ofdragonsdeep

[ofdragonsdeep]

Sketch page commissions done for Takara and Mirateski! Thank you <33

[ofdragonsdeep]

30: Two Heads Are Better Than One

A problem is easier to solve for two people working together.

Orn Mahr is keen to help locate a lost promise.

(DAWNTRAIL SPOILERS)

It had not been a particularly pleasant day.

It had started fine enough - there had been a few detours, but the Feat of Pots had been well within Wuk Lamat's capabilities. It was everything else that had proven less than ideal.

It was his own fault. The bandit's proposition had sounded legitimate, and he had let Wuk Lamat go alone. If he'd been with her, he could have stopped all of this before it had started - perhaps her ego would have been a little bruised, but it would have been better than this.

He should have paid more attention. He was in a new area, with new people, with new challenges. He should have…

But he had to trust Wuk Lamat, or there was no point in him being here in the first place.

Ar'telan was not a man to sit idly by, however. He and Koana - the boy's quick action, despite Wuk Lamat being his erstwhile opponent, had improved his standing in Ar'telans eyes quite considerably - had begun working on the issue. He had been all over Kozama'uka by now, spinning lies and neutering bandits. And now he was crouched behind a rock, watching the leader of the bandit group fidget nervously and consider his next movements.

We need them alive, Koana had said, though he had gritted his teeth through it. Wise enough words, though Ar'telan was not certain that would extend to Bakool Ja Ja, when they caught up with him.

"Ar'telan!" Orn Mahr, in the closest thing he had ot a whisper, flapped down next to him. "Let me help! Let me help!" Ar'telan raised a finger to his lips, watching his target nervously, but the man - distracted by watching several of his men be laid out flat on the road in front of him, most likely - was still scanning the horizon in front of him with a scowl on his face.

"Shh. I've got this," Ar'telan reassured him. Orn Mahr shook his head.

"I can fly! Let me help! The big lizard took her, I can-"

Ar'telan put one finger on his snout, and he stopped talking with a huff of displeasure.

"We have to be careful, Orn Mahr, or he might hurt her," he replied. "You can't charge in and be a hero. Do you understand me?"

"Why would he hurt her?" Orn Mahr asked, blinking in surprise. "I thought this was a… a nice contest."

"It's supposed to be. But he isn't playing fair," Ar'telan replied. Another quick glance from behind the rock marked his target as about to move. "Track him in the air, but do. Not. Aggravate. Them. Promise me, Orn Mahr." Orn Mahr looked up at him, and Ar'telan could see uncertainty in the way he tucked in his paws, tail thumping repeatedly against the dirt.

"O-ok. I'll be super duper sneaky!" he promised, and took off. Ar'telan ducked out from behind the rock, scanning the immediate scenery for somewhere decent to conceal himself. The trees were spindly little things, and the rock walls steep where they rose up around them.

It was not going to be an easy walk.

---

Ar'telan thought it might have been easier to find a safe path through Garlemald's ceaseless snow than to track two natives in a marsh.

The bandit was not a professional. He was a nervous young man who had taken money for what he had thought was an easy job, and who had learned through practical demonstration that the people who were now very angry at him specifically could quite easily eviscerate him if they wished to. Naturally, that made him jumpy, but lax. So long as Ar'telan stood still as a stone, and kept mostly out of sight, he had no chance of being seen.

The mamool ja was a different matter entirely, not only because Ar'telan had to be careful not to spook the bandit as he followed his new target. It was a small reassurance to know that Orn Mahr was acting as backup, and a larger worry that emotion would overwhelm him in the moment if they caught sight of their destination. It was easy to forget how many centuries he had under his belt when he acted on impulse like this.

Quietly, as he crept through the undergrowth, Ar'telan wondered if these mamool ja followed Bakool Ja Ja because they wanted to - if they believed in him and his bid - or because he had commanded them. The Silverscales at the Wanderer's Palace had been unique as mamool ja in eorzea went, united in purpose and not for sale. From what Ar'telan had seen, you couldn't fault your average mamool ja mercenary's skills, but…

Gulool Ja Ja had been a breath of fresh air, where two-headed mamool ja were concerned. Blessed siblings, they called them, and he had worked to earn the name. Bakool Ja Ja reminded Ar'telan far more of the fight in the depths of the Wanderer's Palace. Belief in his superiority, in his right to rule, in being justified in simply taking what he needed by force.

Whether they believed in him or not, these mamool ja were professional about it. Keen and focussed, far more so than Bakool Ja Ja's braggart behaviour. Or perhaps that was just Ar'telan judging both of them by the Mighty's actions.

The final stretch - at least, he judged it likely to be the final stretch - was an open canyon. Ar'telan settled behind a rock, knowing he wouldn't be able to keep up, and activated his Linkpearl. Slowly, carefully, frowning as he tried to remember the eorzean letters, he tapped out a message against it.

M-J-S-T-O-P-P-E-D-(stop)-O-R-N-M-A-H-R-T-R-A-C-K-I-N-G

He shook his head to clear the ringing in his ears, not needing to wait for Thancred's response. It had been long enough now that he could sprint the rest of the distance and not risk alerting the man he was tailing, and he would need to hope that Orn Mahr had done his job.

It was not the kind of thing he would normally put much trust in.

---

Cresting the hill, Ar'telan saw what seemed like a good candidate for a stopping point.

The river crashed down ahead of him, and there were clear signs of a recent mooring. In a nearby tree, Orn Mahr was sat, his eyes on the river until he heard Ar'telan's approach. With a powerful jump, he bounced into the air, flapping in front of him excitedly/

"Found them!" he declared, voice significantly quieter than it normally was. "Did I do it right?"

"Yes. Thank you," Ar'telan replied. "Do you know which way they took the boat?"

"Down the river!" Orn Mahr said. "Did you tell the sneaky man to come? I can follow them too!"

"Thancred is on his way," Ar'telan said. He had not been told that, but he knew it would be the case, unless Thancred had ended up like Wuk Lamat. It was not a very likely situation. "You follow them too. Remember - out of sight. Don't let them know."

"Quiet and sneaky!" Orn Mahr agreed. "I'll see you later!"

---

Roping the punutiy and repairing the damaged boat was a trivial task, but it took that most precious of resources - time. Ar'telan was not worried for Wuk Lamat's life - Bakool Ja Ja was mostly bark, even if he bit hard when provoked - but Koana was a different matter. The youngre miqo'te paced irritably the entire time, hands clenching and unclenching, every stray sound getting his fingers halfway to his linkpearl. It bespoke excellent training on his part that at no point did anxious fingers curl around the grip of his pistol, but Ar'telan still watched him, just in case.

He'd been uncertain about Thancred and Urianger's decision to go with Koana at first - and he did not fool himself into thinking Hephaistos had anything resembling an opinion on the matter. Koana was measured, yes, but he hadn't seemed an excellent prospect for the future of Tural. Innovation was fine enough, and adopting the technologies of other lands in ways that benefitted his was a sensible plan, but Ar'telan didn't imagine that the majority of those in Tural would appreciate it being done at the expense of the old ways.

But Wuk Lamat was far from perfect, too. She was naive - their current predicament proved that - and sheltered. She loved Tural, but she barely knew anything about it. Even her father had admitted, after their duel, that he did not think she would make a good Dawnservant. None of them would.

But now it began to make sense. Thancred and Urianger had, presumably, known Koana during his time at the Studium - he wouldn't have thought to ask them for their help otherwise. At his core, he was hurting, and turning to anything he could find to paper over the gaps. Anything to prove that his abandonment had been because of a failing in Tural, rather than anything personal. Anything to make sure Wuk Lamat didn't experience the same.

Likely he had only asked them because he knew them to be skilled - outsourcing his support to Sharlayan just like he had his worldview. But they had understood what he needed, if Ar'telan knew them at all. It wasn't his place to guide Koana like he tried to do for Wuk Lamat, but at least he was not worried about him. Not any more.

"Surely Thancred must have found something by now," Koana muttered through gritted teeth. Every muscle in his body was twitchy and tense, and he almost jumped into the air when the linkpearl went off.

"We've found them."

---

Generally speaking, Ar'telan was not a violent man.

He was capable of violence. Great feats of it, if pushed. But he did not like to reach for it in the first instance.

He was still reminded by Erenville, in a quiet voice, that it would not be a good look to kill the Aspirant.

They met Thancred and Orn Mahr outside the cave where Wuk Lamat had, presumably, been taken. Ar'telan had suspected that the real target was her Keystones, but Bakool Ja Ja seemed to like his cruelty. And besides, it held them up further to torment her.

"Can I punch him? Can I can I can I?" Orn Mahr asked, before they went into the cave.

"Please do not get yourself squashed by the mamool ja," Ar'telan replied, weariness on his face.

It was not a particularly complicated plan. They would storm the cave and cause a clamour, and pluck Wuk Lamat from the chaos. Ar'telan imagined that Bakool Ja Ja would withdraw under the threat of having to care about what he was doing, and that would be that.

But he was ready to be proven wrong.

Koana opened with a shot to the head. Ar'telan had no way of knowing if he'd known it wouldn't pierce his thick hide, or if it had been chance. Either way, it was not the best of starts.

Ar'telan, though, was best placed as a deterrant, and he knew that. He walked across the ring towards the lackeys, book in hand. An easy target, with nothing but his robes to stop him being speared through the heart, but they all took a step back regardless. Even Bakool Ja Ja, with Wuk Lamat gripped tight in one giant hand, seemed perturbed by his entrance.

"Bah! They can do nothing while we still have-"

It was Thancred who did the most damage, coming from behind with a swift strike to the arm, but it was not only Thancred.

"RARGH! FEEL THE WRATH OF THE DUSK WYRM'S BROOD!" Orn Mahr bellowed, his squeaky voice echoing off the walls of the cave. As Wuk Lamat went flying, Orn Mahr - who had apparently picked up Koana's gun - smacked the barrel of the firearm repeatedly into the top of Bakool Ja Ja's hoobigo half.

"Gah! Get away from me, you squeaking beast!" one head yelled, flailing with the sword that had but seconds ago been held to Wuk Lamat's throat.

"AND THIS ONE IS FOR TURAL, PROBABLY!" Orn Mahr declared, ducking out of reach and instead smacking the barrel of the gun against the boonewa's head.

"Orn Mahr, please," Ar'telan tried, a glance backwards confirming what he'd hoped - Wuk Lamat was safe, her landing cushioned by her brother. He shifted to be stood between her and Bakool Ja Ja as Thancred helped her up.

"Get RID of it, brother!" shrieked the hoobigo head. "I'm going to KILL THEM ALL!"

"Orn Mahr," Ar'telan tried again, but the little dragonet was far too engrossed in attempting to batter the giant lizard to see his signs.

"Oi! Dragonet!" Alisaie yelled at the top of her lungs, and Orn Mahr dropped the gun on Bakool Ja Ja's head in surprise. "Get over here, you idiot!" Orn Mahr blinked at her in confusion, then looped out of the way of a grab from Bakool Ja Ja's mighty claws and sailed over to Ar'telan.

"I will GRIND your BONES into PASTE!" snarled the hoobigo, and Ar'telan narrowed his eyes.

It was a whisper from the boonewa that calmed him, his other half making him hesitate. Both of their heads locked eyes with the assembled claimants and their backup - a not insignificant crew, even for a Blessed Sibling.

Orn Mahr blew a raspberry at them.

Bakool Ja Ja slammed his staff into the ground, and all of them winced away from the brightness of the flash, but there was no fireball to accompany it. Just the sound of hammering feet, growing slowly dimmer as they fled the cave.

"VICTORY!" Orn Mahr declared. Koana patted his pockets, then saw his trusty pistol lying across the cave floor from him, and sighed.

"Do you even know how to control that creature?" he muttered, and Ar'telan grimaced.

"I'm not sure anyone does," he replied.

[ofdragonsdeep]

29: Style

A distinctive manner of expression.

Ar'telan considers the strange place he finds himself in.

Everkeep was a strange place.

They had been granted access as Sphene's guests, but i thad not been an auspicious start - waiting at the automaton on guard duty to see if they would need to subdue it violently instead. The lift was bright and harsh, an electrope box that ferried them up to Solution Nine.

Bright. Purple. Flashy. Every wall had something daubed upon it, either as some kind of moving advertisement or grafitti. It was loud and overwhelming, and while the others seemed fascinated, Ar'telan wanted to find a quiet hole and hide in it until the noise died down.

While the others had begun their exploration, he had found the residential blocks. They were still large, and loud, but the little ornamental pond and tiny garden were grounding. He sat himself on one of the benches, staring at the fish ambling through the water, and thought.

He didn't understand how it worked. On the surface, he saw the appeal that Sphene's setup might have - forgetting death. Escaping the pain of loss. But they knew people died. They just didn't face it.

He put one hand up to his head, where the Regulator might have sat. There was nothing inherently wrong, he thought, with the way they used souls. Assuming tey weren't consumed permanently - their methods would have collapsed long ago if they were - they were simply empty energy. It was everything else.

Mourning wasn't easy. He had mourned so many people, and it had never got easier. But the idea of instead forgetting them…

What holes would it leave in the heart? To forget Moenbryda, who had sacrificed everything in desperation. For Urianger to not know why he knew her parents so deeply. It had been a hard trek for all of them to Rathefrost, but they had all made it for a reason.

What of Nidhogg? The stretch of time leading up to their final confrontation on the Steps of Faith had been trying, and he would never be free of the guilt. But would it leave if he forgot? If Ishgard had a history of agony and regret framed by an empty space?

But they tried to avoid that, too. The lightning made things dangerous, true, but there was a plenty surrounding them that tried to prevent conflict. No-one wanted for food, for shelter, for coin - if they even had coin here. Work was expected, but they were not left to starve in its absence - only without souls.

And so that formed their heirarchy.

It was empty. Sphene had been so delighted to tell them that she had supported the Turali caught under the dome, but she hadn't. Yyasulani was crumbling. There was nothing not driven levin-mad to hunt. The crops were entirely dependent on Everkeep's complex electrope mechanisms. The livestock were an afterthought. And no-one remembered the elders whose traditions they kept. Over time, it eroded into nothing, and they only carried on because they thought they had to, because it was work, and work granted them souls. There was no connection.

Maybe that was the core of it. Meracydia would never be free of the scars Allag had left on the land, but with Regulators, over time they would lose the reasons why. The watches they kept and the stories they told would become an empty tradition, meaningless and quickly abandoned once the last person who understood why was gone. There was a reason Sphene's people had created the Regulators, but none living now remembered why. There was a cause for the fulminous cauldron the sky had become, and nobody knew it. They simply lived, and made no impact, because even if they did it was ripped from the minds of everyone they knew when they passed on.

Fast. Ephemeral. Show without substance. A placid existence, all idea of strife or concern scrubbed out, so they could live and die and leave no wound when it was removed.

But if that were the whole truth, why Zoraal Ja?

Sphene was no fighter, but she had a mountain of automata at her disposal. Zoraal Ja was strong, but he had been alone when he had found them - he was never anything but. someone had given him control of the army, an army they would not even have needed if they had continued to persist alone in their isolated little bubble. Their King's only goal was war, an engine of death whose only outcome was the inexorable repeat of what had happened in Tuliyollal. Why?

There was more to it. A more that even the people, content in their bubble, hiding from the consequences, likely didn't even know. He had to find out what. Find out why. Make this bright, empty paradise make sense.

With a purpose, he could weather it.

[ofdragonsdeep]

28: Deleterious

Harmful often in a subtle or unexpected way.

The fourth Lightwarden exacts an unexpected price.

It had been a dour return from Ahm Araeng.

So far, Ar'telan had been able to assuage the concerns of the rest of the Scions. He was long-practised at putting on a brave face and bracing through the pain, and while they all suspected, only Y'shtola had really known for sure how bad the damage was.

'Had' being the operative word.

He had done a fine job at hiding it himself, he thought. He had staggered when the Light hit him, that was true, but none of the others had heard the sound like shattering glass, the uncanny hum of the Light that accompanied everywhere they hadn't brought back the night. The feeling like shards of glass under his skin, that didn't leave a physical mark. He had stood, he had given them a reassuring smile, and he had seen Haurchefant collapsed on the floor.

Ryne had been plying him with stabilising magic for the entire return journey, and she did not leave his side when they returned to the Crystarium proper. At Ar'telan's insistence, he had been taken to their room rather than the Infirmary.

"Is there something you'd like to tell us?" Y'shtola asked, watching as Thancred lay Haurchefant upon the bed.

"No," Ar'telan replied. There was a long moment, before she sighed.

"Keep your silence, then," she said.

"H-he said no," Ryne said, and that only made Y'shtola's frown deepen.

"There we go," Thancred said, stepping back from the bed to let Ryne dart in. "I don't suppose anyone has any theories as to what in the hells just happened?"

"Our companion was stood well behind the most of us," Urianger said, a contemplatitive tone in his voice. "Though the Lightwarden put up a fierce fight, he was surely spared the worst of it."

"But it was the moment it died that he fell," Alisaie said, one of her hands clenched into a fist. "It had to be that. What else could it have been?"

"Even freed from the complications of his corporeal aether, he is not of strong constitution," Alphinaud disagreed. "It could well have been simple exhaustion."

"With that timing?" Alisaie shot back.

"It's the Light," Ryne said. Her voice was quiet, but it cut across the argument all the same. "I can feel it. It's almost like what happens after an attack… but…"

"Can you contain it?" Y'shtola asked. Ryne nodded.

"I can. It's… It's not progressing like an injury would," she replied. "I felt it surge after the Lightwarden died, but it hasn't moved since."

"That's all well and good, but how?" Thancred asked, clearly bemused. Ar'telan made a noise, and all heads turned towards him.

"It's my fault," he said.

"How in the hells could it be your fault?" Alisaie all but snapped back. Ar'telan flinched at the force of it, and she relented, concern and worry clear in her eyes.

"I fear I must ask the same," Urianger agreed.

"Oh," Alphinaud said, understanding hitting him. "Oh. I… see."

"Share with the class, perhaps?" Alisaie demanded. Alphinaud glanced at Ar'telan, who closed his eyes and sighed.

"At the Vault…" he started, walking across the room to where Haurchefant lay, still as the grave. Ryne scurried out of his way, watching as he put one hand over where the spear of light had hit him, all those moons ago. "I… had to save him. I had to. Everything else, it… it didn't work. The wound wouldn't heal. The magic wouldn't touch it."

"Light-aspected aether acts as a potent paralytic of magic force," Alphinaud said. "It wouldn't have mattered how much we tried to heal, it wouldn't have made a difference."

"So I…" The memories were still overwhelming, even now. The Echo, replaying the moment over and over again. Holding Haurchefant's lifeless body in his hands, time after time. Fate pushing back against all his attempts to fight it. "I used my own aether to fill the hole."

"Your own aether?" Alisaie repeated, dumbfounded. Y'shtola, without context but smart enough to piece it together, narrowed her eyes.

