#so vrtra manages to send one of his surviving people back in time with a prophectic vision that as long as they go to eorzea at a certain t

[charlottedabookworm]

#1 - Steer

feat Nadir

wasn't sure what to do with this one until my new au'ra boy decided that actually he's part of a time travel au lol

“Why are you leaving?"

He stills. The rope is heavy in his hands and he focuses on the weave of it, terrified of what he’ll see if he looks up. “Nahbdeen…”

“I don’t understand, Nadir,” his cousin’s boots are heavy against the dock. “All you’ve - all we’ve ever wanted is to join the Host, to give thanks to our Satrap and serve our people. Less than a moon ago it was all you could talk about, what has changed?”

Everything.

Everything has changed, Nadir knows. He bites his tongue, swallows back iron, and closes eyes that burn. “I am sorry, but I cannot-” His words fail him - never has he lied to the other but the truth is something he can never say.

“Will you not even look at me, brother?”

He’s a coward.

He opens his eyes anyway, feet braced, and looks up to see his cousin and not the blasphemy he became. Nahbdeen stands there in his training armour, looking so painfully young and unburdened, even with the evidence of sleepless nights that sits on his face.

There is no terror in his eyes.

No toxic, malignant aether swirling around his form as he screams and his form shudders and changes and-

“I must do this, brother,” he says, low and steady. Nadir’s hands clench tightly around the rope still in his hands and he misses the man in front of him so much that it hurts to breathe. But he chose this.

When his Satrap had asked those remaining, he had volunteered. He had chosen to give up the armour of the Host, the armour that he had lived and died in, and sworn to this cause.

He chose this and Nadir is a coward but he loves his country, he loves his Satrap, and he loves his cousin. He will not sway from this course. Not even for the oaths he and his brother had sworn together as boys, as men, that mean so much to both of them.

Nahbdeen stares at him, heartbreak writ upon his face as he reads the conviction the he feels, and then his face changes. It closes off and, with a nod, his cousin turns away.

Nadir rocks back, absorbing the blow, and his hands shake. “You will be the very best of the Host,” he calls out. It is the truth and an apology and a goodbye at once.

His brother doesn’t glance back.

He doesn’t, cannot, offer to stay.

Swallowing back against the burning of his throat, he sets his shoulders and nods to himself. “It shall be worth it,” he whispers to himself. Even if Nahbdeen hates him now, it will still be worth it.

He is a member of the Radiant Host and he swore an oath to Master Vrtra that it would be worth it.

Their people will not die again.

Nadir casts sail to Eorzea, determined to steer towards a better future.