Red

Redgar Ashten, brume rat and all around rake, sat in a bar a couple of rungs down from the Forgotten Knight in terms of the elevation, decor, decorum of its guests and, let's face it, hygiene. It was bloody cold outside, but then again it always was. 

He was sharing a drink with the barkeep (because there was no-one else to share a drink with at this hour) to stave away the chill. His name was Alfaux, and while he was a spindly old bastard and a hound after your tab, he wasn't terrible company. Especially not on this most auspicious of days.

See, Redgar was almost certain he was being followed. Not only that, but he was being followed by an inquisitor. Now, he'd done plenty to deserve the honour. He'd taken up three entire bells of the Congregation of Knights Most Heavenly's time and flirted with her uproariously, but he wasn't expecting her to pursue him.

She thought she was being quiet. Truth be told, Redgar knew she was outside and across the street with her hood up, and he knew she was considering whether she'd be able to slink inside without being noticed.

"I should smack ye," Alfaux rumbled. "We don't need that kind of trouble in 'ere."

Redgar grinned, toothily. "I've got somethin' that can acquit ye," he rumbled.

Alfaux looked so exhausted just then, it was as if the grey at his temples grew several more inches. His crows-feet addled eyes thinned to narrow blades. "I know that look."

"What look?" 

"Don't tell me yer keen on them. Her, him. Whatever yer appetites are this accursed eve."

Red shrugged a shoulder: "As much as I'd be keen on a fuckin' Halonite—"

"Hey," Alfaux warned. The old man-hag was patient with him, but he had a little love for the Fury in his heart. 

Redgar brushed off the infraction. "Sorry. But, since ye asked, I did try on a few lines with her and I had her blushin'. Even biting back."

"For fucks sake," Alfaux swept the cur's drink away with him, and he didn't have the temerity to argue. He span away to tidy the refuse somewhere else and tip the rest of his ale down the drain. "An' how do you suppose I should aid ye in yer misbegotten conquest, you twelves-damned moron?"

"Accuse me of theft."

Alfaux's ears nearly jumped, and he slow-turned to grin at Redgar. "... Alright. I'm listening."

— 

"BASTARD THIEF!" Alfaux roared as Redgar tumbled out of the door, making off with a bag of gil, pursued by a tankard that was hurled clumsily enough to land in an arc and clatter across the cobbles.

He pushed forward, finding a grin as loud, clomping footsteps echoed after him. "STOP!" Came her haughty voice which, mere bells before now, had been flustering around him in an interrogation room. 

The chase was on, but it really wasn't a fair fight.

Redgar knew these streets like the back of his hand, his own heartbeat, and the weight of his unmentionables. Over the years since the moon had fucked everything, he'd learnt to work with the ice-slicked cobbles, using them to drift gracefully around hairpin turns, recovering from minor slip-ups with nary but a merry skip. 

The Inquisitor, meanwhile? Well, she was holding up better than he'd assumed she would, that much was for sure, but she clearly didn't have his experience. He was from the Brume, he breathed it, and she was a mouse running through his maze. Catlike, he soared up a wooden fence (more of a wall) and into the courtyard of an abandoned warehouse—twisting to catch her eye as he fell down the other side. "I said to bloody– STOP! ARGH!" she roared. Redgar watched the wooden fence shake as she kicked it, and he hesitated at the warehouse's door frame, wondering if he'd led his pursuer to an obstacle she couldn't overcome. His breath billowed out of him, once, twice, and then he saw the shadow of her tipping over the top. He slinked inside. Time to set the stage.

When she finally entered, she found the brume rat lounging, carefree, on a pile of crates, dangling the bag of stolen gil in his hands. He was all dressed up, wearing his largest shit-eating grin for the occasion. He'd even lit an oil lantern. It wasn't a candle, but it'd have to do.

"Dame," he said, tipping the brim of an imaginary hat. Ms. Lafontaine was not impressed. A flash of steel leapt into her palm as a shortblade—more discreet than the spear he'd seen propped up against the wall on the way out of the well-to-do's districts—had been pointed towards his smug facade.

"Do you—" she was out of breath. "Have any idea how much trouble you're in?"

Red sniffed and sat up, unflustered by the weapon. "Not as much as ye, dame. Ain't service just starting? You'll be missing yer prayers."

Ms. Lafontaine's face twisted into something between stubborn rage and impetuousness. "I ought to gut you."

"For what?"

Her frown only deepened, though Red found himself quite liking the expression, the little thunderbolt that struck between her brows. The sheer intensity of her made the hairs on his arms stand on end. True, she'd been putty in his experienced hands, but she was also so thoroughly unlike her kin. The half-bladed ears, for one. He found himself drawn to her flame as a grinning moth. She snapped an answer: "For stealing, obviously."

Redgar smiled, blithely, and tugged loose the string on the bag. He opened it, dumped it on the floor, and ashy chunks of coal clattered across the boards. "I forfeit my goods to the will of the Fury. May her rancour spare me."

"He was in on it? Oh, gods forfend—I should arrest you both," she hissed, her cheeks all red. "For wasting an Inquisitor's time. My time."

"And admit that you skipped out on church service, hunted a brumeling to his lair, and chased him halfway across th' district screamin' bloody murder all for a bag of coal?" Redgar tutted. "Sure, ye could lie and plant a bag of gil on me, but—I was bein' held without due cause and you let me go. I'm willin' to bank you've got some morals rattlin' around that pretty head of yours."

