The Scions Who Did Not Return

The last thing they experienced was the warmth. Light blooming behind their eyes, the pull of something powerful. A moment stretched between two worlds — and then, stillness.

They never wake again.

The spell succeeds. Celebration follows. The Scions rise in their beds, as if from a dream. They smile, speak, hug as though no time has passed. The world moves on.

But they are not who they were.

Those I stood beside, who carried hope across the rift — they are gone. Their essence scattered, unanchored, dissolved into the great unseen. The ones who returned wear their faces, know their stories, even carry their voices. But the spark behind their eyes is new.

No rite of the Ascians. No precision of Allagan design. Consciousness was never meant to survive the crossing — even Y'shtola and Urianger voiced the risk: what returns may not be the same. Only improvised magic, fragments of crystal, and the blood of a desperate friend. What came back was shaped from memory and soul, bound together by intention and grief. Consciousness had been interrupted — the stream severed. What woke was not the same awareness that left.

And belief.

They believe themselves to be Thancred. Y’shtola. Urianger. Alisaie. Alphinaud. And who would question them? They laugh the same. They carry the same burdens. But the line that ties one moment to the next — that fragile, singular thread of being — was lost.

The Scions who fought with me on the First, my friends of old, died heroes. They gave everything.

And those who walk beside me now are their echoes.

Perfect reconstructions. Flawless facsimiles. New minds behind familiar eyes.

I know that I must carry the weight of it — this immense sadness — alone.

And some nights, that knowing won't let me sleep.

— Undying Hero,
Champion of the Source, the First, and all other reflections.