Moonspear different place, different time, all the stars are in their prime

Alya had follow her sisters like a woman marching to her own death. How was it that now, just as they were coming into their own, excelling at every turn, becoming something more than simple triplets - how was it that this happened now?

She'd had so many hopes, so many dreams and plans. Now, she was nothing and no one. Alya was a girl that looked the same as her sister, was a persona that belonged jointly to the three of them - but now only to two. She was sure that, at this meeting, Hydra would bring them into the harsh reality of the situation: Alya was dead.

But Hydra looked on her with love and mercy, and said that they, too, would notch their ears. And all at once, Alya understood that it would always be this way. Just as they'd bloomed together into their adult bodies, they would bloom into Alya the Marked. Hydra the battled-hardened. Lyra the one-eyed. Every injury to one was an injury to all. It was why they fought so hard for each other - one of the reasons, at least.

"Thank you," Alya sobbed, overcome by relief and gratitude and love. She would never tell them how afraid she had been, how much she had doubted them. "Thank you so much, Hydra, Ly-ly..." She gazed at Lyra, with her tender, unmarked flesh. It would hurt her to see Lyra hurt, but it would hurt her all the more to be eternally wrong. They were all at once Hydra, Lyra, and Alya, and though their hearts might be different, only the three of them would ever truly know.

The Cerberus must live on.