Arylos walked along the city walls, taking in the sights of cloudy starlit sky, bathing the earth in the red and white light of the moons. As he walked along the rampart path, he couldn’t help but enjoy the colors of the green earth under the haunting light. It reminded him much of Mortehksun with the blue green grass and the blood red sky overhead. After all these years living on this foreign planet, he couldn’t help but to feel at home in this unfamiliar place.

The bewitched Arylos leaned against the rampart walls, taking in the cold bite of the dry winter air. Even in the absence of snow, the cold night carried a silence with it that the war torn Titan felt relaxing. It filled him with a peace he had not felt for a long time, a peace so fickle and fleeting he knew it wouldn’t last the winter.

Arylos took in a deep breath as he took in the serenity, embracing the alien peace for as long as he could. “It’s quiet,” Arylos said aloud followed by a sigh as he sensed eyes on him. “Too quiet for someone to be sneaking up behind me.”

“Do you really think I would try?” a man’s deep voice answered Arylos.

“You might as well ask me how dumb I think you are, Sentarus,” Arylos answered with a snicker under his breath.

“It’s just you and me up here; you can call me by my real name,” the Kaiyumian king answered as he approached the rampart wall next to Arylos.

“I know what it’s like though,” Arylos answered in a sad voice. “To pretend you can be something that you’re not.”

Moviron let out a sigh as he looked up at the star-filled sky. “I only wanted to die alongside my people. Now I’ll live until the last of my people dies; did anything really change?”

“Everything, because you will be the last of your people until you die,” Arylos answered, understanding the pain Moviron was hiding behind his prideful mask. “And even then, you are no longer one of them because of what you have become.”

“Spoken like a man who speaks from experience,” Moviron said with a nervous chuckle.

“And you are oblivious just like the young boy I met in the woods three thousand years ago,” Arylos said as he began to laugh. “Sometimes, I still see that young boy who declared war against the Reig. You were so…tiny and without renown that it was funny to think about. And then you proved me wrong and killed Kalndahvok, winning the freedom of your people.”

“It was hardly just me, Arylos,” Moviron said with a humble tone. “Were it not for the Kaiyumian people uniting as one against our common enemy, we would have been rendered extinct.”

“And yet it was you who united them,” Arylos reminded the old Kaiyumian king with a soft voice.

“And yet I can never be among them again,” Moviron said with sadness in his voice. “Let’s face it Arylos; I’m a Templarian now. I am an outsider, unable to walk amongst my own people, out of both fear and regret. Iris was right; how would they take to being ruled by a Templarian?”

“A Templarian that fought alongside them and delivered them their freedom,” Arylos said softly, feeling Moviron’s pain deep inside him. “They would revere you as their hero, their god even. Even now as you give yourself to keep Templarius away, protecting them from dangers they otherwise wouldn’t understand, or even hope to fight.”

“Something tells me you speak from experience once more,” Moviron said as curiosity took him. “Is this about the Eikons?”

Arylos sighed as he looked down at the world below and the forests and mountains that stretched across the horizon. “There are many horrifying things in this great and beautiful reality. I have seen stars die and consume the worlds around them. I have seen worlds so extreme that they defy existence and explanation. That the corpses of stars are so dangerous to behold that they would consume you like a maelstrom takes a ship in a mighty storm. To see everything in reality is horrifying and yet beautiful. The stars and worlds you see as dots of lights in the sky rendered in a fantastic array of colors as they dance through the heavens. And yet the vast emptiness of reality is terrifying and the sheer number of worlds makes one wonder just what is alive out there.”

“Holy shit that’s deep,” Moviron said in awe.

“It’s much like when you saw Templarius for the first time,” Arylos continued with a sly smile at Moviron. “To see something so beautiful and majestic that your dreams could never do it justice. Then the horror takes over once logic sets in and you begin to understand the scale of everything. It’s a lot like that, but bigger once you realize that Templarius is not unique in the heavens.”

“There are other worlds like Templarius out there?” Moviron asked in curiosity.

“Yes, that is the beauty of infinity, Sentarus,” Arylos answered as he looked back up at the sky. “There are worlds out there just like them. For each decision they made, I can guarantee there is a world out there with the exact same history that made the other decision. Infinity is nothing but an ever branching tree, like a rose bush that grows forever and you prune with each decision you make.”

“Damn, I don’t think I could imagine that even if I wanted to,” Sentarus said as he rubbed his head, feeling his mind melt from the scale of Arylos’s words.

“And if you could, you could understand the horrors out there,” Arylos said in a somber voice. “And now try to imagine the Eikons and how they are a horror of their own. Out of everything reality could birth, they are the most dangerous and horrifying and how the right circumstances create something so wrong and unnatural that reality itself abhors them.”

