Never seen a bluer sky.
Mar. 7th, 2011 08:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yukieAT LONG LAST, WRITING though it's really cathartic and kind of sad and I kind of cried all over writing it.
hi.
TITLE: Believe (I'm Ascending)
FANDOM: Warcraft III/World of Warcraft
PEOPLE: Dion, Aer, and one epic badass crusader.
PAIRING: N/A
RATING: 14A.
SUMMARY: Hope springs eternal. Dion helps Aer say goodbye to someone.
WARNINGS: Oh gods, I got the weeps writing this and I make no promises that other people won't. Character death, and Aer being a pile of wibble.
NOTES: This jumped up and bit me when I was reading this questline. When I first read about it, I cried my eyes out, and I still tear up. I found out that it's a very meaningful bunch of missions to Aer recently. To me, it is as well, though I have not played it through yet. I took some creative liberties, so it's not exactly canonical to the letter, but this is how it happened in one timeline.
As the quest is a memorial, so is this writing. It kind of wrote itself. XD;
This is for everyone who's gone before me. Sarah, Iva, all you guys - I love you.
***
I live on in your stead, old friend; where you have gone,
I remain, and carry you with me in my heart.
For your sake I draw breath, until the day
The weight of sorrow lifts from my shoulders
At that blessed time, within me, I will hear your voice:
"Live knowing you may live for your own sake,
Live knowing that I share in your joy.
For no one's sake but your own, draw breath, and walk in the light."
Within my heart, your song resounds:
"You have the right to be."
***
He'd seen Aerionn going back and forth for days. He'd vanish, and then return; meet with Highlord Tirion, and be off again. Where he was going, Kleidion didn't know, and he couldn't work up the nerve yet to ask Tirion either. While he was certain the Highlord of the Argent Crusade would say he wasn't tainted or beyond redemption - that his guilt was proof he wasn't an unfeeling wretch - Dion still couldn't unknot his stomach enough to approach Tirion in anything that could be called a dignified manner.
Thus it was that he followed Aerionn that morning.
He looked worn out, frankly. He hadn't been sleeping. Tirion fretted over him but Aer told him not to worry and just persisted in doing whatever it was he was doing. Every so often he'd check in with the healers for some reason.
That gave Dion pause. The only reason one would have to do that is if one were in proximity to plagued objects or people. Angra'thar was cleansed of the ravenous blight, of course, but the normal (if one could call it so) plague of undeath remained a concern. In its early stages it could be cured; once it fully took hold and the body began to shut down, there wasn't much hope.
Dion knew this well. He'd seen it over and over again.
Thus, when Aer explained where they were going, Dion stumbled over a rock. "What? But - you - how long?"
"A week, I think?" Aer rubbed at his eyes. Whether he was bleary or fighting tears was hard to say. "I mean. Maybe it's a fool's errand, you probably think so, Koltira's told me I'm ravingly daft, but I had to try? I couldn't just - not. You know?"
"No…well." Dion smiled wryly. "Actually that's a big lie. Yes. I understand."
Though Dion presented himself as a cynic, he WAS the one who'd gone haring off after Arthas and demanded the man give Kristias back - and believed the then-Death Knight when he told Dion they could make a deal.
Stupid? Very. He'd become a traitor for nothing. Kristias had returned in the end, but long, long after the damage was done.
There was less than a one percent chance that Arthas was telling the truth, and Dion knew it all along. but he couldn't bring himself to not try. After all, less than one percent is not zero.
"A small chance isn't no chance," Aer said.
Dion blinked. Well, that was uncanny. "I understand that feeling too."
Aer regarded him a moment and then put an arm around his shoulders and hugged him gently. "I'm not pissed off with you about that. I know why you did it, so - anyway." He smiled, and there was something desperately sad about it. "Come on and meet the most badass Argent Crusader ever."
Dion didn't know what to expect as they crested the hill. He kept picturing something like a hybrid of Anduin Lothar and Thrall, for some reason.
Crusader Bridenbrad was neither that huge nor that imposing. In fact, he looked extremely ill, completely run down. He was so pale that his freckles stood out like pepper spilled across a white tablecloth. But he brightened visibly when Aer waved, and saluted. The man had had, Dion thought, the bluest eyes he'd seen on a human.
