The Cost of Striking Another Heart is Feeling It Break
I feel fear that is not my own...
...because I have drawn the Wood arrow – and without hesitation, too.
The homunculus collapses to the ground in a heap of ruptured flesh, dissolving into a cloud of sparkles and glowing dust. Now he is gone, and no trace of him remains. I no longer taste the blood in his mouth. The shot should have ended there. It should have been simple.
But when I loose the second shaft into the witch’s chest, something tears apart. Inside the wretched sorceress as she recognizes her end, yes. But also within me.
Wood sprouts its roots.
And through those tendrils of connection comes a scream — not only of rage, hatred, and vengeance.
But of a mother's agony.
I experience the moment she feels her infernal child’s thread snaps. I sense milk curdling to poison in her veins. Our entwined instinct attempts to gather what can never be touched again. Her howl scrapes my throat raw; it has not finished leaving her body, even after her voice is exhausted. A moment later the arrow explodes, and I am turned inside out by her eruption.
I killed a little monster.
And now I obliterate a mother.
Those two truths do not cancel each other. They braid together.
Elemental Wood does not ask whether you are right. It asks whether you are willing to feel what you do.
The cost of striking another heart is feeling it break. I have always professed that I love my life, and that the world is a better place with me in it. I would wager she felt something similar. But the world is not better because I survive her. It is merely changed.
DEATH: Wow. So deep.
ARCHER_17: Don’t start, Shammash.
DEATH: Well, that was disgusting, even by your repulsive standards. How many times have you been at this now, 17? Honestly, I think you get some perverse pleasure from repeating this lesson. But don't mind me – I don't judge... much. I’m here because you finally did something honest.
ARCHER_17: Honest?
DEATH: You felt it. You didn’t get to keep your distance. You didn’t get to pretend it was clean. You're playing with Wood now – if you'll pardon the puerile double entendre. Wood stitches you to consequence with verdant thread. I know you know this, but I'm not telling THIS version of you. I'm talking to THAT version of you – the one tapping, clicking, and gawking at the screen. You... YOU! Yes, you. Hi.
ARCHER_17: I have no idea what you're on about. Anyway, I didn’t ask for this.
DEATH: Oh, boo-fucking-hoo! Are you shivering finally? Should I get you a cushion? Perhaps a shawl? Do you want Archer_49 to succeed or not? Answer me seven somethings, Archer_17. Don't answer for them. THEM. Hello. Yes, you. Don't answer for the Lazarus Loop either. And definitely don't answer for the next shiny narrative beat. No... Answer instead for the part of you that needs Archer_49 to ascend and stop this looping Hell: