Greys III - Revelations

Chapter 14 - Riddles of Death

Our train ride wasn't the relaxation I had hoped for in the beginning, and now the silence seemed heavy, strained. Each of us were pondering the prophecy, our potential roles, what some of the more vague verses meant.

Two will be allowed, the first of their kind. Two will be broken, spirit, body, and mind.

Unfortunately, that seemed straightforward enough. The first good Halflings, though 'good' was relative. And breaking didn't seem like anything new, I had already felt all three. From the heals I had received over the past many months, to my bloodline's revelation, to Jevin's poison, and I knew James had experienced even more of each in his own past.

Two halves made whole will survive tides of war, yet each will die new, razed twice before.

First strike against either of us making it out alive. But that wasn't even the part that bothered me, 'razed twice before' was. Looking back, there was one clear destruction in both our pasts - when I learned what James was, when our Clan broke and it subsequently broke James and me as well. Maybe James' time with his father was another razing, the loss of his mother, but then again, maybe it wasn't. Did that mean another was coming? Lurking around the corner of our lives? Just waiting for us to rebuild enough to shatter us again.

That was the true worst of it, of 'knowing' the prophecy without understanding if it was still coming or had already passed.

Forged by blood, both lost and found, new weapons are realized in silver chains bound.

Forged by blood could be a nod to us not just being Halflings, but Blood Twins, and lost and found could be, again, from the past few months. Or from the Collector losing James and then us finding each other. But new weapons and silver chains? I wondered how much was metaphor and how much was literal. I hoped for metaphor.

The price for their lives the greatest yet known, from which where they end, all fates will be thrown.

Again, death seemed the only easily understood theme, and the fact that our fates would direct the fates of others, all others.

Three will change all for high or for low, equally sharing both dark and light in their ghost.

And here Ailech joins. But does that mean everything before the 'three' has already happened? Are prophecies chronological? I knew James and I had darkness in us, I couldn't deny it if I tried, and though I could sense something different about Ailech, something that held him apart from the others at the Vault, I certainly wouldn't call it darkness. He was a healer, which to me eluded to light, only light. Building and healing and light, not destruction and death and darkness, not like James and me. Or maybe the darkness in our ghosts meant darkness in our past? We each certainly had that in abundance.

The battle for worlds, gray tones shall it mark, the winner forever when one chooses dark.

This I thought I understood just as James had said - if one of us went dark, if one of us submitted and chose the Collector, then all would lose. Or maybe it was saying that one of us would choose dark in the end, maybe it was dooming us? Or saying one of us had to choose dark before either side could win? I hated prophecies.

Their power for Heaven or Hell cuts the same, three beings unclean, all before hath forbade.

I did find it frustrating that no matter what we did or who we were, Heaven had already judged us 'unclean'. It hardly seemed fair to live and die for Heaven's side and still burn for the blood in our veins, the blood we didn't choose. And again, it seemed to say that Ailech was dark too, which to me, meant there must be some other interpretation.