"It would not have been a small effort to heal so grave a wound like that," she remarked. "It would have taken a noticable portion of your soul. Years of your life, and if you were lucky, that would be all it took."

"It was the only thing that worked," Ar'telan said, shaking his head. "I tried… I tried so many other things, but the Echo…"

"But if it's your aether in the wound, then…" Thancred began, swinging back around towards the bed. Nimble fingers unded the clasps on Haurchefant's armour, pulling up the chainmail beneath it at a speed that the knight would have appreciated, were he conscious.

The scar was hideous to behold at the best of times, a cracked network of tendrils like lightning fanning out from a clearly fatal wound, jagged and angry. Ar'telan had appreciated it as proof of healing, proof that Haurchefant had survived something that should never have lasted to scar to begin with, but now…

The lines, once carved by magic, were lined with gold. In the centre, where the spear had pierced his flesh, pure, alabaster white.

"Twelve preserve," Alisaie muttered, averting her gaze with a hand to her mouth.

"I-it's stable," Ryne said, though she did not sound certain about it. "I don't believe it will progress any further than it has. Given time, I might be able to contain it, bring him back around again."

"Ar'telan," Thancred said, his voice sharp.

"I'm fine," Ar'telan replied. "I'm not the one unconscious on the bed."

"You are a poor liar," Alphinaud said, folding his arms.

"I'm fine," Ar'telan repeated. He reached a hand out towards the mark, almost without thinking, and felt the tips of his fingers start to tingle.

He heard Ryne shout NO! with a force he had never heard her muster, felt Thancred tackle him to the floor. It should have hurt when he hit the floor, he thought. Those things should have hurt. But when every step felt like walking on glass, when every movement felt like breaking, he didn't register it. Just the feeling that it should have been his.

It was his. It was a part of him still, if he could only.

"Ar'telan. Ar'telan!" The sound of Y'shtola's voice snapped him back into the present. He felt the weight of Thancred, sat on him to hold him down, one hand- one hand on his gunblade?

"He needs to leave. Now," Ryne said, her voice shaking. Thancred glanced down at Ar'telan, and flinched away from him when he looked back.

"Yeah. Up with you, let's go," he agreed, shifting backwards and hauling Ar'telan to his feet after him. Ar'telan staggered, a dizziness in his head at the motion, and offered no resistance as Thancred escorted him out.

What was happening to him?

---

Thancred took him out of the Pendants entirely, leading him over to the Wandering Stairs with a hand at his back the entire time. Ar'telan watched, still shell-shocked, as Thancred pulled a chair out and sat him down in it, before easing himself into the one opposite and motioning to the barmaid for a drink.

"So. When were you going to tell us?" he asked. Ar'telan blinked.

"Tell you what?" he asked in return. His fingers felt stiff, barely moving at his command, but he fought through it. Thancred heaved a sigh.

"That you're dying, Ar'telan."

"I'm not."

Cylva came over with a tray, a flagon of ale placed in front of Thancred, and a mug of water in front of Ar'telan. She gave them both a long look, but said nothing before retreating back to the bar. Thancred gave her a nod of appreciation, and took a long drink.

"You're still a bad liar."

Ar'telan pulled the mug of water over and stared down into it, no intention to drink. The distorted reflection made his eyes look golden, and he grimaced.

"I'm fine. I can handle it."

Thancred leaned back in his chair, giving Ar'telan a long, measured look. It was rare to see such a serious look on his face, and Ar'telan had a hard time meeting his gaze.

"Alright. Sure. So we'll pretend that everything's fine and dandy with you. What about Haurchefant?" Ar'telan flinched. "His aether is your aether, apparently. A reckless move that puts even our resident sorceress to shame, by the way."

"None of you were there to dissuade me, in my defence." Thancred cracked a slight smile at that.

"Paragon of good decisions, me," he agreed. "But you can't pretend that it's ok. That you can carry on ignoring the consequences and pretending they'll go away."

"Ryne said he was stable."

"He is. But there's one Lightwarden left. And like it or not, a part of you would make a Sin Eater of him."

The silence was long, hanging uncomfortably in the bustle and clamour of the bar. Rather than stare at his unwanted drink, Ar'telan tried to memorise the patterns in the wood of the table, instead. Eventually, Thancred sighed.

"So. What was your plan?"

"I don't have a plan."

"Bollocks you don't. Tell me."

Ar'telan grimaced again. The motion felt sluggish, like trying to swim through muddy water, and he didn't like it.

"I… didn't have anything concrete," he said, holding up a hand when Thancred started to protest it. "I wasn't sure if it would be too much. I thought… I thought that if the Exarch believed I could do it, then the odds were good, surely. But I did… I did think about it." Thancred waited, arms crossed over his chest. "I thought if it was too much, I could… travel back to the Source. Without a destination."

"And pitch the Light into the Rift with you," Thancred finished, and Ar'telan nodded, once. He got another heavy sigh for his trouble. "Well, that's not going to work, is it?"

"I knew you'd say that."

"Putting aside my own concerns with your plan to kill yourself for the sake of this reflection, which we willbe revisiting at a later date, that is not what I meant," Thancred disagreed. "Because there's one Lightwarden left, and whether you can survive it or not, he can't."

"Ryne-"

"Cannot work miracles, Ar'telan! She's barely had this power for the span of a day, and you'd have her fend off the teeth of an entire Lightwarden?" Ar'telan stared back down at the table. "So I'd say that decides it, doesn't it? No more Lightwardens." Ar'telan took a deep breath. It did not steady him in the slightest.

"Someone must. And I am the only one here who can. You know that."

"Only because you're the only one the Exarch cared to think of!" Thancred exclaimed, before pulling himself back with a shake of his head when Ar'telan flinched away from him. "This can't be the only solution. I won't let it be. Even if I was fine with your idea to be rid of the Light, which I'm not, I won't let you go to your death knowing you've doomed him, too. I can't let you do that to yourself, do you hear me?" Ar'telan clenched his hands slowly into fists as Thancred spoke, wishing he could unhear it. Wishing he could go on not thinking about it. Pretending it was fine. Pretending he was enough of a hero to save this world. Pretending he hadn't failed them all.

"The last remaining Lightwarden is in Kholusia," he said, sidestepping it as if it mattered. "If the Eulmorran army's movements so far have been any indication, they won't let us ignore it. So unless you have some way to deal with them while we wait for a hero that isn't going to come-"

"It doesn't have to be you!" Thancred exclaimed, slamming his hands down on the table as he said it. "Every time, it's you. You who suffers, you who survives, you who has to weather the fallout. But it doesn't have to be! We… we can…"

"I'm the only one who can hold the Light. You know that." Thancred's clenched hands were shaking.

"But there has to be something," he said, voice catching on the words. "Something I can do. Anything that isn't just sitting here and watching you waste away."

The sound of Thancred's linkpearl cut through the silence that was all Ar'telan had to offer in reply. Ar'telan put a hand to his ear automatically, but it was only Thancred they were speaking to this time.

"You're sure?" Surprise replaced the pain on his face, just for a moment. "Alright. I'll- yes, I know, I know." He looked over at Ar'telan. "Ryne says he's awake." A hand touched against his before he could even begin to rise from his chair. "And you can't go."

"Don't tell him," Ar'telan managed, and Thancred sighed.

"You know I don't have any choice, Ar'telan," he replied, and that was the end of that.

---

The silence stretched out in front of him like a shroud.

It felt like a particularly capricious kind of cruelty. At least when Haurchefant had lain still and unresponsive in the chirurgeon's bed, Ar'telan had been able to be there. When they hadn't been sure if he would wake again, Ar'telan had been able to be there. When the consequences of Ar'telan's actions had-

No, no, that wasn't fair. Haurchefant had chosen to be there at the Vault - had fair begged his father to be allowed to accompany them. Had chosen to block the spear of his own volition. And, if every cursed Echo-vision he had clawed his way through had been right, had been happy to do it, if it meant Ar'telan lived another day.

Thancred was right. It was always him. Always him surviving, always he who found the bodies, always he who made the final stand, the successful stand. It wasn't fair to punish others for the hook fate pulled him along with. Wasn't fair to damn others by proximity. He had consoled himself with the knowledge that at least this was his choice - that he was leaving so many behind, but it would only be him that had to die. And he wasn't even allowed that simple solace.

"You look stiff as a corpse," Ardbert's voice remarked from behind him, and he let out a heavy sigh. Of course the ghost had seen all of that. Of course he knew what Ar'telan had done by proxy. Of course. If he had simply died back there in the Bowl of Embers like they'd wanted, would it have saved them?

No. Elidibus had sought a Rejoining, not salvation. It wouldn't have achieved anything other than further suffering.

"Not having the best day, I take it."

Ardbert couldn't sit in the chairs, but he stood where Thancred had been sat, crouching down to try and mimic the action. Ar'telan watched him with tired eyes.

"You don't have a solution."

No-one looked askance at him for signing to empty air, at least. Ardbert sighed.

"No. I don't," he agreed. "If I did, I'd've offered it long before now." The idea seemed to sit poorly with him - he was just as frustrated as Thancred, what passed for his body tense and unhappy. "If I could take the Light for you, I would. Hells, if I could take it for him I would. It's not like I can get any deader."

"I think you could manage it."

Ar'telan managed a slight smile at that, but it didn't seem to amuse Ardbert all that much.

"I hate to watch it," he admitted. "Back then, she… she said I had a role to play. But if that role is to watch you die, I don't want it!" He tried to kick the table, and his foot went straight through the legs. "But if you want, I… I'll stay with him. Hells only know he won't be going to Kholusia with you."

"I don't think the others are going to let me go to Kholusia, Ardbert."

"Aye, but when has that ever stopped you?" Ardbert replied, the ghost of a grin on his face. Ar'telan grimaced.

"You can't. You're tied to me, aren't you?"

"Sure am. But if there's enough of you in his soul to be turning him into a ghost, I reckon there's enough for me to stick around. For you, if no-one else." He frowned then "Do you think he can see me?"

"Ask him yourself."

"Maybe I will," Ardbert retorted, then sighed. "Look, it's not much. It's barely anything. But it's something, isn't it? Something I can do. Something…"

Ar'telan picked up his hands to reply, but Cylva came over to them then. Ardbert regarded her with an indecipherable look as she picked up Thancred's empty flagon, before turning her gaze to Ar'telan.

"Not a drinker?" she asked, and Ar'telan grimaced. "No problem." She picked up the empty mug, shuffling the other empty glasses on her tray around to accomodate it. "Keep your chin up. Times are strange, these days, but the Crystarium has your back." She put a hand on his shoulder, as if to reassure, and the touch felt real, rather than the horrible numbness that kept haunting him. He blinked.

"…Thanks," he managed. "We'll finish it. I swear."

"Aye, I'm sure you will," Cylva agreed. There was no joy in her voice at the thought. "Best of luck to you."

"If only we'd known," Ardbert murmured, his voice quiet. "I'll be right back, eh?"

And for the first time since he had arrived in the First, Ar'telan found himself truly alone.

---

Ar'telan was not allowed into the same room as Haurchefant, nor even to see him, but even stood outside listening to the Scions talk, he could feel him. Or feel himself, that tiny, pulsing point of light and aether that had bridged the gaps in Haurchefant's own. Saving him to damn him later.

Ar'telan would never forgive the Exarch for the price they were paying.

Ryne explained that Haurchefant had been told what was happening. What it meant. He had immediately offered to take the aether of the final Lightwarden himself, as if that would help matters any, and been roundly denied.

At a time that Ar'telan could roughly match to Ardbert seeking him out, he had gone from "conscious" to "sitting up", and had been forbidden from trying to stand. The diagnosis was grim: he would not survive the final Lightwarden. And, by extension, neither would Ar'telan.

Urianger and Y'shtola had followed this up with an argument that Ar'telan had missed in its entirety, sat wallowing in his own misery in the Wandering Stairs. Y'shtola had gone to seek out the Exarch, and Urianger had retreated to a private room, clearly conflicted. The twins were still with Haurchefant, and Thancred had gone to add his weight to the suggestion that the man didn't move, and that led to Ar'telan finding himself alone with Ryne, stood in the middle of the chaos and entirely separate from it all.

"I have a suggestion," she admitted, after glancing at the door to ensure nobody would overhear it. "But I don't… think they'll like it."

"That doesn't bode well for my approval," Ar'telan said, and she raised clasped hands to her chest, as if to protect it.

"N-no, but… it's all we have," she said. "I'm not… as strong as you. I don't have a soul like yours. But I do have… Minfilia. Her Blessing."

"No."

"I'm not saying I should do it alone!" Ryne said, her voice almost rising enough that she could be overheard. A terrified glance at the door confirmed that she had realised that herself, and she quickly shook her head. "But if I stand there with you, I can… I can take just a little."

"…That won't save us." It felt cruel to sign that to her, to dash her youthful hopes upon the rocks. She took a deep breath.

"It won't save you," she agreed, her fingers tightening. "But it… it might save him." She glanced back at the room once more. "I feel like… there's something there with him. Watching over him. I can't explain it, but he feels a little safer. So I think if I took just a little, it would be enough for him to not be overwhelmed." She bit her lip at that, staring down at the floor for a long while before daring to look back up for his answer.

"But not me," he said. She nodded. Gods, what was he doing? She was just a child. She and the twins both shouldn't have had to shoulder that knowledge - the knowing what he was going to do. Knowing they couldn't save him. For all his vaunted strength, he couldn't even protect those he cared about the most. "Fine," he said. "If it'll save Haurchefant… that's enough." He could see her resolve waver, her uncertainty sink in. Every trembling limb, the drop of blood on the edge of a well-worried lip, the stiff way she stood. She would blame herself for the rest of her life for not being enough, he knew that. And there was nothing he could do about it.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and Ar'telan shook his head.

"You are the last person who has to apologise for this."

He had made his choice. He had steeled himself long ago for this eventuality.

He just wished that he could say goodbye.

[ofdragonsdeep]

27: Memory

An image or impression of one that is remembered.

A history of collision on the Steps of Faith

Not for the first time, Ar'telan's feet took him out to the Steps of Faith.

The sounds of combat accompanied every step. Steel on scale, the flash of fire from the maw of a dragon. The shouting of the knights. The dying of the knights. The sound of dragons hitting the stones, the life draining from their bodies.

I shouldn't be here.

And yet.

---

The first time he had approached the Steps of Faith, it had been in passing.

They had been cutting a path through the ceaseless snow, he and Alphinaud and Cid. The gates had risen like an ominous sentry from the blizzard, and he had stopped for but a moment to look.

"We haven't the time for sightseeing," Alphinaud muttered, his teeth chattering in the cold. By the cold iron gate, a single elezen in full armour had shot Ar'telan a look that could only be described as venomous, and he had taken them at their unspoken word.

Then, it had been a shadow, barely a moment spent upon it.

---

He walked past familiar faces - for a mercy, none of them dead upon the ground quite yet. With the city behind him, he drew his sword.

The horde had attacked as soon as Nidhogg had flown up from the snow, pouring onto the Steps to secure a way into the city. Barely had they returned from Sohr Khai than the attack did start, and Ar'telan had not had chance to ensure that those he knew were even safe, even alive. Such was the nature of warfare.

In the sky, Nidhogg locked claws with Hraesvelgr. It was a terrifying thing to behold, the power that the Eyes held. That Estinien's body provided enough scaffold, merged wholly with the wyrm's essence as he was, to rebuild him in his entirety. What did it cost him? If they had not risen up against Nidhogg like they had, would he have lived out the rest of Estinien's life as the wyrm? What after?

If the Ascians had never whispered their lies into Tiamat's ears, would Meracydia have answered his death with their own lives? When each body around which the aether grew frail, would another gladly volunteer to take their place?

He would have done. When he had still been home, and even now, he would have done.

---

The second time, it had been purposeful.

It was not part of his duties, assisting the Scions and Revenant's Toll with maintaining their alliance with Ishgard, fragile though it was. Very few things were - he went where he was told, did as he was told, and reported where he was told.

But Lord Haurchefant had seemed keen to show him all those parts of Coerthas which Ishgardian doctrine would allow an outsider to see. Ar'telan had not particularly wanted to go on a whistle-stop tour of all the places they had murdered dragons, but he had no way to rebuke it without whispering heretical secrets in Haurchefant's ear. And he did not trust the Inquisition to know the difference, so he had gone.

"They tell me that the way to the city was more open, once," Haurchefant had remarked. That had surprised him.

"Do the dragons pluck outsiders from the bridge?" he had asked, and tried not to show the bitterness in it.

"Not at all! The entire walkway is warded, as is the city itself," Haurchefant had explained, with that glimmer in his eyes that always accompanied a chance to speak of the good things of Ishgard. There were not many such times, Ar'telan had noticed. "They use the power of the Eye, kept within the chambers of the Vault, as I understand it. All those of the Horde are thus repelled."

"I see." He had resisted the urge to speak of it as a blasphemy. He did not want the people of Ishgard to be subjected to the whims of the frankly vicious dragons he had so far encountered in Coerthas. Even the dragonflies, usually such docile, tiny scalekin, seemed keen to take the head of any passing traveller. Ishgard was not a nation of soldiers, though certainly they were a majority of them. There were children within the city. Innocents, noncombatants. In truth, Ar'telan didn't think that anyone deserved to die, not even the soldiers who drew steel against the tide.

But he wished he knew why.

---

The sound as Nidhogg's teeth tore his brother's wing from his body was a gruesome one, cracking bone and ripping flesh. Ar'telan ran at a sprint to where Hraesvelgr had fallen, terrified that their attempts to stand against one half-alive dragon might claim the life of another.

It was with agony on his face that Hraesvelgr turned to look at him. Agony, but not regret. Across the bridge from them, Nidhogg landed with a crunch of talon on rock.

"Thy strength… is the last… which standeth against him,"Hraesvelgr managed. "So I shall lend thee mine."

Estinien had always held the Eye in his possession like it disgusted him, though the truth had ever been more complex.

The aether of Hraesvelgr's Eye merging with his own felt like coming home. A piece of him, one he understood through some new instinct to be that to which Midgardsormr had bound himself, sung out in answer.

He felt it.

All the rage, all the sorrow, all the agony. Every moment that had driven Nidhogg through that long millenium since Ratatoskr's death, he felt it. The sight of her body, butchered by the tools of man, her soul plucked out and made lunchmeat. The lack of remorse on their faces. The assault on his own flesh as he stood shattered, realising that her song had stopped because she was no longer there to sing it.

The despair that had caught Hraesvelgr when Nidhogg had told him the truth. The Eye he had given to his brother, that his flesh might persist long enough to wrest his own soul back from those who had stolen it. Only not rising to Nidhogg's anguished chorus because Shiva begged clemency.

It was not all of them who killed your sister.

But it would be all of them who answered for it. They would know the same suffering that Nidhogg did - eternal, unceasing, a pain and agony dragged out for so long that none no longer understood why they felt it. Senseless, pointless misery. Over and over and over again.