"Call me pretty again, see what happens."

Red tutted. "You're right, we ought to get down to business. Now, I've got a deed here for our house ye'll need to sign off on—" THUNK. The blade had left the inquisitor's hand and, thrown with shocking precision and fury, landed a good four malms askance from the brume rat's head. A warning shot. It was his turn to feel an unexpected rush of fire to his cheeks. An inescapable grin ran roughshod on his face. "Wow."

"Don't you wow me," she snipped, and stormed forward, crossing the space between them until she was poised, hands on her hips, in front of his crate throne. "I'm done with this—absurd back and forth. Whatever you think we have. Whatever you think you're doing to me? I—"

"Why don't you describe what I'm doin' to ye," he interrupted her. "In vivid detail. And maybe what I ought to do to you instead?"

His words sank exactly where they needed to, right between the metaphorical ribs, as he watched the inquisitor give that honking (delightful) laugh, clap both her hands over her mouth, go bright red, make to storm out, realise she'd left her blade in the wall, turn, flood with rage, and jab her finger at him all in the span of a few seconds.

"You—!"

"Me," he simpered.

"House Realeux. Unlocked window. Theft of several items and a business ledger. You tell me what you know or I'll throttle you."

"Sounds nice," he surmised, then blinked as a small dagger flickered out of the dame's boot. Now he was worried she might really kill him. "Alright, alright. I know nothin' about nothin', but maybe we could work together," he slid off the crate and approached, nonplussed even as the dame's outstretched arm didn't waver. The cool tip of her blade grazed his Adam's apple. 

"Dragon's piss, we could," my, that was a vicious curse for an inquisitor. "Why would you help me?"

"Releaux hasn't been terrible to us. Some charitable donations. If someone's fuckin' with their good name, then they're either after them, or they were justified. Either way, I'd like to find out, too," he raised an index and, careful as a picklock, pressed the silver edge down so it wasn't at risk of pricking an artery open. 

The dame, meanwhile, was staring at him in a way that he couldn't quite shake. Sure, he'd had his fun playing with her, but he couldn't deny that being pursued like this was flattering—moreover, those tired eyes, that vicious posture, the carefully-constructed hair that he'd managed to pull a few strands loose from via their merry goose chase… A hunger twisted in his gut. He wanted to keep pulling on that thread, he wanted to see just how much he could unravel. He wondered what noises she would make when his teeth were on her neck.

She also wasn't saying anything. So he—gently—navigated the dagger away from him entirely, and came to stand danger close. She wasn't moving. He took a step further. She still wasn't moving.

"What's the matter," he tried something reckless on for size. "Don't want to kiss me without yer fellows writin' it down?" 

He'd pushed an ilm too far and—knowing full well he deserved it—was slapped across the face, hard enough to make him stagger. When he looked up, she'd retrieved her blade and was standing by the door, that fierce mask etched into her lovely, tired features. 

"This is so fuckin' stupid," he muttered to himself. It had almost been a full month since she'd sent him that poem. He had made copies of it. He brought one with him on long journeys. He kept one pinned to his wall. And yet, he hadn't mustered the chutzpah to tell her how much it'd meant, because he wanted to write one back.

It was impossible.

"Just… talk at the paper. Like Opal said," he grumbled and, with the grimace of pulling a tooth, began to write his first poem.

I've spent all of my life breaking things, I'm good at it. So how do I make something?

I don't think I could find the right words. How do you describe the feeling of being seen? I'm worried my words will grow rote.

Somehow the act of putting it down makes it absurd. I do not know poetic metre or scheme. I can sing a shanty that someone else wrote.

Let me try:

My Imogen is a pain in the ass. My Imogen has a frown that is beautiful. My Imogen has eyes like blades.

You're meant to rhyme, dumbass

My Imogen is better than me at poetry. My Imogen has a laugh she only shares with me. My Imogen is a girl who ran away. My Imogen would not budge outside a shop. My Imogen always has sharp words to say, and I would never ask her to stop.

This is a bad poem. It is third rate.

I've spent all my life breaking things. I'm good at it. And now you've gone and made me create something.

Redgar wasn't like this. He wasn't the kind of person to be in a bed, watching a chest rise and fall. He would never bear witness to the twitching of eyes beneath their lids, flustered with the frustrations of sleep. Under no circumstances would he watch gold hair tangle messily over pillow and sheet, tied in knots that would need to be stubbornly worked out with a brush. 

But he was, because he was fucking ruined.

His other People (a word he'd settled on, comfortable like an old pair of shoes) had not shared a bed with him nearly as often as her. Mostly due to logistics, rather than, well, desires or priorities. Requirements to keep things hidden or, in the case of Opal, simple chronological newness to his life.

Imogen, though, tended to stick around. She didn't mind the fact that she had to wake him up every time she got up, lest he flinch at her return and hurt her. She didn't mind (mostly) that he needed a knife close by to sleep. Didn't make a fuss of the times where he'd wake up screaming, and sweating, and breathing like he was fresh from the grave.

He'd played the scene over and over again. Imogen flung across the room to slam into the wall, made light as a stone skimmed over the sea. The sickening tilt of her body in the air when she began to fall. The fear that she would land on her skull, or her neck, and the simple mercy of physics that she'd avoided both. 

