Mimisbrunnr landed on her knees in front of the Well, feeling her heart race. She rested a hand on her chest, but stayed there, on her knees, focusing for a moment to recall her weapon to her hands and lay it across her thighs. She kept seeing the poor kid’s face, dead and empty, staring up at her - another thing that would keep her from sleeping at night.
But there was something she could do.
She felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Tali?” Aishe asked. “Are you okay?” Distantly, she could feel blood still running down her hip, probably dripping onto the floor, leaving a little trail, marking that she had bene there.
“No,” Mimis confessed, staring at her bow and then glancing up at the well. “But, Aishe - think I’m ready to take my oath.”
Aishe made a brief strangled noise.
“Are you sure?” She asked. “Have you really thought this through? I - my entire life was tied to this Wonder, this place, but you can’t do that, you have to fight, you need your voice,” she said.
“Does it have to be an oath of silence?” Tali asked. Aishe seemed to chew on the inside of her cheek for a moment, as if considering.
“Well, no,” she acknowledged. “That was traditional, since...this is a library, but...I believe any oath, as long as it is sworn over the Well and on your power as the Knight of Mimisbrunnr, will do.” Tali nodded, and stood, and rested her bow on the edge of the Well. She tried not to stare too long at its waters, thick and red and congealed like old blood, because it made her uncomfortable. Something was wrong with the Well and she knew it, but she had no idea how to fix it.
“Then I know what I want to swear in place of silence,” she said, and she pushed past her revulsion to dip her fingers in the water. For a brief moment, there was a pulse of blue light out from around the point of contact, and she felt a bit of hope.
“Talaitha, chikno, what happened?” Aishe asked, obviously concerned. Tali swallowed, and looked down at the bow and the blood-water and back at her ancestor, who glowed faintly, just like her weapon, and…
She started to cry all over again, as she told the story, of the nightmares and the sleeplessness, of the loneliness, of everything she had done to deal with it - of Fangite, sad and broken and deserving of nothing so much as he deserved to finally be free of the Negaverse. She cried harder when she described her confrontation on the rooftop, the dead Page and the angry Captain, how she fought him and killed him and how she had thought she was saving lives but all she had done was steal a teenaged boy’s chance to live. About halfway through Aishe pulled her in for a tight, warm hug, burying her face in Tali’s curls and sniffling a little herself.
“Oh, chikno, you were fighting the good fight, you did what you thought was best even if it wasn’t in the end. And you did save lives, I promise you, you did.” Aishe’s fingers stroked her hair, soothing her, as Tali finally got her sniffles and hiccups under control.
“But I never want to do it again. I can’t do it again. And that’s - that’s what I want to swear, Aishe. I want to swear never to take another life.” She thought of Asimov, of the Laws of Robotics, of the science fiction she loved with all her heart and the hundreds of thousands of better worlds it presented her. She thought of a child broken and bleeding, and another with his neck snapped, and she knew that this was what she had to do. She couldn’t be like Hvergelmir, couldn’t swear not to fight at all, because she couldn’t imagine ever letting the Negaverse have that, but she could do this.
She could never take another life again, and she could make the world a little bit better that way.
She turned to the Well, feeling Aishe’s hands, warm and assuring, on her shoulders.
“Alright, chikno, I believe you. I believe you are ready. Put your hand on your weapon, and swear. Swear on the Well and by your Knighthood, and take the oath that will let you become the Knight you are meant to be.” She encouraged.
Mimisbrunnr nodded. She rested her hand on her bow, and its glow became, somehow, brighter.
“I, Mimisbrunnr of Mercury, do swear on my power as the Knight of the Mimisbrunnr that I shall never again take another human life, or through my inaction allow a life to be taken. Should I break this vow, I forfeit my titles and my magic, for I will no longer be worthy of them.”
The Well pulsed, bright blue ripples from the center, through the terrible, thick blood-water.
“Put your hand in the water,” Aishe urged.
Mimisbrunnr’s fingers broke the surface, and a second set of pulses passed from them outward, meeting and crossing with the ones from the center. She felt a searing in her chest, over her starseed, and there was a flash of light, and then it all faded.
She glanced down at herself. She didn’t feel any stronger - but one of the panels on her uniform, a diamond right over her starseed - had been removed.
There, on the revealed patch of dark skin, glowed a bright blue rune.
Mimisbrunnr’s breath hitched. She had not been promoted, that was obvious, and she glanced over - Aishe was frowning. Her fingers pressed to the mark, and she sighed.
“The oath took,” she said, “and you are bound by it. I have…” She unwound her scarf, letting it fall to the ground, and Mimisbrunnr could see the same rune glowing faintly on her throat. “I got the same mark, when I took mine. A different place, obviously, but...still there. I don’t understand, though...why aren’t you a Knight?”
Mimisbrunnr glanced at the Well, and considered.
“I think,” she said, “it’s because there is still more I have to do.”
