e x a r c h

“I was going to be polite and refrain from pointing that out,” Thancred says, voice shifting into a teasing lilt as he watches G’raha smile, the Miqo’te visibly starting to relax just a little. “But now that you’ve mentioned it, I’m inclined to agree. Between the robes and the cowl and the mysterious sage, I’m afraid you’ve gotten entirely too much like him. I shall be watching you very closely now that I’m aware of the danger, you know — should you begin to show inclinations toward bells-long lectures I will kidnap you and toss you into the lake, whatever Lyna and the others might have to say about it.” He won’t, actually, not in the least because all of that crystal would make doing so somewhat dangerous at best, but he needs to make the threat nonetheless. It’s a matter of course, at this point.

The teasing demeanor softens, however, then falls away entirely as he nods, smiling a little sadly at the man who is his little brother in all but blood. “I’m glad I was able to see you again, too,” he says, voice far quieter than before. “I hadn’t thought I would, you know— I’d no idea you were even in Eorzea, and then the Tower…” He trails off and shrugs, barely managing to brace himself as G’raha throws himself at him, no longer a wise and sagely leader of men, but a distressed boy all over again. It’s the most natural thing in the world to bring his arms up into a hug, tucking the smaller man securely under his chin and humming to him. “There, there, G’raha,” he murmurs softly, using his brother’s name properly since they are, in fact, in private. “It’s alright now. We’re here, and you’re still here, and we’re all together again. It’s alright. You’ve done very well— better than any of the rest of us could have managed— and now you can take some much-needed time to rest.” To rest, but not to die or to fade away. At least not yet. No-one wants to part with him any time soon.

A watery, wet laugh escapes him at the teasing, face buried in Thancred’s chest, curling as much as he can into the warm, familiar embrace of his older brother (though in a way, he’s the elder now; a funny thought). “Please don’t throw me in the lake,” he manages, voice muffled. “You know I’ve never been as good a swimmer as you...” Not that he’s a bad swimmer, but...with his robes and the crystal covering his arm and most of his chest it’s--- not a good idea. “Though Lyna might thank you for getting me out of the Crystarium...” It’s a bit of a tough balance...he knows they all want him to get out more, to do more besides hole up and read and study, to take care of himself, but to stray too far weakens him, makes him dizzy and tired. He misses the ability to travel, to explore...but that’s just something he’s come to accept. 

@historicrystalis | from here

Khaida feels G’raha tense, and makes sure she loosens her grip a bit before he relaxes. She looks up at him and shifts onto the balls of her feet a bit to press her nose against his. “We helped take care of that trouble in the Tower. We found some of the datalogs from…from that Ironworks. G’raha, you were a hero to them. You’re a hero to us, too. We wouldn’t be here, if not for you. You are as much a part of this story as we are, good ser, and I will remind you of that as oft as need be.”

He’s about halfway turned towards Khaida, mouth open to greet her, when she flings her arms around him in a hug. He freezes still as a statue, crimson eyes going very wide --- and visibly so, since he’s taken to wearing his hood down within the Ocular --- and a...a squeak escapes him as he very slowly unclenches his muscles and relaxes into the embrace. When was....he really has not been hugged much, he reflects in some embarrassed bemusement. It’s overwhelming, but...nice. Very nice. Especially from his one of his dear friends, his inspirations.

Khaida watches his expressions change, and can’t help but giggle. Her eyes crinkle at the corners, and her lips tug upwards in a smile. “Well, seems I’ll simply have to help you relearn how.” The way he says it reminds her that while it’s only been….gods, a couple of years since he sealed himself away in the Tower for her, it’s been centuries for him. And at least a century of it was spent in the kind of loneliness only a leader who was a figure of mystery could know.

“Come! First, you’re going to step away from whatever you’ve been busying yourself with and enjoying some fresh air! A nice little breather.” Small steps. One didn’t fall into self care in anything but small steps.

She was slowly learning that herself.

