The gate was opened to the forces of this woman’s family. The gate that would save them from the horrors and finally be free from the looming darkness. The woman brought her family with her through ships powered by magical crystals, built to be impervious to whatever it was that would be waiting for them.
Imagine hundreds upon hundreds of flying ships that were made for fifty years. Flying machines that could soar through the skies and across the void. The Witch of Nether followed the woman who called herself Ciara into this widened gateway that would lead them to a better world. That was the hope they were trying to achieve. That they would be free from the cycle of fighting a darkness that doesn’t end.
Ciara Alician has fought the darkness and found a way to escape this hopeless world. However, to save the world she slew her lover and tossed his soul into the gateway, hoping that they would meet again. Her hopeless lover who had repeated timelines to be with her. The hopeless man who sought to have a family with a cursed woman who was burdened to save the world. For as long as she holds the duty of the War Maiden. She was willing to do anything, no matter what the cost, for her family, and those she knew. She broke her heart for the sake of saving many instead of one.
She couldn’t blame him for despising her. She couldn’t blame her incarnations for prioritizing the saving of the world instead of him. She has her duties and she had hoped that he would understand. She knows the sins that she did for the man who had devoted his lives for the sake of hers. She had repeatedly hurt that man and have done nothing but spit at his face. She could recall the look of horror of that man’s face as she removes the burden of childbirth. She killed her child for the sake of fighting, and by the next day, she perished. That memory stood with her and not once would she forgive herself for doing so. It came as a shock that the man who endured timelines of pain and heartbreak would turn his blade against her.
Eyes seething with fury and a body polluted in order to achieve higher power. The man who was a proud human would become a vengeful ghost to end the miserable path that he had taken. How can she blame the man who endured for millenniums of despairing love? I am a heartless woman, she thought.
She was simply chosen by the world to act as its savior. In fact, that man was supposed to be someone who shouldn’t exist in this world in the first place, he was an anomaly. Indeed, he was a man lost in time, a despairing man who chooses to follow a despairing path. She had witnessed the man’s efforts through countless timelines. He was a miserable man who would mutter complains, speak despairingly, yet he would never turn his back against all odds. Despite her incarnations betraying him, torturing him, and taking him for a fool. That man followed without turning his eyes away. No matter how painful it was he would keep moving.
I am madly in love with you, she confessed to the stars. But until I see through this duty then I must not rest. I am must save all of us from this path. This tree has withered and all of the branches have fallen. The shadows loom and to save the world I have no choice but to kill you.
She knew that she was making excuses. She knew that she was adopting orphans to atone for the sins of killing her unborn child. That was her greatest mistake and yet she cannot turn back time. She cannot go back to the time where it all started. She only ‘inherits’ the memories of her past incarnations. What they do and what their actions are uncontrollable, but it was still her soul who did it.
I didn’t do it.
I didn’t have a choice.
She spat excuses yet she knows what she did. She had done things she was not proud off, to save the world. She had done her duty multiple times, and so when she managed to reach the pinnacle existence of being the strongest War Maiden to ever exist. She took the chance and wanted to reach a new world along with those who she raised.
She remembers it clearly.
She remembers killing the man she loved over and over again.
The kind man who had saved her.
She was his executioner and she could never forgive herself for doing it over and over again.
“I won’t be the reason for your end!” She vowed. And yet that vow was broken the moment duty calls.
She thought of letting go but the thought of that man’s gaze looking after another woman rattles her. Fury would rise upon her heart and she thought of imprisoning him, cutting his legs, so that he may never run away from her. That he won’t look at anyone other than her. She thought of herself as cruel as she has thoughts.
“It’s your fault for making me fall for you, for a million times.”
She reasoned out her desires.
But even though she has such nefarious desires, she would place duty over him.
“He was trying to stop me!” She reasoned out. “I had no choice but to do it!”
She thought that like always he would join her.
That he would understand what she was doing.
Yet they fought and he again died in front of her.
She recalled the timelines where her weaknesses caused him to die.
She recalled the timelines where she did save the world.
But when she looks back she was all alone in a world that caused her pain.
She needed the power to rescue those who have suffered and deliver them into a new world.
She vowed that this was her journey’s end and that one day she would find him among the worlds.
That one day he would come looking for her.
Whether as friend or foe. She would be waiting and at the same time, looking.
...
So she crossed the worlds alongside those who wanted to follow her. A fleet of men and women and children that wanted to be free from a cycle of darkness. They entered the enlarged pathway and entered a realm where it seems like they were traveling on a tunnel of stars. She had crossed the void with her family and the world that they lived was swallowed!
