She had to go on, she knew. Emet-Selch was waiting. The light was overwhelming her. But…

The moment she and the Scions had walked out of the twisting caverns carved out by the sea, they'd all fallen into a stunned hush. What lay before them was something none of them could have foreseen.

The light within blinded. But the light before her, the soft glow of the towering buildings stretching out into the distance, buildings like none she'd ever seen before… that light was different. Gentle. Soothing. Like it was calling her home.

As the Scions spoke in whispered words behind her, she walked over to the edge of the cliff and gently sat down, her eyes fixed on the landscape stretched before her. She'd expected… a tower, perhaps. Maybe a fortress. Not this. Not a city, beautiful and strange.

Was this what the Ascians had lost? Was this the original world Emet-Selch had spoken of? The way he'd spoken of the world that had once been, back at the Ladder, of the city of… Amaurot, that was the name. It had touched her then, but now, seeing it for herself, she could truly believe it. Truly believe that they'd had something worth mourning.

But then, didn't they all?

(Oh, do not look at me so. A smile better suits a hero…)

She couldn't know what she would find when she descended into the city. Something beautiful, to be sure. Something breathtaking. Something wondrous. She knew that, on a level beyond anything Emet-Selch could have instilled in her.

(For the last time… I won't say goodbye…)

But she'd known beauty. And she had known loss. The people who'd sacrificed all they had to bring her to this point. The lands devastated by Calamity and by war and by Light. The struggles and the sorrow. And the hope.

(For those we've lost. For those we can yet save.)

She stood, feeling her resolve growing inside her. Emet-Selch had lost much, and more than ever she could feel for him. But looking down on the wistful beauty he had created, she saw that his was a path leading backwards. A path that cast off tomorrow.

Hers was — hers had to be — the path that led to the future.

A future they could yet save.

———

When I first saw the beauty of Amaurot stretching out before me, I was overwhelmed. It was the most unexpected, most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in the game, and it heralded some of the finest storytelling I'd ever seen in the final act of 5.0. I had to try to recapture how it made me feel — and how I felt it would make my Warrior of Light feel.

Prize: Ahriman Choker