The air was tense around the table where Anoron once sat. Iris, Bellona, and Eir were all casting nervous glances between each other; everyone was on high alert and tensions were high. Eventually, they looked down to the cup that Anoron had left behind, still full with the dark wine. Slowly, the three women then turned towards Arylos who sat at the far end of the table with his arms crossed and eyes closed while deep in thought. Iris watched him nervously, wanting to remind him of his promise that he wouldn’t hide his emotions and yet she couldn’t bring herself to tell him. Eventually, the Titan sighed and opened his eyes, bearing a softer expression than Iris was used to.

Iris raised her hand, ready to grab Arylos’s shoulder. “Honey, we don’t have to–”

“Shush before I change my mind,” Arylos growled as he leaned forward, dodging her entirely. He rested his elbows on the table and interlaced his fingers while resting his chin against his hands as he eyed the three women intently with his burning eyes. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you girls,” he said with a deep sigh. “Anoron came here and he asked us to help him fight off the Eikons.”

“Anoron was here?” Eir asked in shock.

“He wants you to what?” Bellona asked in disbelief.

“You heard me,” Arylos said with a slow nod. “He believes the situation on Templarius is deteriorating faster than he can repair it. He wants our help to identify Eikons so he can lead a war against them.”

“Arylos, you do realize that puts you on the front lines, right?” Bellona asked out of concern.

“Oh I’m betting on that,” Arylos added with a sly laugh.

“No matter how much Anoron sugarcoats it, we will have to fight with him,” Iris added as she rubbed her arms together. “It’s not the comfy advisory position he’s making it out to be; we will be out on the battlefields with him.”

“Then why are you even considering it?” Eir asked nervously.

Arylos and Iris both sighed and glanced at each other for a moment. “Because it’s not our decision to make,” Arylos said softly.

“Eh? What do you mean by that?” Bellona asked, sharing Eir’s reaction of confusion.

Arylos looked away for a moment before looking back up to Bellona, keeping his mouth hidden behind his hands. “I’m not from this world and I’m not from Templarius,” he explained in a soft voice.

“And I’m only half Templarian,” Iris added while crossing her arms. “That means neither of us have any stake in Templarius’s survival nor do we have any loyalties. Sure, we want to do the right thing, but Kaiyumi is our home and that comes first.”

“However you two are Templarian natives,” Arylos cut in while finally lowering his hands, resting them on the table. “And what made you Templarians was stripped from you by my hands. That takes the decision out of our hands; it should rightly belong to you.”

Bellona and Eir watched Arylos silently, unable to find words as they tried to process what the two of them were saying. “You can’t be serious; you can’t ask us to make that decision,” Bellona exclaimed in sheer shock.

“It doesn’t change the fact that it’s not our decision to make,” Iris insisted in a soft voice. “Our loyalties are here, to the point where we can quite frankly tell Templarius to piss off. But it’s your homeland and you’re our friends. If you want us to help, you just need to ask.”

“But we know you don’t want to,” Eir said softly in a nervous voice.

“What we want doesn’t mean anything,” Arylos said coldly as he turned his burning eyes towards Eir. “I took your wings from you without the ability to give them back to you, regardless of what you wanted. I made a decision for you without considering how you felt and deprived you of something you held dear. If going back to war means repenting for that, then so be it.”

“No one said you have to atone for that,” Eir added loudly, slamming her fist on the table, startling Iris but Arylos kept his eyes on the valkyrie.

“It still doesn’t change the fact that it’s not our choice,” Arylos said in a soft voice while resting his chin against his hands. “Iris and I have no loyalties to Templarius. Thoth himself has stated that he would rather help the Kaiyumae. We all know where Moviron’s loyalties are, despite being a Templarian himself. That leaves you two, and as our friends, you have the more meaningful voice here.”

Bellona and Eir looked towards each other, internally debating on what was the right choice to make, or if they should even make a choice. “Well, I don’t have any family waiting for me, and those I do have, they can handle themselves,” Bellona said aloud while rubbing her chin. “If anything, I’m sure my elder brother would jump into this battle first.”

“Eh? You have a brother?” Iris asked in surprise.

“She’s one of six children,” Arylos explained while watching Bellona carefully. “And by ‘elder brother’, you mean Mars?”

“Yeah,” Bellona answered in a shy voice. “To be fair, Anoron could have just asked him for help.”

“On one hand yes, Mars would be a good person to ask,” Arylos explained while thinking back on the ancient Templarian. “But the incarnation you and I remember is old and he must have reincarnated at least once since then. And even the incarnation you and I knew wouldn’t be able to fight the Eikons.”

“To fight the Eikons, you have to be willing to kill them and everyone around them,” Iris cut in, calling on her previous talk with Arylos while they were considering this.

“Now tell me, can Mars, Pater Romae himself, really be comfortable with killing his own people if it means stopping the Eikons?” Arylos asked with burning red eyes.

Bellona slowly lowered her head, understanding what Arylos was getting at. “No, he wouldn’t,” she said in a soft voice. “Which is also probably why Anoron came to you.”

“Exactly; Anoron isn’t willing to sacrifice the Templarians even though he knows that, inevitably a lot of Templarians will die,” Arylos said with an assuring nod. “I on the other hand don’t care what happens so long as the war ends.”

“So there really is no guarantee that anyone from my family will help, or if they’ll even be safe,” Bellona wondered aloud before turning towards Eir. “What about you? You have family there, right? You are an Yggdrasilian native after all.”

Eir lowered her head and rubbed her arms together as she struggled to find words. “I mean, I kind of want to, but I know nothing good will come of it.”

“What do you mean?” Iris asked out of concern.

“Well, at this point, I’m sure Odin has already pronounced me dead and my family has stopped looking for me, if they even started to look for me at all,” Eir explained in a sad voice as she kept her head low.

“Why would your family not look for you?” Bellona asked softly while resting a hand on Eir’s shoulder.

Eir shook her head before looking back up to the group with tears forming in her eyes that she struggled to contain. “I’m not from Asgard; I actually come from Vanaheim, and I…I ran away from my parents to join the valkyrja.”

Arylos let out a sigh as he rubbed his eyes and he could feel Iris look towards him, wordlessly asking for an explanation. “Vanaheim is a realm that has a long and war-filled history against Asgard,” he explained to Eir while moving his hand to rub his forehead. “If Eir left her home in Vanaheim to join the valkyries in Asgard, that would be seen as deserting her people; joining sides with the same people responsible for killing thousands of Vanir.”

“It would be like running away from Nageki to join forces with the Reig,” Bellona added in a soft voice.

Iris felt shock come to her as she stared at the young valkyrie in disbelief, yet she couldn’t help but wonder if it was even her place to scold her. She must have had a reason for joining the valkyries; so why betray her family? Was it to help people? Was it to make a difference? Was it even Iris’s place to ask? Would helping Anoron change anything?

There were too many questions and not enough time.

“I wanted to make a difference,” Eir said simply in a soft voice. “Even when we weren’t fighting the Aesir, we were fighting amongst ourselves. One day, a riot broke out and my brother…my brother tried to get my parents and I out. When the dust settled, we had to dig his body out from under a collapsed building.”

Eir shook the tears from her eyes as she looked back up to Arylos and Iris. “Since then, I wanted to have the strength to protect my parents, and I knew I couldn’t find that strength on Vanaheim,” Eir continued with a new determination in her eyes.

Iris watched Eir closely and she felt emotions crawl out from wounds that she had long buried. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked softly, wondering what else the valkyrie she once hated didn’t tell her.

“We all have our secrets honey,” Arylos cautiously warned while eyeing her with his draconic eyes. Iris opened her mouth to speak but quieted herself, realizing that out of everyone present, she was the only one who knew exactly what happened to the other Titans; a secret Iris intended to keep.

“Then comes the important question; do we step up and try to stop the Eikons?” Bellona asked while turning back towards Arylos. “Do we try and make a difference, even if it means killing a lot of people we love?”