“What about if we compare them to you? To the Titans?” Moviron asked while stroking his beard.

“That’s the thing; I can be reasoned with, I can understand, I can be open to your perspective. The Eikons do not care,” Arylos said with anger in his voice. “They only care about eradicating all life, regardless of how you feel. They made up their mind and nothing can change that.”

“But what about our people and how we fought for our freedom? How we toppled the dragons themselves, is that worthless to them?” Moviron asked in frustration.

“They would see it as a failure on your part for being in that situation,” Arylos said with a sigh as he turned around to face Moviron. “It doesn’t matter that you won; to them, you should have let yourselves die and feed the superior species.”

“That’s bullshit,” Moviron said as he clenched his fists.

“And that is why I fight them,” Arylos said, trying to calm the Templarian. “Once, I would have agreed with them. But I cannot so readily disregard life like they do. To so easily declare that you don’t deserve to live and that you have no choice in the matter.”

Moviron took several deep breaths as he calmed himself, feeling the raging emotions in him carry the magic of war in his veins. He looked up at the hardened Titan and began to appreciate that Arylos was on their side. “Then why aren’t you fighting them right now?” he asked softly.

Arylos sighed as he looked at Sentoraya, taking in the nighttime quiet across the city. “Because I finally have a taste of the life that I’ve been trying to defend. I’m not a god of war, I am a tired old man who has grown tired of his mistakes.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve been fighting the Eikons out of the goodness of your heart,” Moviron said with a scoff.

Arylos let out a laugh, finding the idea of him being a hero ridiculous. “I value and support life. They seek to destroy life. And so my decision has been made for me.”

“Well then, at least I plan to live just a little longer,” Moviron said with a nervous laugh.

Arylos lost himself in his thoughts as he rubbed his arms. “This isn’t like them though. All of this is too quiet for them.”

“What do you mean?” Moviron asked.

“They will stop at nothing to finish their task, and yet they have been silent,” Arylos explained as the cold finally penetrated his skin.

“Maybe they’re just scared of you,” Moviron suggested half-heartedly.

“Oh they are, but they also know that if the two of us fight, a lot of people will die,” Arylos explained in a nervous voice. “Just the act of fighting me is a step towards their goal, no matter how many of their number die.”

“But didn’t you kill the Sage that attacked Inamura?” Moviron asked out of concern.

“And killing Tyranny destroyed almost half of the city; to them, they still won,” Arylos said as anger came through his voice. “No matter how much I contain them, people will still die in the crossfire and that’s how they seek to defeat me. With each one of them I kill, at least a hundred people will die.”

“That’s fucked up,” Moviron said aloud, imagining fighting an army of creatures that know that all they have to do is die in order to win.

“And each life they take can become a new Eikon,” Arylos continued as his voice cracked. “They don’t need reinforcements when all the reinforcements they need are littered on the battlefield. They can turn the dead into new warriors to be bloodied. That’s how they attack; they kill, infect, then turn the dead into more Eikons to continue the cycle.”

“That’s cold blooded,” Moviron said in disgust. “No warrior, no matter how determined they are, is willing to cut down their own countrymen.”

“They may even hold onto false hope that the enthralled can be saved,” Arylos finished with a deep sigh. “And that is what makes them so dangerous; every attempt to fight them only serves their own goals.”

“And yet you haven’t seen them in five years,” Moviron mused while stroking his beard.

“Exactly; they are far too quiet than normal,” Arylos said in concern. “I killed Oldalthur who was on the verge of becoming an Eikon. I killed Enigma and freed Baldr who was the keystone to their Asgardian and Templarian invasion. Anoron excommunicated Odin and now I just killed a newborn Sage who was created from someone who swore vengeance against me. Again and again I have thwarted their plans with no answer from them in five years.”

“Do you think they’re planning something?” Moviron asked.

“They’re always planning something,” Arylos said in frustration. “That’s why I can’t be still, but I don’t want to fight them anymore. What if they’re planning something big? What if they come after me? Hell, they created a new Sage just for me; there have only ever been seven Sages counting Tyranny.”

“Seven Sages that are alive right now?” Moviron asked nervously.

“Ever,” Arylos answered. “Across all of their existence, there has only ever been seven; Tyranny, Obelisk, Prophet, Vortex, Sunder, Armada, and Demise.”

“Which means you have only ever killed one Sage,” Moviron slowly realized.

“Precisely,” Arylos said with a low growl. “The first Sage to be killed. To think their answer to that is five years of silence is absurd.”

“So that’s why you don’t want to hunt them down,” Moviron said softly.

“The worst is still ahead of us, so I want to enjoy the time I have left,” Arylos said mournfully.