[ChicletPrime]

yeah. if you'd clipped that and asked who was talking, i would have said Caleb. the cadence, particularly on the second line, is straight from the pilot's handbook.

Chapter 6 (but who's counting)

• recap: this could be the truth or maybe Xavier's on glue, but the center of Starfall Forest and the unstable protofield is the hollow heart of Philos. made by mortal hands and empty, the energy long since exhausted, it uses its immortal people as the source for that energy, eating them.
  
• awww! poor starving planet! a ravenous maw that just wants to survive. the poor thing.
  
• Wanderers were the side effect born from the abnormal phenomenon.  This is what Xavier found out during his Gladius ceremony.
  
• okay, skip back 200 years to just after the Gladius Ceremony. the prince returns from the Forest, bearing his newly earned lightblade and the (a?) Wanderer's protocore.
  
• hah! the King of Philos is so unimportant that he doesn't even have a name, he's just "King".
  
• Xavier presents the protocore and asks if it shouldn't be inspected. his dad waives it off, saying the lightblade is enough. 
  
• Xavier: "Is there no need for formalities? Or are you unwilling?"   ... that's an interesting line. "A heart was once in this protocore. Am I mistaken?"
  
• he puts the red protocore in his father's hand and makes sure he has it tightly grasped. "In another eon, this heart beat only for you." 
  
• OMG THE HERETOFORE UNMENTIONED QUEEN?!
  
• "No matter her likeness, this heart belongs to you and you alone."
  
• he... he killed his mom/Wanderer?!
  
• "Xavier, listen to me. A king cannot act on his emotions or only protect the people he holds dear. Your duty is to protect Philos. You must only do what is necessary."
  
• and now we're back to "present day" in the Forest with X and the Backtracker Guys
  
• Xavier: "Civilians and knights weren't the only ones swallowed by this gaping maw. In exchange for planet's longevity, occasionally the royal family sent in humans."  
  
• this implies that the "civilians" and "knights" weren't human. 
  
• "Wanderers would be born as a result."  dun dun dun "The Order of the Lightseekers has always kept the truth in the shadows. For the royal family's sake, no one was to be told of people becoming food. Upon my return to the palace, I learned they stopped sending people to Philos' heart."
  
• /insert Soylent Green is people! joke here.
  
• "Isn't that a good thing?" I hesitantly offer. oh, you sweet summer child.
  
• "... they found the perfect sacrifice. She can die and be reborn without end. In their eyes, she was the planet's very life force. For only she had achieved true immortality. The royal family believed if they sent her into the planet's heart when the time is right, their problems would be solved. No one asked how she felt or if she was willing to sacrifice herself. They also care little about her being left in a hole to die and be reborn again and again. Her duty was to save Philos because her existence works in such a manner."
  
• "How could I wear the crown when it means coating my hands in her blood."
  
• i .. i don't think i have any questions here but i can feel a little frown between my eyes. 
  
• more exposition: Xavier never talks about it again, the "backtracking" expedition gets closer to launching, Jeremiah throws in with Xavier.
  
• now we're in "Silvercord".  capital city? ah no, closest town to the Backtracker's camp. There's a festival every six months and they're going to buy supplies.
  
• noted:  likely due to the unstable protofield nearby, everybody in town grows strange and beautiful plants.
  
• "I figured you'd leave His Majesty behind like all the other nobles, but you're leaving Philos."
  
• awwkward english? like, i thought you'd leave behind just the concept of the throne itself, but instead you're physically going as well just to make it a super permanent decision? 
  
• "Our trip is an experiment through time and space. Nothing is being left behind. If we are to save Philos, we cannot do it in this era."  whyyyyyy.  "We selected a specific coordinate in the space time continuum. The short test trips yielded fruitful results." 
  
• awww. the kids in the town call him "Xayxay". and he feeds them candy usually it seems.
  
• and since he didn't have candy this time (because i guess his brain is stuck on trying to figure how many changes of underwear to pack) he hands off his shiny brooch instead, that identifies him as royalty.
  
• query Xavier:  what do we do about the Wanderers then? with no King for 200 years and apparently never going to be a King again and the Order scattered to the winds, what are we going to do? 
  
• "I'm not the only person who could sit on the throne." 
  
• "Do you remember... you said you wouldn't let me be another's knight or let me stand by somebody else's side." oh, NOW you remember that. you are much, much too late to find an answer to that. Xavier infers that he was being childish at the time. nice. so you too are backtracking on the "too many feelings" front. 
  
• "What about her? Have you given up?" 
  
• "I cannot. She's my purpose, my guiding starlight." 
  
• okay, next time i'm in game, i need to change my nickname.
  
• /headdesk. oh wow.
  
• "The person who can die and be reborn. It's her, isn't it?"
  
• (i will not call myself dumb, i will not call myself dumb, i am doing the best i can here)
  
• it was all for her. she influenced his entire life and every choice he made.  (awww. lookit me, being a force for upheaval and chaos, leaving entire lives shattered in my wake through the overwhelming force of my innocent cluelessness.) giving up someone you love for the planet, or saving the planet for the one you love, which was more noble? or more heartbreaking?
  
