Chương 1956: 187
My name is Lewis… and I got lost a long time ago.
The whole journey… started really weird. And really dumb. We were just stupid kids… we were… there was a war going on. And we were running. And we were lost in the forest. I don't know how we got to the Ever After but I think we were meant to come here. I think we needed to be here.
To grow.
To change.
Growing up with Alyx wasn't easy. I love my sister- always have, always will, and I'll miss her forever, but… she was always rough. Cruel. Mean. A tomboy in every way but also someone who just… didn't care about rules. Societal expectations.
She always said that if she were in charge she'd do things better than anyone else. She always said that she'd be the best out of everyone. At everything.
She wasn't, and that always made her mad.
But…
She wasn't always cruel. She wasn't always rough. She wasn't always rude and mean and a troublemaker. When we were alone together at home… she was small. Scared.
Mom and Dad never did leave either of our minds.
I think Alyx was the way she was because she was desperately trying to get out from under Mom and Dad's shadows, to break out of the rules, to prove that she was more than what they wanted her to be- a perfect, demure little lady that did as she was told, was perfectly polite and composed. It was a different time, back then.
I don't think I'll ever really know why Alyx was the way she was, no matter how much I wonder.
It's been… decades, since then.
Since that one, long, feverish decade that we spent in the Ever After. It didn't feel like a decade. It seemed much longer and much shorter all the same, but… I came out, a decade after it all happened.
The war that ruined our home was long since over- barely a year of conflict before it settled, apparently. I was still the same age, all alone as I stumbled out of that cave without Alyx… and…
The rest were nowhere to be found.
I don't even know if they were real, or if the entire trip was a figment of my imagination. Well- no.
I do know that it was real. Because I came out… and Alyx didn't.
Alyx stayed behind.
She… saw beyond herself, eventually. There- I don't know what happened near the end… it's been so long that the memories have almost entirely faded by now, dim and smudged like an old photograph. I wasn't there when Alyx was lost in the branches of the Tree, what she saw, who she spoke to. All I know is that she talked to the Tree. She… talked to the tree when the rest of us were kind of lost and on our own journeys. She figured it out, I guess.
She stayed behind to fix what she'd broken.
To help those that she'd hurt.
I hope that she made it.
I really, really hope that she made it.
She hasn't ever come out again since then, but… it's alright. I've had to grow into my own person too, haven't I?
I started the journey as a quiet, shy, and weak child. I was…
I don't want to call myself the better half of Alyx. I don't want to say that I was some kind of saint. I just wanted to quietly move along through life without anyone hurting me or those I cared for. I wanted to quickly leave the Ever After and get home without raising a fuss.
Alyx might have been the one to take all those detours, but I was the one who didn't stand up to her. Not until we found the Cat. Not until we found Jaune.
I think my journey was about finding myself.
About standing up for myself, about becoming a better, stronger person. Someone who didn't constantly hide behind his sister and make excuses for her.
She had to learn how to care for other people instead of lashing out for fear of harm. I had to learn how to separate myself from Alyx and stand on my own.
I think the world has a sense of irony like that. Some kind of balance in opposites that are more alike than one might think.
There's something beautiful about it, the way that the Ever After drew people in and let them follow a narrative of their own making, learn what lessons they needed to.
I wonder if that was on purpose, or if that purpose was just all made up in our heads?
Who knows.
I don't.
What I do know is that…
I miss them.
As I sit here in my study, old and tired and wondering just where my friends went, knowing that the War that I lived through is likely an artifact of their distant past… I wonder… when would they be needed? Where? And… will I ever see them again?
The Blacksmith said that no one, nothing is ever truly gone forever. I wonder if that means that I'll be able to see them again.
Somehow. Someday.
I kind of doubt it.
The Ever After works on different rules to Remnant, and although I'd love to be able to go back… I've never really found my way there.
I wonder why.
I wonder why that realm of fantasy and imagination has to remain locked away in a place I can't reach.
I came out of that same cave that Alyx and I had left from, that day that I came back.
I've visited it many times again and again over the years, each time when I found myself trying to run from my problems, trying to go back as though I'd be able to see Alyx again…
I've almost forgotten my sister's face by now. I still remember her voice, though, and if I let myself sink into my memories deep enough I can still remember some parts of how we used to be with each other… How she would shout at the neighbor kids and our classmates, do things that were dangerous and reckless, climb trees and rocks and run around in the forest while I followed after her…
I wish I could see her now- is she grown up like me, now? Is she old? I hope not.
If she was serious about wanting to fix things… to change everything she broke and make a better way forward… to go back along that entire journey alone and settle the cracks and ruins with her own hands… I hope she stays young and healthy forever. Not like me, where I'm old and tired and probably going to die of old age sooner or later.
I'm gonna miss 'em.
At least I got to see them all as they were before they got old, right?
Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, Ren, Somewhat, Juniper, Summer…
Alyx.
…
Even that damn cat…
I never thought I'd miss a little bastard that made Alyx run off crying. Never thought I'd miss the little bastard that tried to attack us once we ran him off the first time.
But I do.
Because for a while he was still a friend- odd and strange and speaking in riddles, but he helped guide our way and… he was nice. At the time.
Gods, do I miss them all.
I hope that, wherever my soul goes when I die, I'll be able to find them again in some capacity.
Ha…
I've spent so much time reminiscing about people who might not even be real- who I'd only known for such a short time… I haven't even talked about my life at all.
But then again… anyone who's read my biography knows my story. I came out of that cave and the war was over. I wandered and found a town to stay in, foster parents to take me in… I went to school and during all of those years, I worked on my drafts of The Girl Who Fell Through the World.
A memorial to my sister, to remember her as better than she may have truly been. To remember her as she was at the end of the journey, instead of the beginning.
I got married, took on my wife's name, had a son…
He's long since moved out though. To Atlas, of all places… I'm not sure I approve, even though it's been years now since he's been gone…
I miss him dearly.
He got married a few years ago, and though I wasn't able to make the trip out due to my health issues, I sent him my best wishes. I hope he manages to evade the political situation brewing up there… I didn't live through two gods damned wars just to lose my son in a third.
Can you believe they're calling that damnable second war that I lived through the Great War? As if there's anything Great about it. Just the amount of people who died, and even then…
My son has been talking about having a kid lately, within the last few months. He seems optimistic- wants to name his kid Pietro. It's a good name- an old name from before that ridiculous decade long war that took my wife from me, but it still has a color meaning like all the kids are doing these days. Good for them.
…
I suppose I've written enough in this little diary of mine.
My name is Lewis Lutwidge-Polendina. Wherever my soul goes, I hope I get to meet my friends again, however it has to happen.
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