For a moment, he understood it.

It was the same anger that had fuelled Tiamat, in her despair, to turn to something that could not be turned back from. The feeling that something so hideous, something so callous, something that ripped a hole in the heart that would never heal, had to somehow be answered. That condemning his children to die upon the lances of the villains who had first chosen to stain them with draconic blood was a fair answer - that when they died, it was only proof that the choice was right. But it wasn't. Some small part of Nidhogg still felt it, buried deep beneath the anger and the rage, but he had nothing else left. The part of him that had loved his sister still lived, but the pieces of him that knew her love was ceaseless, boundless - they had withered in the onslaught. Ratatoskr had been failed by so many, and nothing cut more deeply than knowing he numbered among them.

Ar'telan walked past where Hraesvelgr lay, his white feathers staining red. He walked until there was naught between him and Nidhogg but blackened flagstones.

He raised his shield.

---

The third time he had visited the Steps of Faith, it had not been kind.

When the Knights had realised that they did not have enough to weather the Horde's latest assault, they had beseeched Revenant's Toll for help. It had been gruff, and curt, but Ar'telan understood that the act of asking at all meant that they were desperate.

He had not, particularly, wanted to answer. He had called on everyone he knew that might be able to stand against a dragon and live to tell the tale, but he had not offered his own answer. Unfortunately for him, Alphinaud had given it for him, assuming as he often did that Ar'telan would have no complaint with the matter. He had a great deal on his plate, so it had made sense that he hadn't noticed Ar'telan's uncertainty. At least, that was what he'd told himself.

So he had found himself with the van, the only thing standing between the massive seige dragon that the Horde had deployed, and the city itself.

They should not have been able to step onto the bridge at all. The act that they could bespoke an act of treachery, likely from the heretics Ar'telan had been volunteered into dealing with. He had been told the situation was complex, but it still seemed no better than throwing sword and scale against each other until one succumbed, no thought for casualties. The Ishgardians considered the dragons beasts, and killing their young was just eliminating a potential threat. A culling, not a senseless act of slaughter. And the heretics… they were willing to witness collateral, even among their fellow men, if it meant they would stop killing.

Ar'telan had wondered what would happen if one side won.

He had refused to assault the dragons directly. When he was directed to the cannons, he had ignored them. When he was told to man the dragonkiller - a name that made his skin crawl - he had begged Riennaut to go in his stead. He had helped with clearing out the scalekin that accompanied the dragons themselves, and stitched together the wounds of those fortunate enough to escape before the dragon's feet crushed their bones, but he had not hurt the dragon.

Lucia had noticed, and said nothing.

And when they found themselves backed up against Daniffen's Collar itself, naught but that and their own bodies between the Horde and Ishgard, he had asked himself if he was willing to die for that belief. As they set the powder barrels to light, and Vishap screamed in agony, he had asked himself if he would die for it. As Vishap inhaled for one final assault on the wards, he had asked himself if he would die for it.

Haurchefant. The family he spoke of so highly, but never named. Francel, and the memory of his brother, who had given his life against the dragons to see more to safety. The knights at Dragonhead, even those at Whitebrim who had allowed them to set forth into the Stone Vigil. All of them were willing to die for their beliefs.

As was he.

But before it could break that final ward, another dragonkiller lance had rocketed down from the heavens, crashing through Vishap with enough force to sever its neck from its body. Rising from the bloodied mass it created, an extremely grumpy Foulques, lance dripping onto the stone. From the tower where the final dragonkiller stood, Riennaut looking down without any expression on his face.

But he would have died for it.

---

It was not easy for a mortal man to fight a dragon.

Nidhogg was huge. His clawed feet were large enough to crush Ar'telan into paste, if he'd been able to pin him down. Every breath was laced with fire, every action an afterimage of heat.

Ar'telan knew how dragons fought. Even without Hraesvelgr's test, he had grown up around dragons, and he knew them well. He knew the patterns they dived in, leaving a trail of fire in their wake, he knew the way their sharpened claws could be laced with elemental might. He knew to avoid the snapping jaws and lashing tail. He knew it.

But fighting back was difficult when he had to spend so much time evading. He had chosen to take this stand, but every time his sword met Nidhogg's scales he felt the pain that rippled through the great wyrm. And Nidhogg had learned, too, from their initial clash in the Aery - one from which Ar'telan had not anticipated Nidhogg would leave dead, but it had happened all the same. He had witnessed as Ar'telan had begged him to see reason, he had laughed at his futile attempts to struggle against one of the First Brood. And he knew that Ar'telan cared.

So it should not have been a surprise when he shed the dragonskin, and faced Ar'telan as Estinien.

If it had hurt to face the dragon, to lock blades with a friend was almost worse. He had chosen to take this stand, and he had known that he might have no choice but to take Estinien's life in so doing, but seeing him, his skin wyrm-blackened, his every action controlled by the ghost that possessed him, it hurt.

But he had chosen this, so he persisted.

And when the final blow rang out across the Steps of Faith, and Estinien fell to his knees before Ar'telan, both of them fire-singed, both of them wyrm-touched, both of them halfway to dying - Ar'telan wondered who had lost the most.

---

One year hence from that final clash, Ar'telan once more found himself on the Steps of Faith.

The bridge was fit for purpose now, swiftly repaired in the days that had followed that final clash with Nidhogg, to better allow supplies to reach the ailing city. Ar'telan had avoided it, preferring to teleport into the city than walk those snow-dusted cobbles.

But today was different.

He left the city with barely more than a nod to the guard on the gate - everyone in the city knew him now. He walked across the bridge, pausing halfway across to peer over the edge of the stone walls, still somewhat cracked and battered after all this time. The abyss below writhed and seethed with wind, the currents churning at a sickening pace. He imagined the Warriors of Darkness, heros-turned-villains, steeling themselves against the maelstrom to serve Elidibus's ends.

At the time, it had seemed a fitting resting place. One where Nidhogg could lie undisturbed, his Eyes no longer at the whims of mortals. In the cacophony, peace, for one so long denied it. If only they had but known. But how could they have?

It had been a long time now since Ar'telan had held Hraesvelgr's eye within his aether, the gift returned in kind as soon as the battle was done, and Hraesvelgr fit enough to receive it. He felt the echos of it still, even now - it was impossible to fully divest himself of the influence. That persistent sorrow, the mourning for a moment so long ago passed, all those that had been lost - not only Shiva, but Ratatoskr, and Nidhogg twice over. Peace, shattered in a single moment.

Ar'telan knew that Estinien felt it, too. He had not seen him in months, and had not needed to, to know. It was a strange, uncanny thing to share.

He stopped when he reached that final stretch of cobblestone, where he had faced Nidhogg one final time. There had been no body to bury, for the wyrm had died long ago - long before Estinien had fought him in the Aery. He had died with Ratatoskr, and the death throes had strangled a millenium of life thereafter.

Ar'telan knelt down, brushing the fingers of one hand against the stone. He hadn't had much sensation left to feel with when the fight had concluded, that which hadn't been burned in fire quickly numbed in the agony of wresting the aether-rich eyes from Estinien's flesh. Now, it was clean, and cold, no memory of the ash that had stained it or the cracks that had run rampant across the distant. How quickly the stone forgot. It was little comfort to know that Ishgard still remembered.

In his other hand, he carried a small bouquet of Nymeia lilies. It had felt soothing to walk across the bridge without a weapon in hand, but now that he was here, he found he didn't know where they belonged. On the walkway itself, they would soon be trampled beneath the feet of chocobos or the wheels of carts. The rising walls felt wrong, most of them having been demolished by Nidhogg's rampage long before Ar'telan had even arrived on the field.

He got to his feet, and walked over to the edge. Stared down once more into the foggy depths.

As good a grave as any.

He flung the flowers over the edge, watching as they fell until the wind whipped them from his sightline and down into the darkness. An unseen memorial for an unmourned foe. But even if Ishgard would not, could not remember what Nidhogg once had been, Ar'telan would do it for them. Hraesvelgr had shown him. The song had shown him.

He stayed there for for over half a bell, until the sun began to set over the horizon and the chill of the wind had turned his fingers numb. There would never be a grand procession, no service to the gods in memory. Ishgard would hail him as a hero, and think of feasting and merry-making to mark the night.

He had been willing to die for it that day. And though he had walked away, a part of him would always stand upon that bridge, holding half of a Great Wyrm's soul in his hands, and choose to cast it over the edge.

He had been willing to die for it. And he had.

[ofdragonsdeep]

26: Zip

Energy, vim.

A young dragonet is keen to explore Tuliyollal.

(Dawntrail spoilers!)

It had been a chaotic arrival to the Tuliyollal docks.

Wuk Lamat had explained to them that the coral reefs made the docking of larger ships impossible, while Erenville had rown out with a skeleton crew from the galley. She had also explained that everyone arriving in Tuliyollal was granted leave to visit the city by the Landsguard. And then she had admitted that she wasn't sure if the Landsguard had ever seen a dragon before.

"That's ok!" Orn Mahr had declared, in a language Wuk Lamat didn't speak. "I can tell them I'm friendly!"

"I don't think that will work."

They were left waiting on the boat instead, Orn Mahr getting more anxious to be off by the second. Stoh Oosh, her languerous bulk coiled today around the main mast, had elected not to simply drop into the ocean below and follow them out of the goodness of her heart.

"This seems like an awful lot of fuss," Mitron remarked, his rod cast over the edge of the ship while they waited. "Aren't you a princess? Can't you wave your royal decree in their faces and make them let us in?" Wuk Lamat pouted at that.

"I am not a princess. I am the Third Promise," she disagreed. "And… no, not really. But I can get you some good food once we disembark!"

"I am not sure that will soothe our young draconic charge," Haurchefant said, a frown settling in on his face. There was a great deal of the day left, at least, but Ar'telan wasn't sure they'd be able to use much of it.

---

Eventually, they were waved ashore by Erenville, far enough away that only Stoh Oosh herself could see the motion. Haurchefant, rather than wrestle his wheelchair into the tiny rowboats with him upon it, begrudgingly agreed to let Stoh Oosh pick him up in her incredibly prickly mouth. She wrapped her whiskers around him for stability, the very picture of gentleness.

"But a few years back, this would have been cause to send a sorrowful letter to my father," he said, a grimace on his face at the inelegant situation.

"I still can, if you'd like," Ar'telan offered, which got a snort from Alisaie.

"No, no, I am quite fine, thank you."

---

They were met on the docks by an incredibly perplexed mamool ja, who cast his gaze between the group of people he was expecting, and the incredibly large lizards he was not.

"And they're not beasts?" he asked. Erenville sighed.

"No. For the tenth time," he disagreed.

"We will do our best to keep thy nation from alarm," Stoh Oosh assured him, Haurchefant dropped into Ar'telan's arms to help him back into the wheelchair. The mamool ja jumped, rubbing his head. No dragons meant no dragonspeak, so the innate understanding was likely a new sensation for him.

"R-right. Well, I'll, uh, get the paperwork done," he said. Ar'telan noted that he had not so much as recognised Wuk Lamat.

They were going to have their work cut out for them.

---

"I want to see the markets, and the boats, and the food stalls! Oh and the guards in their fancy uniforms, I want to see the birds…"

"Does he actually know any words?" Wuk Lamat asked, watching Orn Mahr chattering to any who woul dlisten. Ar'telan sighed.

"Yes. He speaks Meracydian," he replied. "He has decided he doesn't want to learn the 'lesser languages'."

"He knows but a few scant centuries. He will learn," Moh Rhei said, nodding his head.

"A few centuries?" Wuk Lamat repeated.

"Our kind live far longer than the flickering spark of mortal life," Stoh Oosh said, a statement which sent everyone near where they had gathered on the beachfront scattering.

"Like the Tural Vidraal…" Wuk Lamat mused. "A-anyway. It's probably best if you don't go flying about the city. People will get concerned. So if you stay down here until people are used to you…"

"I am content to wait, Third Promise. Thy concern is appreciated, but misplaced."

"R-right. Well, I was keeping this a secret until later, but I had rooms for all of you arranged at the For'ard Cabins," she said. "They look out over the sea! So maybe Stoh Oosh can stay there?"

"It will do for the moment," Stoh Oosh decided.

"Are we going somewhere?" Orn Mahr asked, flying in loops in the air.

"Soon, Orn Mahr," Ar'telan reassured him. "Thank you, Wuk Lamat."

"I'll stay with Stoh Oosh while you get the guided tour," Mitron offered. "Make sure nobody reports her to the local hunters. Not that I think they're a threat to her, but I'd rather not have to clean that up."

"It would be better to not cause a city-wide incident on our first day as guests here," Ar'telan agreed. "We'll be back later." Mitron cracked a smile at that.

"Don't lose your little dragonet."

---

Orn Mahr had a lot of opinions about Tuliyollal. Most of them were about how slow his entourage were.

"This would be great for dragons!" he said, winging his way with ease up to the aetheryte plaza. "But I don't know why you built it like this for walking people."

"Is that a compliment?" Wuk Lamat asked, squinting at Orn Mahr's tone of voice. Ar'telan grimaced.

"…Not really. He doesn't really do those," he replied. Wuk Lamat, for a mercy, had loaned her considerable strength to helping Haurchefant up the very steep ramps - they were not stairs, which was a start, but they were entirely to steep for him to safely manouevre on his own steam. Haurchefant, who had grown up scrambling up ladders and around the cliffside, and who had nonetheless adapted with grace to the various inclines of Ishgard, had contained his displeasure with the situation to a constant frown.

"Keep up!" Orn Mahr demanded, wheeling in front of them before taking off at full tilt for the aetheryte. Ar'telan sighed.

"…I think I will keep my climbs to a sensible minimum today," Haurchefant said, heaving an exhausted breath when they finally levellled off. Ar'telan held out a hand to attune to the aetheryte, trying to hide the grimace.

"Koana brought them over from Sharlayan!" Wuk Lamat informed them, her face beaming with pride. "Father was so taken with them, he had them installed all across Yok Tural."

"Did you not have any means of aetheric transport before?" Ar'telan asked, surprised. Meracydia did not have aetherytes, that was true, but they had an equivalent. Not that he had ever had cause to use them, though he was still attuned to the tree in Hess Oohr.

"Nope! Before Father took charge, not many would have used them," Wuk Lamat replied. "Most of the people who travelled only did so for trade, and you can't take an alpaca by aetheryte."

"True enough," Haurchefant said. "Still, now I am up here, it will save me the rather perilous climb a second time." Orn Mahr alighted on the top of the aetheryte, flapping his wings excitedly.

"Wow! I can see all the way out to the sea from here!" he exclaimed. "There's not many boats. Do you get sea monsters? Big whales? Nasty ships to eat?"

"You have never 'eaten' a ship in your life, Orn Mahr," Ar'telan replied, shaking his head in despair.

"…I don't think I want to know," Wuk Lamat decided.

---

There was a particular beauty in a city built into the side of a cliff.

Beauty in the setting sun casting the houses in bright and radiant orange. Beauty in the long horizon that stretched out from the walkway railings. Beauty in the way that people had hewn paths from the stone and lined them carefully for all to use.

But it was difficult.

None of the city was off-limits to Haurchefant, but his vastly diminished energy had sent him back to the cabins long before Wuk Lamat was done with her tour. Orn Mahr had decided halfway through that nothing save the offerings of every food stall in Bayside Bevy would satisfy him, and it had taken every trick Ar'telan knew to keep him on track, however briefly. The city was full of people who seemed delighted to share in its joys, and Ar'telan found it entirely overwhelming.

Eventually, Wuk Lamat had taken them to Xbalyav Ty'e, a restaurant on the beachfront that served 'amazing tacos'. Ar'telan had never had a taco before, but he was more concerned that Orn Mahr would demolish the place if he had to wait even a microsecond too long.

The shop's proprieter was friendly with Wuk Lamat, like everyone who recognised her seemed to be, and tolerated the strange little lizard that attempted to talk his ear off in a completely foreign language. Ar'telan tried to apologise for him as Wuk Lamat took the bag of tacos, and he was immediately waved away.

"He's just like a kid with wings," the man dismissed. "Not that having wings would help a lot of them kids, I'll admit. Keep an eye on him, hey?"

"I will do my best," Ar'telan said, cringeing in embarrassment.

---

Disaster struck as soon as they left the premises.

Ar'telan had met a two-headed mamool ja exactly once before, in the Wanderer's Palace in La Noscea. He had been mostly concerned with oppressing the tonberries, and Ar'telan had knocked some sense into him and the invading force. At the time, he had been somewhat helpless to watch as the tonberries had made the lesson permanent.

This one also seemed mostly concerned with throwing his weight around. Specifically, into Wuk Lamat, and then on top of their tacos.

Ar'telan was not stupid enough to start a fight in the street over a replaceable bag of food. Wuk Lamat seemed inclined to turn the other cheek - or at least not rise above a bark.

Unfortunately, the two of them were not the only members of their party.

"HOW DARE YOU??????" Orn Mahr bellowed. The cackling mamool ja was immediately beset upon by about five ponze of pure, righteous fury.

"What in the hells are you?" the brasher of the two heads demanded, his arms raised up to try and swat the little dragonet out of the sky.

"Orn Mahr, please-" Ar'telan tried, but his please fell on deaf ears.

"YOU WILL SUFFER FOR YOUR TRANSGRESSIONS AGAINST THE CULINARY ARTS!" Orn Mahr declared, landing atop the red head and battering at him ineffectually with his little paws.

"Orn Mahr, he doesn't understand a word you're saying," Ar'telan implored, internally dying of embarrassment.

"TREASON! HERETIC! DEFILER!"

"He seems very determined," Wuk Lamat said, blinking in awe at the display.

"Brother! Get this thing off my face!"

One of their shared hands left the futile effort of trying to catch the swarming dragonet, and instead began to channel a tiny ball of fire. Ar'telan narrowed his eyes.

"No."

The protective magic snapped around Orn Mahr mere seconds before the fireball would have hit him. He squeaked, scattering away from the much larger mamool ja, and ducking behind Ar'telan for safety.

"You should control your flying rats a little more closely, kitty cat," said the blue head. Wuk Lamat scowled.

"We don't need to waste our time with this braggart," Ar'telan said, seeing her hands clench into fists. "Let's go and meet up with the others." The mamool ja laughed at that, a mocking, belly-deep laugh from both heads in unison.

"Yes. Let's," Wuk Lamat muttered, stomping off towards the cabins. Ar'telan cast a final glance back at the pair, before walking off after her.

"He's mean," Orn Mahr complained, from where he was gripped onto the back of Ar'telan's robe.

"He's a bully. He's nothing special," Ar'telan replied.

"Next time I'll step on his tacos," Orn Mahr grumbled.

[ofdragonsdeep]

25: Perpetuity

Eternity.

To the Tempered on the Flagship, the suffering had seemed endless.

