#(i know it isnt mentioned specifically but I'm planting my flag on this hc)

[roguelioness]

Endwalker gathering quests make me feel a kind of way

On the floor about Zenos' death giving rise to new life.

Thinking of Aly, struggling to recover, to heal, being coaxed by this tiny, exuberant, hopeful creature to help.

And there, amidst the barren, cold, harsh landscape at the very edge of the universe, forms something new and bright, brimming with potential. The newborn land, unforgiving and stony, changing to something lush and vibrant.

It hits her then - this is what remains of Zenos. And as she watches beings from empires long gone walk about this new ground - warring factions at peace, diseased peoples whole and healthy, apathy cast aside in favor of a desire to protect, she weeps.

(Angry tears, at first. Why is it him and not any of the many kind, compassionate friends she lost that gets the chance to do this? Why does he get a chance to leave this kind of legacy when all that remains of Haurchefant, Minfilia, Moenbryda grey stone to mark their graves. It's not fair)

She does not mourn his death, nor his life. (in quieter moments she hears his voice, raspy and clotted - was this life worth it - and wonders if he was asking her, or himself)

(she harvests a new kind of grain from verdant green fields and thinks of a city in ruins, its people turned to monsters)

She weeps for what he could have been had all of his intelligence and determination and forethought been tempered with kindness and affection.

(she remembers what it was like to be in a body not her own. there had been a slice of sachertorte on the side. she still didn't know how he'd learned of her fondness for the dessert)

She mourns, because beneath all the destruction he sought, there must have been a kernel of hope for a better life, a better future.

(she thinks a path walked alone, but not truly. of a dragon bearing her on its back as she battled despair itself)

How else could she explain this small new world?

(she thinks of bleeding wounds, broken bones. of the way she'd accepted her death as her vision grew darker and her awareness faded)

(of waking to find herself surrounded by love)

In life, his aether wrought destruction. In death, his dynamis offers a means of construction.

And Aly's own soul heals as she watches this new life bloom.