“Oh,” he says, blinking. Relearn how? Well--- that’s a thought he’d never thought to think. He’s been so busy, he doesn’t...he doesn’t need to sleep, and only needs to eat a little, this close to the tower, so it’s...never really occurred to him that he’s been living so far from what anyone would consider normal or healthy. He’s just been living day to day, caring for the Crystarium, waiting for the day when the Warriors came and it would all end. And...he’d end. So there’d been no need to--- ah, he’s a fool, but...still. He doesn’t regret. (This, anyway.)

G’raha smiles at him, something shy and shaky in the expression, and Thancred finds himself smiling back at him. “I wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t have the time,” he says, stepping further into the room and dropping to sit next to the Exarch, picking up a book and placing it back onto the stack in an effort to help ease the mess, if just by a little bit. “Urianger has Ryne with him, imparting the ‘wisdom of the ages into a willing mind’ he says, accompanying the phrase with deliberate and overly dramatic finger quotes. “Personally I think he’s just regaling her with embarrassing stories about all of us, but I’d rather not listen in on the off-chance it truly is one of his lectures. So, in lieu of that slow torture, I thought I’d check in with you.” They hadn’t spoken much after… everything, and he knows they need to. They are family, for all that’s transpired between them.

He watches him trace the book — a tome with a dragon on the cover, a title unfamiliar to him on it (unfamiliar, and yet he has a suspicion of what rests within those pages, knowing what he does about his brother’s past in that alternate future he’d woken into) — then sighs. “I suppose there are, but ‘tis a poor idea to keep to yourself when you’re having a crisis. I would have thought that our most recent experiences would have proven the danger in trying to stand alone.” Slowly, cautiously even, he reaches out and puts a hand on the smaller man’s shoulder, sympathy in his eyes as he shakes his head. “I’ve made my peace with being Called here, you know. And if I hadn’t been, then this world would be the poorer for it, if it even existed. Gods know poor Ryne would have never had the chance to see the outside of her cell in Eulmore, let alone find herself the way she has. There’s nothing to forgive in that.”

He pauses, looking out across the room for a long moment, then adds in a softer voice, “As for the deception, for the plan that you and Urianger worked out, for… frightening us all as you did? Well, that I haven’t quite forgiven you for — but I’ve pulled similarly foolish things far too recently to judge you for it. So instead, I shall give you fair warning: I shall take my revenge, and you will find it most discomfiting and embarrassing, and then we’ll have done with it. Sound fair?” Perhaps embarrass him to Lyna— no, no that would be too cruel. That woman holds her adoptive grandfather in far too high esteem to involve her in any pranks meant to bring out the bits of the playful, ridiculous boy that still reside within the noble Crystal Exarch. 

Thancred’s casual mocking of Urianger gets a startled laugh out of him, amused and entertained--- he’s not heard that in years, decades, centuries...and even when he was reunited these past years Thancred was too drawn into himself to tease their adopted father. But here it is like it had never gone away, and it makes G’raha smile. “...I fear I’ve become a little too much like Urianger these past years,” he admits, smile shy but genuine and something like good humor creeping back into his voice. “But even so, I do hope I never end up going on like he does! That’s a habit I’d rather imagine I never did pick up.” He knows he’s ended up quite a bit like his adoptive father, but...oh, he remembers those lectures. He remembers dozing off during them, half the time. Thancred had, too. It’s...a fond memory, a happy one, and it warms him a little even through the regret and guilt.

He stiffens a little when Thancred puts his hand on his shoulder--- it’s the crystalline one, so he can’t feel the warmth of it, but he feels its weight and he bites his lip again as he listens. “....I am...selfishly, I am glad I brought you here, too,” he murmurs. “All of you, and not just the Warriors of Light. You were--- just as important as they, and I...” He looks away, staring intently at a fixture on the wall so his eyes don’t well up and betray him. “...I am glad I got to see you all again. I never thought I would.” He thought, even without truly remembering them, that he would have lived and died after his awakening without ever seeing family again. But here they are, here they have been, at his side this past half decade even when he didn’t realize it. And he is so, so glad for it.

