Time Throws Fire
by Ophelia Everfall
Part One | Redux Eterna
Part Two | Polymath Blues
Part Three | The Feather
Part Four | Wizard
Part Five | Coward’s End
Part Six | Whirls of Wind
Content Warning: This is only a story.
Chapter Seventeen
The Foundry came out at last to show their stowed feeling through action. Echo Béleaph was the heart of them all. Gurneys were shuttled through air. They knew it some fault of their own for never speaking with the woman themselves; this horror. Many cared at such distance. Those few who’d done enough to know they’d made a positive impression were crying a bit more lightly.
Beside ways in which her pride were seen as both inspiring and hopeful—the tides of change—twas her descent into loss at the absence of Rory which had been a saddest thing to witness. The community of The Foundry would change in wake of this threat of loss being seen to by the woman that they’d never have believed would be the one to carry them home—proving at last what would be known to all be Echo through their hurt in her absence. Rory was the best of them all.
She loved Echo more than anyone but couldn’t stomach the challenge to her respect earned with base of efforts made through life and the way they’d proven so advantageous for herself. Their proclamation that others may find credence in their wisdom through all means so bore into all of Echo’s doing and hadn’t been heard as their layered spirit would intend. They were calling for justice with every word they spoke—for their own way to be heard—as the rallying cry to herself for matching the one she loved the most.
Every structure of civilization she’d seen from Earth to Boreal and back had been the same in a way which struck Echo pale. There wouldn’t be space seen to her disregard for the rules. Everyone resented her for finding a own way to wield from within alone, and she’d felt that as the return from Rory and it pushed her to be better, never realizing the depth of insult held in the way she chose to joust with her inspiring force of growth in self.
Echo knew she could be the best. Rory did too. They were both right in different ways and those did not match until they’d broken each other to understand how their friend was right.
The glare Rory portrayed towards those she felt the knowing reflection of guilt earned from was more than enough in this walk through the Starside Entry Portal to quell the pit in their gut—the two of them alone in the ride down a peace—and finally this mass of their fellows most completely in shock of the sight.
Something had been seen as wrong that was righted. It would be this moment which taught them. The whole had done Echo worst of all.
No one could see the need she’d had as it was. There’d not been a single member of community who was well intentioned enough and of healthy enough energy themself to uplift the woman drowning—walking a brutal path they’d known was somehow to Rory but without the cost—taking that flight in Scarlet towards the darkest visages of soul one might find.
The entire Foundry needed change for the very example of these two let down so entirely.
Rory found it in the eyes—the truth of someone. Everyone here had loved Echo like family and been most aware of her need for community. They’d seen how she cried out and some had tried. It was the way she felt which ruined her. The truth’s beneath in feeling unseen would rear into her every spoken word. She’d think herself perceived a witch for working people so with her language, but it was only how she eviscerated stubborn preconception through seeds planted by embodied spirit.
She’d think they would follow and walk forward adjusted only after her intentions had thrown the jab. People were more stubborn than Echo Béleaph.
Change was fast as the forces in system rallied at Farside behind the force of Exile.
Echo was being held by machines. She was connected into the space where intelligences at The Foundry were borne. There was a notion of change within and about. Rory could feel it.
Guttural cries rang from the hallway—an unnamable administrator who’d been seen to by the ways their own role had been responsible of callous disregard spent in this still misunderstood action of Echo’s will.
The blast. It would be found. Her void flare’s detonation would soon tell the tale by its many unique signatures at that time in space which evil might slumber for hope. Where that might flourish. This would save Boreal again.
Rory Tyrell would do it.
