Theora rubbed her tired eyes as the sun set on the last evening before launch. Her attire was still producing more items. On and off, she and some helpers had been trying to clean her attire out for weeks, sitting in Dema’s home and carrying everything out that she managed to pull out of the shared storage. They had already filled two halls, and were starting to reach capacity of the third, all with her junk magical items, old rewards, and stuff she couldn’t even identify. She never realised how many clothes she owned.

The Shade was helping her clear out her things too; this must be what moving felt like to people.

At some point earlier that day, Theora had told the other volunteers to go to bed. At that point, they’d already pulled an all-nighter without any signs of finishing the task anytime soon. It wasn’t the highest priority task, but if Theora did end up stuck in space for millenia, it would be a waste for all her belongings to be gone with her. Many magical items ran on mana and needed to be recharged regularly in order to function, and since Theora had no access to mana, they would be of no use for her long-term. Down here, she could ask others to recharge items for her. Not that she ever did, because talking was difficult, so over time, the few magical items she had used were those that were self-sufficient, like her attire. In addition, her multilayered travelling attire was such a mess that remembering an item from inside and actually pulling it out to use it, while also remembering how it worked, was almost unfeasible.

Or, to put it more bluntly, it was effort, and Theora was tired. Her time in To Hell With the Author had reminded her of the fact that she not only owned a myriad of things, she also barely used them, while others might be able to. And so, into the halls they went.

As she pushed her hand into the folds once more and rummaged around, her hand eventually grabbed something soft. When she pulled it out, it was a device with two very small lids that enclosed a fluffy magical cloud. Ah… What was that again?

Right. She’d received it as a gift once, when travelling high mountains. It was a device to create a small amount of air, to be used in tents in high-altitude where the winds didn’t offer enough sustenance to survive, when climbing to high summits.

She put it on the shelf of the hall. Obviously, it was not going to be useful in space, especially if she couldn’t recharge it. Plus, Theora did not plan on breathing much up there anyway. 

She filled out a little sheet containing whatever information she remembered. What was the name again? Breatheriser? Probably not, but it’s what Theora jotted down. Someone with [Identify] would eventually go through these notes and correct them.

“Hey there,” Bell’s voice rang out just as Theora finished writing. “Came to say goodbye.”

Pushing the little sheet aside, Theora looked up. Shady had pushed Bell out from itself. She was looking massive. Her orange tendrils were reaching out like sunrays, her dress seemed larger than usual, and the look on her face was determined.

Most of the time, Bell seemed to hate the idea of taking up space. Bell usually had her legs drawn close to her chest while sitting. She was always making sure to keep her distance and not to touch anyone; even those who didn’t mind her acidic toxicity. She’d been that way even back when her party had confronted Theora. Bell hadn’t come to fight, back then, so she’d sat down, kept tendrils and limbs close, as if erecting a barrier between herself and the world.

But now, instead, Bell seemed ready for a fight. Seemed ready to tear something apart. Not in an angry way, but more… wary. It was like the strongest hero in existence was about to leave the world behind, and Bell knew it, and was ready. Ready to serve as a defender in Theora’s stead.

“We’ll see each other again before launch,” Theora answered. “Won’t you come to see me off there?”

Bell shrugged, and about two thirds of her tendrils repeated the gesture with a soft jerk upwards. “I probably will, but I wanted to say goodbye in person. Dema and None are immortal, but depending on how long you’ll be gone and what might happen while you’re there, I might… not make it.”

Theora swallowed.

But Bell was smiling softly. Her tendrils started grazing over the items in the room, probably using [Identify] or them, or perhaps just feeling them up. Maybe some of those items were interesting even to an accomplished hero like her.

“I just spoke with Dema,” Bell added. “Once you’re gone — and I mean, properly gone, as in, we know your launch went well — we’ll head off to see Treeka, and see what I can do for her. None obviously can’t join, but I should be able to put up a tentative barrier across the wound until None is ready to inspect it. We’ll find a way to help her, so don’t worry about that.”

