Lance was shocked with how quickly the land passed by beneath the XT-Dropship. Flying above the Faewood this way was as exhilarating as it was terrifying. Jason said they were flying at 30,000 feet above the Faewood, 'just in case'. The exterior of the craft was cloaked as well, Jason making sure to only cloak the hull and not the interior. Thank the Pillars for that, she may have died of a heart-attack if the dropship was see-through. Her ears had popped as they rose, eliciting a gasp of shock from her. Apparently that just 'happened' when changing elevation, but it had surprised her nonetheless.
She was still pretty scared, sitting down in a seat beside Jason as he handled the controls, belted into the seat and her hand clutching a thick dark rope above her head. She still couldn't bring herself to look away from the Faewood below despite this fear, of course. Looking out the window next to her, she saw that even the Ilum tree was merely a fraction of its former size while beneath the dropship, its obsidian bark a stark contrast with all the greenery surrounding it.
Compared to the Rotting Ilum though, it's size was miniscule, the size of a normal tree in comparison. How old had the Rotting Ilum been before it had been cursed, she wondered? She'd heard a rumor that it had been around since at least the Eighth Age, but could its history have stretched back further than that even? It was hard to say, but once the Greater Fae within Jason's armor awoke, then maybe she could find out for sure.
She turned toward Jason at the thought, his face completely concealed behind his helmet. He didn't seem to think much about flying so high in the sky, as if he'd done this hundreds, if not thousands of times before. Knowing him, that was likely the case, but for Lance this was all fresh, all new. She struggled to imagine ever getting used to flight, the sight below was far too mesmerizing. The cockpit didn't just have the side windows she could peer out of, of course.
The front window was shaped like a semi-circle, allowing them both to see what was in front of them. Below this window on Jason's side was a series of controls, levers and knobs set into a dashboard, blinking various colors and looking overall intimidating just to glance at it. Jason was comically oversized for the seat, which could somehow withstand the weight of him and his suit. He had to hunch down in order to see out of the window, the sight brought a smile to her face.
"What's so funny?" He asked, not turning to look at her.
Right, with his helmet he could see everything around him, "You look silly hunched down like that." She laughed.
"This seat wasn't built for me." Jason told her flatly, "It is not optimal but it will work."
"Taking off the suit might make it easier for you to fit, no?" Lance asked.
"We could be heading straight into a combat situation." Jason replied, "I need to be prepared for that."
"Speaking of which," Lance began, the smile vanishing from her face, "We'll need to descend once we reach the Bone-Plains, we won't be able to see anyone from up here." Lance explained.
"Already planned on it." Jason told her, "You said that there are mages with the Trinketts, would they be cloaking themselves?"
Lance nodded, "Probably, at least if they aren't on the move, there aren't enough of them to cloak everyone unless they're hiding out somewhere. Though there aren't many places to do so out there."
"Flat plains, right?" Jason asked, "The terrain complicated by the presence of bodies from the last Akan-Dari Expansion war."
Lance nodded, "Akan-Dar completely gave up on retrieving all the corpses… you'll see."
An hour of flying passed until they finally left the Faewood, Lance shocked with how quickly they had crossed the continent. Was the Faewood truly that small? They couldn't have been going that fast, could they? Or was their forest truly not continent-spanning as she thought? The Faewood was… tiny?
"The Faewood is far larger than I thought." He told her, shocking her.
"But it only took us an hour to leave it." Lance told him.
"The fact it took an hour to pass over with a ship like this means that it is massive, Lance." He told her as they began flying over the Bone-Plains, "We're flying incredibly fast."
Lance had only seen them once or twice before, but the Bone-Plains were just as huge as she remembered. An ocean of long green grass stretched out beneath them, crimson flowers dotting the plains in the thousands. Jason descended as they reached the planes, hovering above by perhaps only a thousand feet.
"See those flowers down there?" Lance asked him, "Legend says that each flower represents a soul that passed during the Akan-Dari civil war that took place after Muro slayed their Lord-Ruler."
