It still rained red hours after the death of the Icon of Judgement. Red clouds collected overhead. The sunshine struggled to break through the crimson haze. Dimples of blood collected on the surface of materials like condensation.
The corpse of a Paradise Lost Corrupted permanently changed the landscape like a living, beating heart. It pumped blood into the world though it had no veins as if striving to live; to tell the world that it was still here.
It was nothing like the corpse of the Heart of Ours which remained dormant in a rocky field surrounded by death. Neither was it like the massive city that the Crowned left behind in C4. Though Corrupted Zones could not exist once the Corrupted disappeared, what it left behind could not be called a silver lining.
Rather than a Corrupted Item, the carcass of the Icon of Judgement became something that an intuitive individual could claim. It itself was a ‘Gift’ that generated an endless supply of blood like a Star.
“Reverence. That’s a new one. Reverence alludes to a deity, huh. With how the Corrupted work, it’s no wonder a Paradise Lost Corrupted was built on the foundation of Reverence. Like how Disorder can already create powerful Corrupted. Reverence is on a totally different scale.”
The Voice didn’t respond. It hadn’t ever since the defeat of the Icon of Judgement. Neither did Dark Memoria make a return. Still, Frost was still trapped within the Rewound. Until she found the Wound then she’d remain here.
But she wasn’t in any rush.
She took the Princess by hand, letting her lead the way from the inner walls. Frost followed wherever the child pointed as she reminisced of a life before the tragedy. A purifying smile accompanied the Princess’ words as she recalled a Paradise far different from what Frost had seen.
The girl recalled days where smiles basked in the sunlight. A time where the people of Paradise were free from illness and the wars beyond their walls. Ignorance guided her memories, because it was all she remembered.
However, as Frost held out her hand to guide her across a small jump, the girl briefly stared down at her visible reflection.
“It’s hard to call home a bad place. I know how deep the blood runs. Lots of people disappeared to keep our home cozy. I used to play here. Before I was made to stay in the Garden.”
Ghostly apparitions appeared within the bloody surface of the sea. Children danced and laughed along the streets of the inner layer without a care in the world. They were free spirited and ran with hands thrust out like wings.
“Our blood is the same. Something about ‘One Sin’ didn’t make sense to me. Of course there are bad apples.”
The girl jumped across the gap as they approached a rundown gate that separated the inner circle with the outer. Apparitions gathered at their side of the gate. Frost at first believed it to be a fight. Upon closer inspection it was revealed that the gathering was something far more depressing.
A child asked but one simple question to express their empathy to the starving Demi-humans across the other side of the gate.
“They’re filthy. Don’t equate yourself to them. The moment you lend out a hand is when they’ll show their real colors. They’ll take your fingers and gouge your eyes.”
The guardian of that child reprimanded them, creating a core memory that would only serve to perpetuate the cycle of suffering.
Frost must have looked odd staring at the gate to the Princess. She didn’t know how the girl would take being told that she could see ghosts. But to Frost’s surprise, the girl spoke as if she knew precisely what Frost was seeing.
“Do you believe people are born evil?”
“… No. People are shaped. But some things are born that way.”
“They can change, can’t they? We all bleed the same, is what I think. I always thought how much nicer things would be if we could all get along. But it was impossible.”
“I don’t believe in this notion of One Sin either. We have a saying from where I’m from. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Neither does it choose where to go, or where it was born. But here, the fact that it was an apple is the sin itself.”
“Just wanting to be alive?”
“I honestly have no idea if it’s just that. It can mean a hundred or a thousand different things at this point. What matters is that we all have this ‘apple’.” Frost went on a long tangent to clear her mind from the fog.
She then turned to the blood, to the blood-drenched castle, and then to the Princess.
“But I don’t think it’s bad thing. I just think it’s silly. Like how ‘war waited for man.’”
“… Hahaha… Silly… It seems that way when you think about it. If something we all have is so wrong, then why were we born in the first place?”
The girl’s laughter filled the air as she took Frost’s hand and walked her along the main highway towards the castle.
“You took the words right out of my mouth.” She pinched her cheek lovingly. “Well, I can think of other things it relates to. Namely Elysia and the Captured Star she ate.”
“Elysia? Captured Star? What is that?”
“Another long story?”
The girl’s pace slowed as she peered up at Frost through her delicate, pale bangs.
“– We can walk slower!” She grinned cheekily.
It was hard for Frost to believe that this child didn’t receive a lot of love. Her brother was a manipulative bastard, the King was nowhere to be found, and her mother was a monster. Frost skirted around them being related through the Captured Star.
Instead, she simply retold the story of the Arbiter’s past, and Elysia and Sinder’s first loop, and then about herself in the present.
She didn’t mention the loops, or anything related to time.
It was all spun like a story from elsewhere.
Because Frost did not want the Princess to know that she was supposed to die here. She was bound to disappear when the Rewound was over.
But still, she wanted to let her go in peace.