"I should go ahead of you," Sebastian said, ss though this were no different from any other dangerous path he had walked so far. "Clear what I can, then you all can follow my trail. It'll be safer that way for everyone."
Faelorn watched him for a long moment, then he gave a slow nod, accepting the logic in his words.
"I agree with the method," Faelorn replied at last, though his voice lowered slightly as he stepped closer. "But not the idea of you going alone."
Sebastian glanced back at him.
Faelorn's expression was firm, but not hostile. His expression was filled with that sense of responsibility that had been carried too long.
"I do not doubt your skill, Seb. After what you have done for my people, I would be a fool to question it. I would lay down my life for you without hesitation if it came to it." A brief pause followed, his grip tightening slightly on his weapon. "But I will not allow you to walk into elven ruins, of all places, with no one beside you. Call it pride if you wish. Call it duty. I call it common sense."
From behind them, Yarvik let out a low chuckle that echoed faintly in the ruins. "Aye, that's the kind of speech that usually ends with someone bleeding in a ditch," the dwarf muttered. "Count me in, then. I'd rather see the ruin that kills me than wait outside like some anxious goat, waiting to be slaughtered by the Redanians."
Faelorn shot him a look sharp enough to cut steel.
"Do not tempt me into improving your manners permanently."
Yarvik lifted both hands in surrender, though the grin never left him.
Lune stepped forward more quietly than the rest, her gaze already drawn deeper into the passage.
"I am coming as well."
Faelorn exhaled slowly, the patience of a commander beginning to fracture.
"You are not assigned to this expedition," he said flatly.
"I am not asking to be assigned commander."
"Since when did you became this bold Lune?"
"I am trained to survive, this is nothing commander."
"Don't be so sure about this, you are being reckless."
"I am being useful!"
Faelorn looked at her for a long, long moment, 'What is going on with her...' he then looked at Seb then back to her 'Is this...' and then he muttered under his breath in Elder Speech, something like a prayer and a complaint braided together.
Sebastian, watching this exchange with faint amusement, finally let out a small sigh.
"Fine," he said, cutting through it all. "All of you can come. I'll need company anyway. Better than talking to myself."
Yarvik immediately brightened.
"That's the spirit, Witcher!"
Lune gave him a faint smile, clearly satisfied with her victory. Faelorn, however, looked like a man who had just accepted responsibility for additional headaches rather than companions.
Still, he said nothing more and turned toward his people.
"I will lead the return once we find an exit," he stated. "Yarvik will come with me when that time comes. The rest of you will have to wait for us until then."
No one argued. And Faelorn didn't need to explain anything more, he nodded towards his people and then followed Seb.
As they moved deeper, the ruins did not simply grow older as they descended into them, every archway shaped with purpose beyond support or beauty. Even the decay seemed arranged. Sebastian noticed it first in the geometry of the stone. Nothing here was random. Even the cracks had some sort of beauty to them.
"Elven craftsmanship," he muttered at one point, his eyes scanning a collapsed relief carved into the wall. "Even in decay, it still looks amazing."
Lune followed his gaze, her expression softening as she traced the broken lines of ancient sculpture with her eyes.
"We do not make things like this anymore," she said quietly.
Faelorn's voice followed after a short pause.
"No," he replied. "Because we do not have anything left that makes it worth making."
The words settled between them without resistance.
Sebastian did not immediately respond. He simply looked ahead at the endless corridor of carved stone, the weight of history pressing in from every direction.
When he finally spoke, his tone was quieter. "That's still more than most kingdoms have, because this doesn't feel like it was built. It feels like it was grown. Like someone shaped the world instead of constructing it, no human kingdom can replicate this."
Lune glanced at him briefly, following his line of sight toward a fractured ceiling where faint carvings still traced forgotten constellations, except there was no sky above now.
"We used to believe stone remembered us," she said softly.
Faelorn, walking just ahead, let out a quiet breath that held no humor in it at all.
"Do not confuse beauty for preservation, Seb." he said, "What you are looking at is not an achievement. It is what remains when achievement is taken away."
Sebastian's eyes shifted slightly toward him and Faelorn continued without stopping.
"Every arch you admire, every carved pillar, every corridor that still refuses to collapse here… it is not glory. It is humiliating and it fills me with grief."
Sebastian slowed slightly, then spoke more carefully.
"Look I know it's fucking bad now, but you still made it. Even if it's fallen apart now."
Faelorn finally stopped walking.
For a moment, he did not turn around then he spoke so quietly as if the words themselves were worn thin from being repeated inside his own mind too many times.
"Do not mock us, Seb."
That made Sebastian pause.
Faelorn looked as if he might simply ignore it all and keep walking, as if the conversation itself was too pointless to continue in a place like this.
But his voice had lost whatever restraint he had been holding onto.
"You still don't understand," he said quietly.
His hand traced the air vaguely, not toward the stone, not toward the carvings, but back the way they had come.
"Those who built this did not leave behind beauty for us to admire. They did not leave behind a legacy carved into walls and arches and forgotten language."
His gaze sharpened slightly.
"They left people."
He paused, "And then they stopped being responsible for what happened to them." Faelorn continued, his tone filled with exhaustion.
"The true legacy of my people is not this stone. It is the ones we left behind at the entrance of this ruin. The ones who never made it into history, never into song, never into anything worth remembering."
He exhaled slowly through his nose.
"The scattered ones. The broken ones, the ones who survived conquest instead of dying in it."
His eyes flicked briefly toward Sebastian.
"That is what we are, Witcher. Not heirs to greatness. Not keepers of some noble past."
His voice lowered further.
"We are what remains when a people is taken apart and told to be grateful they were not erased entirely."
"And that is why it hurts when you call this beauty," Faelorn added more softly. "Because beauty implies someone is still whole enough to appreciate it."
"We were conquered, Seb. Not defeated in a single battle, not broken by a single war. Conquered slowly."
Sebastian looked at him for a moment, then spoke more carefully.
"You can still rebuild. Somewhere else, start over. Grow stronger and come back better prepared than before."
Faelorn let out a short laugh.
"It is too late for that kind of thinking.. And as much as I hate to admit it, humans have done their work well. We are scattered. Watched. We are reduced to hiding in places like this, speaking of futures we cannot realistically reach."
His gaze flicked briefly toward Sebastian.
"But do not mistake that for surrender!"
A faint edge returned to his voice.
"We are fighting a losing war, yes. We know it. But refusing to bend is the only thing left that still belongs to us, and that shall be my 'Legacy', the fool who died for his people and a dying cause."
Sebastian exhaled slowly through his nose.
"Elven pride.." he said under his breath.
Faelorn's reply came immediately.
"You would not get it."
Behind them, Yarvik and Lune walked in silence. The dwarf's usual humor was gone, and even Lune's expression was subdued, they followed them in silence listening to their conversation while exchanging glances with one another every second.
Sebastian looked forward again, as if about to respond, something forming at the edge of his words.
"I…"
But he never finished.
His steps halted, the shift in his posture was subtle, and the others stopped with him instinctively.
Sebastian's eyes had locked onto the far end of the chamber, where the architecture changed slightly. And there, set into the stone, was a tablet.
Covered in Elder Speech.
Sebastian lifted a hand slightly, voice quiet but firm.
"Stop, there is something here."
No one questioned it, even Faelorn obeyed without hesitation.
/-\
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