All the Bridges we Burn (and all those we cross)
Praying. A deep rooted praxis. A long, arduous indoctrination of getting on her knees and bowing to a god that she was forbidden to look at. A principle that she had long unremembered and stopped doing. Yet there she is, kneeling down in front of her altar, inside a room she hasn't opened in ages. Clad in nothing but a white robe and a pearline rosary wrapped in her hands.The striking of a match broke both the silence and the darkness as she lit a single candle, allowing it to illuminate a collection of dust covered relics, some acquired from decades ago, some preserved for the purposes of veneration as a tangible memorial.Eos had forgotten how to even start a prayer— spending a good hour, one that she didn't even notice had passed, simply trying to sort out the thoughts that are running wild in her head. Among all of those stood out, however is Ryo Auditore. Her inamorato. Her eternal flame. And the mere thought of him was making her own heart feel like it's wrapped up in thorns, much like how his is, albeit literally.Despite much consideration of asking her family for help, she knew that involving them would not be the best route as they have their own matters to deal with and she refuses to burden them with her personal dilemma. Another one she took into regards was his brethren, his lore, but she was most certain the Witchers and mages in the continent are already doing their everything to find a way to get rid of the curse. She had only cracked the surface of where her thoughts began but a small headache was already tugging on her temple. The sway of the fire on the candle snapped her back into focus. Her intent, to enter a state of orison, with hopes of gaining clarity and figuring out how to get her love out of the curse. Taking a deep, lungful of breath, eyes closing in concentration as she started."Deus, qui per resurrectiónem Fílii tui Dómini nostri Iesu Christi mundum lætificáre dignátus es, præsta, quæsumus, ut per eius Genetrícem Vírginem Maríam perpétuæ capiámus gáudia vitæ."A whispered mantra of familiar yet foreign words, lulling her deep into subconscious headspace as the room grows colder, not a minute into her invocation. She awoke with a blinding light, eyes unblinking as she waited for her surroundings to come into focus, soon enough finding herself right by the gates of the Second Temple. Colossal stone pillars holding up a crowning tower of white and gold, notwithstanding age and weather as if it was built just yesterday.The angel's eyes shot open, glowing, blank white orbs and staring into nothingness, before a split second tightening in her own chest pulls her out of the vision. Be it the timing of her prayers or just a pure coincidence, she couldn't care less. All she knows is that her love is home. She wasted no time, sprinting out of her cabin despite struggling to breathe when the ache momentarily stopped, keeping her paused in place just behind one of the massive trees close to her cabin.Her split second confusion immediately made sense when she heard the thunderous pounding on the barrier that surrounds the Vina villa. Eos knew he was preventing her from coming close just yet and trusting her man, she made sure to keep herself out of sight. Keeping track of the time through her pulse running five beats per second, she fought the urge to simply run to him.When Ryo finally made his presence felt once again, a numbing strain on her heart, she ran to him with all speed. Arriving just in time to witness the minions of the wild hunt(and some winged creature) get annihilated by who she assumed to be Kiba. Her eyes immediately finding her man safely inside the villa's barrier made her feel the slightest bit of relief.
Dropping down beside him and taking his head on her lap, she squeezes a totem in her palm that immediately transports them back inside her altar, the room where she was just minutes ago.In another situation, Eos would've broken down in tears for sure, confused as to what to do to be of any help. In his absence, she had reached out to ask help from past acquaintances both of his and hers, perhaps it was safe to say she wanted to prepare for whatever kind of malediction they would be plagued with. Although she was still unable to find a cure for his curse, not panicking while they're being attacked is already helpful enough.She sat a few seconds in silence, her man's head resting heavily on her as she listened intently for any noise of what was going on outside the barrier before she dared speak with a hushed voice. "Love..." Bringing a hand over his chest, giving it a gentle rub as if trying to ease the pain, her other hand trying to get his hair off his eyes so she could lean down and press a soft kiss on his forehead. "I'm here, love. Stay with me." Eos said in whispers, trying to keep him conscious until she was certain that the danger lurking so close to them had already subsided.
