[YVENNE INTERSTITIAL] Yvenne returns to the bunker below the remains of the Glass Palace, where Meyers is waiting with Dove. Meyers has just put Dove to bed. Yvenne is not alright. “It’s Maris... all she does is destroy, and take, what she wants.” She explains that she believed that Maris killed Phoneix by accident... but then explains what Maris did with the external womb and Sparrow’s DNA. And shows Meyers the wounds she took assaulting the lab. “You mean you went after Maris, yourself, in this?” Meyers points out that Maris is illegitimate, and is not in a stable position in the long run. “I like that.” Yvenne explains that she plans to sic the Mundus on Maris. “Meyers... I don’t want to talk about Maris anymore. I want to talk about having another baby.” FADE TO BLACK. Post-mortem: it was not awesome, but not terrible.
[MARIS COLOR] Maris is working in the lab, with Chrysalis growing in the background. SAMPLE 1 TAG: Yvenne Obarom. SAMPLE 2 TAG: Kestrel Tamar. AWAITING SAMPLES. She focuses on those words on the screen and her psychic link to Kestrel.
[KESTREL INTERSTITIAL/MARIS BUILDING(1)] Kestrel has rushed back planetside after seeing Yvenne confront Maris. Kestrel meets Yvenne in the family chambers in the bunker. Meyers is playing the piano. Kestrel runs in in her battle fatigues. “I’m so glad you’re OK, but why?” They argue about whether it was reasonable to assault the lab. “She’s my sister and I love her, but she’s CRAZY. How could you have not seen this? It’s not just that you were fooled, you were one.” Kestrel says that she’s glad Yvenne is safe, and is about to say that Yvenne was stupid - but Maris locks her. Yvenne is initially relieved, but after the lock persists long enough, she decides that Kestrel must be completely exhausted and walks her into bed. Maris releases her when she falls asleep.
[QUINN INTERSTITIAL] The air on Lord Farouk’s ship is thick with tension, as he meets with Quinn, Torrent, and Frost. Frost is mediating. Farouk is still smarting from the attacks on the Vaylen ships. Farouk: “Our arrangement has been disappointing. What a shame that so many of your people in the South are so vulnerable now.” He turns to Alix: “You’re tight with Lord Crow, aren’t you? Bring him to us.”
[CROW INTERSTITIAL] Crow knocks on the bunker door and rouses a sleeping Kestrel, who climbs out from between her sleeping spouses. She stumbles out, still wearing her jumpsuit. They go somewhere where they won’t wake Meyers and Yvenne. Kestrel sums things up. She tells Crow she can’t be sure if Kestrel will fight the Vaylen now, and they feel a deep sense of vicious protectiveness towards all life on Avarine. “It’s taken some time to get used to... but in some ways I’m glad, because being close to Maris is very important to me.” Crow asks if Maris’ tech worked, and Kestrel says that it has - and that she’s not angry, the way Yvenne is. “I’m not happy for her in an uncomplicated way. I wish we had been able to have Sparrow. But that doesn’t mean that Maris can’t have her child.” She tells him she doesn’t know if she’s cold, or whether she just doesn’t feel things the same way. They address Maris directly through the link, and she assures them that she does not plan to attack Yvenne.
[MARIS BUILDER(2)] Maris has Delphia take a photo of her holding the newborn Chrysalis, her naked body muscular and iconic. Crow arrives, and after seeing his new granddaughter, Maris asks him for a favor. “As I’m sure you know, having a child - especially one of your own, when you didn’t think that possible - changes your perspective. I think my sisters need to hear of my new perspective.” Crow creates a stained-glass interpretation of the photograph that adorns Maris’ new propaganda posters: “1. THERE IS NO DESTINY. 2. ALL CHILDREN ARE LOVED. 3. ALL LOVE IS SACRED. 4. THERE ARE NO SLAVES AND NO MASTERS.”
[MARIS BUIDLER(3)] A bombardment awakens Maris and Delphia in the night. Maris dons her Iron and rushes out, telling Delphia to keep Chrysalis safe. Maris rushes out and hits the deck in her Iron, saying a brief prayer of apology to her sister as she cuts the attack sled apart in midair.
[TORRENT COLOR] A Brotherhood operative contacts Yvenne on a secure line. He shows her video footage of the lab, after the attack, and the destroyed Vaylen ship. “I thought you should know, this has been attacked.”
[TORRENT/MARIS INTERSTITIAL] Torrent meets with Crow, and they walk outside the bunker (with Anna following secretly). Torrent tries to manipulate Crow, but Maris tells him to fight. As Torrent and Crow struggle, Anna shoots Torrent in the back, fatally wounding him. As he dies, Maris starts to control Crow, and whispers in his ear, feeling the weight of all the missed chances and miscommunication between them. - “Go into the fire. Be free of your anger. Be free.” He shares with her one perfect memory, of him trying to teach her something serious and she - before the war, before everything, - just being flirty and flighty. “The future will take care of itself.” They fall into bed and we fade to black as Torrent dies. Maris takes the memory with her as she leaves Crow’s mind, leaving him alone in his mind for the first time in years.
[KESTREL COLOR] We see Kestrel crawling back into bed with Yvenne and Meyers and hugging them both tight, hoping that everything will work out.
[QUINN COLOR] Posters of Torrent’s dead body go up everywhere on the planet. “YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELVES. SURRENDER WHILE THERE IS STILL SOMETHING WORTH SAVING.” Word spreads that he is dead, and not by Vaylen hands.
MANEUVER: The Vaylen are driven off by an attack on their rear while they devastate Maris' heretics and are distracted. The nobles are decimated and never recover. Kestrel abolishes slavery, given the nobles’ weakened position. Commoners are permitted to elect representatives. Much of Alix’ dreams come true, in the end.
MARIS EPILOGUE: Funeral pyres for Sodalis dot the world after the attack. Years later, we see Maris - now the leader of a much-reduced heretical sect - living in a small whitewashed cottage in the South, with beautiful stained glass windows. Somewhere, Delphia is holding hands with her wife. She is showing a teenaged Chrysalis how to dress the wound of someone in the village. Far away, on the rocks below the peaks of Isla Tienne, the Tamar Iron is half-submerged in the crashing waves.
YVENNE EPILOGUE: Yvenne is pregnant, which everyone eventually gets over. The child is named Requiem - a musical reference, for Meyers. Yvenne, Meyers, and Requiem are playing in a garden that has grown over the former site of the Glass Palace. On one end is Maris, watching a toddler Chrysalis, while Yvenne watches her children. Yvenne refuses to make eye contact.
KESTREL EPILOGUE: Kestrel and Crow are poring over plans for restoring the Glass Palace, even more beautiful than it was during the war. Kestrel is hated, but Wren marries a rising political star of the commoners. Kestrel is treated rather more kindly by the history books.
CROW EPILOGUE: Crow is happy to relax into elder status, making memorial windows to Phoenix and Raven, and playing with his grandchildren.
QUINN EPILOGUE: Quinn is demoted to a Ksatryien body in punishment. But it makes her far happier than being human.
TORRENT EPILOGUE: Frost has carried on after Torrent, maintaining unity among the people as the politics change. He had Torrent buried by the seaside, where he felt most at ease. He is holding hands with Zabad, walking along the coastline. “Please wait here, I’ll only be a few minutes.” He goes along to Torrent’s grave, sits down, and reads him the current news.
We have bought, perhaps, a generation of peace.
FIN
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