Arylos sighed as he rubbed his head, uncomfortable with the thoughts that plagued him. “Either we do nothing and everyone dies, or we fight and probably die, in which case only some people we know will die. Regardless, this isn’t going to end like it does in legends or fairy tales. A lot of people will die, and we might even join them.”

“Even you?” Bellona asked Arylos cautiously.

“Especially me,” Arylos said softly while lowering his head. “I’m sorry, and I’m sorry to you too Iris; but I think that if any of us here will die, it will likely be me.”

Iris fought back the urge to reject what Arylos was saying but she knew it wasn’t her place. Arylos heard her silence and looked back up to her and she examined him like it was the last time she would ever see him; she memorized the details of his face, the wrinkles in his skin, the color of his eyes, like he was a painting that she would see only one more time.

“I have to keep my priorities straight,” Arylos continued in a soft voice. “If we can save everyone, we have to try. But I must keep what I have; at all cost. Every single one of you is too valuable for me to lose, so if I need to sacrifice myself to keep any one of you alive, then I won’t hesitate. If I have to choose between saving one of you or saving Templarius, then I won’t have to choose.”

“Honey,” Iris whispered softly, feeling tears well up in her eyes.

“Arylos is right,” Bellona cut in suddenly while slamming her fist on the table. “If we have the strength to save people, then we owe it to them to try. But we cannot forget ourselves; we got into this together, we need to get out of this together.”

“Yeah!” Eir joined in while jumping up from the table. “We all know Anoron won’t hesitate to throw us away if it means protecting Templarius. We have to keep that same protection for ourselves or else we’ll end up being pigs led to slaughter.”

“So you want us to help Anoron?” Iris asked softly, realizing that there was only ever one answer.

Bellona nodded as she rubbed her hands together. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but if we have to choose between letting everyone die, and keeping at least some people alive, we owe it to those survivors to try. We all know we’ve had our own hardships.” Bellona then got up from the table and turned towards Iris.

“There will be more orphaned little girls who are lost and homeless,” Bellona said while looking right at Iris.

“There will be more sons who will die protecting their parents,” she then said while turning towards Eir.

“There will be more lost soldiers mourning for their comrades,” she said while putting a hand on her chest.

“And there will be more sole survivors living with the guilt of ‘what if?’” Bellona said while turning towards Arylos. “Let’s not forget ourselves because we are fighting to protect people just like us.”

Arylos watched Bellona intently before chuckling softly under his breath. “Now that’s what I expect from the goddess of conquest. Don’t you agree, brother?”

Before anyone could ask, a voice called out and interrupted everyone. “That’s as good of an answer as any, brother,” a familiar deep voice said. As everyone turned towards the voice, they saw Anoron himself, sitting on the far side of the table with his mechanical arms crossed and watching the group with an entertained smile.

“L-L-L-L-Lord A-Anoron?!” Eir called out nervously while trying to resist the urge to faint.

Iris’s eyes narrowed as she watched the Templarian king intently as he chuckled at Eir. “Just how long were you here?” Iris asked accusingly.

“Long enough to get all of the details,” Anoron said while leaning towards the table and resting his arms on it. “So I assume that you will be coming to Templarius with me?”

Arylos eyed the cup of wine Anoron left the previous day and reached for it. Before he could talk himself out of it or admire the drink, he drank it in a single shot, slamming the cup back down on the table, feeling the liquor burn his throat on the way down. He didn’t allow himself to enjoy the flavors or savor the burn, knowing that he might as well have just drank the poison that will one day end him. As he looked back up to Anoron, he feld disdain and yet he didn’t feel like he was alone.

He opened his mouth and Iris watched words of the Titanic language pour out from him, making sounds that she could not identify as his lips didn’t match up with what she did hear. Satisfied, Anoron nodded and rose up from the table, his mechanical body whirring all the while. “Come now, I have a tight schedule to keep; we will be leaving for Templarius in the morning,” he said with a wicked smile.