The resounding cries of a baby woke Eos up from her brief nap. She must've fallen asleep while watching their daughter, Rya, except once she had a moment to blink the sleep off her eyes, she found herself in an oddly familiar place. The putrid stench of bleach filling her nose up, no doubt she'd been here before, first as a prisoner and second with her now husband, the youngest witcher Ryo Auditore.Before she even get the chance to wonder, Rya's wailing echoed in the empty halls. Eos moved. Bare feet making no sound on the chilled concrete floor, movements a blur of panicked grace. She ran toward the deepest shadow, where the stench of disinfectant was strongest, indicating a recent, thorough cleaning. "Rya? Rya, baby~ Everything's going to be okay, 엄마 will find you!" Eos called out, hoping to soothe the toddler's cries of distress.This corridor was different from her memories. Though the structure was the same—heavy steel doors set into reinforced frames—the hallway was lined with equipment: ancient, dusty steel carts piled with rusty tools, and strange, blocky surveillance monitors flickering near the ceiling. Everything felt wrong, like a decaying stage set specifically built for her trauma.Then, she saw her. Rya, barely a toddler with a halo of wispy, black hair, stood protectively over a small, bundled shape, her face streaked with tears and dirt—a sight that immediately brought Eos’ true, dangerous power simmering just beneath her skin.“Rya!” Eos slid across the cold, slick tile floor, reaching her daughter in three strides. The toddler immediately threw herself against her mother’s legs, clinging desperately and pointing a trembling finger at the bundle. “B-baby. Cold. Bad man coming, Mama, bad man.”Eos knelt, scooping Rya into a tight embrace while simultaneously examining the second infant. It was far too small, pale, and wrapped in a rough, grey blanket that felt suspiciously like coarse canvas—the kind they used in medical facilities where no one expected recovery.The infant had a shock of dark, nearly black hair, and its tiny face was contorted in exhausted silence, having apparently cried itself out moments before Eos arrived. It was sickly, fragile, and utterly unfamiliar, causing a primal, protective instinct rise up in her.She gently touched the infant’s skin. It was icy. Then, the realization crashed into her: the flat abdomen.She pressed her hand hard against her stomach again. Gone. The gentle swelling, the familiar flutter of life she had felt moments ago, was utterly gone. She wasn't simply experiencing a miscarriage; she had been emptied, her body returned to a pre-pregnant state in the blink of an eye.Their second child, the one she had prayed for and protected, was 𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜.
She felt the cold slip through her fingertips like liquid mercury, and the sound of the baby’s tiny wail seemed to echo off the far wall like a prayer gone wrong.Across the hallway, a heavy steel door – the one that had once been the sealed gate to the infirmary where they’d been experimented upon – began to grind open, its hinges screaming against the smell of bleach. A thin beam of greenish light cut through the gloom, illuminating a figure cloaked in an oil‑slicked mantle. The silhouette was tall, gaunt, and seemed to ripple like water when the light struck it.“Ah, the mother returns,” the voice hissed, a susurrus of static and malice. “You thought you could keep your child from me?” Eos’s pulse slammed against her temples. The figure’s words fell like a spell, each syllable cracking the thin veneer of reality. She felt the edges of the world tilt, the corridor stretching into a void of overlapping memories: the day she had been shackled in the cellar. “The child… it was never yours,” the cloaked one continued, taking a step forward. “It was the seed of the Archive, a conduit for the Old Code. You were never meant to bear it. You were meant to give it to the Order.”Eos’s heart hammered against her ribcage, a rhythm she could no longer hear over the cacophony of Rya’s sobs. Instinct, not thought, guided her. She lifted the infant, cradling it against her chest, feeling the ice‑cold pulse of a heart that barely beat. The angelic fire that lived in her veins sparked to life, a low hum that resonated in the marrow of her bones. She whispered a silent litany, a prayer older than the world, and the air around her flared to a soft, pearlescent glow.“Per foedus aurorae,” she intoned, “Sanctitatem lucis impero ut nos protegat.”The sphere exploded in a burst of aurora, cascading waves of light over the monitors, over the rusted carts, over the grimy floor. The screens flickered out, their static replaced by a brilliant image of a distant sky—clouds painted in gold and violet, stars glimmering behind a sun that never set. The image was not a photograph; it was a vision, a memory of the celestial realm she had once walked.And then—A crack, not of glass but of pure creation, split the sky. A beam of blinding white shot down, piercing the veil and striking the point where her womb had been empty moments before. From that point of incandescent rupture, Eos’s breath caught, a sob of both anguish and awe, a wave of excruciating yet holy pain surging through her.In the space between the waking and the sleeping, Eos’s consciousness slipped, like a feather caught in a gust, into the labyrinthine corridor that had become her nightmare. The bleached smell grew thicker, the cold tile underfoot turned to a slick, obsidian surface that reflected the flicker of the old monitors above her. Shadows stretched like dark tendrils, coiling around the rusty carts and the blocky screens that hummed with static images of faces she could not quite see.-------------------------------A monitor at her wrist ticked a steady, clinical rhythm: HR 78 bpm – SpO₂ 96% – Temp 36.9 °C. A soft, rhythmic beeping accompanied each breath she took, the sound a metronome for the dream that had taken root in the depths of her unconscious mind. A nurse’s whisper floated over the ceiling tiles, “She’s in active labor, likely a breech. We’ll have to be ready for an emergency C‑section if it comes to that.” The words were muffled, as if spoken through water, but they anchored her to the physical world—a world she could feel only as a distant vibration.