Outside the window, the golden radiance from the Dawn Device filtered through the glass, gently falling on her profile, casting a nearly healthy flush. This made the legendary elder, said to be at life's end, appear not at all like a lamp about to burn out.
"Ancestor... it's time for your medicine." Hyacine approached the bedside, her voice soft, her eyes filled with genuine respect and concern. She gently offered the medicine bowl.
"Ahem... ahem. It's little Hyacine," Seliose slowly turned her head, revealing a gentle yet undeniably weary smile. "These past days, you've truly worked hard, running about treating this old bone of mine with such dedication. But this body of mine, I know it well, I'm afraid..."
Her words carried the serenity of one who has seen through worldly matters. However, when she looked up and clearly saw the unfeigned worry and hope in Hyacine's clear eyes, she hesitantly swallowed the rest of her words about "having little time left."
Not wanting to betray the sincere heart of the child before her, Seliose sighed faintly and finally reached out to take the warm bowl.
She said no more, simply draining the dark liquid in one go.
After finishing the medicinal soup the young woman brought, Seliose slowly placed the bowl back on the low table by the bed, the base making a soft tap against the wooden surface.
She looked into Hyacine's hopeful eyes, her voice aged yet exceptionally clear:
"Child, I understand your heartfelt feelings better than anyone. But the decay of this shell... I am also clearer about than anyone. My life... is indeed nearing its end."
"Ancestor, please don't think that way!" Hyacine immediately refuted, taking a deep breath, her tone as firm as stone. "You will get better. Please believe me. I am one of Okhema's acknowledged finest physicians. I will find a way. No matter what, I will cure you."
Even if the patient herself had accepted fate's verdict, as a healer, Hyacine would never easily give up any shred of hope.
Seliose did not continue arguing, only a complex yet gentle light laugh appearing on her wrinkled face.
She raised a hand, beckoning Hyacine closer with a gesture filled with the tenderness of an elder. "Come, come closer, child. Don't stand so far. Keep me company and talk for a while, alright?"
"Ancestor, I'm here. I've always been here." Hyacine obediently sat on the chair by the bed, leaning forward slightly in a posture of listening.
Seliose gently closed her eyes, as if recalling an exceptionally vivid dream. Her voice became somewhat rambling, carrying a dream-like drift:
"Little Hyacine... I, last night, had a very long, very long dream. In the dream, the course of history turned down another path... I did not choose to lead our people to fight a bloody path out of the 'Eye of Twilight's' desperate straits, to seek migration and coexistence... Instead, I raised the banner of rebellion, turning the spear in my hand towards the god residing high in the firmament, the one who held our fate—the Titan of the Sky, Aquila."
"Hmm," Hyacine couldn't help but let out a light laugh at this, trying to dispel the overly heavy hypothesis with a light tone. "I never imagined someone as dignified as you, Ancestor, once harbored such a... grand and magnificent heroic dream in your heart? A rebellious hero battling a god? That doesn't sound like your usual style. And then? What happened later in this dream?"
Seliose's breathing quickened slightly, her tone rising with a kind of immersive excitement. "I dreamed... we succeeded. We truly overthrew the god's rule, toppled Aquila from the sky's throne. But... when the rebel's epic was sung by the people, when paeans echoed through the clouds... I discovered... I myself had become the new god."
Her voice was filled with nightmarish fear and self-reproach. "People believed in me with the same fervor they once had for Aquila, and I too... began to impose harsh laws and ruthless persecution upon my people, just as Aquila had once done."
"No... even, what I did was more terrible, more extreme than Aquila. To maintain so-called 'order' and 'faith,' I..." Her emotions grew more agitated, her body involuntarily straightening.
"Alright, alright, Ancestor," Hyacine, seeing this, quickly reached out to gently pat Seliose's back, trying to soothe her agitated emotions. "That was just a dream, an overly vivid nightmare. You see, in reality, you never chose that path of subversion and conquest."
"You chose the harder, yet greater path back then—you healed the generations-old blood feud and conflict between the Sun-Folk and the Rain-Folk, reuniting the fractured Skyfolk Clan."
"And in the end, it was you who led our clan to successfully escape Aquila's control, winning for us the freedom and dignity to live in Okhema. You are a true hero, the savior of the Skyfolk Clan, certainly not some new tyrant..."
But Hyacine's comforting words were cut short by the sudden swell of commotion outside the ward.
Noisy human voices, panicked shouts grew from distant to near, like stones thrown into a calm lake, stirring ripples of chaos.
Outside the window, people seemed to have witnessed something utterly terrifying; waves of uncontrollable exclamations kept coming.
"Ancestor, please rest well. I'll go see what's happening outside." Hyacine immediately stood up, her face etched with worry and the urgency of duty.
Just as her fingers were about to touch the ward door handle, the moment she prepared to leave—
"Hyacine!"
An unusually clear call came from behind, sharply stopping her.
"Ancestor?" Hyacine turned back questioningly, looking at Seliose on the sickbed, who suddenly appeared exceptionally calm.
The elder's eyes were now startlingly sharp, as if the once-invincible Daythunder Knight had returned here. She mustered her strength, word by word, carving her words into Hyacine's heart:
"Child, people always habitually use heroic epics and divine oracles to weave the history they can comprehend."
"But... little Hyacine, you must remember, those who truly need to write Amphoreus's future, to bear this world's fate... should always be the collective formed by the people living on this land."
She breathed slightly raggedly, uttering her final assertion:
"Such a monumental responsibility should never be borne by any single individual within Amphoreus. It is too painful, whether that person is a hero, a Demigod, a Titan... or something else."