Last Exile Fan Fiction ❯ Take Me Home ❯ Take Me Home ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

“Think of it as the wish of a dieing woman,” Sophia stated with a smile. She wasn’t old, but she was ill, and near the end of her life. It had been twenty long years since she fought against the guild.
Claus, the man she was speaking to, had grown taller and had a lean form. He looked quite good for his age. He sighed as if thinking for a moment. “I’ll do the best that I can, Miss Sophia.”
“Thank you, Claus.”
“You’re welcome. I should leave now.” With that said, Claus turned and left Sophia’s room, and then her home.
Just moments after Claus left, one of Sophia’s maids enter. “Miss?”
“Yes?”
“If I may ask, what did you send him to do?”
Sophia smiled as she looked out her window and watched Claus and Lavie take off in their vanship. “The impossible.”
“The impossible?”
Sophia nodded. “The hardest part will be finishing it in the time span I gave them. It’s alright if they don’t, I guess, but still, I’d much rather they complete before I die.”
“You mind repeating that, Claus. It almost sounded like you said we were looking for the Sylvanna ,so that we can bring it back to the Emperess’s house, so that she could fly through the skies one last time before she died!”
“I did, Lavvie.”
“How the hell can we do that!? The Sylvanna could be anywhere, and, at best, Empress Sophia has a week left!”
“We’ll just have to work hard!”
Just as the sun began to set behind the western mountains, she began to cry. One of her maids entered. “Miss? Are you alright.”
“They did it,” she said weakly. “Now it’s here. Here to take me back home, where I will rest forever.”
“Miss?” but the Maids question would go unanswered by Sophia. Her eyes were glazed, and her heart still.
It was five minutes after when Claus entered the room. “Miss Sophia?” He asked.
The maid shook her head. “She’s dead.”
“What? But the Sylvanna’s here. It’s ready to take her wherever she wishes to go.”
“She’s dead,” repeated the maid. “She did see the Sylvanna, though, in her last moments, and perhaps you can make more sense of her final words than I. She said, ‘They did it. Now it’s here. Here to take me back home, where I will rest forever.’”
“Home? But she is home, and why would she wish to sleep here forever. I always thought…”
The maid looked at his strange expression and seemed worried. “Sir, are you alright.”
“Yeah. I understand now. ‘Home’ isn’t here.”
“What do you mean? What other home has she?”
“The places where those she loves are. The Sylvanna and…”
The funeral was small. The crew of the Sylvanna, Claus, Lavie, and a maid from Sophia’s mansion, all of her closest friends, were the only one’s allowed to attend. It was held on top of a cliff where the Empress was laid in the ground next to her Captain. This was her home, along with her mansion, and of course, the Sylvanna. Being next to her Captain was all the home she ever needed in her life, and now, it is all the home she needs in death.