Gate of Memoirs/One Last Test

What is worse: to blind yourself with false conviction, or to hear the unpalatable truth from your guiding light?
Portrait 	Dialogue
Music: "Overcome"	Music: "Overcome"
 	
*Unable to sleep, Baelfyr leaves the small cave, and looks up into the cold, blinking heavens.
*Born into a destiny he might have never known, had he not found that scrap of a banner in the attic.
*His father was unwilling to speak more on the matter, 
*leaving much of that history elucidated only when Leopold had come to him that fateful day.
 	
*Baelfyr: Was it all for naught?
*Baelfyr: Was it only a delusion of grandeur?
 	
*Baelfyr: ...No. It can't be. I know what lies in store for me.
*Baelfyr: For the people who have perished...
*Baelfyr: For the blood that runs in my veins.
 	
*Wulfric: Bury those thoughts, my son.
*Wulfric: We are no longer nobles. House Auswald is no more, but a ghost story!
*Wulfric: Accept our lot in life...and you may live to see peaceful old age with a happy, healthy family.
*Wulfric: I have seen too much, and it does us no good to dwell on the past.
*Young Baelfyr: But Father!
*Wulfric: I will hear no more. Get rid of that banner scrap!
*Wulfric: And don't let me see it in this house again.
 	
*Leopold: You intrigued me from the start.
*Leopold: Would that you could have known your true House; I am certain you would have made a fine patriarch.
*Leopold: Alas, it was not to be.
 	
*Baelfyr: Father had no spine.
*Baelfyr: He was content to lick the boots of our very enemies and toil his life away for a pittance.
 	
*Baelfyr: The son of a wolf reduced to a mongrel mutt!
*Baelfyr: But not I! I alone will redeem our proud name.
*Baelfyr: That's why you came to me...isn't it, Grandsire?
*Baelfyr: Tell me, what must I do?
Portrait 	Dialogue
Music: "Nothingness"	Music: "Nothingness"
 	
*The frozen forest suddenly erupts into the burning memory of a day a century ago.
*A cacophony of screams and cries fill the choked air as shadows run to their doom.
 	
*Baelfyr: What... What is this?
 	
*Leopold: Fire, and blood.
*Leopold: Does your blood burn, boy?
*Leopold: It should. Or are you not a true son of House Auswald?
 	
*Leopold draws a sword from his cane, and a black energy begins to surround him.
 	
*Leopold: This is your final test.
*Leopold: There is only a single path forward, or retreat with your tail between your legs.
*Leopold: You know what must be done.
 	
*A familiar figure appears at one end, her normally cheerful countenance awash in tears as Voidborn begin clawing at her flesh.
 	
*Sidonie: Bael!
*Sidonie: Bael, it hurts— I'm—!
 	
*A brilliant burst of Faefire consumes the shrieking creatures, but Sidonie seemed to wither with every second.
 	
*Baelfyr: Sidonie!
 	
*Baelfyr plunges his sword again and again into the vile creatures, but the flush of life had since faded from Sidonie's brilliant eyes.
*Her form, coalescing into sputtering Faefire, seems to linger for a moment in the palm of his hand, before disappearing entirely.
 	
*Baelfyr: No... It can't...
 	
*Leopold: Hold nothing back, boy.
*Leopold: Show me the strength of your conviction—the truth you desperately want to believe in.
*Leopold: Or is it but your fervent delusion, to redeem a House you barely know?
 	
*Baelfyr: ...!