The sickly smog that choked the air of Azys Lla was inescapable, even within the great ships that served as the island chain's facilities. Maybe one day, long in the past, the machines had filtered the chemical smell out, but that time was long passed.

Ar'telan coughed into the back of one hand as he walked down the maintenance corridors of the Flagship. He had spent entirely too much time in the cursed ship already, and the hours only seemed to be added to.

He told himself it was for a good cause. All of his struggles on this nightmare ship were for a good cause. Sometimes, he almost believed it.

The little control room that Krile had set up was poorly manned, because the Scions simply didn't have the people to man it. Today, only Krile and Unukalhai sat within it. They would be sitting ducks if Regula took umbridge with their presence again.

"Ar'telan! I'm glad you came," Krile said, a slight smile flickering across her face. She did not have much to smile about, but he was glad that there were a few things, at least. "Figuring out how these machines function has been the most difficult part, I'll admit, but we are almost there. I'm sure of it."

"I hope so," Ar'telan said, walking up and regarding the array of Allagan control terminals with a skeptical eye. The Eorzean script hadn't changed much since Allagan times - or maybe, like their gil, they had simply borrowed it back - but it took him long enough to read penned script that the angular scrawls on the monitors were entirely beyond him, at least at the speed they scrolled past.

"If I'm right, then this should stop the sensory inputs that keep the Tempered awake," Krile said. "If I am not… Well. I asked you here as a precaution." Ar'telan made an amused noise at that.

"I can handle it," he said. "As good a distraction from Ishgard as any." Krile grimaced at that, then took a deep breath, steadying her nerves.

"Right! If you would take yourself to the chamber, I will make ready to run the program," she declared, and Ar'telan nodded and walked away.

---

It was a terrifying sight to behold.

Row upon row of tubes, filled with fluid of a sickly green. The creatures within - in the depths of the Dalamud shards, he had seen dragons with eyes wide open, lines of agony on their faces and their gazes the vacant nothingness of the Tempered, a horrible juxtaposition that had haunted his nightmares ever since. Here, though…

The treefolk of Meracydia did not have faces the way that the spoken races did. They had once communicated with the people, this Ar'telan knew, but he had no idea how. Still, each of their bodies held a core that marked them apart from common wood, the faint blue light illuminating the eerie green from within, casting a twilight glow over the walkway.

Alive. Awake. For eras - for millenia. A span of time so long that only the oldest dragons could remember it. Ar'telan did not know how trees felt pain, nor did he want to think overlong on it, but he knew that they must. The same way the dragons had been held in that agony, all the better to fuel their desperate prayers for salvation, to remake their Eikon over and over again.

For the good of the Empire.

And therein lay the root of their conflict with this Empire. Regula had taken exception to Ar'telan's presence on Azys Lla before by dint of taking exception to his existence in general, but they had reached an uneasy truce over their shared belief that the only good Eikon was a dead Eikon. And the truce had been strained when that had not extended to the Tempered.

It was not something that Ar'telan did easily, sustaining the lives of the damned. Not something that he should have done at all - his teachings growing up had emphasised that there was no coming back once you were turned. It was a mercy to end it. For these poor people, trapped for so long, that mercy would be well-earned.

And yet…

Regula had argued that they were not people, which had not moved him. Regula had argued that they could not be saved, and that had not moved him. Regula had threatened to march the legion in to break the stasis pods himself, and Ar'telan had put himself in front of the door and challenged him to try.

Regula had relented, but the matter was not finished.

But there was one condition that leaving the mechanisms running hinged upon, and that was that the Tempered did not suffer. Ar'telan was not fool enough to think himself capable of devising a way to free them from the iron grip the eikon had on their minds, but if they could keep them alive, one day… maybe, one day, someone else could do it. But he would not see them suffer all the while for a pipe dream.

They had managed to work the controls in the hulls of the Ragnarok that had put Dalamud together with the help of the Ironworks, but they did not have that assistance here. Stephanivien had offered to help him, of course, but with the tense situation around Nidhogg - Estinien - Ar'telan had not felt safe accepting it. The living always came before the almost-dead.

"Are you ready?" Krile's voice asked over the intercom. There were viewing apparatus, apparently, so he inclined his head, shifting his grip on his sword slightly as he did so. If they were driven to further insanity by this, he would end it himself. He owed them that much. "Then we shall begin," Krile continued. There was a static noise, and then a soft yellow light came on above the walkway.

"Initiating program. Please wait."

Ar'telan waited, his keen gaze on the tubes.

"Program complete."

Nothing had changed, at least not outwardly. There was no thrashing, no movement. If they could cry out, there was nothing to be heard. It hadn't made things worse in a way he could measure, but had it made things better?

He wondered if it was right to keep them alive on a hope, when the alternative was further suffering.

---

It was moons before his feet graced the walkway again.

Heavy footsteps accompanied him, thankfully this time not Garlean boots he had to repel. This handful of volunteers was spread out across the rooms - Ironworks engineers, Skysteel machinists, friends of the Scions, and Ar'telan himself. He had left Krile in the control room with the bulk of the people, and the rest were here, already examining the tubes and sharing thoughts in quiet tones.

He had begun to grow used to using the porxie by now, though he still felt it looked a little ridiculous. Saving the damned with a tiny, flying pig. He supposed there were worse fates.

He caught snatches of conversation as he waited. Comparisons of the stasis tubes to those used on the Ragnarok. Potential mechanisms for recovery. One of the Skysteel workers was painting little coloured dots on each of them for how likely it was that the pod was still functioning at an optimal capacity - for how likely it was that they could get its occupant out intact. There were not very many greens.

"Hello, everyone!" Krile's voice called over the intercom. She still sounded exhausted, which was to be expected with how hard she had worked until but recently, but there was still a happy undertone to her voice. It was nice to hear it, after so long. "We all know why we're here, so I'll keep it brief. Procedures to begin lifting statis protocols are to be communicated clearly. One at a time. Let's get started!"

The yellow light came on above the walkways once more as the largest group of engineers clustered around one of the green-painted pods. The robotic voice, so similar to those that issued from the nodes, warned personnel about evacuation protocols and quarantine for the Tempered. Ar'telan's sword was sheathed, this time, but he still kept a hand close to the hilt, just in case.

The lights on the pod shifted from banal white, to amber, to green. A red warning light immediately came on at the top of the pod, and Ar'telan watched wood shift.

It was like watching lightning strike a tree, the way the limbs peeled apart within the fluid. The core pulsed like a heartbeat, and it was almost mesmerising. Almost.

"One! Two! Three!" called the lead engineer, and the pod was pried open. The treekin was washed to the walkway below with a river of stasis fluid, and the Skysteel engineers immediately moved in to restrain it.

Ar'telan had seen what happened to those that were too far gone. The aether that made them had warped, twisting them into earth-heavy husks of wood and malice. This was not the same - but it was close.

"Whenever you're ready, milord," one engineer grunted, struggling to keep one wooden bough pinned beneath the restraining net.

Submit to the will of the wood.

The words pulsed in his mind - Meracydian. Old Meracydian, so old he only just understood it, but he knew it. Every word was accompanied by a laboured flashing of the core, which vines were already snaking around to hide.

You will be free. I swear it.

He channeled aether into the porxie as the tree thrashed and groaned like creaking wood. The protocols that Alisaie had passed out had suggested that multiple people charge a single porxie, to prevent exhaustion, but Ar'telan had more aether than most. For once, it was going to a use that didn't involve killing people, for which he was glad.

The beam of aether hit the centre of the tree, spreading out across the gnarled and knotted branches like water from the roots. It fair hummed with energy, a bright and shining white - so akin to the sterile lights of the ship that Ar'telan almost flinched away from it. It suffused the tree, settling out across the bark, then crawling all at once towards the middle. Towards the core.

The thrashing did not stop.

Allag. Perish.

"What in the hells is wrong with it?" the leader of the group asked, stepping back from the rocking violence and looking to Ar'telan as if he could solve it.

"It thinks you're Allagan," he said, at a loss for how to communicate that they weren't. Words would soothe it, but it did not speak Eorzean - and it had been many years now since Ar'telan had last had a voice that carried over the air.

"Can you tell it we're bloody not?" another woman managed, one of four people struggling to hold down a single branch.

"It only - it speaks Meracydian, but I can't-" he signed, a note of desperation in his trembling fingers.

The door to the holding chamber hissed open, and Krile ran across the grating with all the speed of a chocobo at full gallop. She skidded to a halt beside them, recoiling slightly from the thrashing, then took a deep and steadying breath.

"We are your friends," she said, and Ar'telan heard it.

It wasn't Meracydian. But it was. Her Echo.

We will not submit to liars and warmongers.

"The Empire lies barren! Its goals are ash, crushed beneath the earth," Krile continued. She held out one hand, and healing light washed out from it. "We have freed your gods from their grip, and returned them to the lifestream. Meracydia persists, and we support her. This I swear."

Liar. Tormentor.

Krile looked up at Ar'telan, uncertainty in her eyes. Panicked, he cast about in his memory for something, anything, that might help.

"Hess Merah afah. The dragons say it, maybe-"

"Hess Merah afah," Krile repeated, and for a moment, the words felt as though they resonated.

The tree went still. The engineers waited, tense, for several moments, then moved back. As soon as the net was pulled from the tree, it began to rise, and the people around it scattered.

At full height, not compressed into the tiny tubes that had sustained it, it was easily three times Ar'telan's height, and Krile barely registered against it. It looked to her - or it turned, at least, Ar'telan assumed it was looking - then, slowly, turned the half-circle to Ar'telan.

The vines around its core retreated just enough for him to see the light shine out, bright and blue and strong. It flashed in time with its words, speaking towards him.

You. We have seen you here.

"The Heartwood lies silent," he signed back, unsure if it would even be able to understand him. "Its core is white and still. We protected the fringes, but all that crawls out are Tempered." He closed his eyes. "Allag took your people's voice. It took my people's peace. It took the centaurfolk from us in their entirety. What is left survives. We persist. Always."

There was a moment of silence - of contemplation. The core still pulsed, its beat slow and rhythmic.

We feel the madness at the edges of our consciousness.

Branches moved as it regarded the tubes that surrounded it.

We felt Sephirot fall, as the wood was felled by Allag.

"I had no choice," Ar'telan said. "The Eikons, they aren't…"

Not the true lifetree. This we know. This we murdered, in our terror. In our desire to live, we caused our own death.

The wood creaked, and it sounded a little like a sigh.

A moment of clarity, before the drone. It is good that it was felled. But there is naught to replace it. The wood lies silent because we took our own voice. We are without a heart.

"Can anything be done?" Krile asked, her voice quiet, almost reverant. The tree turned towards her.

Perhaps.

The flashing of its core felt a little like a beacon of hope.

Not as we are. Not as we were.

Slowly, achingly, it raised a branch, caressing the twigs at the end of it against one of the sealed stasis pods. A tree could not cry as the spoken did, but it radiated a palpable air of sorrow.

Few of us resisted the summoning. Few of us remain to restore. We would need more. More of our kin. We must become the forest.

"I don't know how many of those here can be saved," Krile said, her voice all but inaudible. The tree bent one great bough, leaning to better see her.

To you, we gift this.

It reached a great branch towards her, and unfurled the leaves. Within the centre sat a single seed, bright blue and pulsing with life.

Take us to a place with earth our roots can reach. There we shall sleep. And when all that are left to wake are free, plant the next of us on Allagan soil. And it shall be ours. And we shall call to our sleeping bretheren. And if the voice is strong enough, we will wake.

"And… if it isn't?" Krile asked, clutching the seed to her breast like a child.

Then we shall grant you another. Each of us, a new life. Each of them, in Allagan soil. And when each of our new number stirs, they shall give to your descendents another still. And in a time you will not see, there will be enough. And we will wake.

It rose then, and turned to Ar'telan.

You are of us.

He nodded.

To save us was your doing.

Another nod.

To you, child of our heartland, we shall give you the second seed. And you shall take it to our homeland, and entrust it to Hess Oohr. Through this, we shall reach those who sleep.

"I will. I swear," he said, and the bark creaked. It felt a little like approval.

Good.

It stood, and raised a branch to the core at its centre.

The heart slows. We must sleep. We have but days. You shall find a place for us to sleep. You shall wake the next. We shall stay to calm the terror. Then we shall rest. And when we wake again, we shall remember what you have done.

"I'll gather the others," Krile said, sounding shell-shocked. "It will be quite an effort to wake all of those here on so short a timescale, but it could be done, if I call…" She turned mid sentence, walking towards the exit, one hand on her ear as she activated her linkpearl.

"Is that, uh, good?" one of the engineers callled over. "No offence, but we didn't get a word of that." Ar'telan smiled weakly.

"It's good," he assured them. "It's good."

[ofdragonsdeep]

24: Bar

To keep out; exclude.

The nature of being a hero's friend, and not the hero himself, leaves Riennaut apart from many of the threats to the realm.

Convenienly, it also leaves him free to deal with others.

There were not a great deal of circumstances under which Riennaut was summoned to the Rising Stones. He was not a Scion - he had kept his distance on purpose, truth be told, far preferring the adventurer's life to one of a realm-saving team of heroes. He had visited the premise on occasion, of course, mostly to make sure nobody had tried to arrest Ar'telan again. Needs must.

So when he had received a personal call on his linkpearl, from a woman who was not even supposed to know his linkpearl frequency, asking him in a very hurried and entirely cryptic way to please pay a visit, his first response had been suspicion.

These days, Ar'telan did not tend to hang out with ne'er-do-wells. He hadn't chosen to in the days of the Crystal Braves, either, only in proximity to them due to his passivity, but there was significantly less risk of some sort of trap or nefarious scheme now. Still, Riennaut liked to credit his continued health with treating every offer with a healthy dose of concern, and this was no different.

"And who exactly is this woman?" Foulques asked, scowling into the middle distance as the chocobo carriage rumbled down the road.

"Her name is Krile Baldesion," Riennaut responded. He had not spent much time around her, he had to admit, but he had garnered some small amount of respect for her hearing of her deeds. Not the least of which included surviving Garlean experimentation. "She is an acquaintance of Ar'telan's."

"So a friend of a friend?" Foulques summarised, unimpressed. "She'll have work for you and she'll pay with feeling better about yourself, if she's anything like him."

"It never hurts to be owed a favour," Riennaut disagreed. "And I will make that clear."

"Aye? Does that work for Ar'telan, or is he still paid in good vibes and children's smiles?" Foulques returned, scoffing at the notion. "Half up front." Riennaut sighed.

"You are welcome to negotiate your own terms, if you so deeply desire them," he said. That was enough to make Foulques fold his arms and scowl ever more deeply at the wood of the cart.

Needs must.

---

Mor Dhona was as full as it ever was, and the Seventh Heaven was bustling with patrons. When he was eventually let into the Rising Stones, he was struck by the contrast.

It was silent. It was empty. Riennaut had surmised that there were times in which many of Scions were busy saving the realm, or whatever it was they did with their weekends, but he had never not seen it at least halfway full, and so full of murmurs you couldn't make out a word.

Today, the receptionist sat at her desk, staring with sad eyes down at a ledger. The old woman who was always on the bar was missing, replaced by another young girl that he vaguely recognised as one of the Scion's old guard. And that seemed to be it.

"Am I late?" he inquired, which made the receptionist's head shoot up in shock. Tataru, that was her name. Far shrewder than she liked to let on.

"Oh! Riennaut, is it?" she said, and the chirpiness in her voice sounded forced. "I'll go fetch Krile."

"Good start," Foulques muttered, pulling one of the empty chairs from a similarly empty table and sitting down in a clatter of armour. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

---

Krile looked… tired.

Exhausted, in truth. Riennaut knew her for a skilled healer, and also knew the bone-deep ache that overusing the aether caused on a body. It looked like that. Bags under her eyes, shoulders slightly slumped, dragging her feet just a little. Still, she smiled when she looked up at him.

"I'm glad my message was able to reach you," she said, and it sounded like she meant it. "I wasn't sure if it would be the right frequency, or if…" She trailled off, then shook her head. "No matter. I called you because… I need your help. And I don't have anyone else to ask."

"Oh? Your pet hero too busy saving puppies from forest fires?" Foulques called from across the room, and Riennaut saw Krile flinch.

That was not a good sign.

"He is… otherwise engaged, yes," she responded, and the pause held a great deal of unsaid things. "As are… As are the other Scions. I know you've helped him before, and I've already had my other contacts sent out on other tasks. So I turn to you, because I know he would trust you with this."

"The emotional manipulation is appreciated," Riennaut responded. "Give me the whole truth, or you get nothing from me." Another wince. She was so tired.

"You may wish to sit down," she said, and Foulques put his feet up on the table in response.

"Told you."

---

They sat through the entire explanation, Riennaut's eyebrows rising higher with each added fact.

The Scions were out of commission. Unusual, but not out of the realm of possibility.

They were out of commission because their souls had been pulled from their bodies. Not something he would have thought possible, had he not helped with the assault on Ala Mhigo, and been personally subjected to Aulus's insane experiments.

Their souls were no longer on this plane of existence. Generally speaking, Riennaut would have called that dead, but apparently they had been pulled to a parallel reality, something Krile spoke about with such ease anyone would have thought it common knowledge, rather than the ramblings of a madman.

Ar'telan had gone to find them. He could come back at any time, supposedly, but-

They were trying to stop the entire alternate reality from being drowned in primordial light.

It was this last thing, strangely, which made it feel believable. Riennaut had never put much thought into the precise mechanics of the Void, but it was obvious that it existed. It was full of mindless fiends - or mindful ones, if you were particularly unlucky - and awash in purest darkness. Their foray into the Crystal Tower had proven as much. The pitch-dark castle, suspended in a vast, dead space, no life worth calling such upon it. Yes, that he knew to be true, and so the entire story began to make a little more sense.

It was, of course, the fault of the Ascians.

"What the fuck is an Ascian?" Foulques had said from across the room, and Riennaut waved a hand to quieten him down. Riennaut had never personally met an Ascian, a fact he was quite glad of, all things considered. But Ar'telan told him some of what he experienced at their hands, and Riennaut understood them for the threat they were.

"And what, exactly, does this have to do with me?" he had asked, a very reasonable question. Krile had sighed.

"To usher in a Calamity, the Source must also be destabilised," she said. "They are using the Garleans to do it. The former Emperor, Solus, was an Ascian."

"Is there anyone on this bloody rock that isn't an Ascian?" Foulques said, an irritable twitch of his fingers accompanying the statement. Krile sighed.

"Their ability to possess the bodies of the living means there is a greater risk than I would like of important figures being a part of their schemes, but there are thankfully very few of their numbers with that capability," she replied. "I've already sent what contacts I have to the Empire, to try and head off the worst of it. As far as I am aware, Emperor Varis is still his own man… Not that it will stop him from playing right into their hands."

"Men who lust for power will make many an ill-advised move to seize it," Riennaut said, and she nodded.