Thancred has been particularly busy, of late— after all, looking after and teaching Ryne is a full-time job, to say nothing of helping her carry out what she’s set as her goal. So it’s something of a surprise that he has any time to himself at all, but here he is, enjoying exactly that while Ryne listens to another one of Urianger’s particularly dull lectures. How that girl has the patience to sit through the man’s monologuing, he’ll never understand. But he’ll not deny her the lessons— not when they cannot linger once their route home has been secured. If that’s how she chooses to spend her time, for now, then that’s her decision. (Even if it is a frightfully boring one.) In the meantime, he’s decided to drop in on someone else: the Crystal Exarch, the long-lost and far older G’raha Tia.

And all things considered, it’s not hard to find him. Were he out and about minding the Crystarium, its inhabitants would easily have pointed him out (and possibly made a fuss, they worry for him so). Therefore, he’s not out and about, which means he’s taking time to himself, too. Fortunately he’s waved into the tower without incident, and given the permissions granted to close friends and family now that the worst of the danger has passed, to enter the most private rooms of the tower, as well. It’s there that he sees the Exarch—sees G’raha— lying on his back, a sort of stunned and tired shock on his features that is all too familiar to Thancred, having gone through something nearly as overwhelming only a few years ago.

“There are more comfortable places for contemplation, you know,” he calls out, tone gentle. Gods know he was a right arse to this man those first two years he was here, not that he thinks G’raha has mentioned it to the others. Between the unexpected Call and finding out what had happened to Minfilia, Thancred had been… particularly unkind to the man who had turned out to be a member of his own family. That he’s fortunate enough to have the opportunity to make up for it at all is a gift he has no intention of wasting— for who knows how long they’ll still have this chance? Who knows how long the Exarch will continue to exist? There are no certainties in this world, and in this least of all. “Would you like some company whilst you overthink yourself, or would you prefer to be alone?”

So lost in his own thoughts is he that he doesn’t even notice someone entering the room--- until Thancred speaks, that is, and he jolts upright fast enough that he bounces his head off one of his interminable stacks of books, and he yelps and winces, looking rather put upon as the stack tumbles. Even so, it at least didn’t fall on him, so he sighs and shifts to look up at--- at his brother, in all but blood, and manages a shy sort of awkward smile. He radiates an embarrassed sort of sheepishness, something anxious and uncertain that comes upon him sometimes--- it’s new, he thinks, but he’s so used to its occasional presence that it feels like he’s always been like this--- and he curls into a better sitting position, shifting so he isn’t sitting on the tail that’s tucked beneath his robes. He supposes if he means to go about unhooded more often, he’ll need to adjust them to let the poor thing breathe, but...maybe. One step at a time.

“...I wouldn’t mind company,” he admits, twisting his hands together for lack of anything else to do with them. “If you’re...free to stay a while?” He doesn’t want to impose, if there’s other things he needs do; he knows he’s quite busy with Ryne all the time, and in and out on whatever adventure they’re up to in Amh Araeng and the Empty, so if he’s only here a little while, he’s certain there are better things to do than just sit with him...and anyway, he recalls how angry Thancred had been at the first, when he had been first Called accidentally. Oh, how they had all been angry, of course --- he still smarts from Y’shtola’s tongue lashing and Alisaie’s impassioned shouting --- but...Thancred, poor Thancred, with the news of Minfilia and two years alone...oh, he can’t hold it against him. How could he? He had never met the original Minfilia, but he had heard about her from letters, and now he remembers those letters. He looks away at the thoughts that catch up to him, and he bites his lip awkwardly. A sad day it is that he doesn’t know what to say to the man who’s all but his blood brother, who’s family and has been since he was a scruffy boy of thirteen summers charging headfirst into the city of learning, eyes wide and curiosity insatiable. 