He'd tortured himself so much with the memory that, if you gave him chalk and a few minutes, he could recreate it. Pick out the exact spot where she hit the ground to the bars between the grates. Note, in a long line drawn from impact site to floor, every thought that screamed through his mind, and at what intervals.

Looking at her sleep now, you'd be forgiven if you thought she'd never been pained at all. Then she went and ruined it.

Imogen proceeded to despoil the sanctuary he'd found in her rest, as her next drag of breath set a chain reaction of phlegm into play, like an iron chain juddering through a mechanism. Clanking uproariously through her sinuses. She mumbled something incomprehensible, stuck her arm out at a weird angle, half-turned over, and began to drool on his pillow.

It was the end of all things. 

The air up here was somehow suffocatingly thick, yet too thin to breathe all at once—the stars, blended into a slurry as they were, had been warped with the gravity of despair, rotting on the vine. Light made pulp. Redgar felt as if he could be whipped away like a leaf in the wind, or be crushed flat under the boot of godless grief at any moment. The pressure of it, of everything he'd been through… it made his blood heavy. There was no other way to describe it.

And yet, there was a wind.

One granted by Estinien. Made possible by Thancred before him. Then Y'shtola and Urianger. All dear friends, now nowhere to be seen. Lost to nothing, just to give them a sliver of a chance. He hadn't even processed it. To let it sink into him would mean his ruin—to look back would spell cacophonous despair, and the sundering of his flesh. The devouring of his soul.

Which is why he was so numb, looking upon G'raha Tia—knowing he was putting himself next in line to vanish. Here stood a man who had survived two apocalypses just for the slightest hope at a better tomorrow. Two! A man who had been so buoyed by a version of Redgar he'd never get to be that he saved everyone. Everyone. A man who'd stood against damnation for a century and, at the end of it all, had intended to sacrifice himself just to see him live. 

He was about to do it again. Again. 

This hero. This man who was a reflection of him—down to the fire in their hair. How dare he say that Redgar had inspired him? He knew so little of how dear he'd become, or how Red had followed in his example, took comfort in his acts of selflessness. Oblivious and sweet and so, so stupid despite being the brightest man he'd ever met.

Their positions should be reversed. G'raha was the better hero. It shouldn't be him to go. But faced with the Omicrons and their despair, Redgar has… nothing. Nothing. No answer that makes sense. But G'raha does.

"Don't—" Redgar whispered. 

"I want you to make me a promise." The words drew spiderweb cracks in his heart, stunning him into attention. "Be it across time or space, our promises have always connected us. And so I ask that you indulge me once more—that this won't be the end."

"I can't. Not again." Redgar all but mumbles, and the spider-webbing cracks in his chest continue to fracture. He feels his heart buckle under the weight of itself.

"Forcing you through this again is the last thing I want—"

"Then why are you?" The tremble in his voice swells to crackling levin. "You keep doing this, pretending like it's got to be you, but ye've—ye've never let me even try to help you! Please, Raha." The tribal letter sloughed off his name as he spoke it, as if doing so would finally reach his dearest friend. "Please let it be me this time."

"We've never broken a promise to each other." G'raha finds the perfect retort, because of course he does. His face is somehow stoic as Redgar is brought low by that single reminder. "I ask that you have faith in us, and hear my request."

Redgar holds his breath—he holds it for what seems like an eternity, at the edge of existence, where all that outward pressure melts away to reveal him, just him. He listens, because he does not have a choice. 

"... First, I want to visit Ishgard with you." 

The cracks on his heart form into a break, and the floor beneath Redgar gives way. Ishgard, where he first learnt what it meant to be a hero—to smile through the pain. The crucible of the accomplishments to follow. Ishgard was half the reason he'd ever done any of this—the other half is standing in front of him. To have not yet shared that history with G'raha breaks him in two and, like water roaring out of a dam, something else fills the faultlines.

Love.

Oh, twelve strike him down for a fool. Had he felt like this the whole time? No—no, this was new. Deep affection calcifies into yearning, bleeding into grief, blossoming into wanting. Redgar wanted so much to cross the few feet between them, but it felt as an infinity, impossible to reach. He was the wrong man for the job. The wrong man for him, and yet…

G'raha's next requests—to see the sights, to tell him stories of his past exploits in the places he lived them—only served to further temper this new feeling, this new shape of him. The imprint G'raha was about to leave by his absence was too much to bear. There would be no surrogate for him, for the way he made Redgar feel in that moment. He was ruined for the rest of his days.

"And last," G'raha said, finally reaching the end of this torture. "A new adventure. Unlike any we've experienced before. We'll travel the lands, cross the seas, and take to the skies upon the eternal wind. And it will be marvellous. It will…"

G'raha trails off, as if finally noticing the fury in Redgar's face. The pain, the indignance, the sorrow. He winces, and—despite Red seeing his dear affection returned in G'raha's eyes—offers a fist for him to bump.

At the end of infinity, at the edge of all things, moments before a sacrifice that could be forever… and he extends a fist. For him to bump.

He was so fucking stupid.

"What's this morsel, then?" 

The voice was thunder, the room around them flooded with the stench of spilled ale and rotting wood, of tar-treated rope and smoke. Shoved in by his shoulders, the child could barely see the man inside, lantern-light struggling to cast any glow on him. The bulk of his form filled out the cloak under which it heaved breath. Like a bear wearing the skin of a man.