"I thought that would be the end of it, and I could focus my efforts on maintaining the… the physical bodies of the Scions here," she said, and her voice caught on the words. "But there has been a development on the front. Normally, I would ask Ar'telan, but I am loathe to divide his attention…"

"Killing Garleans?" Foulques said. "Damn, woman, that's one of the few things I'll do for free. You should've led with that."

"Foulques," Riennaut snapped, his voice terse. "That is not an agreement. What precisely is the situation, Ms Baldesion?" Krile closed her eyes. It was a wonder the motion didn't make her fall asleep on the spot.

"The Garleans have been testing… experimental weaponry," she said. "I don't know the entirety of the details, but as I understand it, they are exceptionally large warmachina with the standard Garlean purpose."

"Kill everything that moves," Foulques summarised, and Krile nodded.

"It'll be a little while before I hear back from the Alliance's scouts," she said, "but I wanted to be certain you could help me. I've heard little and less from Ar'telan of late, and it is beginning to worry me." She clasped her hands together in her lap, and took a breath. Swallowed the worry, if Riennaut was any guess, to add to the churning pit of concerns that had engraved those crow's feet so deep on her face.

"So the mission would be twofold," Riennaut said, considering the information. "One, put the warmachina out of commission. That would be the more pressing of the two, and the one we would be best positioned to assist with."

"I do like sticking my lance where Garleans don't want it," Foulques agreed.

"And the second, no less important, is to figure out where they are developing them, how they are doing it, and ensuring that no more are produced," Riennaut finished. Krile nodded.

"That is what I understand of the situation, yes," she replied. "I… I hope that Ar'telan will return before the threat grows too grave, but I cannot be certain. And even if he does return, I cannot be sure he will be ready to bear the burden. Ideally, you need only solve the first of our issues, and let him return for the second, but…"

"No," Riennaut said, a quick shake of his head accompanying the statement. "The man is saving worlds, if you have the right of it. He does not have the time for trifles such as imperial warmachina."

"Though he could probably make a trifle of them," Foulques mused.

"And even if he did have the time, he is but one man," Riennaut continued. "I will not have it said that I let him return from saving the world and immediately thrust him into the grinder of Garlean warmongering."

"So we're doing it," Foulques surmised. Riennaut sighed.

"I suppose we are," he agreed. "Though the two of us are hardly his equal, you can rest assured we will prove equal to the task." Krile sagged in relief.

"Thank you. Truly," she said, finally allowing a little of the exhaustion to creep into her voice. "I will contact you as soon as I hear back from the Alliance."

"No need. I shall stay here in the interim," Riennaut disagreed. "I am trained in white magic, not merely conjury. No doubt my talents will be of some use to you, and I cannot well put them to work in the field if a call may come at any moment."

"Very well," Krile agreed, and her voice trembled a little as she said it. Twelve forfend, the woman was one missed coffee away from fading into dust. "I will show you where… Where they're resting."

"And what exactly am I supposed to do?" Foulques demanded. "I doubt you need the bodies stabbed."

"No, Foulques, that will not be necessary," Riennaut agreed, a weary note to his voice. "There is a levemete in town, I believe, who pays in coin. Make their acquaintance." Foulques rolled his eyes, hefting himself up out of the chair and stomping towards the exit.

This would be quite the favour they were owed.

[ofdragonsdeep]

23: On Cloud Nine

Very happy.

As Radz-at-Han celebrates, the cause of it has a few words for the Warrior of Light

(6.5 spoilers)

The excitement that permeated Radz-at-Han felt infectious. The streets were always bright with colour, but today even more banners had been strung across the rooftops, the people donning their best and brightest silks in celebration.

It had quickly grown overwhelming for Ar'telan. Crowded cities always did, given enough time, but the noise and bustle of the party had expedited it. It was difficult to creep away, when everyone in the city knew your face, but in the chaos he had slipped from the Meyhane and into the streets. He wound through markets, open late for the occasion, and past people who only spared him a passing glance. He ducked away from people trying to offer him food - on the Satrap's coin, as he understood it - and ended up in the open air by Meghaduta. He hopped the fence by the fields, only feeling a little guilty, and sat down by the nearest bush.

Carbuncle shoved its head against one of his hands as he looked up at the sky. It was a clear night, the stars sharp and bright in the dark, only the faint sparkles that Lily and Carbuncle gave off with their existence daring to compete with them. He looked up at the moon, bright and white - it felt strange to still call her Menphina, after everything, but it was a part of his heritage just like everything else - and tried to let the sight engender calm.

He still couldn't believe they had won.

Not against Golbez - he had been a formidable foe, for certain, but Ar'telan had never doubted in the strength of his comrades when facing him down. But Zeromus…

He could have faced down the fiend for as long as it took. It could have rebuilt itself a dozen times over, and he could have weathered it. But he had not dared to hope that they could save Azdaja.

He still remembered the feeling of holding her Eye in his hands. The look on Vrtra's simulacrum when they had realised it was a trap. The agony in his voice when they hadn't been able to save her from the void's influence, when Golbez had used her as nothing more than a weapon. Ar'telan had understood it, though not felt the wound quite so deeply as Vrtra himself had. They had already lost Bahamut, and Ratatoskr, and Nidhogg. Azdaja would have made more of the First Brood number among the dead than the living. They had inured themselves to the silence, her lack of answer still a sort of hope, but to know her dead or worse would have been a difficult blow to weather.

The moon, full and bright, shone down on them. Carbuncle butted its head against his leg.

They had won.

It had cost Vrtra an eye, true, but what small a price to pay for his sister's life? Ar'telan would have paid it too, if he had even half the aether of the First Brood to offer. It was the very least he owed them after Nidhogg.

It had been so long since he had been home, that he had begun to forget how it feeled to see a people celebrating a dragon's return. Not a one of the people in Radz-at-Han knew Azdaja, but they knew what she meant to Vrtra, and that was enough. Ar'telan knew that Tiamat, now home in Meracydia, would have heard the return of her call. Hraesvelgr, too, ensconced within Zenith. Ar'telan hoped it would give him renewed reason to believe in moving forward.

It was almost too good to believe.

From the roof of Meghaduta, there was a deep, sonorous roar, followed by a shrill one. It echoed deep in the bones, and Ar'telan closed his eyes to feel it. He no longer carried Hraesvelgr's eye, but something had lingered. The call felt just a little like home.

It was only a few moments later that the sound of fluttering wings cut through the distant noise of celebration. Ar'telan opened his eyes in time to see Azdaja land on his knees.

"Greetings, mortal."

"I would have thought you celebrating," he replied, a smile on his face as he said it. She rumbled in immediate reply, the sound more like a trill in her newly-small form.

"There will be much time for such things in the days to come," she said. "A great many days of freedom stretch out before me, now, and it is only right that I thank thee for thy part in it."

Ar'telan thought about how Golbez had freed her into the corrupting void only to taunt those who would rescue her. How his plan had always been to feed her essence, rich and full of aether, to his hungry weapon-creature. How even the rends that Zeromus had torn in reality did not lead it home.

"I did little worth mentioning," he said, to which she shook her tiny head.

"Vrtra doth speak highly of thee," she disagreed. "It is thy presence which moved him to act. Thy courage which paved a path for them to follow. Thy influence which allowed even the blackest heart to seek forgiveness."

Ar'telan thought about Nidhogg. How none of his hope had reached those ears. None of his pleas had changed his mind. How he had endured for so long, with Hraesvelgr wounded and the lives of all of Ishgard on the line, and Estinien corrupted steadily more with each passing day, and had still not been able to save him.

Hadn't even been able to save his memory.

"I didn't do that much," he said. Azdaja snorted, but it did not sound particularly grand.

"Thy modesty is ill-earned," she disagreed. "I know thee for what thou art, child of Meracydia. My sister's words doth travel across the sound to meet mine own. Thy name is known to us, Shall Ahm." Ar'telan started in surprise at the name. Dragonspeak wrote its translations into the soul, even to those without the Echo, and though he knew what it meant, it was still strange to hear it spoken as a name. "'Tis apt, for thy actions are a shield. Thy kindness a bulwark." She lowered her head then, a glimmer of sadness in her eyes. "Though time doth pass in the Void, I marked it not. Only the endless, stretching emptiness. The staid, ceaseless existence. As he took of my aether for his ambitions, letting me feel only enough that I knew it to be loss." She looked up once more, ruffling her tiny wings. "The actions of many did free me from that prison, 'tis true. And it was my brother whose aether did deliver me from the heart of the voidsent I became. But I felt thy pain. Thy care. Thou didst call out for me with him, and I did mark it." Her tail coiled around his knees. "I have missed much, but I have days to learn it, and 'tis because of thee." Her tail thumped against his knees, and it felt a little like Orh Mahr's excitement. "Thou art beloved of my brother. Of my sister. Of my father. Be proud, child of Meracydia. Thou bear'st a legacy of thy people's pain, and from it kindle hope."

Ar'telan raised his hands to answer, but no words came to his fingertips. They sat there for a few long moments, the distant echoes of celebration seeping into the silence, before he found them again.

"Thank you."

"Nay. 'Tis thee who earns the thanks this day," Azdaja disagreed. "Go well, dusk-blessed warrior. I pray calmer times for thee in the days ahead." With a powerful beat of her wings, she took to the skies once more, a swift ascent taking her back towards the rooftop, where Vrtra doubtless waited for her return.

Would they be proud of me, back home?

Carbuncle slammed its head into his leg once more.

…I suppose they would.

[ofdragonsdeep]

21: Shade

A place sheltered from the sun.

Ar'telan seeks a place away from the Light to think on the future

Not for the first time, Ar'telan was alone with his thoughts.

It was difficult to find space for that in Slitherbough. Out of necessity, most likely - anyone off on their own was easier prey for the Sin Eaters, and given the losses they had suffered recently, it was no suprise they had tightened things up. Ar'telan was not particularly at risk from the Sin Eaters, at least not in the numbers he'd seen so far, and so he had taken himself out of the village and into the wood.

Geographically, Rak'tika seemed equivalent to Gridania, but the forests could not be more different. The huge, soaring trees felt far more homey than Gridania ever had to him, those that grew around aetherically-charged stones giving him a moment of hope that something akin to his people's sacred trees could be found on the First. They had been meaningless, though. And the First's equivalent of Meracydia had long since been lost to the Flood of Light.

So far, people had dodged the question. Very few still living remembered anything of the time before the Flood, and those that did had not been well-travelled. It was gone, a void of cultural memory that would never be reclaimed, bleached white by the all-consuming Light.

He looked down at his hands, wondering if he might see the light beneath his skin.

Nobody had said anything. Nobody ever said anything. But Y'shtola had looked at him and seen a monster, and no amount of dancing around the subject could hide that from him.

His feet took him through the forest, past the living trees and haunted pots and bloodthirsty flytraps, towards the lake. At one point, it had been sacred to the empire that ruled the lands in days past. Now, it was a submerged bog choked with plantlife and belligerent fish. The latter, to Ar'telan, felt preferable.

He dove down into the water, taking a moment for his eyes to adjust to the murk, and swam between the roots of the gigantic tree in the lake's centre. He pressed his hands against the bark, just in case, but the tree didn't answer, just like he'd expected.

He could see ruins in the distance, buildings that had once stood tall above the water. Ronkan, he supposed. Just like their empire, its works had toppled to time eventually, and he had no desire to explore them. He let himself sink down to the mud, a few curious fish swimming up to him and nibbling at his hair, and considered things.

The Exarch's plan had been simple, on paper. Find someone with protection from the Light and a soul dense enough to handle it, and have them slay the Lightwardens. Impossible on the First, their souls being thinner than those from the Source, and so he had looked across the Rift to solve the problem. And what better to protect against the Light than the Blessing it gave?

Ar'telan was not stupid. The first Lightwarden hadn't hurt, but it had felt wrong. A chilling, stilling aether, creeping across his soul and settling in the cracks when it could not overwhelm. It had not gone anywhere, it was still there, inside him. And the second, horrible though it had been to fight someone so close to lucid and so very insane, had made the burden feel heavy. No change, of course. No change.

But there were three more.

He had set his teeth against the cold when Titania had died, and let it seep in. When whatever misbegotten wraith heralded the Light here fell, he would do the same thing again. But it would start to hurt, soon enough, like frostbite setting in to unprotected fingers. Three more. The odds were not favourable.

He wondered if it felt the same for everyone else. If the numbing cold was what had robbed Halric of his emotion. If the freezing stillness had sparkled Tesleen's thrashing and moaning at Holminster Switch, still enough of her left to protest, but not to persist. If Titania, after they had stood victorious for Il Mheg, had felt the cold set in, and had but a few moments left to realise what it meant.

He knew what it felt like to die. He had died in the fires of Lahabrea's ambition, and it had hurt so much his senses had stopped registering the signals. He had died to the Echo, again and again, in so many ways, but they were always violent. Always quick. The Echo could not save you from something long and drawn-out. Not his, at least.

He looked down at his hands again. They were the same as ever.

He was lucky, in a way. There would be a point, and he would know the point, he thought, where the next drop would be one too many. He would know how many Lightwardens were left, and he would have the power to make a decision.

One life for one world, Ardbert had said, almost a year hence. Stood across from him on the field of battle, desperate for something, anything, to save his world. One hero. What worth was one hero against an entire people?

He wrapped his fingers into a fist.

He did not particularly want to die. He had seen some horrible things, and lived through events that would haunt him until the day he did pass into the aetherial sea, but he did not want to. There were people who would miss him, people who would hurt the same way he had hurt when he had watched his friends die. And he would leave a heavy mantle for whoever came after. Someone else, still hopeful, still untouched by the fire that licked at the heels of everyone the star called hero.

One life for one world.

He had access to something that nobody else did. He could feel the tug of the Rift in the back of his head, that void between worlds he had swum through to reach the First. If push came to shove, he could cast himself into it without much difficulty. It would take the Light that threatened and neutralise it, and if it tore him apart, it would hurt no-one else.

He did not want to die.

But he was faced with a choice. This Lightwarden would not be over-taxing, most likely. The next would either hurt, or it would settle into that absence that somehow scared him more. If he was lucky, it would be stable, though likely uncomfortable. And if the last one overwhelmed him…

One life for one world.

It felt decidedly strange, to be sat at the bottom of a lake considering his own demise. There had been points in his life where he would not have minded dying. Points in his life where he had kept living only because it was the path of least resistance. He would not have hesitated to leap into the Rift back then, charging blindly forward, doing his duty. But he wasn't that man any more, and all of his friends knew it.

And not one of them had mentioned it.

He couldn't talk to them about it, of course. It ached to think about, to carry that burden to what might be a lonely grave, to have made that choice and to hold onto it in silence. But if they knew, they'd talk him out of it, or they'd try to. They'd offer solutions that wouldn't work, because if there had been a chance of it, the Exarch would have turned to that, rather than pull someone between worlds to save them.

There would be things he had to do. Arrangements to make, if he were afforded a moment. Letters to write, since he could not speak of it now. All kinds of-

His linkpearl chimed, tinny in the water surrounding him, and he shook his head and raised one finger to his ear.

"Ar'telan? It's Y'shtola. They've sighted Eulmorrans."

He made a single noise of confirmation, tapping twice on the linkpearl so she knew he'd heard. He could have teleported back to Slitherbough, but it would do no good to arrive in the town square covered in chickweed and dirty water. Carefully, aware for the possibility that the soldiers might be patrolling the lake, he swam to the surface, and pulled himself onto land.

Ruminating could wait. For how dour the future seemed, there was yet strength in his arms, and it would do him no good not to use them.

[ofdragonsdeep]

20: Duel

A conflict between antagonistic persons, ideas, or forces.

On the rooftop of the royal palace of Ala Mhigo, Zenos sought to fight a beast.

Scales and claws will answer.

If there was one truth about Ar'telan that stood out above all others, it was that he did not like fighting.

It was the threat inherent in it. The constant knowledge that if he did not win, others would die, or suffer worse. Knowing that so much rested on his shoulders, and he could not afford to slip up. They did not have another Warrior of Light. They barely had anyone else with the Blessing. He could not fail.

Ala Mhigo had brought it into stark and barren light.

The fight had never been his, but he had never been one to abandon his friends when they needed him. He knew that so, so many would die if the Resistance could not turn the tide - and he had been tasked with finding Shinryu, the creature that had started all of this to begin with. A cause so desperate people were willing to die to see it succeed.

Ar'telan did not like killing people. He was capable of it, more than capable. He had done it countless times before, in that life-or-death situation where if he did not, it would be his life that were forfeit instead. Faced down those who wanted to be there, and those who did not. Feared the day he did not remember ever single life, because they had been lost in an ocean of desperation.

And then there was Zenos.

Zenos had seen in him the same thing that everyone else had - the stubborn weapon who refused to die. The creature who would fight to the last if it had to. And just like everyone else, he had sought to use it.

Ar'telan pitied him, the way he would pity a rabid dog who had to be put down. He resented that removing the threat would give Zenos exactly what he wanted.

For all his time as an adventurer, as Warrior of Light, as someone who had to fight to move forward, Ar'telan had resisted being put in a place where his only option was to kill. He had learned the scholar's arts, and conjury, and enough of the arcanist's toolkit that he could protect with it and little else. He had learned the art of a gladiator, of a knight, of a paladin, to be the bulwark between his friends and the oncoming tide. Always protector, always defender, never aggressive.

But the defender had been useless against Zenos.

He could hold his own, but he couldn't stop Zenos from turning on a whim and hurting his friends. He could salvage a poorly thought out plan, but he could not turn it around into a win. He had led the charge through the royal palace with his sword and shield in hand, protecting those who stood at his back to retake their home or drive out the aggressor, until they had reached Zenos.

Zenos did not care about the Imperial Province of Ala Mhigo. Zenos did not care about the lives of those beneath him, nor the lives of the rebellion. Zenos did not care about his role as commander, as prince of Garlemald, as a man who walked the world.

Zenos only cared about him.

During the attack on Rhalgr's Reach, Ar'telan had watched his impassive face turn up in the slightest smile. Heard the dull voice, replete with boredom, move just a little in pitch. When they had fought in Yanxia, Ar'telan had watched him feel something, for one small, fleeting moment.

And now the fire had caught.

Ar'telan had chased him to the roof of the palace, where in the age of Ala Mhigo's kings the royal menagerie had stood. He had listened to Zenos's impassioned speech, where he tried to claim friendship with the man he likened to a beast that wished to rip out his throat. He had listened to barely any of it, because the backdrop made his blood run cold.

Shinryu.

The primal sat in a net forged, Ar'telan hoped, by Omega. The Garleans had found it, they had brought it to their prince, and he had saved it for his last and grandest gesture of friendship. Ar'telan could feel the malice radiating from the creature even at a distance, its enforced quiescence doing little to calm the anger that fuelled it. A hundred hundred prayers of the dead had fuelled it, calling out to the Destroyer, a horrible amalgam of desperation and hope and curses. One last desecration of Nidhogg's aether, one final horror visited upon dragonkind.