With the Light banished from the skies and the Lightwardens finally, soundly defeated, it was far easier to tell the passage of time. One needed only to look up at the sky --- sunrise and sunset, the pale light of morning and the dim glow of dusk, the night sky and even the gentle blues of daytime, they were all now returned to the First. And it was a miracle, truly. One the Crystal Exarch had always believed would come to pass --- he had faith in the Warriors of Light, in his guiding stars, trusted them to prevent the terrible history he had set forth from. But even so, it was still hard to believe it was over, it had been over for days now. Maybe because he was still here, when he had never intended to be? It was a strange, strange thing, to be alive when you had never planned on living to this point, to see the end of this chapter. Only a bit part in their story, here and gone. But...then he had remembered, and now he’s--- almost glad, grateful, that he’s here now.

They had always remembered him, always known him as far more than a bit part of their tale, known him as a dear lost friend. He had quite forgotten that fact, forgotten so much over his long vigil, the years and his bond to the tower eating at his memories. He doesn’t think it was an active thing the tower did, doesn’t think it will happen again --- simply the amount of power he’s bonded to is a lot to deal with, and...for so long, it was--- well. An inevitable side effect. But he remembered now, their presence restoring what was lost (some of what was lost, he’s not sure if there are still things he’s missing, small things), and...G’raha Tia was home again. G’raha Tia...the name they’d spoken almost as soon as they’d arrived, unfamiliar then and even now it still rang oddly. But it was his name. Proof he was more than just this background figure, more than the Exarch. That he had lived a life before his long sleep. That he...he was someone. G’raha Tia, Archon, Scholar of Baldesion, founding member of NOAH...he had friends. And he had family.

That— is not a question he expected to be asked. He blinks a little, startled both by the use of his name and the question itself, unable to quite process it for a moment; it’s so…out of the blue. And random. And…silly. Or, well, judging from the look on her face it’s serious to her, but at the same time it’s—

The Exarch — even recalling his true name, more than just…knowing it’s a name he used to go by, really knowing that he is G’raha Tia, it’s hard to stop from referring to himself by that name in his head; he’s gone by it for decades longer than he ever went by G’raha, after all — startles a moment; he’d been so lost in thought poring over this book he hadn’t even heard Khaida come in, but he blinks at her owlishly, vivid red eyes finding hers as he lets her words sink in.

He cannot cook very well, not at all --- something Lyna gives him hell over because she gives him hell over his lack of self-care in general --- but he can make sandwiches! He likes sandwiches. They’re very low effort and can be made out of a lot of things. His favorite type of sandwich is dodo prepared basically any style (though juicy deep-fried dodo is the best) or the fattiest and most tender red meat he can possibly get his hands on, with lettuce and tomato and mushrooms and pepper and garlic and, if he’s feeling especially fancy, a fried egg.

He used to like napping a lot, but since he became the Exarch, he’s been too busy to sleep. Much to his detriment and the Crystarium’s communal fussing. Please make Chessamile stop giving him that gross tonic :C

He loves to read and loves faerie tales, something he shares with his adoptive father, and in times long past (for him, anyway), they would curl up together and read a lot. He loves heroes, and it had always been his dream to adventure, or travel with one.

He sings very very well, and has a beautiful singing voice. His voice claim is Reeve Carney. (x x x x x)

He has quite forgotten how to purr, and Lyna was never much of a physically affectionate child, so he is deeply and desperately touch starved. 

His playful streak had faded a great deal over the years, but after the Warrior’s arrival, they managed to get it back. He is a massive little shit and he relishes it with the glee only a very old man who loves making mischief can. He might have ended up a little too much like his adoptive father in some respects.

He is physically still only 24 years old, but sometimes --- especially when he’s out of the Tower for a while --- his body decides it belongs to someone decades older and doesn’t cooperate with him. This sucks, and while he would like to lie face down and emit a low whine until it stops doing that, he doesn’t. He has a reputation to uphold.

And with that chapter of the story written down, on he goes to the next chapter of his life, the Crystal Exarch.

Since we might as well get the most spoilerific things out of the way, first, we’ll talk about G’raha Tia.