Theora let out a deep sigh. She had indeed worried about that. A lot.

She’d given Treeka empty promises because she’d been feeling overconfident, and then the end of the world had gotten in her way and there was nothing she could ever do to make up for it. Treeka’s heart had literally been out in the open. She’d shared all her vulnerabilities with them and asked for help, and they’d left her behind and now Theora was going to fly to the end of the planetary system.

Bell was just staring down at Theora, giving her room for thought. As much as Bell had a tendency to say inconsiderate things, she still seemed to care very deeply, about everything, always.

“I’ll miss you,” Theora murmured.

Bell jolted a bit at that. It was just the tiniest surprised wince in her eyes, but it somehow managed to rock through her tendrils and get bigger as it went on; embarrassing her, judging from Bell’s throat bob. Then, she just nodded, and stepped back into the Shade.

Theora spent a few more hours emptying her attire.

In the end, with the help of Shady, Theora just fluffed it like a blanket and littered all remaining items onto the floor of the hall. She felt a bit bad for leaving a mess, but it was preferable to keeping it all. Meanwhile, Shady ensured that all the items Theora would actually need up there remained inside the attire, and then, finally, left the attire as well when everything else was out.

“Thank you so much,” Theora said, and got a friendly nuzzle in response. “You can go back to the library.” That’s where the Shade had mostly been staying since leaving Theora’s attire, so others could find Dema’s house.

It gave what Theora understood as a nod, and shuffled itself out of the hall.

Theora finally put her attire back on, for the first time in weeks. The Shade had accepted to keep the time dilation device contained within itself during Theora’s absence — it seemed to be less of an issue to contain it now that Shady was accustomed to it and it wasn’t wedged within its flesh.

Theora let out a long sigh. So many preparations. So much deliberation. They’d argued for days whether Theora should keep the dilation device with her or not; they’d argued for days whether Theora should go alone or take another immortal with her, like Isobel or Dema, and they’d argued for hours if Theora should wear some kind of suit to protect herself from the harsh environment of the Grand Voids, and there had been many good arguments for every option.

But the ultimate decision had been for Theora to go alone, without protection, and without the time dilation device. Too much about the Grand Voids was unknown to make it safe for anyone or anything to be there except Theora herself.

All she had left in her attire now were about one hundred tons of crystallised blood, gold, an immense amount of flowers, water, and some ingredients for tea. And, a few metal plates with many dots, rings, lines, and names on them — star maps.

Lastly, the Orbs of Seven Wishes.

Other than that, her attire was empty. They argued that if Theora were to take more, she’d only lose it or mix it up with other things if she wanted to get anything out quickly. It was scary how well they all knew her by now.

Just when Theora wanted to leave, her eyes fell on a little box in the large heap of stuff she’d swiped out of her attire at the end. Somehow, it stood out to her. A little wooden box she couldn’t remember ever seeing before, wedged between all the junk. 

Inside was a small collection of cards, each having a beautiful distinct picture painted on it. One by one, Theora looked through them, and could feel something move deep within her hollow shell, like a single cog getting unstuck in an abandoned factory.

The feeling vanished as soon as it appeared.

These were just cards. Beautiful cards, yes, but… where or when had she gotten them? Why did they draw her attention like that? There were many items on that heap she did not remember, but none of them gave her shivers like this.

Theora looked around to confirm that she was alone, and then stealthily placed the cards in her attire. Mission control would be really upset with her if they knew she was smuggling things into space. But those cards were so pretty. She was already leaving everything behind. Surely, she could indulge in a single keepsake.

Well, she had Dema’s bracelet too, but that wouldn’t go into the attire in the first place. Dema had promised it was strong enough to withstand the Grand Voids.