His captor, a thin miqo'te with a chipped fang, spoke from the doorway: "Saw him askin' for hand-outs. Thought we'd have a little fun with him."

"... Fun?" The bear's voice simmered, and for the briefest of moments, the child was spared his gaze as it raked past his shoulder to the miqo'te behind him. Murder flooded the air.

The target of his wrath was quick to clarify: "Punchin' him, nothin' noncey."

"Mmh," the monster was pacified, but it had other questions. "So why bring him here?"

"He broke Wuotgeim's leg." 

The room stilled, and a grin peeled back the monster's lips. He pulled a lantern into place—his face did little to change his grisly power. The boy saw a highlander with a small, broken nose and arms like barrels. Big enough to challenge a roe. Jet-black hair only loosely framed his stubble-coated face. 

"Interesting. What's your name, boy?"

Twelve. How long had it been since he'd used his voice? Before now it hadn't been needed, not since his parents had been left to die, a child their only vigil, incapable of bringing them to Thal's gilded halls. He'd screamed for help and no-one came, so he deemed it useless. You take things to live, you don't ask—but now he needed to tell. 

"R-" his throat burnt him. The syllables broke upon the cliff of themselves like waves. He swallowed. He tried again. "R-Redgar."

"After the destroyer," he hummed. "... You wanna be strong? You wanna stop going hungry? I can see yer skin and bones." Redgar turned his eyes away from the sight of him, feeling like a sick pig about to be slaughtered. 

But he nodded, twice—once for each question. 

"Look at me when ye speak."

"I-"

Redgar's body hit the countertop before his thoughts could catch him, slapped hard enough to see stars. The monster growled at him, the welt from his paw seething on Redgar's cheek and chin.

"You broke my man's leg. You live because I think yer amusin'. Because ye got potential," he stood up—his shadow casting a darkness that swallowed the room around him. Behind the child, the door closed. "I am Amos. Ye will come to know this as a name whispered by the dead."

"Y-You—"

"I said fucking look at me."

Redgar flinched, as if expecting a second strike—none came. Instead, he looked up into the beady red eyes of judgement, burning down upon him like distant stars. He choked out a small, strangled: "I want—I want to be stronger. I don't want to be hungry." 

"I can give ye these things. I can teach all the people who hurt you—" and there were so many "—to fear ye. On one condition." Redgar let his silence, and his unbroken stare, speak for him. Amos grabbed him by the hair and wrenched his head back, like he was inspecting a new knife. 

"You are my dog," he hissed. "You are nothin' without what I give ye. Ye will be loyal to me, and answer my orders as a faithful pup. When I hurt ye, ye'll thank me for it."

Redgar felt his stomach eating him, the acid in it turning against his body—the tingling numbness of fatigue sizzled at the back of his head. He felt fear running through his veins like a swarm of startled rats—but he also felt strength in the cord of Amos' arm. He saw the power this person held, how well-fed his gut was. Twelve, even the heft of him made the floorboards below him bend the knee.

He wanted that strength. He wanted to stop going hungry. And this was the first time anyone had offered him either—the first time anyone had a proper conversation with him, even—in years. His neglected voice nearly cracked out of his throat, but he managed some scant words.

"I am your dog."

"What else?"

"I am nothing— without w-what you give m-muh. Me."

Amos threw him against the wall—a short journey that ended hard, being only a handful of feet away. The world flashed white as a haymaker followed, and when his life came back into view, Redgar saw only the floorboards in front of his face and tasted blood in his mouth. The monster snarled from somewhere behind him. "Say it."

"Th–Thank you."

A silence, then, and then a low laugh. "Good. You killed before?" Pushing himself up the floor, Redgar's arms shook, too fragile to hold him up. But he nodded, twice. He had. A knife clattered into view in front of him. "Find Wuotgeim and put him down. I'll let the others know he en't to be protected. Then ye'll get food, a bath, and a place to sleep. I'll show you how to use that properly tomorrow."

"You would've loved where I grew up," beamed Charon, a half-skip to his step as he pestered his best friend in the whole wide world (a fact debated, tremendously, by the subject of his annoyance) down a busy street in Amaurot. Gleaming, gentle torchlight bouncing off his masked face. 

While many of his fellow citizens wore their hoods up, Charon had his down—his long, scarlet hair pinned in a ponytail to keep errant licks of flame out of his features. The crowds swerved out of the way of his chaotic and indecisive path. Up above, incredible structures pierced the heavens, each carved in their own unique styles. Some were siblings to one another, one marvel passing inspiration to the next. Others were designed by their architects to stand out—to the point where some felt like protest pieces or, charmingly, conversations. 

Down below, beautiful trees swayed in a perfected breeze (quite literally—quite a lot of aetheric theory had been plugged into making it just the right kind of temperate). Songbirds, carefully selected from the craftsmanship of Elpis, fluttered through their canopies with a shy lover's delicacy. 

Hades, however, did not dance as his colleague did. He trudged, efficiently, in a direct line to 'somewhere away from this nuisance'. This somehow only caused more chaos—Charon was an orbiting moon encircling its star, both his heavenly path and his clicking heels growing more manic the more it seemed to bother him. Hades had silver hair when Charon was inducted into the fourteen, but he could've sworn some of them had turned grey since. 

"Did you hear me?"

Hades huffed, "I am choosing not to listen."

