How long was her journey, this last daughter of Tython?

Thousands of years, and thousands more.

She had gone through countless gates, across too many worlds (some of which were no longer intact), and had even wandered through the depths of a new kind of hell—all in search of the Savior Divine.

Of the many names that had been given to her, Laykis was the only one she now kept for herself.

“Laykis,” her Maker had said to her, in one of his scant recordings, “Laykis is the name I would’ve given to my own daughter, if I had ever had one of flesh and blood.”

Laykis was not offended by this second-tier honor. To her, it was one of the greatest sources of her pride. She clung to it, just as she clung to her quest, when she was nearly devoured by the Swarm.

Those had been dark years. She chose not to remember them too often, except when she offered her prayers to the gods, and to her sisters long gone.

Laykis, of all beings, knew how varied and different quests could be form one another. Some ended with valiant cheers. Others, with an abrupt change of fate that seemed only to leave more questions than answers. And others, still, seemed not to end at all.

She did not know what kind of quest she was on. Only that, despite having found the Savior Divine, she was far from finished. Of this, she was devoutly certain.

Now, her quest brought her here, to the surface of a dead world.

This cold, lifeless planet had once been home to many xenos. Under Sen’s divine protection, the ancestors of the Lassertane once built sprawling castle-cities here, that overlooked lush, fertile fields from their high mountains.

Even after the Swarm came, the proud ruins of the Lassertane’s ancient cities still stood…

…until now. The apostles of the Sovereign, and their city-sized carriers had fallen, crushing the very cities they once overshadowed. Huge, hulking bodies made of twisting hulls and monstrous pipes and repulsor engines the size of skyscrapers lay, slain, over the ruins.

Something had killed them. Something deep within the bowels of this world.

Laykis, the last daughter of Tython, aimed to find out.

She walked with unerring determination across tundras, where the destroyed remains of autocannons stuck out of the ground. Frost slicked her her ankle and knee joints as she wandered beneath the shadows of ruined turrets. She broke off metal from the corpses of machines that had been pummeled by the turrets, and used the scrap to repair herself when her own body failed in the frozen wastes. She stopped only when the sun fell and the ice grew so thick around her joints so that she could not possibly move. She found cracks at the foot of a mountain ridge where signs of organic life sat, untouched—fragments of scales, a frayed piece of leather—signs that she was on the right path. But here, the rock caved in and blocked her way.

She could remove it, with time. She could backtrack, and find a tool, and dig it out over the next few months.

Instead, Laykis chose to rip off a chunk of her chassis, exposing her motors and her complicated pneumatics, and squeezed herself into the cracks.

The tunnels beyond were a maze, and even her tracking skills failed her here. All she could do was map her way, and cross-reference her own footsteps to ensure she reduced doubling her steps as much as possible.

After a few weeks, she found the vicious rope of Light, carving slow circles around the cave. It must’ve been an ancient shield barrier, a human artifact made to keep the Lassertane from venturing below the surface of the planet. But it had long since malfunctioned.

It took her two hours to learn its pattern, and two days to work up the courage to run through it. Unlike an organic, the Light would react to her presence. Her core, more specifically. The Light was attracted to Light, and her close proximity might cause the rope to leap out and latch onto her frame, killing her instantly.

Laykis was no stranger to death. But if she was going to die, it would be in service to the Divine Savior.

She sprinted through, head first, and jumped across the gap. It was not pure chance that saved her, no. It was the will of the gods. They demand that I continue my quest. What else could it be?

Looking back, Laykis saw the rope of Light as a good sign, because it meant that while this world was dead, there was something inside that yet lived. Whatever it was, was deeper still.

She found the remains of that hanging village. There were drones up here, too. Somehow, their repulsors were still on, so they floated aimlessly, bumping and getting stuck on the stalactites and upside-down ridges of the planet’s inner crust.

Laykis did not think they would wake, ever again. She spent three days catching one of the aimless, lifeless drones. Another three, disconnecting its repulsor and getting the repulsor to work again. It was a good thing Laykis did not need rest, for the quest was demanding and time was not infinite.

When her makeshift contraption was ready, she leaped from the burned-out remains of a lassertane bridge.

Laykis sailed down, clinging to her makeshift repulsor raft. Her eyes, bright and open.

At the center of the world, she found his tomb. It was at the bottom of an inverted pyramid that was flooded with the bodies of broken machines. Tens of thousands of drones, and a handful of carrier ships all collapsed here, so that the android had to wade through tides of lifeless metal. She shoved away broken casings and tore through hulls and scraped, metal on metal, as she walked to Poire’s resting place.

The Mirror was, impossibly, unbroken. The glass, which was like no glass Laykis had ever seen, had fractures but was otherwise whole. And the weird, twisting shape of its metal , though hidden under the hull of a huge construct, was unbent (or rather, it had been bent on purpose by Sen herself).

There were feathers, here, too. Black. And dried blood at the foot of the Mirror.

But no sign of Poire. Not even a hair.

Some part of her had hoped the human had lied in his message. Or maybe that something had gone wrong with the Mirror, preventing him from leaving. She had hoped he was, somehow, still here. Just waiting for someone to find him.

But no. The Savior Divine was gone.

Once, Laykis had wandered for thousands of years just to find him. Just to hear a whisper of his name.

She could thousands more.

The first words that Tython ever gave her did not come from the Maker’s mouth. Instead, they were written into her very core.

One day, a human will return. The Savior Divine will come to save us all.

So, Laykis kneeled down in front of the Mirror. And began her wait.

THE END.