A weapon. A potent force. A way to force the hand of those with power.

Another dragon-made-primal, enslaved to another warmongering empire, fashioned delicate puppet strings to hammer the final nail into the coffin of the sanctity of life.

He sheathed his sword, put up his shield, and from a bag at his hip, drew his grimoire.

---

Ar'telan disliked showy fights the most of all.

The sheer size of Shinryu meant their clash could never go unnoticed, but a showdown on a rooftop felt like spectacle for the sake of it. Ar'telan hoped that none of his allies would try to come to his aid. Zenos would not take kindly to it, and Ar'telan knew he would have no time to spare on protection.

He weaved an aetheric shield around himself as the dragon readied to attack. For his sins, Ar'telan had faced many dragons in battle now, and there would only be so much that Zenos could change. He would need time to grow used to the new form - to how the aether moved across his body, to the wings at his back, to the strength of his snapping jaws. Ar'telan would need the time.

The dragon roared, and Ar'telan paid no heed to the words that formed in his head at the sound of it.

The dance was the same. Lily grabbed hold of his shoulder, her healing staving off the damage from the constant barrage of aether that simply being close to Shinryu caused, and left Ar'telan free to concentrate. It was an unexpected boon that he knew how to read the tells of a dragon far better than he could ever have read Zenos.

Ice at his back. Sidestep, never taking his eyes from the foe.

Water to the side. Channel the aether, plant his feet at exactly the right time.

Wind gathering on the rooftop. Fight the gale, and never stray to close to the edge.

And as he did so, he weaved the aether at his fingertips into biting magic. Miasma in the dragon's lungs, poison in its blood, an aetheric assault of his own catching and redirecting the overwhelming presence back at the dragon itself. All of these were things that a scholar of Nym could have done, and none of them had availed him any against Zenos in the past. But they would chip away at his reserves, and that was all Ar'telan needed.

Time.

He could feel the threads in the aether, pulling taut around the nexus of draconic energy that Shinryu represented. As he moved - a fist from above, dodge to the left. A hail of ice, weather the storm. Levinbolts from the aether, weave a quick curative magic on the stiffness that built in his muscles - he teased them out.

One. Shinryu's eyes shone like bright, sharp points.

The tail slammed down where he had been just moments before, and only a sharp application of magic made it retreat, the dragon - Zenos - rumbling in pain as it did.

Two. The primal's aether outlined itself, around that nest of pulsing purple that was Nidhogg's last remaining essence, the lives of all of those who had died on Baelsar's wall surrounding it.

Energy crackled around the dragon's maw, and Ar'telan poured what little power he had left into a protective shield. The column of fire struck like a lance, only its afterimages avoidable, each pulse a stab of white-hot pain across his flesh.

Three. At the edges of his perception, there was that same distorted song he had heard at the heart of the Ragnarok. An elegy of agony, cried out over millenia, so many frozen voices forced to answer.

He held them, those invisble threads, trembling in the air, and waited.

His opportunity came when Zenos took to the air, wheeling around to strafe across the arena. There was a corner of the rooftop, perilously small, that the Echo drew him towards like a moth to fire. He threw himself to safety, precious seconds gained in Zenos needing to re-orient, and closed his eyes.

When the records of Allag's summoners had shown that they could channel the essence of eikons, Ar'telan had engaged in it only to satisfy Y'mhitra's scientific curiosity. When the theory had been extended to any Eikon that he had faced in battle, he had baulked at the final hurdle and refused her. When the animated tome they had dug out of the dig site had spoken of demi-primals, Y'mhitra had needed to petition him multiple times before he would even humour the idea, much less the execution.

Allag desecrated everything it touched.

But Nidhogg, whose only crime had been witnessing his sister's death for centuries, whose madness had been mutlipled tenfold by the actions of those long-dead Ishgardians, whose death had been both mercy and murder, deserved to rest.

When he opened his eyes, the rooftop sang.

Every battered flower, every cracked rock, every flex of Shinryu's fingers, every flap of his wings. Their fight blurred together like a single breath, move-duck-dodge-weather-watch. Every motion an afterimage that never left his eyes.

It burned, bright and blue, that horrible off-key eulogy to the living dead.

He spread his wings and leapt from the rooftop. Energy and aether beckoned at his fingertips, the price frivolous in the moment. It crackled at his claws, all but crying out for release.

Maintaining the trance for too long taxes the aether.

He unleashed it. A column of bright blue fire slammed down on Shinryu, and its afterimages sang in fire. The dragon roared at the agony of it, and Ar'telan could feel the smile from the man within it.

A trance too deep risks altering the corporeal aether permanently.

He wheeled away as Shinryu lashed out with his tail, and spat aether in reply. Again the afterburn echoed, like the Dawn Wyrm himself was sat at his back, writhing in the agony of his twisted rebirth.

Blue where there should have been gold.

Unleashing a demi-primal requires natural protections against Tempering to work at all.

The song ached for an end to it. That small spark of Bahamut touching what yet remained of Nidhogg in the echo, screaming at the wrongness. He could hear it, words in his head in a speech so aether-deep he knew the meaning even if he did not know the words.

Destruction. Despair. Death.

A century of white-hot pain, Ratatoskr's dying scream etched into his soul like a carving in stone.

"So few people have witnessed Bahamut and remained intact, we have no data…"

"Even being close to it risks being Tempered…"

Go to the heart of the wyrm and set him free.

Shinryu lept for him like a cat at prey, but even with Bahamut's aether coccooned around his body he was still far smaller than the primal, and it was easy to dart backwards, away from catching claws and snapping jaws. This time his response was far more than simple aetheric poisons, a ricochet of energy so intense the air crackled as it hit.

If you linger too long, you might not come back.

All they had to do was evict the interloper. All they had to do was dissipate the shell the primal had woven around Nidhogg's soul. Break it, and they broke Zenos. Without his draconic skin, he would fall to them. It was inevitable.

The now hurt to perceive.

Make sure you come back.

They pulled in their wings and dove downwards. Every weak point was outlined in bright fire across the dragon's back, and they dug in their claws. Shinryu's aether assaulted them with every movement, and the memory of every impact lingered like a bleeding wound on their soul.

Break it.

Shinryu shook back and forth, wings beating in renewed attempts to dislodge the interloper. They sunk their teeth into the skin, magic gathered about them to make the venom more potent than any spell a feeble book could conjure. Their song echoed against his, and they felt his pain, white-hot lances through the blood.

Break it.

Their wings heaved. Shinryu swung his tail around to catch them, like swatting a fly, and they rolled away.

Break it.

They tore a scale free from the flesh, the wound raw and bleeding green. The weakness pulsed with light.

Break it.

They summoned every iota of energy in their form, knotting those delicate threads of aether, and made them snap.

The rush of aetheric energy coalesced like a lance, sharp-tipped and serrated. It slammed into Shinryu's flesh, no longer protected in that one tiny space, and arced through him.

The song screamed, a dragoon's lance through the soul, eyes wrested from body. A borrowed boon ripped free, to leave the flesh to rot.

Break it.

Shinryu hit the floor, crushing what remained of the flowers in the garden. Green blood pooled in the holes in his flesh, hissing where it came into contact with the stone, and the primal dissipated.

In its place, Zenos.

They landed, talons scraping on the rock.

You are more than this.

They had moments left yet. Zenos was a formidable foe to a mortal, but to a dragon, he would snap like a twig.

Keep hold of yourself.

It would have been so easy.

Come back.

They raised their claws. Light crackled about them like a knife. The chorus sang in mournful elegy.

Every moment in an instant.

Rhalgr's Reach. The smell of smoke and blood. Corpses littered on the floor like leaves.

Yanxia, the grin on Zenos's face as he baited the beast. The desperate struggle to keep everyone alive. Knowing the plan would fail. Supporting it in case it did not.

The royal palace. Cutting through the Garleans like they were nothing. The throne room. The desire in Zenos's eyes - the emotion in his voice, the craving.

Shinryu, again and again and again. The assault unceasing, the pain untreated, the only victory in not being the first to fall under the battery.

"There… lies… the beast," Zenos said, every word dredged from the pit of his battered body.

Come back.

This is not what Bahamut would want.

They closed their eyes.

It felt like ripping the skin from his body, the aether dissipating with a violent crack of energy. He gasped aloud at the pain of it, staggering backwards away from Zenos and falling to his knees.

It still echoed in his head. Over and over and over. The song. The chorus. He still felt it like the memory was his own. Ratatoskr. Allag. Meracydia. Falling under an onslaught of voidsent claws and crying out with one final breath for Tiamat.

Dying. Bahamut dying. Ratatoskr dying. Nidhogg dying.

Come back.

He forced his eyes open. In front of him, his hands were his own, though battered and bloody from the fight. The skin still stung from Shinryu's acidic blood, but it was his skin.

He heard the oncoming storm of feet as he collapsed onto his side. Zenos - even if he was not dying, he was in no state to fight. The others would deal with him. Ar'telan's part in it was done.

Their weapon, faithful and true, had done his duty.

Come back.

[ofdragonsdeep]

19: Taken

To submit to.

Upon his arrival on the First, Ar'telan seeks out Haurchefant.

(M rated, but nothing explicit in here because I am a coward)

So far, the First had been overwhelming.

His arrival had not been neat. Opening his eyes in the middle of a lilac forest, almost being arrested for talking strangely, only plucked from the jaws of uncertainty by the same man who had stolen his friends.

The explanations had not been good. The 'Crystal Exarch', as they called him here, was evasive at best. He had explained what had went wrong with his process, that he had only intended to pull Ar'telan himself over, and it had not been terribly convincing. Ar'telan's frown had only deepened as he listened, all the unsaid things feeling loud in his head. What did it mean that they were soul without body? They had, apparently, reconstituted themselves aetherically upon arriving in the First, but that was not healthy. How did they get home? What was he even here for?

He had tried to take it all in, truly he had. But the Crystal Tower sat tall on the skyline, piercing the blanched white horizon, and all he could feel was worry.

No G'raha. No answers. Just the looming threat of Allag's hubris, and the bastion they had built around it.

He had finished his impromptu tour of the Crystarium at the door to the Tower, as instructed, and spent several minutes simply staring up at the crystal.

"Ah, sir?" the gate guard said, clearing his throat to try and get Ar'telan's attention. "I believe the Exarch awaits you in the Ocular." Ar'telan blinked, shaking his head to clear the haze from it.

"Right. Sorry. Where do I go?" he asked.

"Follow me inside," the guard said. "I'll show you on the map."

---

Ar'telan hated the Crystal Tower.

Even at rest, it hummed. The sound of it taking in the light grated on his ears, though thankfully on the First there was no Dalamud for it to connect to. Walking up the steps brought to mind his first foray into the building, at the head of the largest contingent of adventurers he had ever lead, having to put down… clones. Allagans, not all of them willing. The way Scylla's hounds had wailed in agony would never leave his mind.

To see it domesticated was… strange. Uncomfortable. Even at the height of the Empire, it had been a seat of power. It had never protected anything. It was not built to protect. It was built to take, like everything else Allag had made.

The Ocular was a small room, the floor a polished, deep blue. Opposite the door there stood a blank mirror, a simple crystal lamp lighting the room from above. When he entered, the Exarch was staring at the mirror, though no face looked back.

"Ah, you've arrived." He turned, fingers tightening around the staff he carried. "How did you find the Crystarium?"

"Overwhelming," Ar'telan replied. He did not owe this man kindness. He did not owe him anything except perhaps a punch in the nose. "I hate this Tower and everything it represents." He saw the Exarch flinch at that.

"Understandable," he replied. That was a surprise. What had he seen of Ar'telan, that it made sense to hate what everyone in the Crystarium clearly saw as a boon? "I will not ask you to stay overlong. No doubt you are eager to reunite with your companions, after all." Ar'telan scowled.

"Where are they?" he demanded. The Exarch took a long breath.

"They are… in various places," he replied. "Though time flows in relative pace between here and the Source now, when they first came here… that was not the case." Ar'telan felt the cold grip him. Thought about Thancred, taken first, expecting nothing, waiting for however long. About Y'shtola, who had promised him she would be there for him, ripped away so soon after. He did not want to get angry. Being angry accomplished nothing, especially now he was actually here. But he felt it, and fought the urge to curl his fingers into a fist. "Thancred is rather difficult to pin down, as you might imagine. Y'shtola is in the forest of Rak'tika, working with the Night's Blessed. Urianger currently resides in Il Mheg." The tone of voice as he said the last sentence implied that was not a particularly sensible thing to do, but Ar'telan had never known Urianger to be all that sensible, despite the fronts he put up. "The twins have been here but a relatively short time - a little under a year. At this moment, Alphinaud is in Kholusia, and Alisaie is in Ahm Araeng. I thought they might be your first-"

"Haurchefant," Ar'telan said. It was not a question.

"Ser Haurchefant has remained in the Crystarium since his arrival three years ago," the Exarch replied. "I had thought-"

"Where."

Ar'telan understood, beneath the layers of mounting resentment, that the Exarch faced a deadly threat. The Sin Eaters were ever-present, as the Light that hung in the sky confirmed. They had faced this ever since Arbert and his friends had returned… No, before then, even. The Flood had been why they had gone to the Source to begin with, and only Minfilia had stopped it. But the Light hadn't gone. The decline was visible even in the short time he had been here. Of course they would be in a hurry.

But it was his friends. And if he had spent those few weeks in terror, they had been here for years…

"He is part of the Crystarium Guard," the Exarch replied. "No doubt he is on duty as we speak. I can arrange-"

"The guard?" Ar'telan repeated, confused. "But-"

"His injuries, yes. Well… I shall send for him, and he can explain."

---

Ar'telan did not like waiting.

He did not like waiting when the Exarch stood across from him, still as the crystal that crept across his flesh. He did not like that the man smelled more of Allagan rock than a person. He did not like that his voice lingered on the very edge of familiar, but he couldn't place it.

He did not like uncertainty.

He refused to pace in front of the Exarch, so he instead leant against the wall of the Ocular, ears twitching constantly in irritation as he fought the urge to fidget. Gritting his teeth as he waited. Itching to move.

The door was flung open with far more strength than Ar'telan had put in, all but slamming into the wall at the end of its journey. Through it, clearly having sprinted up stairs in full armour, stood - Haurchefant.

Stood?

"Ar'telan!" he exclaimed, and all but teleported across the room to pull Ar'telan into a hug so tight he could barely breathe. "So many moons has it been, I feared I might forget the sight of your face."

Ar'telan squeaked, tapping one hand against the armour in a valiant effort to beg for release. The Exarch, unfortunately witness to this display, hid a chuckle behind his hand.

"Ah, forgive me, forgive me," Haurchefant managed, loosening his grip enough that Ar'telan could feel his feet touch the floor again. He felt a little dizzy. "It has been so long…"

"How?" Ar'telan managed, before shaking his hands to get the feeling back into them. "I had thought…"

"I shall explain in due time," Haurchefant said, one finger running under Ar'telan's chin to tilt up his head. "There is a great deal to explain, in fact, but it can wait."

The kiss was not expected, not from Haurchefant, but there was a longing in it that Ar'telan hadn't felt since the early days of their relationship. Since their time together had been so short, so secret, hastily carved from the small hours of the night. When he had been more uncertain, and Haurchefant afraid of the eyes that could have lingered upon them…

The Exarch cleared his throat.

It did not concern Haurchefant, but Ar'telan all but pushed him back, not willing to embarrass himself any more in front of the mysterious man.

"Far be it for me to interrupt your reunion," the Exarch remarked, "but there are certainly better venues for it than the walls of the Ocular, I imagine."

"I am sure there is paperwork you can busy yourself with," Haurchefant disagreed, and Ar'telan stared at the floor so the Exarch would not see the heat in his face.

"Not here," Ar'telan said, and Haurchefant relented. "Exarch. I will hear your plans at a later-"

"You may return tomorrow," the Exarch said, saving him the indignity of admitting the plans Haurchefant had clearly made for the two of them already. "A room has been reserved for you in the Pendants. I am sure Ser Haurchefant will escort you there himself."

"Thank you," Ar'telan said. He still felt a little sour on the entire ordeal, not to mention the fact that this situation had been created at all, but he would rise above it for the sake of the evening.

---

The man on the desk at the Pendants was only halfway through his greeting when Haurchefant gave Ar'telan's name and swiped the keys out of the man's hand. It was a nice enough little building - Ar'telan caught a glimpse of a water feature, and the spiralling red-brick walls were a pleasant change from the horrible crystal blue of the rest of the city.

But he did not get much of a look.

Haurchefant was like a man possessed, at times. No sooner had the door been closed than Ar'telan found himself pushed up against it, this time no audience as Haurchefant kissed him hungrily. Three years - had he known how short the time was for Ar'telan? How terrified the rest of them had been, watching the Scions fall one by one with no clear source? Had he imagined the fear in his father's eyes, seeing that graven stillness on him once more?

Over and over again it had played in Ar'telan's head. The Vault. The months of vigil over a still bedside, Haurchefant barely breathing. The new normal they had built over the shaky ground, all the things he couldn't do in the wake of it. The shame Ar'telan had felt, at after everything had done, it had still felt so imperfect. Every stumble, every concession, every grimace of pain.

Here he walked, and when they fixed this - and they would fix this - he would wake up once more unable, and it felt so cruel.

But the thoughts were fleeting, snatched between breaths as his fingers tightened in Haurchefant's hair. The fear of losing him, after everything - Haurchefant's desperate need to live in the aftermath, with him - it was assauged in every kiss, Ar'telan's sharp canines drawing blood to the surface of Haurchefant's lips. An assurance that they both were there, though only one of them truly whole, in Ar'telan's tail wrapping around Haurchefant's leg, in the distance closed between them.

Just for a moment, it would be enough.

---

The bed was comfortable.

They had lain together for several minutes before Ar'telan had recovered enough of his senses to appreciate it, Haurchefant with his eyes closed and a smile across his face. He was not sleeping - after the war, they had been able to spend so many nights together that Ar'telan could recognise it now. A gift he had never expected to receive.

A soft touch on his arm, and Haurchefant opened his eyes, and turned his gaze to Ar'telan.

"An explanation," Ar'telan signed, a request rather than a demand. Haurchefant exhaled.

"I do not understand the specifics of it, I will admit," he said. "As I understand it, the vast majority of the damage was to my corporeal aether. But the spell, it grasped my soul alone."

"Would they not mirror?" Ar'telan asked. Haurchefant shrugged at that, muscles rippling at the motion.

"They do after a fashion. The pain has not faded," he replied. "Similarly, lady Y'shtola cannot see, or so she said." He pushed the covers down, and Ar'telan's hand ghosted over the ugly scar. The jagged, pitted skin suggested a fatal wound, and it should have been, if he hadn't been so reckless. If he had listened to what the Echo had been trying to tell him. But he was stubborn. "I do have to be careful," Haurchefant added. "I cannot be on my feet for long, but it is longer than my physical body affords me. A small boon that I will take, for this community needs the help."