"Hey, Aerionn." His voice was rough; his throat was probably sore as hell from coughing. "Who's your friend?"
"This's Kleidion Fireflight," Aer said. "He wanted to know where the heck I kept going all the time. So I figured, hey, more company's good."
The crusader closed his eyes, drew in a deep slow breath. Dion realized at that moment just how close Bridenbrad was to the border. He looked dreadful, and from what Dion could sense it was a wonder he was even alive. He'd never seen such an advanced case of the plague in a living person, and wondered how it was possible.
Then he spotted the tiny red flowers in the snow.
Alexstrasza. She'd tried. Aer had been the vehicle somehow.
Aer bit his lip, and sat down a few feet from the crusader - likely as close as he was allowed to be. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I wanted so badly for something to work, but - there isn't anything else anyone can do."
"I know, Aerionn. I'm not mad." Bridenbrad got comfortable on his bedroll. "I kind of knew from the get-go, but…well, you gave me more time, and I needed that. I'm all right, okay? it doesn't hurt."
"Really?" Aer's voice was very small; he looked very young to Dion's eyes.
"Really-really. I'm all right."
Aer looked down at his lap, obviously fighting back tears. Dion, unable to help himself, went to Aer's side and hugged him close.
"Sir," he said to Bridenbrad, "is there anything at all you'd have us do? You can ask anything, honestly."
"Just stay 'til the end. I'm still kind of nervous, you know?" A soft laugh. "Either way. it's good to meet you, Kleidion - and it's good to see you again, Aerionn…"
His breath in was too slow and too laboured. In Dion's arms, Aer shuddered, unable now to contain his grief. Dion stroked Aer's hair gently, and then wondered what the ringing in his ears was about.
"I'm glad I met you both," murmured the crusader. "You give me hope, you know, that we'll be free of this soon. The plague, Arthas and his army, this fear. Everything. I'm really glad to have met you."
The faint chiming sound suddenly crescendoed, breaking over Dion like a wave. A pulse of some vast, bright power swept through him and he gasped, holding Aer protectively and looking around for the source.
Aer squeaked, then looked embarrassed, wiping his eyes with the back of a gloved hand. "A'dal," he said, and the reverence was unmistakable.
Dion blinked, looked up, and just stared in awe.
A'dal was unmistakable. Dion had never met any Naaru before, let alone the one who was in essence the matriarch (they had no gender as such but there was something elementally maternal in A'dal that made him want to call the Naaru 'she'). If he hadn't had a lap full of Aerionn he would have bowed. As it was he inclined his head, feeling rather as if he had not right to look at A'dal or her two companions.
The Naaru didn't speak as such, but Dion understood her anyhow.
Fear not. He will not know waking death. In life, he was the bearer of great deeds. In the service of the Light, he was tireless. The Light will never abandon its champions.
Dion felt himself tearing up and he was dangerously close to weeping when Aer made a very feline sound of shock and incredulity.
"Oh what - "
Crusader Bridenbrad was standing in front of them. Well - what could be called the real crusader was. The physical part of him lay motionless by the campfire, eyes closed, breath stilled, peace that passed understanding etched on his face.
The vital, luminous Bridenbrad before them wore the same look, though his eyes were open, and he looked more awake than any living person possibly could.
Aer squirmed out of Dion's arms and flung himself at the man; for a moment Dion was scared Aer would just stagger through him and end up in the campfire, but that wasn't the case. Bridenbrad rubbed Aer's back as the paladin clung to him and sobbed openly.
"It's all right now," he said.
"I know," Aer said. "I know. I know you are. I just - I don't even - first M'uru and now this, I don't know what I did to even deserve this or understand and I still don't - I know this is where you need to go but I still feel like I let you down so badly."
"Aerionn, I was ready to go anyhow. I would have asked you to make sure I didn't have a physical body to get stuck in, and…that would have been miserable for you. I know you would have done it, but I put you through a lot already."
"I don't care." Aer didn't seem inclined to let go, to Dion, but after a moment he did. "I really don't care. And I'm glad I met you, too. I don't regret it so don't ever think for a second that I do."
"I know you don't," said Bridenbrad with a funny little smile. "I - wow. I honestly know you don't."
Aer swallowed, sniffled, and then said, "You probably have to go, now. I won't keep you. …I'm glad I can't get your tabard all gross this way…"
Bridenbrad laughed, and Dion couldn't recall when he'd last heard that kind of pure joy.
