He’d come to understand, properly, what it was that Irit did, as well. He was a banisher of ghosts—the metaphorical and the literal. Much of his work, as Kerberos understood it, involved what might now be called “grief counseling”—he held the hand of people who were hurting and helped them understand how to manage their hurt, and how to live with it, and how to go on. Sometimes, though, he played the role of literal, actual exorcist; Kerberos had the general idea that role was older, and more traditional, banishing the actual ghosts that apparently sometimes clung to people in the Silver Millennium. Irit’s exorcism dances were elegant and graceful, and Kerberos found himself clumsily initiating them. He didn’t have his predecessor’s natural grace or his obvious years of practice, but he wasn’t a complete failure, especially not as he slowly worked at it. It was a skill like any other, and Kerberos knew that to dance like Irit, he would have to do a lot more learning.
Not that it was entirely important. Today, he wasn’t wandering aimlessly; he’d found an old, crumbling building that he suspected had once been Irit’s home, and had also absolutely functioned as some sort of temple. The moment he stepped onto the grounds, he saw them: people, waiting, and priests moving among them, and Irit, standing by an entranceway that clearly led further into the temple.
“Zosime, of planet Eurydike. Come with me?” Irit beckoned from the doorwat, and a brunette woman stepped forward without hesitation. She looked to be in her mid to late teens, clad in a loose-fitting chiton-like dress, and Kerberos had no guesses about whether that was the fashion of her homeworld (he remembered the present Senshi Eurydike’s toga) or something she’d picked up on Kerberos.
“Thank you,” she said, and Kerberos followed her and the priest as they moved deeper into what was obviously a temple. Its walls were covered in vines and flowers, and the only light source seemed to be bunches of glowing blooms like the ones he’d seen in his memory of the field on his first visit. Finally, Irit pushed open a door, and Zosime stepped through, and Kerberos and Irit followed.
The room they came to was dominated by a massive pool of water with a fountain at its center, and glowing flowers floated throughout the pool. There were a few bunches in braziers on the wall, casting their soft white glow over the whole room.
Irit sat at the edge of the water, and beckoned, and Zosime sat next to him.
“Tell me, what brings you here? What grief is so strong that it draws you so far from home?” Irit asked, gently.
“....My mother.” Zosime let out a soft sigh. “She passed, and….I don’t want her loss to be a weight around my neck. I want to be able to use it to fuel me. But right now…”
“Right now, it hurts too much to be fuel.” Irit said gently. “There are longer methods, of course, but if all you are hoping for is to take the edge off your grief, to begin moving forward….” He reached into the water, and drew out a pendant, offering it to her. It was a delicately-formed spiral, decorated with small, white asphodel flowers. Inside the spiral was a shifting blue liquid, and Zosime stared at the pendant in confusion. Irit gave her a gentle smile, the kind that was almost inherently reassuring. “This will let us experience your memories of your mother together, the ones that are causing you the most grief, and it will...drain some of the pain away. It won’t make it all go away, but it will be better. A start.”
“Alright,” Zosime said, extending her hand and resting it on the pendant. “Let us begin.”
Kerberos took a sharp breath, and glanced down. Unconsciously, while following the vision, he’d taken a seat in the same place Irit had been in his memory, and he reached into the water—still clear and clean, even though the glowing flowers were long gone, and the light now came from a hole in the ceiling—and his fingers found the same pendant as he saw Irit using.
A smile slowly drew itself across his face as he used the skirt of his uniform to dry it off and slipped it around his neck.
He could use this. He could help people, tangibly.
Half thoughtlessly, he bounced out of the water, and twirled around, and as he did, his eyes caught a flash of motion.
He turned to it, and there was Irit, standing on the edge of the water.
On the water.
“I’ve brought you here,” he said, to some unseen figure, “because the ghosts clinging to you are particularly powerful, and particularly angry. The ritual of banishment required to send them away is one of the oldest my people have.” He gave the person a gentle smile. ”Don’t worry. You’ll be free soon.”
Ghosts. Kerberos knew that he, too, had a few of those.
He watched, as Irit took a few steps forward, walking on the pool and leaving tiny ripples behind him as he did. From somewhere he couldn’t see, Kerberos could hear the soft strains of music, and like a compulsion from somewhere deep within him, he felt pulled to the pool.
He took a few steps forward, and found that he, too, did not sink.
As Irit began to dance, Kerberos followed the steps, and for the first time, he found himself replicating Irit’s intricate, delicate dance with ease. It was physical and graceful, and yet the longer he danced, the lighter he felt. As if just like the mysterious person Irit was performing the ritual for, Kerberos’s ghosts were being banished.
The ghost of an Ascended, a terrible future he refused to follow.
The ghost of a sister, half-remembered but lost all the same.
The ghost of a General, a friend, a mentor, a guide, long since lost.
The ghosts of dead Pages, victims of an undeserved revenge.
The ghost of a living Page, corrupted and remade, beloved and lost.
The ghosts of all his loss, and pain, and failure, of torture and rescue, of cowardice and liquid courage, of a million terrible, painful choices, of all the things he’d done and not done.
All the guilt he carried, all the grief that tore his heart apart, all the things that, once upon a time, made him feel like he had to earn the right to a redemption.
It was just like Hvergelmir had said, years ago, when she’d been talking him towards the right choice.
”"Redemption was made for sinners. You're afraid that you might somehow be stealing it, that it might be offered to you by mistake . . . but Kerberos -- sweetheart -- it exists because you need it. Because in very dark hours, it's the last thing left. The sharpest weapon. You've wandered farther into darkness than most people go -- I'm offering you a great weapon because it will take a great weapon to fight your way back out. Redemption is the last and strongest sword -- and it doesn't exist for anyone except the person who needs it."
He’d needed it, then.
He needed it now.
But he needed something else, more.
Irit stopped, and turned, and although logically Kerberos knew the smile and wink he gave as the vision faded was for the person on the shore, it felt as if he’d given it to his present self just as much. A little bit of encouragement, from a thousand years ago.
You’ve got this.
As he settled, at the end of his dance, Kerberos felt a new weight in his hair, and something light and delicate over his face. He reached up to touch it, and let out a tiny gasp as he registered that something had changed.
Elegant glowing lines wove their way through his tattoos.
The glow of Transcendence.
He was free.