"I said—you would've loved where I grew up."

"My scepticism holds fast," he tutted. "It produced you, did it not?"

"Venat sends her well-wishes, by the way!" "Ch-" Hades stopped himself. "Azem," he refused to let frustrations rob him of his manners, referring to the oarsman by his new title. "Venat is very kind to do so, and very unkind to do so through you."

"She must really hate you, then." Hades finally stopped. The two had found themselves diverted into a small park, with perpetual blossoms of sapphire tumbling to the ground, vanishing upon contact with it like drops of snow near a bonfire. 

If Hades' eyes were squinted any further, he'd have blinded himself. After a moment, he remarked: "Why is it you wear your hood down here, Traveler?"

"Hm," Charon, in the interim between them stopping and Hades electing his next question, had hopped up and onto his oar—which could float horizontally, like a fanciful fairytale broomstick. He'd seated himself as the lotus, legs folded across each other. "Why is yours up?"

"It is indecent," Hades insisted.

"That you should accuse yourself of indecency!" Charon brought his knuckles to his brow, scandalised, pretending to faint. Hades almost hissed at him.

"I meant your state of dress, Azem. Your state of dress is indecent. This city, if your powers of perception have not so thoroughly failed you, is wrought into a delicate and purposeful balance by the greatest minds our great civilisation has to offer. And yet you, prancing and preening, appear to have made it your sole task to disrupt that whenever you deign to hamper me with your presence," he had to take a deep breath to keep going. "Had I the power to dismiss you, I would—alas, we find ourselves unlucky colleagues, and I am impuissant to stop your… dancing, was that what that was?"

Charon was inspecting his nails, disinterested but listening: "I prefer to think of it as buzzing."

"Like a gnat. Oh, how I long for those halcyon moments before you hummed in front of me this morning. How many journeys have you made wayward because you nearly barged into someone, today? Shall we count them in the dozens or the hundreds?" Hades pinched his brow, hissing air out his teeth like a steaming kettle. "I adore this city because it is orderly and quiet—so, no. I don't think I would."

"Hm?" Charon's voice tilted up. He was lounging, at this point.

"What you said earlier—I do not think I would like whatever nest spawned your pestiferous jubilancy." Hades waved a hand. "I assumed you did not come here just to deliver a message. Out with it."

"The place I grew up," Charon sat upright, ignoring Hades' instruction: "Was more ordered than this—which is why I said you would like it. But! Certainly. We can talk."

"Ah. You have produced a point! Let's hear it."

"I don't think you respect me."

Silence dragged on between the two of them in the same way that, poured conservatively, water takes a long time to fill a second jug. Hades stared right at his masked mien, aware that his own hood, his own mask, hid the true intention of his gaze. In truth, he was bringing his talent to bear on Charon's soul. 

In terms of potential and power, Venat had chosen well. The man's soul was a vivid, roiling scarlet—like a flame—but it was contained masterfully. He did not doubt that, in his duties, Charon would pass whichever creatures would threaten him quickly into his purview as keeper of the underworld with incredible efficiency. "Perhaps," Hades muttered, unable to escape his own sneer. "It is the contrast between your talent and your behaviour that vexes me. That such care would go into mastering your craft, and so little into the comfort of your fellow citizen—" KRAKK! 

Something hit Hades rather hard in the stomach—nowhere near firmly enough to hurt, but it was enough to send him careening backwards ten, twenty feet before sorceries crackled across his fingertips to anchor him. Charon had, in a blinding moment, swept his oar into two hands and slapped him in the gut. It was only due to his masteries of the arcane that he remained unharmed.

He was, however, rendered speechless. For a second, that is, before a spluttering: "You dare?!" Sent a flock of those same delicate birds squawking in droves.

Charon smiled, sweeping the deceptively potent bit of wood over his shoulders. "My role is to counsel the people of this star. Be bothered by me if you must!" He said, with a jubilance to his voice that fought against the steel of his eyes. "But do not question my commitment, Hades, or I shall have to take you over my knee and show you the other flat of this paddle."

Hades stammered, suffering a rage that was downright indignant, but he would not lower himself to Charon's baseless violence. Instead, he simmered in it, like a pot waiting to boil over, as the seat of Azem sauntered over towards him, inspecting the grooves Hades had left in the dirt with his magic. Charon's oar swung back over his shoulders and dragged itself along the earth, mending the grass as it did so with rejuvenating spells.

"I dance," Charon continued, "Because—well, truthfully, it bothers you—but also because the people of this city are so thoroughly dug into their routine that they have forgotten their own joys. My purpose today is to sow some discord—harmless in measure—so that their minds, and their bodies, may be properly stimulated," he rolled the oar over in his hands, "I've been tasked to turn the currents of their wanderings towards more inspiring seas."

"You struck me!" Hades finally managed.  

"I gave you a tap," Charon beamed, bright as the sunlight, though as he moved closer to Hades his expression froze over, as if the moon had wandered into his path. "Let us cast aside titles and pretence, and reveal our true faces to one another, Emet Selch."

The redeemer stared daggers into the object of his outrage, but permitted him a single nod. "Speak your mind, Charon."

"You have avoided me and belittled me. You have sneered at me and, at one point, I caught you rolling your eyes. That you do not share my perspectives is not the issue—it is that you resent them for even existing. Did you give Venat so much trouble?"