"Aerionn, take care of yourself, okay? And" - he looked at Dion and smiled - "what you did, it's not unforgivable. You're not irredeemable. Far from it. Remember that, all right? And take care of Aerionn. Make sure he eats something when you get back."
Dion got to his feet and bowed. "I will. …Take care of yourself, sir."
"You too, Kleidion."
Aer bowed. "Al diel shala. Shorel'aran."
Bridenbrad returned it. "Don't worry," he said. "Everything's all right now."
The ringing was all around them again, and Dion felt as if every particle of him was resonating in unison with it. There was a great upward rush, like thousands of beating wings. There was brilliant light, and within it vast soothing darkness, and within that again endless light, endless love, perfect trust, a peace that passed understanding.
He will know only joy. Be well, and know his happiness. Fear not.
It was gone as soon as it had come.
When Dion could see again, there was nothing that remained of the crusader's physical self before them. How that had come to be, Dion didn't know. It was rather impossible, but he would have called what he'd just witnessed impossible, too, if he hadn't actually witnessed it.
The sun was setting slowly, painting the horizon with brilliant violets, oranges and pinks. Overhead, the stars were appearing one by one, and around them the aurorae began to dance. A rare, clear night was falling on Icecrown.
Aer stood a few feet away, eyes on the looping, arcing ribbons of light. They danced along the spectrum from green to blue to red and back to green again, intertwining amidst the stars. Dion could hear them faintly; they sounded like distant whispers.
After a long, long silence, Aer said, "I'm going to make peach-ginger tea when we get back. I brought some the first time I met him, and he really liked it, so I kept bringing it. He couldn't eat a lot since he was so sick all the time, but - he really liked that tea."
He turned and smiled at Dion. Still the expression was desperately sad, but intermingled with that sorrow now was boundless happiness.
It really was all right now.
"I'm going to think of him every time I make it," he went on, and his voice broke slightly. Dion was at his side in an instant. Aer clung to Dion, buried his face in Dion's shoulder, but he seemed to be done with crying. "…We should head back before Highlord Fordring gets worried."
They left the bedroll where it was but folded the crusader's tabard neatly. Dion wrapped it in his scarf, and they put it in Aer's pack, along with a good amount of the tiny red blossoms. Aer couldn't bring himself to leave the blade behind, so together they stacked a small cairn, marking the place where the campfire had burned for so long.
"I wonder where they went," Dion said as they hiked back to the waypoint. "A'dal and the Crusader I mean. It had to be somewhere, right? Even if we don't know where."
"Well, souls exist, we know that much," Aer replied. "Prophet Velen says we all go back to the cradle of the Light and the Dark in the end, where we started. I don't know where exactly that is, but…"
He sniffled again.
"It's somewhere good. Safe. He's happy there."
"…But you still miss him," Dion guessed.
Aer nodded. "I know it's sort of selfish."
"You're allowed to be a little selfish. And missing him isn't really. You're happy for him, right?"
"Stupidly happy."
"And you wanted this for him all along, and you wouldn't have let him suffer."
"Yes."
"It's okay to miss him."
Aer sighed, resting his cheek on Dion's. "Thank you, Dion."
They stood like that for a long time, at the crest of the hill. The warm amber lights of the waypoint burned just ahead, beckoning them home to warmth.
Dion wasn't sure why he was smiling, at first.
Then he realized: hope. it was like the Crusader said.
A slight chance wasn't no chance.
After all - hadn't it turned out all right?
Crusader Bridenbrad was safe at home in the Light.
It would be all right. They could win.
They WOULD win.
And Kristias - Kris, whom he never thought he'd see again, but who was free and happy and with him
again - was waiting for him back at the camp.
…Oh. Oh dear. Kristias -
"Aer?" Dion said. "Kris will probably have tried to make the tea, I warn you."
Aer burst out laughing. "Oh no. Why, Kris, why do you do these things? Sugar forever - oh well. We can just make more tea to deal with the ubersweet, and foist it on everyone."
"A toast to the crusader?"
"You bet your cute back end, Fireflight."
There were so many stars overhead now that the familiar constellations were lost in the sea of tiny lights. The Heavenly River was visible, arching above them. The aurorae showed no signs of fading; rather, they were brighter than ever, luminous curtains sweeping the sky in an ecstatic dance.
hi.