They did it, she thought. She smiled happily as they travel through countless worlds. Each and every world come with different surprises and strange things that they could never have thought possible. Sky islands that floated upon a sea of clouds. A world where it was an endless sea where the giant fishes existed and worlds where people fly on their swords. They witnessed many unknowns and possibilities and yet none of those worlds had the one man she was searching for.
As they travel across many seedlings of the world tree through this tunnel of a void. She had realized that those who followed her when the voyage started no longer existed. They called her grandmother and yet they were not those she had carried. The family that she voyaged with grew and some of them choose their own selfishness. Some followed her faithfully, and her dearest friend, the Witch of Nether, stood by her side, watching, and gazing the endless worlds that were like picture frames placed on the walls.
“We’ve reached far, my dearest friend.”
“We did, and you are still by my side despite all. Why not look for happiness?”
“And leave you all alone?” She giggled. “I can never leave you, Ciara. How can I can myself as your sworn sister when I let you travel all of these worlds all alone?”
The two traveled on and on until their ships grew decrepit and the whites of the hair. Ciara, her name was Ciara, traveled on and on yet with so many worlds that would have been called infinite she could not find him. She could not find the person that she wanted to find now that she was free from her duty.
She saw her grandchildren grow old and die before her. She has become so numb to such death. She likes to think that way but she was still human. No matter how steely her heart was. One day it would become rusted, worn, and battered by time. She was unchanging, eternal, and strong. She believed herself to be strong and throughout worlds she was uncontested and her powers only grew stronger. As long as she lives then there would be no one that could harm the voyage of her family. Until the day they would found the true original tree, they would not stop this voyage. Until she could find him then there was no way that she would stop. She hammers herself and forges her heart to be harder than it could. As long as she was not alone then she would continue this voyage to infinity.
Yet despite her heart of steel, the resolve of others crumbled. The Witch of Nether, her greatest friend, and her sister broke first. The endless worlds had broken the Witch of Nether and Ciara found only her body hanging off a crossbeam. She thought to herself numbed to death. That she would continue moving forward.
“Why are you smiling?” She said to the Witch of Nether. “Were you tired, my sister? Were you tired of this journey? If so, then you should have told me. Why…why? What did I do?”
Her journey continued and those who followed her slowly crumbled as well. Her family was large and she had many grandchildren. Yet they were not the Witch of Nether and they were not eternal as her. To ease her pain she sought and created dolls that would follow her. She made them eternal so they can continue to travel the worlds with her. Her dolls were human-like and they were living beings that she created through the help of a scholar that lived in a world where they have mastered the creation of human.
They traveled the worlds with her faithfully. But maybe she had done something wrong. One day, she saw that her dolls became human. She begged, she wanted them to stay, but their artificial hearts could not endure the journey as well. One day, she saw them off with those that loved them and instead of happy tidings she lashed out in fury and envy:
“I see! I guess even all of you are abandoning me too! Are you really going to throw me away?! Is it really that painful to stay by my side?! I see, so not even my dolls cannot stand staying by me! Leave me! Get away from me you fools!”
And so the War Maiden continued her journey until there was no one around her. She abandoned her ships and machines and carried on the boat, flipping volumes of pictures, of those she once called family in many worlds. She flipped the pictures, yet none of these pictures had him by her side. Only those who followed her and left her.
She had thought that her family will be with her the day she would reach the true world. However, even though she picked up strays, it was never the same, and even though she ferried immortals and called them family. They would soon leave her be. Some accompanied her to many worlds yet their hearts were never as steely as hers.
They were not as strong as her and not once that they dared to journey with her.
Endlessly searching, picking up those who were abandoned, and making them accompany her until the day they would leave their nest. Everyone would leave her, some would abandon her and many would die for her. She wondered whether this was what the man felt after many trials. She could never forget and that she would never forget.
But yet as she crosses worlds she started to realize that maybe this was her sin. Maybe this was the fate of a woman who grew too greedy in hopes to escape a cycle of suffering.
...
She wanted to be free. She just wanted to ferry those who would like to live to safety. Why was she all alone in a realm where it was all black and where no sun would set? She couldn’t understand and before long she found herself fighting off beasts that wanted her dead. She didn’t even know why and how but she knows that they wronged her.
She fought them and throughout worlds, she was able to defend herself. But one day, when those who called themselves as guardians that watch over the worlds, the Valkyries that guards the world tree, came to her. They told her of her trespass and the worlds that she interfered. She was a monster, a devil, and a nuisance to those worlds.
“I am not wrong!” She argued.
