Alitia: In Heavenly Light

XII: Electric Pulses

Two large rooms far from the action taking place in the rest of the cathedral wound up being nominated as the place for the visitors from Millennia to stay for the night. The mercenaries themselves (with their special guest of Alistair) wound up staying in the smaller of the two rooms while the Second Camaraderie (accompanied by Cerise) did the same with the larger room. It was a tight fit in both spaces, but it felt oddly homey under the circumstances. It was nice to be so close to people that you knew cared, after all, and the family environment could be felt everywhere. 

To be more accurate, it could be felt everywhere for most of the group. Cerise had chosen to take to the edges of the room, uncertain of what she was meant to do to reach out. She had been struggling with this ever since she first arrived with the remainder of the group. Even when she had become a Sealed One, bound to the rest of them by fate itself, Cerise hadn't been able to bridge the gap. It was an impossible task, and she figured that it would be best if she just hung back and waited until there was an easier method that presented itself to get through to them.

The rest of the group didn't seem to feel this silent tension though, or if they did notice it, they chose not to openly acknowledge it, perhaps because of the veil of awkwardness that seemed to permeate the air. Carys didn't seem to care in the slightest, and she had her arms crossed over her chest as she proudly proclaimed her beliefs about Mars for what felt like the fiftieth time. "I still don't trust him. We know what we've experienced, and we know what S.M. saw. How can he have been here on Enmity when we know for a fact that the Keeper of Moonlight was involved with everything that's been happening recently?" Carys questioned. 

"I don't know if he could really be the one that we're after," Sophia admitted. "Something about him feels too genuine for that. I don't know how to describe it, but... I don't think that he's the one who has done all of this to us. I think that there has to be more going on here that we just aren't seeing."

"If it isn't him, then that means that Archbishop Sionis is probably protecting the real Keeper of Moonlight for some reason, right?" S.M. asked. "Come on. The Church of Moonlight has been claiming that hiding the Keeper from the world is their way of paying reparations for what happened during the War of Starlight, so it's not like that would be completely out of the question. Maybe he's trying to keep the one who's been causing problems from getting any worse... Or maybe he's working with them."

"Something about him feels more genuine than I would expect from someone who would lie to that degree though," Iris pointed out. "I guess that it's just because he seems to be better than the archbishop of the Church of Moonlight, but... I don't know. He seems sincere, and I don't know why he would lie to us. We know that there's something going on here, so why try to hide it when everything feels so obvious?"

"I think that there is more to this than meets the eye no matter how we look at it," Luce declared. "I want to believe that Mars couldn't be the one that's been doing all of this, but we don't know enough about the situation to make a proper assessment. If he really has an alibi, then that means that we've made a wrong assumption somewhere up to this point."

"There's no way to say for sure if that was the voice that I heard when Iago Thanatos received his Moonlight Blessing. At the time, the Keeper of Moonlight was distorting their voice somehow using a type of magic, so I wouldn't be able to tell even if I did hear the person again," S.M. sighed. She suddenly glanced over to Cerise, and the Blend felt her stomach drop into her feet at the sudden spike in attention. "Cerise, you've heard the voice of the Keeper of Moonlight before, right? You were given a Moonlight Blessing while you were still with the Alight Five on Igni, right?"

Cerise nodded carefully. "I'm afraid that I wouldn't be able to help you though. After all, I wasn't exactly able to figure out how the Keeper sounded when that happened either. I wouldn't be able to tell who it was if I heard their voice again either. Nothing about Mars struck me as familiar, though I suppose that doesn't mean much," she confessed.