TITLE: Believe (I'm Ascending)
FANDOM: Warcraft III/World of Warcraft
PEOPLE: Dion, Aer, and one epic badass crusader.
PAIRING: N/A
RATING: 14A.
SUMMARY: Hope springs eternal. Dion helps Aer say goodbye to someone.
WARNINGS: Oh gods, I got the weeps writing this and I make no promises that other people won't. Character death, and Aer being a pile of wibble.
NOTES: This jumped up and bit me when I was reading this questline. When I first read about it, I cried my eyes out, and I still tear up. I found out that it's a very meaningful bunch of missions to Aer recently. To me, it is as well, though I have not played it through yet. I took some creative liberties, so it's not exactly canonical to the letter, but this is how it happened in one timeline.
As the quest is a memorial, so is this writing. It kind of wrote itself. XD;
This is for everyone who's gone before me. Sarah, Iva, all you guys - I love you.
***
I live on in your stead, old friend; where you have gone,
I remain, and carry you with me in my heart.
For your sake I draw breath, until the day
The weight of sorrow lifts from my shoulders
At that blessed time, within me, I will hear your voice:
"Live knowing you may live for your own sake,
Live knowing that I share in your joy.
For no one's sake but your own, draw breath, and walk in the light."
Within my heart, your song resounds:
"You have the right to be."
***
He'd seen Aerionn going back and forth for days. He'd vanish, and then return; meet with Highlord Tirion, and be off again. Where he was going, Kleidion didn't know, and he couldn't work up the nerve yet to ask Tirion either. While he was certain the Highlord of the Argent Crusade would say he wasn't tainted or beyond redemption - that his guilt was proof he wasn't an unfeeling wretch - Dion still couldn't unknot his stomach enough to approach Tirion in anything that could be called a dignified manner.
Thus it was that he followed Aerionn that morning.
He looked worn out, frankly. He hadn't been sleeping. Tirion fretted over him but Aer told him not to worry and just persisted in doing whatever it was he was doing. Every so often he'd check in with the healers for some reason.
That gave Dion pause. The only reason one would have to do that is if one were in proximity to plagued objects or people. Angra'thar was cleansed of the ravenous blight, of course, but the normal (if one could call it so) plague of undeath remained a concern. In its early stages it could be cured; once it fully took hold and the body began to shut down, there wasn't much hope.
Dion knew this well. He'd seen it over and over again.
Thus, when Aer explained where they were going, Dion stumbled over a rock. "What? But - you - how long?"
"A week, I think?" Aer rubbed at his eyes. Whether he was bleary or fighting tears was hard to say. "I mean. Maybe it's a fool's errand, you probably think so, Koltira's told me I'm ravingly daft, but I had to try? I couldn't just - not. You know?"
"No…well." Dion smiled wryly. "Actually that's a big lie. Yes. I understand."
Though Dion presented himself as a cynic, he WAS the one who'd gone haring off after Arthas and demanded the man give Kristias back - and believed the then-Death Knight when he told Dion they could make a deal.
Stupid? Very. He'd become a traitor for nothing. Kristias had returned in the end, but long, long after the damage was done.
There was less than a one percent chance that Arthas was telling the truth, and Dion knew it all along. but he couldn't bring himself to not try. After all, less than one percent is not zero.
"A small chance isn't no chance," Aer said.
Dion blinked. Well, that was uncanny. "I understand that feeling too."
Aer regarded him a moment and then put an arm around his shoulders and hugged him gently. "I'm not pissed off with you about that. I know why you did it, so - anyway." He smiled, and there was something desperately sad about it. "Come on and meet the most badass Argent Crusader ever."
Dion didn't know what to expect as they crested the hill. He kept picturing something like a hybrid of Anduin Lothar and Thrall, for some reason.
Crusader Bridenbrad was neither that huge nor that imposing. In fact, he looked extremely ill, completely run down. He was so pale that his freckles stood out like pepper spilled across a white tablecloth. But he brightened visibly when Aer waved, and saluted. The man had had, Dion thought, the bluest eyes he'd seen on a human.
"Hey, Aerionn." His voice was rough; his throat was probably sore as hell from coughing. "Who's your friend?"