But she was still thought of a fool and many foes would hamper her way. They would attack her, wound her, and throw everything that they had. It was an endless battle that worn her heart and soul. She won and cried tears of blood each victory. But she was facing the laws that govern the world, and as they were endless, she could only fight. She could only battle these foes who wanted to clip her wings.
She was strong. She was sure that with her powers she could be strong. That never she would lose to those who claimed to be guardians. By what right did they have to clip her wings? By what right did they have to tell that she was not allowed to search the worlds? She never faltered, she never dared to step back, and fight no matter how many she has to slay among the void!
“Come to me!” She raged against those who oppressed her. “I will not falter! I will never break! Do you think that you fools could break me?”
She continued her slaughter until one day those who she sees as a foe could be reduced. She heard the applause of those who watched her. They thought of her as a fool and yet they would cheer for this fool.
But the realms had to be guarded. They all had to be governed or chaos will breakthrough and destroy it all. Ciara Alician was a woman of power, and as time passes she only grew stronger. That’s why they created a blade and deprived her of the power that made her strong in the first place. Yet she was a woman of steel and not once did she gave up despite being weakened, cursed, and tortured by those who wanted to rid the disease that plagued the seedlings of the world trees.
So they thought of breaking her, and to do so they gathered all of those she called family. Their souls that should be happily living, bondage by those who called themselves as righteous. She could never dispose of her and thus she let the chains wrapped around her. However, for the sins of what she did, she was cast into a place where she would watch those whose fate she altered be cleansed. Their souls stripped of whatever visage of memory of the woman known as Ciara Alician.
In her eternal cage she saw those she ferried screamed and die, calling:
“Grandmother! Please save me!”
“Grandma! Please save me!”
Like children calling for their mother. She watched her family cleansed of their sins and emptied. Fury and rage, and thirst for vengeance drove her, and despite that desire, she never achieved it, as she watched her most important friend be casted into the same process. Her soul screaming, the Witch of Nether, who had found happiness, thrown into oblivion, purged for the crime of assisting the one that plagued the worlds.
They all laughed as she screams and breaks down in tears, begging, wishing for them to stop. She saw those who she called family torn, and before long, the steely heart of the War Maiden broke, and when they thought that she was finally cleansed. The War Maiden broke the neck of her captor, strangled it, and consumed her captor’s flesh, granting her power that would allow her to slay them.
“Grandma’s going to save you all…ah, grandma will kill all the monsters, so okay, please wait for me…”
She slaughtered without end.
With tears of blood, she slaughtered those who wronged her.
She threw worlds into chaos just to kill the guardians.
From savior, she became a devil.
A devil that plagued the worlds until all those beings that wronged her were dead.
The Gods laughed, applauded, and thought of her as someone that should be discarded.
Stripped off her powers and once again she was cornered. But this time she made plans, and although maddened, she escaped their wrath, fought more, and exhausted her powers, and crawled to the gateway where the true tree exists, the world that she was planning to reach in the first place.
“Where are you?” She called to no one. Her broken heart and soul was driving her to reach the end. “Where are you? Where are all of you, my grandchildren?”
She hopelessly calls, yet none would answer her in this madness that clouded her vision. Millenniums she traveled, and yet it would have been far easier if she reincarnated. She had that choice but refused to do so.
“What if he doesn’t recognize me?” She reasoned. The Gods laughed at such madness.
It was madness.
Indeed, it was madness, and now she smashes her sword, insanely calling to the dead, and trying to break the barrier that contained her.
The woman who traversed the worlds and did not want to be reincarnated went through hells has finally reached her path.
She was without family and now she still thinks that she had to reach the surface.
Madness fogs her mind but she was a woman with a heart of steel.
No, she simply sees whatever path that was blocking her and intend to destroy it.
Isn't that what heroes do? Destroy all the path that blocks her!
Persist even if it causes madness!
She was the War Maiden who raised her sword for the sake of duty and family , and she would continue to do so.
For that she was good at and that this was her role.
Heroes never quit and she never does until death takes her.
For that is the determination of a savior.
That is the determination of a lonely woman who saved the world.
Now I wonder if we'll also see Tania in the new world. Guessing she's reincarnated as Alice with her shop's name being The Pale Shine.
Tbh I'm a bit tired with Ciara. I thought it would be a good idea for Einar/Nolan to be free from that toxic relationship, but I guess they'll meet again in the end.
As much as I pity Nolan, this fate of hers is actually more tiring. Not even death can release her. Having all that power and still not enough to find happiness? Quite the cruel irony but well deserved. All that power and duty did was cloud her mind that some things cannot and aren't meant to be changed. She may be a hero in her own right but not to the ones who govern the worlds. Her determination and loyalty to her cause is commendable though if not misplaced.