"Unlikely." Jason told her, "Plants just grow."
Lance shrugged, "True, but now that you understand our world somewhat, you must also realize that there could be some truth to that legend."
Jason shrugged, "Maybe. If it's true, then that war must have been sort of rough."
Sort of rough? Lance stared at him in open shock. "Jason, that's hardly an apt description, the death toll was in the millions."
Jason nodded, "That's a decent amount."
"Decent." Lance said flatly.
"I've seen battles where billions have died, they were rare," Jason told her, "But they did happen. Terna and the Final Kind both possess capabilities for decimating entire worlds, can you imagine the death toll a ground battle between those forces would be?" He asked, "There was a significant battle once, on a farming world in the outer colonies of Ternan space, it was called Gaia-3. Neither Terna, nor the Final Kind wanted to just let the planet be incinerated, it was a rarity, a planet with rich soil and with a perfect temperate climate for raising livestock. The aliens wanted the world whole, just like we did." He took a deep breath. "There were battles across the solar system containing Gaia-3 of course, and that took a heavy toll in its own right, but to conquer a planet, you need boots on the ground."
"Gaia-3 was so fertile?" Lance asked, "Sounds like a good place to live."
"It was." Jason answered, "Which is why more destructive implements weren't used by either side to destroy one another's ground forces. I, along with a hundred other Hoplite's, were deployed to Gaia-3 to defend it. The battle lasted for months, me and my siblings had to have killed well over a million aliens in that time, and that was just us. The rest of the Eighth Arm killed millions more, and millions of our own were killed in return. Three Hoplite's died on Gaia-3."
"Why didn't the Final Kind send one of their Admechs?" Lance asked, "You mentioned that such a creature was capable of destroying the population of a whole world-"
"Because an Admech is non-disciminatory for what they target." Jason told her, "They're a weapon of mass destruction, just as rare as a Dragon-Class ship and just as effective at slaughtering a planet's population, but to deploy one to Gaia-3 would have likely ruined that world completely, defeating the purpose of trying to take it whole."
"Like the Final Kind's very own Pillar-Born." Lance said, furrowing her brow, "By the Pillars, I hope to never encounter such a creature. Do you think you could defeat one now that you can use Foundation? You have better armor now as well-"
"No." He told her firmly, "I would have still been killed, these monsters are something only Jyn could stand against, but the Final Kind knew not to risk them against him. Jyn could destroy a Dragon-Class, after all, can you imagine what he could do to an Admech?" He asked, shaking his head, "An Admech's directives are to slaughter everything living once it's deployed to a world, after that point it shuts down and the Final Kind retrieves them, leaving the planet in ruins."
"Why not make more of such monsters?" Lance asked him.
"Because from what we've learned, the Final Kind didn't create them." Jason explained.
Lance paused, "...Then who did?"
"We don't know, and I don't think we'll ever find out." Jason shook his head, "The galaxy is filled with the corpses of thousands of fallen empires, the Final Kind have a monopoly on most of the relics scavenged from them. The Admechs are just a remnant of a fallen dynasty, most likely."
"Thousands of empires?" Lance asked, "How old is the galaxy? It has to be over ten-thousand years old, yes?"
To her indignation, Jason laughed.
"What do you find so funny?" She asked, growing somewhat irritated.
"The galaxy is likely over thirteen-billion years old." He told her, "It's likely that the galaxy we're in now is a similar age."
Lance could only stare, green eyes widening, "Billions?" She asked, more to herself.
"That's right." Jason told her, "We're relatively new to existence in comparison, a small blip on the timeline."
"But the Pillars can't be that old!" Lance exclaimed.
"Of course they aren't, they're new." Jason told her, "Relative to the universe of course."
She sat in silence as a feeling of insignificance began to come over her, similar to when Jason had said that worlds were merely grains of sand on a cosmic beach, the multitudes of worlds nigh-infinite across space.
