[ Akua laughed. She's more well-suited to discussions like these at this point.

Then again, being pulled along for a redemption arc kicking and screaming often did that, didn't it? She'd fought Catherine every step of the way along this path. She'd known Catherine would try to make her pay the long price, and it's why she pretended, why she didn't care -- but... Well. She'd cared, eventually.

She looked at the girl, playing with her shard, from her path across the way, on the building.

She reminded her of herself, when she'd been younger. Before she'd found her folly. ]

That's precisely what I was in the middle of doing -- along with the rest of the Woe -- before I ended up here.

I like to think...we would have done it, too. Had the world not been destroyed.

[ But there's a seed of sadness there. Had it been the Bard's machinations, or something out of their control? She'd only just slapped her across the face, and told the Bard to stop whimpering, before Catherine had kissed her, and stabbed her, and then the world had just...faded away.

And the nothingness had melded into the sea of stars they all saw. ]

Is your world not like that? Could you not change it outright?