"And you're happy to do that? To help them?" Ar'telan asked. Haurchefant blinked in surprise at the question.

"A knight's calling is to help those in need," he replied. "Did the Exarch explain the situation to you?" Ar'telan grimaced.

"A little," he said. "I know that the Sin Eaters are… a problem. That he was trying to call me here to fix it." There was a brief moment of discontent on Haurchefant's face at the final sentence, though it did not linger. It was not a comforting expression. It did not suit him.

"I suspect he will explain the rest once the Scions have returned to the Crystarium, then," he said. "Or perhaps a little earlier, since some of them will be… troublesome to locate." He sighed. "It is complicated, and I will help in whatever way I can. I do not blame the Exarch for his actions… But that does not mean I did not miss you dearly, my love."

"Would that I could return home and tell those on the Source that all is…" He paused, considering his words. "Stable. Fixable." Haurchefant chuckled at that.

"Well, it will be easier for you than it is for us, if I understand correctly," he replied, before wincing in pain and shifting his position slightly. "…Once more I am tasked with not overexerting myself."

"I will remind you," Ar'telan promised, and once he had finished signing the words, Haurchefant took his hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it.

"I would expect no less of you, my dear," he said.

He had missed him so dearly. He had feared for him so completely.

He would not lose him again.

[ofdragonsdeep]

18: Hackneyed

Lacking freshness or originality.

Ar'telan had seen all of this before

(DAWNTRAIL SPOILERS for the ENTIRE msq. You have been warned.)

The dread had been building in his stomach long before they stepped through the gate.

All the information they had added up to something horrific, at least in Ar'telan's opinion. The Regulators, the evaded questions, the machine's hunger for energy. He had braced himself a long time ago.

Their arrival had been hurried, spurred on by the nature of the threat, but now his companions paused to debate the best course of action, and Ar'telan found himself awaiting the final call. Sitting in the plaza by the Leynode and taking in the sights.

There was a faint tune on the air, carried by whatever arcane mechanism animated the dead, an irritating distraction in his ears. In the distance, he could see the sights laid out before him - a sprawling city not unlike old Alexandria, an imposing castle, a volcano which he hoped was fake, and a small explosion of greenery, tucked away behind the rest of the zones. The same mechanical soldiers which had slaughtered people with impunity in Everkeep manned stalls selling trinkets for imagined coin to manifested ghosts. They all greeted the party with a cheeriness that belied the nature of the place.

Fake. All of it fake. Hollow and meaningless, a projection in electrope to ease an unending afterlife. It was so replete with electrope that the ground hummed when stepped on, just like the pathways in Solution Nine.

They had fought wars over electrope, Sphene had said. The weapon that had rent the ground so violently a cauldron of levin still simmered in the ruins had been built of electrope, to secure electrope. And she - no, not Sphene. Preservation had built their eternal paradise out of the very thing that had necessitated its construction to begin with. How many thousands had died for the electrope that made up this plaza? Were their memories preserved here, too, sucking more aether from the system?

"Ar'telan! We're going to canal town." G'raha seemed cheerful, at least, although Ar'telan was sure it was at least somewhat because he wanted to study how the electrope worked. "Are you alright?"

"Yes. Don't worry about me," Ar'telan replied, nodding to back up his statement. He was more worried about Erenville, who had gone very quiet since their arrival, even by his standards. this was not Ar'telan's first horrific recreation of life, although this time he dearly hoped would be the last. Every time he hoped the same.

---

Walking the streets of Canal Town did not help.

He had spoken to a few of the 'residents', trying to get some idea of what it was like to be an Endless. From their stories, they spent the majority of their time stored as data on the terminals, only manifesting when aether allowed. There were always new things to experience, and they did remember their time, but there was a strange dispassion to it. The idea of being trapped, ephemeral, unable to do anything but aware of being, seemed horrific to Ar'telan. Then again, perhaps they only noted their time in the terminals by the spaces between when they walked around.

They were not dead, precisely. They were no longer alive, but they still remembered. Still experienced. Everything they encountered in Living Memory was pre-ordained by the system, a neatly packaged saccharine existence, but they lived it. Ar'telan had stared at the gondolas, being rowed on their redolant way across the canals, and wondered how many people had died to fuel the nostalgia.

He considered it a nightmare. The threat of death had been very real in recent years, but the idea of not even being allowed to truly die when it came made horror crawl up his throat at the thought. Stored in perpetuity, nothing but data and emotion, every moment logged and planned, trapped in a creation that tried to evoke simplicity and joy and ran on blood.

He wondered if they had even thought about it, when they had first planned it. That the memories stored here would only ever increase, and it was only a matter of time before there were more dead than living. Only a matter of time before even basic maintenance of the systems needed more aether than the natural deaths could provide.

Why, why, had they not found some other source? At least if it had been powered by the levin crackling across the dome, he could have made his own peace with knowing he would never choose this afterlife, and watched the others without judgement. But they knew. They knew that they lived an existence fuelled by death. Knew that Sphene was planning something that could only be a massacre on a grand scale, and simply did not worry about it.

Were they allowed to? They felt alive, when he spoke to them, but could he say with certainty that the machines which sustained them even let them dissent?

Sphene couldn't. Her voice had cracked as she had made her proclamations, determined though she was. Her hesitance had always been there, though he hadn't known the reasons for it at the time. She had to sustain this place. And maybe it did not tamper directly with the memories of the Endless, but none but Cahcuia had even thought to question a system that they clearly understood.

Maybe that was why they didn't try to stop them as they walked up to the terminal.

---

The banal horror picked at him.

None of the residents of Castle Town seemed to pay any heed to the grey, featureless expanse that Canal Town had become. Those few that lingered in the grey, empty streets seemed more inconvenienced by what they knew as the cessation of everyone they had come to know. Committed, even in their final moments, to the idea of paradise.

Then there was Otis. It was not Otis. The true Otis had been contained entirely within his machine body, as Ar'telan understood it, which meant he had been reconstructed piecemeal to star in this idyllic vision. Indeed, the fact that he did not remember Ar'telan or Wuk Lamat at all only confirmed it for him.

Was Sphene still herself, below the programming? How much of her had made it into the Endless? Was there anything left of their gentle Queen from her mortal life at all?

How many others were only there as an idea of someone else's making?

Did it influence the machines? The chances of being manifested at the same time as someone you knew? He had helped reunite those lost lovers, one who had grown old with a hole in her soul she had no name for, but what if she hadn't held out for an impossible dream? Would they have passed each other by, or would she have conveniently forgotten?

He hated it. He hated it so much.

---

By the time they reached the Windspath Gardens, Ar'telan was ready to leave.

The background music had faded to a tinny, mournful note, churned out by only one of the four areas with very little strength. Behind him, the dull, empty grey painted a path they had cut through with the most final kind of death. Sphene hadn't responded. Couldn't, perhaps. And the people in the final zone carried on with their days, casual remarks about what once had been when the aether was plentiful their only acknowledgement of how anything had changed.

The others had been moved by what they'd seen. Wuk Lamat had been able to say a goodbye that the living Namikka had never got to experience with lucidity. Krile had been able to meet the parents who had left her on the Source, desperate for her to grow up free of the horror they were party to - and though their souls had long since been cycled through the system, and the memories had lasted not long after, it had done Krile so much good to see them. Ar'telan had kept his peace on what he thought of the place out of respect for what they were going through, but it did not change his view.

The mask had only slipped for a moment when G'raha had confessed he understood how Preservation had got here. But he had still kept his silence.

Erenville's discomfort he understood. Cahcuia had died without ever seeing her son again. Her memories saw him now, and asked him to kill her again. She knew what it meant, of course she did. But she was the only one he had seen in the entirety of Living Memory who had confessed that their not-life, confined to this fairytale and sustained with the lives of others, was no way to live.

Erenville had done it, in the end. Ar'telan had stood next to him as he did, and they had not exchanged words, but Ar'telan had known he needed someone to support the choice.

---

Ar'telan stared at the Meso terminal, topped with a lovingly-rendered image of Queen Sphene. Listened to the announcement over a crackling tannoy to an empty realm.

She was so desperate to save them. Every one of her subjects, who she knew so deeply, connected to her in the web of electrope that united everyone in Living Memory. She had sworn that they were precious to her, each and every one. That their survival meant everything to her.

So desperate to save them, that she could not save herself. And in so doing, proved the lie of saving every one of them. What did her life, her history, her feelings matter, when weighed against the world?

This, this one simple notion, was the only part of it Ar'telan understood.

[ofdragonsdeep]

17: Sally

A venture or excursion, usually off the beaten track.

Ar'telan takes a moment before the coronation to go fishing.

(DAWNTRAIL SPOILERS)

There would be time, they'd said, between the end of the Rite of Succession and the coronation. Ar'telan had been offered the same as every other member of his party: continued use of his room on the seafront, and run of the city.

It was a generous offer, but Ar'telan did not much like cities.

He had left instructions with Krile to contact him on linkpearl if he missed the start of preparations, then taken himself to the airship docks. The landsguard still seemed somewhat perplexed by him, all things considered, but he had an airship pass and his face was known. He supposed it was fortunate that Wuk Lamat had been successful in her bid - he did not particularly imagine that he could have had the run of the city if Zoraal Ja had won.

---

Even in an airship, the journey down to Yak T'el was one of several hours. There was no skyfishing to be had at the speeds they travelled at, so Ar'telan sat down in the hold with the cargo and his thoughts.

It had been framed like an adventure, when they had tried to convince him to journey to Tural. Lower stakes than the Final Days, not that it was a difficult bar, and a chance to see new places. And it had been nice to not have the weight of the world on his shoulders, that he couldn't deny, but the stakes had not been low.

Krile hadn't shared the specifics of her Echo vision. That he hadn't shared it meant it had no great ties to Zoraal Ja's past, his upbringing - it was a whisper kept deep within his heart, so close that only Krile could hear it. And he had never seen her go so pale as when Zoraal Ja had walked past them at the start of the rite. Given the things she had weathered, with the Isle of Val, the Garleans, and the Final Days, it took a great deal to sicken her so.

It had been in the back of his mind the entire time, worrying at his thoughts. Wuk Lamat had not been a good candidate for Dawnservant, at least at the start, but she had been better. At first he had worried that he was contributing to setting Tural on an uncertain path, until he had sparred with Gulool Ja Ja. But even then…

His goal was war. Not because he sought conquest, nor any kind of inherent bloodlust. No, Zoraal Ja was very calm, very calculated. He sought no violence other than that which he deemed necessary to make the people truly value peace.

There was a value in knowing the price of war. Meracydia had been stable for so long in the wake of Allag's invasion because of the memories they passed down the generations, and they had only been so fresh because the dragons remembered the then as the now. But even then, there had been skirmishes. Such things were inevitable, Ar'telan thought, though his tribe had been more concerned with not being chewed on by the Heartwood's Tempered than vying for land claims. But they settled, they always did.

Tural had no dragons, he had noticed.

He did not think Zoraal Ja would put down his dreams as though they were over. He thought his sister weak, and his brother foolish, and his father softening in his age. But there was a moment, however brief, to breathe.

---

The airship docked on the edge of Yak T'el, and Ar'telan promptly abandoned the fringe of civilisation it beckoned to him with. He had come out here with curiosity and the vaguest of plans, and none of them involved talking to other people.

He had briefly mentioned them to Wuk Lamat, and she had managed to turn a very interesting shade of green under her fur. He had decided it best to keep the rest to himself.

The xbr'aal had described the cenotes with the kind of reverence reserved for something that could kill, and with good reason. The sides were steep, the waters deep, and the openings spontaneous. Some of them had been there for generations, and some of them were new. In the village, the bigger ones had steps built around them to help people clamber out after a fall. Normally, people would avoid them.

Today, Ar'telan was not interested in being normal.

Xd'aa Talat Tsoly had been mentioned in passing by a few of the xbr'aal, and he had seen the mouth of the cenote from the airship. It had seemed very unassuming, from the surface, but he had been assured that it had claimed almost as many lives as the fighting had during the war. A deep cave system, teeming with underwater life, the fragile nature of an underground cavern full of water beckoning so many to drown.

Ar'telan, of course, couldn't drown, and had decided it sounded nice.

The way in to the cenote was deceptively shallow, barely a clamber by his standards. The water was an eerie blue that would have given him pause in Meracydia, but which just seemed to be the shade water liked to be in Tural. It was warm. He closed his eyes for the transition, and dove in.

It was not a long swim until all trace of the sky had disappeared. He marked his route out of habit, careful to keep in the back of his mind the signature of the nearest aetheryte, just in case. Green plants flooded the walls until the light started to fade, filtering in to species more adapted to the lack of light. Ar'telan preferred the dark - it was in his nature, as a Keeper of the Moon - but it grew so dark down in the cave that it was getting diffficult even for his well-adapted eyes to see.

It was a strange feeling. On the one hand, not being able to see the sky was a blessing he so rarely got on these little adventures, but the cave was so closed-in that it began to reach out to the other side - memories of rock holding him down, of pain and terror and uncertainty. He could move his limbs, though, and that was enough to keep him grounded.

He imagined it would have been terrifying to be down here if you could only breathe air.

He had come down here with a goal, though it was an ephemeral one. Isolated cave systems had, in his experience, always been full of interesting fish. Mitron was perfectly capable of diving down into the cenote if he wanted to, of course, but he hadn't, and that meant there was a ripe opportunity to drop something incredibly interesting into his lap and send him on a series of interesting trips. Elidibus had discouraged Ar'telan from doing things like that, Mitron having a tendency to value strange fish above things like "staying alive" and "not getting horrifically injured", but Elidibus wasn't here. There was nobody here but Ar'telan and the fish.

He had his spearfishing gig with him, of course, but a dead fish was less interesting than a live fish. He picked a couple of indignant crabs from their rocky crevices, and a very small turtle that couldn't quite swim away from him fast enough. There were fish, too, of course, but none that looked as strange as the ones he'd found in the Chirwagur salterns. At a glance - and admittedly, in the deep dark of the cave, it was hard to get a really good look - it mostly seemed to be common fish. A goby of some sort. A gar, swimming redolently through the subterrane.

There was a ripple, and Ar'telan paused, swimming in place. The gar swam past him a little faster. An inscrutably tiny fish darted past him at a very fast pace.

It occured to him that for a cenote with a high body count, he had not yet seen any bodies.

He took the spear from his back, twitching his ears to try and pinpoint the source of the disturbance. Deeper inside the cave, if the fish were any indication. It couldn't be huge, but after fishing up an entire shark from one of the cenotes in the Ja Tiika heartland, Ar'telan was writing nothing off.

He felt it before he saw it, the water moving around it. A gigantic creature - a crocodile, if Ar'telan was to guess, though he was more concerned with not being eaten than the specifics of what was trying to eat him. By the standards of crocodiles, it was quite small, but that did not stop it being almost as long as Ar'telan himself was, and full of heft.

Avoid the jaws. All the power is in the jaws.

He pushed off the cave wall to avoid the first strike, winding back through the water and throwing his arms around its head. He had never been the strongest, but his knight's training had put more muscles on him than when he had first arrived in Eorzea, at least.

The crocodile was not impressed.

It thrashed, and rolled, and strained against the grip. The movement was dizzying, battering him against the walls of the cave, but he held on as if his life depended on it. The water churned to a frenzy of bubbles, and Ar'telan invoked the tiniest fragment of magic.

Arcanima chains wrapped around the creature's jaw, tightening to ropes around it. Ar'telan slipped down to its neck, keeping his grip through determination alone. The crocodile still writhed, but it seemed to be dawning on it that it had been restrained.

Ar'telan considered letting go. The sensible part of him wanted to let go, watch the creature swim away and teleport to safety, letting the magic fade with the distance. But the sensible part of him hadn't been what brought him down here to begin with, and while subterranean crabs were all well and good, nothing would impress Mitron and Donuhanu like an entire crocodile.

He wasn't sure what they would do with an entire crocodile, but that was not his problem.

Arms still hooked around the creature's throat, he closed his eyes and focussed on the signature of the Tuliyollal aetheryte. Certainly the airship pilots would be concerned that he did not make a return trip, and the local xbr'aal perhaps mark him down as another victim of the cenote's deep waters, but he would cross that bridge when he got to it.

---

He arrived in the aetheryte plaza with a flicker of aether, and a localised explosion of water. He spat out the water in his mouth, and sat on the crocodile, which was clearly surprised to find itself suddenly out of the water. Defeat now certain, it settled into a temporarily quiescent state beneath him.

From across the aetheryte plaza, a mamool ja child stared at him, the taco in their hands frozen halfway to their mouth.

"Don't worry about it," he signed to them, getting to his feet and strengthening the magic around his prize. Aetheric chains cinched themselves around its limbs, rendering it little more than a very angry, wriggly snake. He hefted it above his head and began the walk down to Wachumeqimeqi.

All in all, quite a successful jaunt.

[ofdragonsdeep]

16: Third-Rate

Extremely low in quality or value.

An adventurer, newly arrived in Limsa Lominsa, attempts his first summon.

Limsa Lominsa was bright.

White rock, clean metal, and the spray of the sea. The sun glowered daggers from the sky whenever Telan had the temerity to leave the safety of the buildings. Even staring at the floor gave him no relief, the path being carved of that same white rock as the buildings. It was an exercise in misery.

He had been directed to the Drowning Wench upon his arrival by a Yellowjacket - another explosion of brightness amid the ruckus. He had been jostled, bustled, and otherwise battered about by everyone he had had the misfortune to cross paths with along the way, and now he sat huddled in a corner, not even brave enough to go for a table.

He did not think this was supposed to be his destination. There had been a lot of words he didn't understand thrown about by the alchemists in Radz-at-Han, and then even more words he didn't know on the boat. But they had moored to make repairs after the attack - pirates, maybe, Telan still wasn't sure - and he had been given such a strange vision that he had found himself compelled to seek an answer to it.

Outside was still terrifying. Daytime too bright, sky too vast, people too loud. But here in the pub he had at least been left alone so far.

He took out the book that the young elezen had given him and scanned its pages. It had all been nonsense when he had first looked at it, but some of the runes were beginning to make sense to him. Whatever strange vision had granted him understanding of the words those around him were saying had not translated to the written word.

The geometries were magical, he could feel that. There were a few basic spells, and one complicated one, on the first five pages. The elezen had pointed him at it, speaking gibberish as he did so, and so Telan had devoted his time to studying it.

It was meant to be wrapped around something, he thought. A focus perhaps. He had begun to pick out the offensive parts of the other sigils, and this one didn't have the same hallmarks, so he was at least not worried about accidentally blowing up a chunk of bright, white, noisy rock.

He dug about in the pockets of his clothes for something he could use as the centre. He had left Meracydia with basically nothing, and his material conditions hadn't exactly improved in Radz-at-Han, but the alchemists had let him keep the bits and bobs they had tested on him to see if they could help him. None of them had, of course, but it did mean his pockets were not completely empty.