"... No," he admitted. "Though she vexed me."

"If my behaviour has confused you as it has today, I would be glad to share my reasoning as I did just then. But I implore you, please, to not presume I have taken this post lightly. Or that I do not care for this star and its people. Treat me as the equal Venat has made me, and I will prove myself worthy of your trust," he extended a hand for a shake. A vulgar way of penning agreements—downright archaic, but his voice was earnest enough. "Deal?"

"... You are insufferable," Emet Selch grumbled, though he took his hand and shook it. "I will do so. However, you brought your arms to bear against me." It was just then that a roar of levin—carefully placed by the sorcerer moments before—alighted beneath Charon's feet. There was enough of a telegraphed growl, however, for him to ward against it. In a flash, Charon was shot a clean twenty feet into the air—where he hung like a marionette, held aloft by wind aether clicked between his heels.

Charon laughed, spinning his oar in one hand: "Am I being challenged to a bout by the Redeemer?"

Hades grimaced. "If I indulge you, will you leave me be?" 

"Yes!"

"Then I suppose I have." 

A crowd gathered as—protected by wards the Traveler had thought to place—the seat of Hades and Azem plied Amaurot with the entertainment of a duel flashier than it strictly needed to be. Somewhere between his third and fifth spell, taxed thoroughly by the Traveler's whirlwind movements, Emet Selch found himself—infuriatingly—having fun. 

"I think—yer my Person." 

It had been said by him under the hushed canopy of the shroud. A gentle admission offered in a quiet moment to her—the first crack. To let her in, because he wanted her to be there.

"You and Imogen, yer my People."

It had been said by him in the quiet room of a ship, as walls were broken, as insecurities were aired—and glass-vulnerable requests were made, handled with such fragility ere else they might shatter.

"I haven't had people t' care after since I was what, fifteen? Sixteen years old?" It had been said by him after a few bites of a brownie, moments before a disarming affection claimed him. Spoken not long before she saw through the core of him twice over a cup of tea in Kugane, as if she had the eyes of a goddess. He'd spent the day with her after that.

Pacing the room of his small antechamber in Kugane, Redgar Ashten could not sleep. He could not sit still, either. Something disquieting stirred deep under his chest—a frustration, a wall. Not eroded, perhaps. But known better, understood more as his hands ran across the scarred map of his heart.

Not capable of love. Not in its most known sense. No, not love. That word had too much expectation, too much baggage. It was not for him.

But people to protect, fiercely, as though he were their faithful beast? People with whom he knew he could find light, even in the darkest moments? People to lean on, to be with, to bare himself open to? People who thought him beautiful—beautiful, great gods. How was it he could be beheld in such a way? How long had it been since he felt this rubbed raw, this vulnerable, this—

Red staggered, as if struck, back against a wall, and felt a sob rise in his throat. One which he let go, quiet, suffering, but warm as a summer shower on arid earth. A dam had broken while he wasn't looking. And he was so scared—so terrified to have so many people who made him happy, to have so much at risk. 

"Alright, Kal," grunted W'sate. "I see how yer playin' this."

The lad was engaged in his third game of triple triad with Kal—a miserable-looking hyur with a broken arm, navigator save him. He was getting on a bit, and this certainly wasn't the first time he'd come back from a gig with broken bones and a sob story. He was also currently pulling cards from his hand with his teeth, which W'sate would have argued with, but he felt sorry for the miser. Kal huffed. He placed his next card in a terrible position, opening him up for at least three flip-and-captures. W'sate's tail betrayed him, flicking back and forth with excitement. 

Leah, a runner for the Dockside Drakes, swept up into the mix with a couple of drinks and plonked herself down in a chair to watch Kal get crushed. She was quite a bit younger than the two sea dogs, but she did a good job, earnt her keep. "How'd you get your arm snapped again, you old twat?"

Kal grabbed his ale like it was a lifeline sorely needed, and drank deep: "Stole from the wrong fuckers."

"Which ones?" W'sate pried. "Boss went awful quiet about it. Not like him to make us wait here instead of, y'know. Gettin' a bit of glint in our pockets. Downright holiday, this is."

"It's fine, it's handled," Kal dodged the question.

Leah leant over and nudged him in the side: "C'mon. At least tell me you got away with the thing."

"No. But nobody saw me," his voice grew quieter like a waning flame, eaten piecemeal by hungry shadows. The codger hissed like a spluttering hearth, too, barely getting the words out as he repeated himself: "Nobody saw me."

W'sate grinned, leant back, and kicked up his feet: "C'mon mate. You can tell W'sate, how long you've known me?"

"Amos."

The air was snatched by a single word, like the whole room had its neck snapped at once. W'sate kept a calm mien, but he felt his stomach lurch and his smile drop off his face—around them, the six, seven other ruffmans who'd been posted up here stared. Invisible daggers all pointed at Kal's neck.

Leah went pale: "I'm gonna use the bathroom." She decided, and shot off to the back of their dusty little hideout.

"Fuckin' Amos, Kal?"

"I didn't know it was him."

"I should smack ye."

"Boss already did," he hissed, and nodded to his arm.

W'sate felt his tail fluffing up, the hair on the back of his neck standing up on end, and he let out a breath that had barely been dragged to his lungs in the first place. "Alright, alright. So—that's fine. That's fine, right? Greinskapf, that's fine?" 

