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The ballads of this world are many. For your protection, this one shall never see the light of day.
(Come, and I’ll sing it still in night-visions. Come, Kaeya Alberich, and dream of dreaming.)
Little one, you’re far from the land of your birth. The heavens cursed it and chained you to this legacy: you are to fight them, and die. They want to warp you into a cautionary tale. It’s clear that you know this—you move like shadows and breathe against the decay in your lungs, and see in yourself the end of all endings. It’s more than hilichurls that flinch at their reflection, and that is a sin performed against all of you.
But your soul is far bigger than Their cruel narratives, and you guard yourself, fiercely. Good. I know all ballads, did you know? Let’s find a gentler one for you.
This story doesn’t seem gentle. Listen, and tell me if it is.
Once upon a time (for this is how to begin, inside other skies) there was an architect enslaved to a king. His son, too, was captive, and long they toiled under lanterns and labyrinths, enslaved without hope of rescue.
They rebelled.
A man who builds weapons may learn to build wings, and he did. They were beautiful, their edges sealed with wax and a prayer, and he laced them to his son’s back with careful instructions. They’re our last chance, and they’re fragile, he said as he tied off the last of the knots. Do not falter. Do not reach. Fly only straight ahead, and you may yet survive this.
—Yes. They die, just as you said, for that’s the kind of narrative they’re in. They knew death was likely, even as they jumped—but jump they did, away from their safe and suffocating captivity. Can you hear their wings scraping the sky? I can, even millennia and worlds and realities later.
Don’t despair of this story just because it ends in tragedy. You have to understand. It worked. Father and son escaped their cage and the boy flew, singing, into the dawn.
—Yes, the dawn. I told you this might be a gentler story, didn’t I? I cannot give you that without a dawn, for that is your second home and you have not lost all of it.
The two left soon after sunset, for the boy was no fool and even less so the father; since their wings faltered under sun-heat, they turned to the moon for direction. It worked, and they flew so long and far that they’d truly escaped by the time dawn came spilling over the horizon. It was a splendor, made of radiance and golden air. The boy saw it and reached, heart in upraised hand—
—and fell, haloed in broken feathers. He drowned, but that matters less; the point is the falling.
There. Did you see it? That’s Their great lie: that all grief means despair, that all reaching means the fall. The truth is this: reaching matters, regardless of the afterword. Remember that, and use it as a lens for hidden truths.
The stardust alchemist could and would calculate some of these truths, for he reaches for the truth of this world, and paints birds in flight to soothe the ache of it. He knows the shape and structure of wings, and he could learn that it’s possible to build human wings strong enough to clutch the sky. The architect’s masterpiece—cobbled together with dreams and desperation—was built well, and they flew as aptly as any ‘real’ wings.
The boy was clever, and his wings true; if he avoided the sun, little but the wind could steal his freedom (and I never would, dear heart). So. A question for you, cave-child, star-king. This story is a tragedy—what makes it so?
The lie that captivity’s safer? No, not quite, for it is safer. It’s worse, but it’s safer.
Having to fear the sun? Oh, you’re close. Why is that so cruel?
Because the freedom’s in the sunlight—you did not give it as a question. Yes, Kaeya. We reach for the light, and to call that our doom is sadism. Celestia has made the sunlight dangerous, but it was not always so; cruelty is not inherent to this world, and longing for better is hope, not condemnation. Reach for the stars, and they will reach back for you.
Remember that well, for it’s another secret.
The boy reached as well, yearning despite all cautions, and the sun reached for him with longing and fierce love. She felt his wonder and sent warm winds to carry the child to the uppermost skies, to help him see all she saw and marvel all the more. When she saw how her warmth undid his wings and his life, she hid her face and wept; the father landed safely in those grief-cold clouds, and saw how even the heavens had loved his child.
(Kaeya, I see you and love you. Given treachery, you choose love. Given danger, you choose protection. Do what you must, but please, never doubt that I honor your sacrifices.)
We have two secrets before us: the strong wings, and the grieving sun. Tell me a third, for we must work in threes while Celestia yet stands.
They’ve warped Their story? Yes. You see much of the extent of it, and guess at the rest. Listen. The sky is hidden—the real sky, I mean, not this glitter they’ve pasted over us. The real sun, the real stars and skies and galaxies, are our birthright; your yearning for it is your heritage, not your doom.
You reach for reality, and wind and rain and sky reaches with you. I reach with you. But we both fear our wings. If I fall—
(—again—)
Speaking of Khaenri’ah is forbidden. For you, I will ignore that. But to speak of that—
(Icarus did fall, and it hurt.)
. . . You listen well. Even to this; even to me. Alright. Then listen, and remember. Your brother, your love, and all of your people: these are the shapes of your sunrise. My sunrise? Peace. And her. These are why we fight, for they are precious.
—If we die? I hope we live, but I am shepherd to more than the merry; death and freedom are not so different, and truly, I am both.
You are someone with the courage to be kind. With every reason to fear me, you choose to stay your hand. With every reason to turn on this nation, you choose instead to make yourself its guardian. And oh, how you choose to love your brother. The light in him outshines Them like lanterns before the sun, but that cannot hide how he burned your soul and crippled your wings; now in free-fall, you reach for him still. You are Icarus, and your wax has been undone.
As an Icarus, you fell. As an Icarus, you survived it. There may yet be tragedy, but know this: your existence is a victory. You have already won. Selfishly, I’ll ask if you’ll do it again.
Fly, Kaeya, and reach for the world beyond Their sky. Find the horizons all have forgotten, and the freedoms none can yet claim. Fight for them. One day, the sky shall crack open like ice under thick fire, and a new world emerge from the ashes. Fly, and I will catch you with all the strength left in me.
This is beneath me? No. It is beneath Celestia, and they are weaker for it. Before them, messengers of heaven walked freely with men, and I remember and bear witness to it. The old ways are cruel, but the older ways are kind. Come.
You fall, and forge new wings as you plummet. You reach into this world, and it reaches into you—breezes dip and air trembles, but oh, how the winds rise in your presence. A child you came, and his hope you still protect. A prince you came, and a king you shall become.
Together, I pray, we may yet reach the sun.