He found a rock. A pebble, really, polished smooth by whatever process they had used on it before it had been passed to him. It looked about the right shape for the magic.

He supposed he had nothing to lose by trying.

He sat himself up, kneeling now instead of huddled, and placed the rock in front of him. He opened the book, squinted at the shapes, and put his hand out above them. Traced the lines in the air, slowly, carefully - several seconds of deep concentration. He could feel the magic pull at his aether, which was not a particularly nice feeling, but it led his fingers in the right direction.

He did hope the boy hadn't given him something dangerous.

When he finished the spell, there was a puff of magic around the rock. It lifted into the air, lines of aether constricting around it, and then…

It looked a little bit like a rat, if rats came in bright neon blue. Was about the same size as one, too. It squeaked at him, a high-pitched noise of indignation, and vaulted onto his shoulder.

It looked sick.

"Hey, lad." One of the barmaids startled him out of his focus, and he dropped the tome onto the floor, immediately scrabbling to pick it up. "Whoa! 'S no bother. Yellowjackets send ye?" Telan blinked up at her. She was a miqo'te, too, so she would probably understand his Huntspeak. Surely at least that was the same?

"Yes. Big man. Yellow and black clothes," he said. Now it was her turn to be startled, pulling the empty tray up in her surprise, tail twitching back and forth in unease. Was that a good sign? It did not seem like a good sign.

"…Well, I s'pose that'll do," she allowed. "'Venturers sign on wi' Baderon. Over there." She motioned over her shoulder with one thumb, to the man stood behind the bar. "Ye are a 'venturer, aye?" Telan looked down at his book, and heard the blue rat squeak on his shoulder.

"I. Think so?" he replied. The Yellowjacket had said the same thing, adventurers signed up in the Drowning Wench.

"Maybe ye can start wi' the easy jobs," the waitress said, though she did not look particularly convinced. "'Ere, follow me."

Telan got to his feet, following her as she led him up to the bar. The man behind it was dressed like a sailor, and had the bearing of one to go with it. He eyed Telan critically, and did not seem particularly impressed.

"'Ere for the drink, or a job?" he asked. Telan was not sure that whatever he had smelled the patrons downing classed as anything other than sea water, so he supposed it was the latter.

"A job. I think," he signed, and while he looked to the waitress to translate for him, Baderon made a surprised noise.

"Now that's a rum talent, lad," he remarked. "'Aven't seen a lad talkin' with 'is 'ands like that since ol' Petey lost 'is tongue, and I ain't never known the words so well."

"Is that bad?" Telan asked, concerned.

"Nay, lad," Baderon assured him. "Sign 'ere to join up wi' the Guild. Then we can get ye a job suited for yer talents."

Telan picked up the quill. Regarded the gibberish in the book that was slid across the counter towards him.

"An X'll do the job," Baderon offered helpfully. Telan was not entirely sure how to write even that letter in the strange script on offer here.

"I have a name," he disagreed. "I just, I can't… write it."

"I'll do it!" the waitress offered, sounding excited by the prospect. "What d' they call ye?"

"Telan," he signed, wondering if that would make any sense whatsoever. "Rhei'telan."

"Rhei?" the waitress repeated, sounding perplexed. "That ain't a tribe I've ever 'eard of."

"Be nice, I'tolwann," Baderon said. Telan blinked.

"How do you… pick?" he asked. I'tolwann hid a laugh behind one hand.

"I think they give it to ye, lad," Baderon replied. "It's a short'and."

"Oh." He frowned in thought, eyes on his book rather than having to look at either of them. "Then… R."

"It's rh," I'tolwann said, the pronunciation like a huff of air rather than a letter. Telan had no idea how she had managed to infer the longer ar from his simple signs, but apparently it had been communicated. He shook his head.

"No, that's not… Not my tribe," he disagreed. "I want Ar."

"Ar'telan?" Baderon repeated, and he nodded. "It's as good a name as any fer a new adventurer, I'd say."

"Ar'telan," I'tolwann repeated, then wrote something down in the book. "Like this?" He blinked at the paper.

"I have no idea," he said, once more confronted with a mass of meaningless scribbles. I'tolwann shrugged.

"Well, that's what it is now!" she decided. "Let me show ye to the Arcanists. They'll teach ye how to summon a proper 'buncle."

"Is that what this is? A… buncle?" Ar'telan repeated, the blue rat on his shoulder squeaking in annoyance.

"'S not like any I've ever seen," Baderon said.

"It's close enough, lad," I'tolwann offered. "Let's get ye a real one."

---

He dreaded the first step outside. The sunlight, the sky, the crowds. He could feel himself tensing as they approached the door.

The creature on his shoulder squeaked indignantly at the change in posture, and pattered its tiny feet on his shoulder. When he flinched away, it stood up on its hind legs and bit his ear.

The yelp of pain got I'tolwann's attention, but it had settled back onto his shoulder by the time she turned around.

"It bit me," he said, before reaching one hand up to rub at his ear.

"They ain't supposed t' do that," she said, doubt in her voice. "Well, not t' the one what summoned it, anyways."

"I think I made it angry," he said. A deep breath. The creature leaned its weight against his neck at the motion, and he braced for another ineffectual assault.

It didn't come.

Instead, it stayed leaned against him as I'tolwann shrugged and carried on walking. He kept his eyes on the floor, tried not to tense. Every time the fear crept up, the creature battered him with its paws again, squeaking like a broken child's toy. It… helped.

It helped more than anything else had. More than someone walking with him had, if only because the hand of another had reminded him too keenly of the day the moon had fallen. It was still too big, too bright, but it was not quite too much.

He did not want to spend long under the sky, but he could manage a short trip, he thought.

[ofdragonsdeep]

14: Telling

Having a marked effect or impact.

Ar'telan is tasked with investigating the source of recent Dravanian activity.

It had been a gruelling climb. Though the gloom that so often pervaded the air around Mor Dhona had not followed them out onto the lake, the sun beat down upon the rusted hull, no protection in its twisted wreckage. The lower sections of the ship - those that were not sunk into the lake proper, at least - had been crawling with Imperials attempting to scavenge the hull for parts, and they had not taken kindly to the intrusion.

Ar'telan had not wanted to be here at all. It had been Ishgard's envoy, Aymeric, who had requested the foray, using it as a means to test that the alliance being offered had meat. Ar'telan did not claim to understand all of the politics being thrown around. His job was to go where he was pointed and do as he was told. He was not even particularly good at that.

Ishgard had a lot of words for their dealings with dragons, and Ar'telan liked none of them. He especially despised defiling the final resting place of a great wyrm, clambering all about the aether-scorched husk of his body as if it were little more than set dressing. He liked the Imperials being there far less, and had thus far managed to justify the foray with also removing the Imperials, but they had all retreated by now. His companions had stayed behind, on what remained of the airship's hulk, to make sure none crawled back on board to catch them by surprise.

Ar'telan made the climb alone.

Sun-dried hide crunched beneath his boots, his book held above his head to try and ward off the worst of the light. Perfectly preserved despite the lake water, the airship that served as its scaffold groaning with every passing wind. It would not be long before the entire thing collapsed into the water, he hoped. Perhaps then they would leave it be.

His ascent was watched. Dragonflies, not dragons true but close enough, buzzed past him at regular intervals, curiosity in their beady eyes. They did not attack him. Nor did the biasts, sunning themselves in the hollow cavities of the dragon's corpse, though they looked. It was clear from their stances that one wrong step would change that state of affairs, though Ar'telan had no idea why they were only watching. None of the dragons he had seen so far in Ishgard had watched. They had shrieked and cried like creatures possessed, and deigned to speak only when death seemed to beckon. Ar'telan knew that if the alliance with Ishgard was pursued, it was only a matter of time before he was forced to fight to the death.

But he did as he was told. Went where he was bade. All he was good for.

The top of the structure was the nose of the Agrias, the top of the great wyrm's coils still lashing it tight even in death. Carefully, Ar'telan picked his way across the blasted metal, and was confronted with a nightmare.

The area was littered with corpses. Two great dragons lay dead on the metal, and countless others hung from the metal, flash-cremated in the moment the ship itself had died. Over them, like a grisly vision, hung the head of the wyrm himself.

Midgardsormr.

The name was known among his people. Spoken like an oath, the father of dragons the closest thing to sacred they had. Without even thinking, Ar'telan dropped to his knees, head bowed in reverence.

Whatever Ishgard hopes to achieve from this, I…

"How curious, that it is thee who comes upon my place of rest."

Ar'telan started at the sound, jumping to his feet, fingers tightening around his codex protectively. The words spoken were not the ones he had understood, but that was so often the case in Eorzea that it took a moment to register the cause.

Dragonspeak.

Before him, illuminated by the light of the sun, hung a ghost. Blue and aetherial, the head which regarded him still burned with the holy fire of life, despite being suspended from something so devoid of it. Midgardsormr. Father of dragons. Somehow, he had defied death itself.

Ar'telan's first instinct was to remember Bahamut, a corpse with life, hung like a trophy in the fragmented prison of Allag's moon-ship. But he felt no wave of Tempering, no incessant tugging on his soul. Only awe.

"I have seen thee, since thy arrival on our shores," said the shade. "Thou art not of Eorzea, but thou art blessed by Hydaelyn."

"I am… I am Meracydian," Ar'telan signed, wondering if that would mean anything to the wyrm. Surely it had to? Even with Bahamut dead and Tiamat silent, he had to know. Surely?

"And yet thy feet move at the beck and call of Ishgard," Midgardsormr said, disdain rippling through each carefully-chosen syllable. He was so close that Ar'telan thought he could reach out and touch the Song, yet he kept a respectful distance. "Dost thou regret, proud child of Meracydia, to be directed as a hound?"

"I am not-"

"Thou art a coward."

Ar'telan caught the noise of surprise before it left his throat. His fingers tightened around his codex at the slight, his taut muscles longing to disprove it.

"Thy steps falter. Thy course, lost. 'Tis only by the grace of thy Mother that thou art alive to stand before me at all."

The Echo. The Blessing. He was nothing without it. He would have died in the Bowl of Embers with all the others, one more Tempered for Ifrit's army of thralls. What right had he to still be standing when he could not face the outside alone?

Ultima had cracked through Hydaelyn's shield like it was nothing, disintegrating what feeble strength she had to throw at it. She was fading, she had acknowledged as much. Why had he deserved to live when so many others had died at the Praetorium that day?

Why had he deserved to live when a part of him had not wanted to fight Lahabrea at all?

"And yet She doth place Her faith in thee."

His voice was less scathing now. Curious, perhaps. Certainly not pleased.

"Thy coming could have been a gift, mortal. Had thy steps brought thee here before the hooks sunk in deep. But there is no conviction in thy countenance. No strength in thy steps. Thou art unworthy of Her gift."

"I did not ask for it to begin with," Ar'telan replied, though some not insignificant part of him screamed at the blasphemy of talking back to the father of dragons. "I didn't ask for any of it. I didn't want any of this! I am not a fighter, not truly. Yet I…"

"Thy fate demands far more of thee than excuses, mortal." Midgardsormr's spectral head tilted to the side, those burning eyes watching him through the fire. "Full many more have a fate unchosen. Thou must rise to it yet. Wilt thou? Or shall thy coward's feet carry thee away once more?"

"What do you want of me?" Ar'telan asked. Midgardsormr rumbled in response, a sound almost like a laugh.

"Prove thyself," he said, and the aether around him began to ripple. "Stand before me and survive, and there may yet be hope."

The aether gathered into a bright, shining point, and one of the dragons on the floor began to stir with something which might once have been life.

"After all that She hath given thee, 'tis the least that thou canst offer in return."

Ar'telan flipped his codex open, one hand hovering above the pages, feeling the arcane ink laced into them begin to respond. Stand before him? Midgardsormr was a creature so ancient he outlasted every tale Meracydia had, stories that had spanned ages, survived calamities. There had been no time before Midgardsormr, to Meracydia. What was one man supposed to offer against the span of timeless ages?

But he had never turned against a dragon's edict before, and even if it cost them Ishgard, he would not do so now.

As Ar'telan wove protective magic around himself, Midgardsormr made a noise that sounded almost pleased.

[ofdragonsdeep]

13: Butte

An isolated hill or mountain with steep sides.

A Meracydian tribe makes a pilgrimage.

"Come on, come on!"

The excited chattering of kits accompanied Rhei Narr's brood at the end of their journey. The afternoon sun hung high in the air, and Rhei'telan stifled a yawn at having to be awake at such an unsociable hour.

It was a rare occasion that saw the Woodwatchers divert from their route, and this journey had been a divergence indeed. Only once a decade did they make this journey, arduous as it was, and Rhei'telan had been so young the last time that he barely recalled it at all.

Their destination was Hess Khash, a small mountain on the edge of the warped range. There was a story that went with it, he had been assured, but he didn't know it yet. One day, he hoped, it would be his duty to tell these stories, and he had let the excitement of learning it carry him through the daytime walks up from the woods. It was not the only such mountain in the range, far from it, but it was close enough to the wood that the greenery giving way to the white sand had signaled that their journey was close to its end.

"Some of these are tall enough to put the heart-trees to shame," Haji remarked, one hand up to shield her face from the sun as she squinted at the earthen monoliths before them. Most of them were the same bleached and sickly white of the rest of the range, but some of them kept a little of their original colour, deep and earthen reds. None of the scree beneath them seemed to match.

"Wouldn't catch me climbing one of these," Jhodbhi agreed. Telan was not much geared to be climbing the trees of their usual haunts, never mind sacred mountains, and did not comment.

"Our destination doth lie within our sight," Rhei Narr said, her deep and rumbling voice startling the kits into silence. "Mark it." She inclined her head towards the tallest of the mountains, one of those that still kept its red-orange hue. Telan squinted at it, but could not make out the top.

"We'll have time to pitch camp before the sunset," the Nunh remarked, sounding pleased with the prospect. "Might be able to get a small party up there before the night watch beckons, if we're quick."

The implicit challenge was clear enough.

---

While they were the only tribe currently visiting the mount, it was clear that it was a common destination. A small group greeted them on their arrival, and directed them to where to pitch the wagons and water the birds. There was space for a campfire, and a series of smooth rocks for the dragons to roost upon - it was clearly a space designed to cater to parties much larger than their own, Rhei Narr and her two children lost among a sprawling resting area.

Telan helped strike the campfire, and set a stew going with the results of the huntress's earlier activities. There was one miqo'te among the greeters, but it was a patchwork group, clearly put together to greet all kinds of people who made the journey. All of them had the sun-baked skin and bright tattoos of the Range Guides, though, perhaps retired from a gruelling duty leading parties through the pass. They certainly had the tired look about them to suggest it.

"They're saying you're going up first," Haji said, sitting down beside him.

"Me?" Telan replied, surprised. "Why?" She shrugged at that.

"Beats me. At least they won't make you do the climb yourself, eh?" Telan grimaced at that. Haji was built like any huntress, strong and well-muscled. The steep slopes of the mountain did not lend themselves well to actually climbing, but she could have managed it, if she'd had to. Telan, meanwhile, had never wrangled anything more dangerous than a particularly unruly kit. "Hopefully this will be ready before they send you," she added, reaching out for the ladle. Telan batted her away, a scowl on his face at the attempted theft.

---

Just as Haji had predicted, when the sun leaned towards the horizon, his name was called.

They would go up in groups of five - one elder, and four others. Rhei Narr herself would fly them up to the top of the peak, and make the five into six.

Rhei Narr was a very large dragon, but Telan still felt incredibly nervous clambering up onto her back, hands gripping the ropes she had allowed to be fastened around her body for extra grip. It was a rare day that a mortal got to ride a dragon - outside of very special occasions, few of the untempered liked it, as he understood it. He could feel the muscles in her back ripple with the movement as she beat her wings, kicking up a hail of gravel and white sand in her wake. Telan held on as if his life depended on it.

Hesh Khash was tall, but it was not, by mountain standards, very wide. Still, when Rhei Narr touched down upon the peak, it felt much larger than it had seemed from the bottom.

Rhei Narr waited patiently as the five of her passengers slowly made their way down from her back. Telan's fellows ran up to the fence that ringed the summit almost immediately, but he hung back. The wind whistled, loud and cold against his ears even when he pressed them down against his skull, and it sounded mournful.

"It was from here that my kin bore witness," Rhei Narr said, her voice quiet and sorrowful. At Telan's side, the lorekeeper sighed.

"It never gets any easier," he remarked. "Go on. Look out."

Slowly, Telan made his way over to the fence. It was built of solid stone, set in a safe distance from where the slope began to turn precipitous, but it still made him nervous to put his hands upon it and cast his eyes out across the horizon.

The setting sun had cast the sky in a bright orange glow, and the white sands of the wastes reflected it back like fire. It stretch on almost as far as Telan could see, white and empty, the mountains jutting up from the earth like scars. The destruction was clear enough to see - the marked earth from Allag's more potent weapons of war, the half-collapsed mountains, the eerie white of the drained husk the land had become. For a mercy, they were too high up to discern if there was anything moving down below.

"It was here that Allag made landfall," the lorekeeper said, his voice strong against the wind. "Here that our ancestors held them back. Here that they failed to do so."

Telan knew well the tales of the wood, the reasons behind the monstrosities that crawled out from the trees. It had always felt so personal, so focussed. A roving band of the Tempered could claim many lives, but they were still held off by a single tribe. A single bulwark against the ceaseless tide.

"It was here, too, that we pushed back against them," the lorekeeper continued. "Here that witnessed the worst of Allag's crimes against life."

"Their ships did sail the air instead of sea," Rhei Narr said. "And my kin rallied in defence of thy people. For thou art beloved of dragons, always."

Telan cast his gaze back over the mountaintop. It was worn smooth by countless years of visitations, any trace of the scars left in it by the war long since eroded. A blessing the rest of the peaks had not received, left as unintentional monuments.

He walked across the rock, over to the side of the mountain that faced the forest, and looked out.

The wood was vast, so all-encompassing that it carried on past the line of the horizon. The deep green of the healthy wood gave way over the distance, to sickly green, then brown, then that same all-consuming white. The aether-bleached scar did not settled back into the wood in Telan's sightline.

He thought about the root network, the tendrils of living trees nurtured across lifetimes that tethered place to place. The soft, gentle blue that pulsed in the heart of the trees that guided people out of the aether and back into the world. Imagined a wood that glowed softly in the night.

Allag had taken so much from them, and left not even the rubble to mourn.

"I know you have heard it a hundred times before, but I will tell you the story of how our nation fell," the lorekeeper said. "Look out at what remains of us, and understand it." Rhei Narr inclined her massive head in assent, then lifted her neck. The noise she made was akin to a roar, a great bellow that rattled Telan's bones with the heft of it, and though no words accompanied it, he knew it for a dirge to the lost.

It was the duty of the lorekeeper to tell the stories, but it was for all of them to remember.