun at me. Didn't even realize it went off until I woke up here......The casket was saved though, and that's what's most important."

"I really don't understand why you of all people would want to save that thing. Some misguided sense of guilt? It's not him, as much as I wish it was."

Euryale pouts " 'You of all people' , you say that as if I don't miss her at all! Of course I feel guilty, I killed her myself, and it was the biggest mistake I made in my entire life. Even if it was misguided.........I would chase any trace of them left on the planet if it meant seeing them again."

"What, was the power, prestige, and wealth not enough for you?" The next line comes out uncharacteristically gently. "He could have told you that. I could have told you that." A tired sigh. "Well, not that it matters anymore. You dying isn't going to bring Aconite back. The casket you saved was just a failed duplicate. Not the real thing."

"It wasn't enough, and that's the punchline isn't it? I don't think either of us would be here if that was the case." Euryale sits and pats the patch of flowers next to itself, even though it doubts Blessings will follow. "Failed duplicate or no, it was still her in some capacity, and I was desperate. That's what love does to people, you know that just as well as I do by now. It won't bring them back but I wanted to protect whatever was left of them anyways. Besides "Gorgon" was looking out for the both of us.......I don't regret repaying the favor."

Blessings sits down, not where Euryale gestured to, but just where she was standing. "I don't know how much you know about machine spirits or NHPs or whatever term you use for them, but they aren't quite the same as flesh-and-blood humans. That "Gorgon" could access the memories I had copied and operate under the parameters I had assigned to it, but those were not its memories and not its true personality. Without a flesh-and-blood mind to interpret those memories and to exist as that personality, it would be little more than a mere simulacrum of him. We were trying to figure out a means of making a genuine copy that didn't involve sacrificing someone's life. He didn't want that. I didn't either. Not that the House currently has the means to even do so. Such technology was lost ages ago, good riddance."

You could practically see the lightbulb go off in Euryale's head, as if it would help her think she reaches out and starts to pluck and idly fiddle with the flowers in front of her. "A flesh and blood mind........It's a shame you don't have the technology needed to pull that off, not that I think a sacrifice is any small matter, but there's one of those right next to Gorgon's casket. I can't have been here longer for a few minutes, I'm sure the body's even warm. A little morbid to think about, but who better to interpret the memories than me? Besides.......I doubt I'll be returning to the mortal coil with a wound like that, might as well make use of what resources are lying around."

For a brief moment, Blessings closes her eyes. What follows is a bout of laughter. "It's almost poetic. Sacrificing his killer to bring him back to life. It truly is a shame we don't quite have the means. It would be heretical anyways. I was strictly forbidden from attempting to experiment with my Angel for such purposes. Too dangerous, too likely to attract undue attention from the other Houses." The figure in front of you shimmers a bit, grows blurry at the edges, and then disperses like a cloud of smoke. The voice you hear next comes from behind you, from the left, from the right, until it surrounds you, until you can breath it in. "Do you truly mean it?"

"Without a shadow of doubt. My body and soul are a small price to pay if it means helping you fix my greatest mistake."

"For your sake, I hope you're being honest."

"Ha! Worrying about me? That's sweet of you. For the first time since she's died, I'm telling the whole truth, I want this." Euryale faintly wonders if maybe, things would've been different if she had been more open to begin with, but it's no use mulling on it now. "I don't know what it is exactly you're doing.......But if there's anything you have left to ask of me I think now's as good a time as any. I've got no cards to hold to my chest anymore."

"Do you think he was happy?"

"Yeah, they were, in the way you feel elated when a plan goes off without a hitch, it must've been bliss. Blessings.....They might not be happy we're doing this. But we're doing what's right. I trust you.....So please trust me on this one too."

"Bold words to say of someone who threatened to kill you and is in fact promising to kill you. But I'll play along. For Aconite's sake."

"I'm already dead, what're you gonna do? Kill me again?" Euryale huffs, she brings up the flowers she was fiddling with earlier, neatly woven into a crown "This was supposed to be for you but you don't have a head to put it on anymore.......Thanks. If you won't take it on my behalf then accept it on Aconite's."

"It'd be wasted on me. Give it to someone who could actually wear it."

"And just who else is here hmm? Besides, I tried to pick colors that suited you." She breaks the crown apart and scatters the flowers around, much as Blessings did to herself. "If we ever meet again be a dear and have a body."

The petals scatter, kept aloft in a sudden gale by a touch without hands, a breath without breath. "If we ever meet again, it'll be too soon."

The wind blows, the clouds part, and the sun shines on an empty field of flowers.