Greinskapf shrugged, the roegadyn looking away from the door—moonlight filtered in, casting half his face in azure, while a lantern lit up the other half and worked deep shadows. He seemed stoic as ever: "Don't see no-one. Quiet night."

Kal stewed in his shame and fear, like whiskey in a barrel. But he found his bravery, looking up at W'sate with optimistic certainty: "I told you I'd handled—"

There was a wet and heavy thud, like a sack of pig offal hitting the deck of a ship. It came from the door. Greinskapf was gone, a bloom of crimson spreading from his open neck. Solklona let out a shout, but was taken out in short order as a shade peeled away from the night sky, impossibly fast, then drove something into her gut and wrenched upwards. She toppled through the open doorway and out of view.

Three hyur drifted into the room, dressed in red and black leathers with scarlet bandannas atop their heads—all except for one, whose hair was naturally crimson. The lad didn't even look 20, but he had eyes that screamed experience and agony in equal measure. A roiling tempest, churning behind blue steel, his face driven into a stormcloud of pure contempt. 

Kal didn't have the strength to move, but he looked like he could weep: "Th' Scarlet Butcher." He turned to W'sate: "I'm sorry, I thought—" W'sate vanished before he could finish, gone before the last word, as an iron ball snapped through his skull and struck him from the pages of history no-one would read.

____ 

Leah kept quiet, with a hand clamped over her mouth, as screams, gunshots and bloody murder thrummed through the thin wooden wall that divided her from a certain death. Each one drew a smothered scream out of her gut. 

Just stay quiet, just stay quiet, just stay quiet. 

Eventually, the storm gave way to silence. It was even worse: She hadn't escaped the hurricane, she was just in the eye of it. Her only company in the moments that followed were hushed voices, and the dragging of soaked bodies across freshly-treacherous floorboards. 

A pair of footfalls grew closer, and closer. Stalking through the kitchen, teasing the boards that were closest to her sanctuary. A bag of flour had fallen on her, weighing agony between her shoulder blade and neck. Flour dust scratched her nose, and threatened to make her sneeze.

She shouldn't have been peeking through a crack, but she did. She saw the shadow of the youngest of them, the Scarlet bloody Butcher himself. His short, crimson hair cropped his beardless features. She only knew him because he was the only one of Amos' crew not to wear a rag on his skull—she'd never seen him before. 

His blades were dripping blood. He looked younger than she expected. He was staring right back at her.

She felt death rake its claws down her back, tears flooding her gaze, stinging her eyes blurry. He took three steps over to the cabinet. Then, he opened it. Leah went numb, shaking as a leaf might, as he reached out for her and turned his blade to her throat…

There was no flash of pain. Instead, wordlessly—and with impossible strength—she felt herself dragged across the room. She thought to struggle, to kick, to scream, but she felt like a deer in a wolf's jaws. She'd gone slack, ready to feel life drain from her. 

Amos' hound dragged her away from his fellows. Through the pantry, and past the body of Agile Sage, who she'd shared a bottle of cider with just last week. She was guarding the back entrance today. Now, she was slumped unceremoniously over a barrel like a pig left out to slaughter. Leah remembered she'd had a nice laugh. She was glad it was too dark to see the violence with which her captor had ended her.

The back door whispered open, and then the Butcher simply… let her go. She felt her knees nearly give under her as she stumbled out into the alley, Llymlaen's waves kissing the nearby docks, quiet as the grave. She pressed her shoulders up against the opposing wall—flat against it, as if she could push hard enough to make it give way and tear her from this nightmare.

"Why?" she whispered.

"Because ye were smart," the butcher, his voice eerily quiet, replied. "An' because no-one saw me take ye. And because I'm tired."

"You—" it began to dawn on her just how many friends she'd lost in one night. She couldn't help a sob: "You killed everybody."

"I did. Get the fuck away from this place or join them," he flipped the blade up, pointing it at her. Footfalls began to surge from behind the Butcher like a swelling chorus. "I will kill you."

A corpse staggered through the great wood. The canopy shielded it from the sun, but little else, as it shuffled relentlessly to a useless end. One was leg numb, the other seething with great pain, as if fire was still licking at its toes. The corpus' right arm was limp by its side, the other holding it. Its gaze was watery and grey—its breath absurd, unnatural, as if rejected by the air it had been kidnapping. Every breath fled its lungs, and clawed tooth and nail on the intake.

Dead things should not be able to breathe.

In the dregs of its mind, it saw flashes. Fire and ruin, a village in flames, the timber spitting as if to spite it, before it collapsed and belched clouds of smoke. It was as if the woods, which had been the body's cradle its whole life, was burning in a fever to get rid of the parasites that had infested it. Its own sloughing flesh included.

Glory be to Garlemald. Words it only understood once its kinsmen had started speaking them. It was fortunate, in the most wretched sense of the word, to not be near the spear whence it was thrust into the earth. A great and ruinous thing with a scarlet tip, from which the mist wailed as if tortured. The machines had followed, the corpse had rushed to meet them, and then…

The body's people had a belief, it was dimly remembered. When another tribe member was gone, you could still speak with them, if you only perked your ears to listen. You could turn to them in your hour of need. It was a skill you had to train, sharpened on fond memories—however brief those were for a lonely Warder. 

But the body had become proficient. Those voices from beyond had kept it company during the lonely hours. When it was in the village, it rejoiced, and shared its body with the living. When it was tending to the woods, it kept company with the dead.