 

A few hours later, it was time for Theora’s departure. Her launching spot was in the wheat fields outside Heofen, and hundreds of people had gathered to see her off. 

There was Ulfine.

There were Bell and Dema, as well as Harrik, his sister Kara, and Hannah.

Hannah. The one they’d met so, so long ago, before meeting the Devil of Truth. The girl who had been worried about his return, and told them where to find him. Somehow, the whole world must have known about Theora’s mission — she couldn’t otherwise explain how Hannah would have found her here.

There was an older man too, and Theora felt warm hugging him and sending him off, felt her heart ache in both relief and sadness at seeing him again, and when his wide back disappeared into the distance, she felt like she’d forgotten something important.

Something important.

Ah, right. After all this time. So he had made it. Theora smiled — then she blinked, and forgot Tras again.

Un was giving some kind of explanatory send-off speech, and Theora was too self-conscious to really listen to it. Seeing everyone was nice, but being made a fuss over felt awkward.

And so, when things were said and done, Theora walked to the top of the little hill, and fetched an Orb of Seven Wishes.

“Mission-Control to the Sun of Heofen!” a cheerful voice rang out in her ear. There was a little magitek device attached to the side of Theora’s head, enabling instant-communication between patches of magic mould. Hallmark’s artificer guild had put a lot of effort into creating this thing. It was the centre-piece of the entire operation. Built to work in space, built to withstand large amounts of damage. It also kept sending back loads of data on Theora’s velocity and location and had a radar to measure local mana disturbances. Hundreds of people had been working on it for months.

And yet, it only had a few days of runtime.

Theora couldn’t calculate the route in her head, much less make adjustments in case things went wrong. The star maps were only useful to her in combination with guidance from home. Using the chat function of the alliance would have been fine at first, but at longer distances, the lag would make intervention in precarious situations harder. And nobody knew if the System’s reach even went that far. The old documents of the Protans mentioned the System having an unspecified maximum reach, but they didn’t rely on it in the first place, so details were vague.

This divination magitek device, however, could exceed the speed of information when using the magic mould mycelium as a road. Theora just had to stay close to the patches, or at least travel specific routes between them, and then she’d remain in contact with home.

“You don’t have to talk to me this way,” Theora responded in thought. Speaking out loud in space would be difficult, considering the vacuum blocked sound and the cold might freeze her, so the device projected thoughts directly from her mind.

“But it’s fun!” ‘mission control’ responded. “Prefer if I call you mom?”

“You can call me ‘mom’, although I’m not sure if I fulfil that kind of role very well.”

Isobel chuckled into the transmission device. “Current altitude 2,413 universal units of distance above ocean. Current Timestamp -134 seconds to mission start. Please describe your current state of mind!”

“Fine,” Theora said.

“Guh, mom! We’ve talked about this. Managing the emotional state of a person embarking on an isolating mission is top priority for its success. It’s what those people who tried out space travel a few centuries ago said as well, before they gave up on it because they realised that kind of industry would hollow out the planet and leave it a wasteland.” There was a short pause. “Ah, I got distracted again. What was I saying?”

“You were scolding me for not giving a detailed description of my emotional state.”

“Right! Exactly. Please report your current feelings!”

“I feel happy that so many people came to see me off. But it also makes me a little sad. I wish Hell and Balinth could have made it, or Lostina and Gonell, or Fiantanne, or Skuld. I miss them a lot. I feel happy to hear your voice, and to have you with me. I’m glad that they decided to offer this role to you after you received [Compute]. I feel anxious due to the uncertain aspects of the missions, and I hope it will all go well.”

Theora could hear Isobel’s nodding clacks. “Perfect. Job well done, Also— Oh! There we go, it’s time. Ten, nine, eight—”

As Iso was counting down, Theora realised that the crowd was doing the same, and she raised the Orb, holding it between thumb and index finger, ready to leave.

“Three, two, one — go!”

Theora snapped the Orb and stepped into the sky.