• uh... don't BOTH of those things mean the same thing? i guess if i squint....
  
• we now understand why Xavier has to leave to do this thing but she can't leave Philos, there are too many people there who also need saving. she will stay behind and protect everything.
  
• aaaaaand....what happens then the planet needs a midnight snack? 
  
• apparently a bard's been singing in the background this entire time. "in these final days, the universe nearing its demise, the noblest king shall be born in the darkness. as the true Savior of Philos, he shall lead us unto the light, unto true immortality."  death, neverending? life, unparalleled?
  
• Xavier, turning to the bard: "The king in the legend, who leads Philos into an age of light and immortality, the wearer of the crown will instead be Queen." ... "Under her, the scattered Lightseekers will band together and find true glory." and the bard nods and trundles off to compose a new masterwork.
  
• aaaand the new song sweeps across the land of the legend of Philos' Queen. after 200 years of silence, the planet would finally greet the light of a new hope.
  
• Xavier: "The spaceship will depart tomorrow." I take off my badge of knighthood (star-shaped) and give it to him (hey! he wanted 'homemade'! you cheater. where's the macaroni and the glitter?)
  
• "Is this the little star Your Majesty promised me years ago? ... Allow me to divulge a secret."
  
• Xayxay, on the eve of your complete disappearance from this timeline, what the heck are you doing rocking this boat?
  
• "Only one person has given me a little star."
  
• I am unsure what Xavier meant.  "I'll return to the capital now." 
  
• /stares at ceiling.   where's my coffee? i need some hydration. 
  
• "Lightseeker recruitment will start again. Your Majesty should visit the current candidates."
  
• "When will you return?"
  
• /immediately scrambles for the roulette table and puts all her tokens down on "When you need me."
  
• /spins the wheel
  
• /loses everything! /is tossed out onto the street, destitute
  
• "When that song becomes a reality. When we meet again, I shall be Your Majesty's knight."
  
• so i get crowned and Xavier won't stand beside me. hang on, he literallly said "the spaceship will depart tomorrow" but he's.. snubbing me at my coronation? 
  
• Xavier and his Backtrackers have long since left the Lightseekers. They are regarded as traitors.
  
• how. how are they traitors. 
  
• and now we're back in, i guess, the throne room. "The goal of the Backtrackers isn't what you told me those years ago, is it?"  and i notice that the charm on his sword is now my badge, not the original star charm. I don't know what made him replace it but there's no point in asking.
  
• ...
  
• "Our teacher said wherever a ruler points, a knight's sword must follow." he kisses my hand, his gaze unfathomable. "May Philos prosper under eternity's divine gaze."
  
• and Xavier's gone.
  
• I remember the night he brought me out of the Forest. His lightblade tore through the darkness, illuminating my world like a shooting star - reality amidst illusion, my star."
  
  

okay, i guess i do have a bunch of things going on in my head. 

people are called or tricked or trapped or fed to the pool which kills them and eats their lifeforce to sustain the very planet itself (fragmented and broken as it is). knew this, it was the crux of Voyage of the Outcast. this doesn't explain how or why "she" has suddenly appeared as if in answer to the royal family's very prayers. prior to "her", it sound like they just kept jamming anybody who was unnecessary into the maw, with some sort of distinction between who got to die and who got to live. or even anybody that DIDN'T have the conferred longevity was automatically fodder food. 

the Order of the Lightseekers seems to be involved in this, at least to the point where they keep the secret from leaking out. maybe they escort the doomed to the Forest or something and then patrol to make sure the resulting Wanderers don't head out into the local populace and decimate people before their time to be dinner.

because those that die in the Pool, who give their life force to it, are reborn as Wanderers which, when killed in turn, yield up pure energy which is how Linkon lives in an age of plenty. but Xavier says the protocore contained "a heart" (implication it doesn't any more?). so what is the planet eating, exactly, if energy is what is spit back out? 

did she.. did she just appear one day? born or arrived and dying even as she lives? i know, i know, get to Death & Rebirth already but STILL. 

Xavier met her, fell in love, took on a control collar as the price to try and save her, a red protocore clutched in his hand (who's heart did he have?) -- but it was too late and she died. then... she reappears again, no worse for wear and remembering nothing. he's older in the way an immortal is and this time he goes to the Forest to earn his right to the crown and he emerges with blade and heart-core, only to forswear his blood because now he knows precisely what's going on

so in her first death with him, he didn't know. but in this second life, he figured it out in the Forest. and he categorically refuses to tell her in this lifetime and in fact distances himself from her, as if the only version of her that he wants to interact with is the one already gone. and no mention of the exact purpose of the Backtrackers or how they will 'fix' Philos in the past. there is no mention of whether this is Traceback I or II, although I have to kind of assume its the first mission, because he makes no mention at all of it being the second.

are I and II then repeats of each other? the same ship, the same crew, split due to "target anchor lost" so they arrive at two different times? is the leader of EVER a corrupted version of Xavier?! ... oooooh.