"This's Kleidion Fireflight," Aer said. "He wanted to know where the heck I kept going all the time. So I figured, hey, more company's good."
The crusader closed his eyes, drew in a deep slow breath. Dion realized at that moment just how close Bridenbrad was to the border. He looked dreadful, and from what Dion could sense it was a wonder he was even alive. He'd never seen such an advanced case of the plague in a living person, and wondered how it was possible.
Then he spotted the tiny red flowers in the snow.
Alexstrasza. She'd tried. Aer had been the vehicle somehow.
Aer bit his lip, and sat down a few feet from the crusader - likely as close as he was allowed to be. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I wanted so badly for something to work, but - there isn't anything else anyone can do."
"I know, Aerionn. I'm not mad." Bridenbrad got comfortable on his bedroll. "I kind of knew from the get-go, but…well, you gave me more time, and I needed that. I'm all right, okay? it doesn't hurt."
"Really?" Aer's voice was very small; he looked very young to Dion's eyes.
"Really-really. I'm all right."
Aer looked down at his lap, obviously fighting back tears. Dion, unable to help himself, went to Aer's side and hugged him close.
"Sir," he said to Bridenbrad, "is there anything at all you'd have us do? You can ask anything, honestly."
"Just stay 'til the end. I'm still kind of nervous, you know?" A soft laugh. "Either way. it's good to meet you, Kleidion - and it's good to see you again, Aerionn…"
His breath in was too slow and too laboured. In Dion's arms, Aer shuddered, unable now to contain his grief. Dion stroked Aer's hair gently, and then wondered what the ringing in his ears was about.
"I'm glad I met you both," murmured the crusader. "You give me hope, you know, that we'll be free of this soon. The plague, Arthas and his army, this fear. Everything. I'm really glad to have met you."
The faint chiming sound suddenly crescendoed, breaking over Dion like a wave. A pulse of some vast, bright power swept through him and he gasped, holding Aer protectively and looking around for the source.
Aer squeaked, then looked embarrassed, wiping his eyes with the back of a gloved hand. "A'dal," he said, and the reverence was unmistakable.
Dion blinked, looked up, and just stared in awe.
A'dal was unmistakable. Dion had never met any Naaru before, let alone the one who was in essence the matriarch (they had no gender as such but there was something elementally maternal in A'dal that made him want to call the Naaru 'she'). If he hadn't had a lap full of Aerionn he would have bowed. As it was he inclined his head, feeling rather as if he had not right to look at A'dal or her two companions.
The Naaru didn't speak as such, but Dion understood her anyhow.
Fear not. He will not know waking death. In life, he was the bearer of great deeds. In the service of the Light, he was tireless. The Light will never abandon its champions.
Dion felt himself tearing up and he was dangerously close to weeping when Aer made a very feline sound of shock and incredulity.
"Oh what - "
Crusader Bridenbrad was standing in front of them. Well - what could be called the real crusader was. The physical part of him lay motionless by the campfire, eyes closed, breath stilled, peace that passed understanding etched on his face.
The vital, luminous Bridenbrad before them wore the same look, though his eyes were open, and he looked more awake than any living person possibly could.
Aer squirmed out of Dion's arms and flung himself at the man; for a moment Dion was scared Aer would just stagger through him and end up in the campfire, but that wasn't the case. Bridenbrad rubbed Aer's back as the paladin clung to him and sobbed openly.
"It's all right now," he said.
"I know," Aer said. "I know. I know you are. I just - I don't even - first M'uru and now this, I don't know what I did to even deserve this or understand and I still don't - I know this is where you need to go but I still feel like I let you down so badly."
"Aerionn, I was ready to go anyhow. I would have asked you to make sure I didn't have a physical body to get stuck in, and…that would have been miserable for you. I know you would have done it, but I put you through a lot already."
"I don't care." Aer didn't seem inclined to let go, to Dion, but after a moment he did. "I really don't care. And I'm glad I met you, too. I don't regret it so don't ever think for a second that I do."
"I know you don't," said Bridenbrad with a funny little smile. "I - wow. I honestly know you don't."
Aer swallowed, sniffled, and then said, "You probably have to go, now. I won't keep you. …I'm glad I can't get your tabard all gross this way…"
Bridenbrad laughed, and Dion couldn't recall when he'd last heard that kind of pure joy.