"Anyhow," Jason began, as if he hadn't just shattered her worldview once again, "The battle for Gaia-3 happened right after Lord Jyn disappeared, so we didn't have his protection at the time, otherwise he would have forced the aliens to commit suicide as usual."
Lance stared, dumbfounded, "Jyn is so powerful?"
Jason nodded, "He was. I saw him do the exact thing I just described, it had to have been over a hundred years ago now, but there was a force of over a million troops on the ground, on another farming world even-" Jason paused, "I had been deployed to help slow down their advance, only to buy Jyn time to arrive. Once he did, all it took was a wave of his hand- and the Final Kind all turned their weapons upon themselves. Over a million aliens, dead in three seconds."
A shudder of fear ran down Lance's spine. Had the Pillars sent away Jyn for fear that he would usurp them? To wield such strength was something Lance couldn't even comprehend, and here she was, sitting right next to that being's very son.
"Jyn equalized things between humanity and the Final Kind." Jason continued, "But there were trillions of aliens and only one of him, even Jyn couldn't be everywhere at once."
Lance paused, "Was that why he made the Hoplites, perhaps?"
Jason's hands gripped the wheel tightly after she said that. He didn't reply for a long while, the gears likely turning in his head as they continued to fly.
Eventually though, he finally said, "...I don't know." He said truthfully, "If that's the case, then he would have wanted us for our Psionic potential, not our capabilities as infantry. Perhaps he viewed the Hoplite's as failures for being unable to utilize the same powers he could- but if that were the case, then why wouldn't he try to teach or activate those capabilities?" He shook his head, "It doesn't make sense."
"Psionics isn't something that can be taught." Lance told him with a frown, "Nolvi told me about it before. Psionics is something that's based on heritage, but even then those powers may never awaken. Lithia has thousands of descendents after all, but not all of them become Spiral Queens… So maybe he was just hoping that you would develop those abilities on your own."
"Meaning we went through hell to become super-soldiers, just to mitigate Jyn's losses in case we didn't develop Psionics like he possessed?" Jason growled, "It was all just a big gamble to him? That's what we were?" He asked, voice trembling for an instant before he shook his head, "I apologize, I am jumping to conclusions. The truth is that I will never find out for sure. Jyn is gone forever, there is no way I can ask him his reasons for making us. It would be best if I just move on, and forget about him." He said to himself, resolute.
"Don't be sorry Jason." Lance told him firmly, "You know that you can talk with me about anything, right?"
Jason paused again, before he said, "I'll have something I need to tell you about."
Lance sat up in her seat, looking to him with a smile, "I'm all ears." She said, running a thumb along the point of her ear.
A moment passed, then another, before Jason let out a sigh, "It's not time." He said, sounding frustrated.
"What do you mean?" Lance asked, "Time for what? You can tell me, Jason."
"I can't yet." He said, that frustration still in his tone.
"Alright well, don't force yourself." Lance smiled, "You'll tell me when you think it's a good time."
Lance felt euphoric as she realized what Jason was trying to do. She had seen the love in his eyes clear as day back at the Fiendwall, it was clear to her that he was struggling to muster up the courage that he'd need to voice those feelings. She was tempted to confess herself, to let him know that she felt the same way.
She managed to hold her tongue though. Lance still wanted Jason to initiate this leap, and to do that, he would need to push through his fear. Both because she wanted to hear it from his own lips… and because she was too much of a coward to do it herself. She had already done so twice, once when he was asleep, and the other back in castle Blackgaze, but the fool had misunderstood her meaning at the time. She hadn't the time to explain herself back then, reaching Kazon and freeing the Outworlders had been more important.
She let out a huff as she imagined his thought process. Jason was probably thinking that she would deny him, something about how 'he couldn't be loved' or something dumb like that. Well Lance wouldn't have it, once he confessed, she would be his as he would be hers, and no idiotic reasons such as that would hold either of them back.
Lance wouldn't allow it.