But seeing its people burn, their limp bodies under the weight of collapsed trees, the great wood itself roiling to rid itself of their collective failure to protect it. The body found it could not speak to them, nor could it hear the wood. It was then it knew it was dead—a pile of ashes, though it could walk and talk still. Its spirit had left this place with its kin, drifting away as smoke. Perhaps it had been asked if it would leave, and it said yes—the corpse could not remember.

The body did not know how many hours had passed since it decided to walk. Perhaps it thought it would run into another, hostile tribe—and be put down for the unnatural thing it was. And yet… just ahead, there was a break in the treeline. It hesitated, wondering if it should turn back. But it is not a body's duty to ponder. It is a body's duty to move, and so move it did.

And then, the horizon. The body saw a vanishing arm of mountains resting in the earth, distant plains that reached far beyond where the eye could greet them. The cry of a flock of birds, escaping the canopy, flying free from the underworld. So many steps left to go, if the body chose to take them. A whisper of wind kissed the body's cheek, drying the tears that had bubbled over and bled there, before enveloping his back in its cool embrace, as if to say go, go. 

From the ashes, a seed blossomed and unfurled—a small, green shoot. He clutched his chest, feeling the agony of the flesh he had now arrived in… and smiled, despite himself, looking up at the daunting, wide blue. It went on forever.

Dalmahd was, at present, taking a nap under the basking Thanalan sun, a straw hat tugged over his brow. His bed of choice wasn't comfy, being a 'bo wagon's driver seat, but he relished any opportunity for a light snooze.

Opportunities, like sand, have a way of slipping through your fingers sometimes. "Dalmahd!" came a voice—it belonged to his younger brother.

Dalmahd shared Redgar's scarlet hair, but very little else. His eyes were a vivid shade of cactus green, taking after his father, while Red's were a steely blue after his mum. Dalmahd had more weight to him (not that Redgar hadn't developed a bit of pudge around his belly), though it was padded with muscle. Even the shape of his hair was different. Whereas young Redgar's was a spiky shock, Dalmahd's was long and brought up into a ponytail.

Theirs was a big family—Dalmahd was one of six brothers. Redgar was fourteen, whereas he'd turned eighteen recently. Since he'd 'become a man' or whatever, the little guy had imprinted onto him as a shining example of… something. It confused him, but Redgar made him laugh, and he was family, so it was simple enough to indulge him.

He watched Redgar wave, trip, wave again, and skid down a bank of red dust and sand, kicking up clouds at his heels. Nopal the chocobo chirped restlessly at his approach, and the lad gave the bird a wide berth. He hadn't gotten over a kick Nopal had given him two years ago, and the 'bo, Dalmahd reasoned, could sense his fear.

"Dalmahd!" Redgar chirped. He had a fresh bruise on his arm, which Dalmahd zeroed in on. He swung off the driver's seat and landed heavily in the dust. "Hey! Mom sent me to—"

"What is this?" Dalmahd snatched the arm and squinted at it. Red's flesh was purple and bruised around the edges. 

"It's nothing—!"

Dalmahd wasn't having any of it: "That is not nothing, did you hit your arm on a door frame?"

Redgar let out a weary sigh. "Taurece was upset 'cause he thinks I stole his toy sword again."

"Well, did you?"

"Yes—no," Redgar winced. "Please don't tell mom and dad? He already punched me about it."

Dalmahd weighed the options in his mind, inspecting his younger brother's handicraft. "The punishment seems to fit the crime. Don't worry, little destroyer."

"Thanks, little moon," Red stuck his tongue out at him, a transgression he decided to forgive. "Mom wanted to let you know dinner'll be ready in three bells."

"Just enough time to make it to Drybrush and back," Dalmahd hopped into the driver's seat, then patted the wooden bench. "Do you wanna drive with me?" Redgar's eyes lit up, and he scrambled (tripped, again) up the steps and dropped right next to Dalmahd. "I'll take that as a yes."

"I forgot to say it," Red admitted, breathless and wide-eyed. "I got too excited. So, how do you steer this thing?"

Dalmahd took the reins, and gave a tug. Nopal roused from what appeared to be a slumber of its own. With a groan of protest, the cart began to move as the surly 'bo tugged it—their family wasn't well-to-do enough for balloons, so Dalmahd had learned to fix the wheels of the cart with his eyes closed. They squealed in a worrying way that he shunted to the back of his mind.

"-- The 'bo has two lines," Dalmahd explained. "Connected to it, see? You hold both lines in one hand and just give it a tug to the left or the right. Bird's smart, so it'll keep to the road unless it gets spooked."

"Do you think we'll get attacked by bandits?" Red kicked his legs, already bored of the lesson.

"Your big brother's here to keep you safe if we do. Do you know how?"

"You've got a big axe under the seat!" Redgar leant forwards and grinned, wide and toothy.

"No."

"A sword?"

"Also no."

"Then how?" Red whined.

"I will give them what they want, and politely ask them to let myself and Nopal go," Dalmahd sniffed.

"But not me?"

Dalmahd grinned sidelong at his little brother. "They would adopt you. You would make a good bandit." This sent Redgar into a sulk, which Dalmahd defused by reaching back into a satchel and pulling out a small, hard-boiled sweet he'd saved for the road: "I would of course barter for you, little destroyer."