"Aerionn, take care of yourself, okay? And" - he looked at Dion and smiled - "what you did, it's not unforgivable. You're not irredeemable. Far from it. Remember that, all right? And take care of Aerionn. Make sure he eats something when you get back."
Dion got to his feet and bowed. "I will. …Take care of yourself, sir."
"You too, Kleidion."
Aer bowed. "Al diel shala. Shorel'aran."
Bridenbrad returned it. "Don't worry," he said. "Everything's all right now."
The ringing was all around them again, and Dion felt as if every particle of him was resonating in unison with it. There was a great upward rush, like thousands of beating wings. There was brilliant light, and within it vast soothing darkness, and within that again endless light, endless love, perfect trust, a peace that passed understanding.
He will know only joy. Be well, and know his happiness. Fear not.
It was gone as soon as it had come.
When Dion could see again, there was nothing that remained of the crusader's physical self before them. How that had come to be, Dion didn't know. It was rather impossible, but he would have called what he'd just witnessed impossible, too, if he hadn't actually witnessed it.
The sun was setting slowly, painting the horizon with brilliant violets, oranges and pinks. Overhead, the stars were appearing one by one, and around them the aurorae began to dance. A rare, clear night was falling on Icecrown.
Aer stood a few feet away, eyes on the looping, arcing ribbons of light. They danced along the spectrum from green to blue to red and back to green again, intertwining amidst the stars. Dion could hear them faintly; they sounded like distant whispers.
After a long, long silence, Aer said, "I'm going to make peach-ginger tea when we get back. I brought some the first time I met him, and he really liked it, so I kept bringing it. He couldn't eat a lot since he was so sick all the time, but - he really liked that tea."
He turned and smiled at Dion. Still the expression was desperately sad, but intermingled with that sorrow now was boundless happiness.
It really was all right now.
"I'm going to think of him every time I make it," he went on, and his voice broke slightly. Dion was at his side in an instant. Aer clung to Dion, buried his face in Dion's shoulder, but he seemed to be done with crying. "…We should head back before Highlord Fordring gets worried."
They left the bedroll where it was but folded the crusader's tabard neatly. Dion wrapped it in his scarf, and they put it in Aer's pack, along with a good amount of the tiny red blossoms. Aer couldn't bring himself to leave the blade behind, so together they stacked a small cairn, marking the place where the campfire had burned for so long.
"I wonder where they went," Dion said as they hiked back to the waypoint. "A'dal and the Crusader I mean. It had to be somewhere, right? Even if we don't know where."
"Well, souls exist, we know that much," Aer replied. "Prophet Velen says we all go back to the cradle of the Light and the Dark in the end, where we started. I don't know where exactly that is, but…"
He sniffled again.
"It's somewhere good. Safe. He's happy there."
"…But you still miss him," Dion guessed.
Aer nodded. "I know it's sort of selfish."
"You're allowed to be a little selfish. And missing him isn't really. You're happy for him, right?"
"Stupidly happy."
"And you wanted this for him all along, and you wouldn't have let him suffer."
"Yes."
"It's okay to miss him."
Aer sighed, resting his cheek on Dion's. "Thank you, Dion."
They stood like that for a long time, at the crest of the hill. The warm amber lights of the waypoint burned just ahead, beckoning them home to warmth.
Dion wasn't sure why he was smiling, at first.
Then he realized: hope. it was like the Crusader said.
A slight chance wasn't no chance.
After all - hadn't it turned out all right?
Crusader Bridenbrad was safe at home in the Light.
It would be all right. They could win.
They WOULD win.
And Kristias - Kris, whom he never thought he'd see again, but who was free and happy and with him
again - was waiting for him back at the camp.
…Oh. Oh dear. Kristias -
"Aer?" Dion said. "Kris will probably have tried to make the tea, I warn you."
Aer burst out laughing. "Oh no. Why, Kris, why do you do these things? Sugar forever - oh well. We can just make more tea to deal with the ubersweet, and foist it on everyone."
"A toast to the crusader?"
"You bet your cute back end, Fireflight."
There were so many stars overhead now that the familiar constellations were lost in the sea of tiny lights. The Heavenly River was visible, arching above them. The aurorae showed no signs of fading; rather, they were brighter than ever, luminous curtains sweeping the sky in an ecstatic dance.
