{Of Dragons Deep}

The skies above the Forelands in the Sea of Clouds were clear, for a mercy.

Ar'telan did not much like it in the Sea of Clouds, a strange thing to say when the place was all but full to bursting with dragons. Especially now most of them didn't want him dead. Most of them. But he had been most solemnly promised that he would not have those of Nidhogg's brood who quite rightly blamed him after his head today, and there was no uncomfortable, all-consuming static on the air, so it would do for as long as he had to be there.

Vidofnir herself had flown him up from Mourn, perfectly polite about the carbuncle who had attempted to stay on her back via gumming her with all the might it possessed in its tiny form, which was not much at all. Orn Mahr had attempted to keep up, for a little while, and had settled instead for grabbing Stoh Oosh by the attenas and making the falak grimace in the way that only a dragon with a face made of teeth possibly could.

He was deposited at Bahrr Lehs, where he greeted the moogles and a very perturbed Tarreson with as much politeness as his slightly shakey self could muster. There were more dragons in the sky than he had ever seen, even back home on Meracydia. More than even the numbers the Horde had summoned for Nidhogg's final attack on Ishgard, and those numbers had been bolstered by no small portion of scalekin. If it were not for how much looking up it would have required, he would have marvelled at it.

"Wow! They brought everyone!" Orn Mahr said, spiralling down to Ar'telan and sitting on top of the fountain, a displaced moogle squeaking in displeasure as he did so. Tarreson looked from Orn Mahr, to the Moogle, and then to Ar'telan, and sighed.

"They won't tell me what they're planning," he admitted. "But I know that even the moogles are excited about it."

"The moogles will get excited about anything," Ar'telan dismissed, sitting himself down against the wall. He still had somewhat fond memories of helping the dragons build the plaza - watching them shift earth and carve an entire side out of the mountain. He felt safe around strong claws and powerful jaws, rock shifting like nothing beneath them.

He did not necessarily feel safe around the moogles. But they had helped, in their own way.

He stayed there, back pressed against the comfort of a solid wall, and counted those he knew.

Vedrfolnir, the largest wyvern Ar'telan had ever met, was flying back and forth with the flurry of one with much to organise. Stoh Oosh and Moh Rhei had joined Vidofnir at Zenith, but he knew they were there. Faunehm, looking wearied from a long journey over the sea, soared in as the sun began to dip, and Vedrfolnir ceased his fluttering as soon as she did. Twintania, her champion's belt worn proudly about her neck where once there had been a shackle, settled in the plaza and distracted Orn Mahr from his excitable pattering. Ehll Tou slammed her way into the courtyard and immediately started chattering at a malm a minute with Gullinbursti, who bore it with more grace than Ar'telan would have expected. Fylgja soared in over the hilltops, and Estinien jumped from her back before she had even touched the ground, Orn Khai fluttering behind him.

"A real family reunion," he said, nodding once to Tarreson in perfunctory acknowledgement. "Ysayle's on her way."

"With Hraesvelgr?" Ar'telan asked, and Estinien gave him his own curt nod. Ar'telan knew by now there was no malice in it. "Then we should set off, so they don't leave us behind."

"I don't suppose anyone is going to enlighten me as to what all this commotion is about?" Tarreson asked. Estinien shrugged.

"Dragon business," he replied, and that was apparently that.

---

It was a strange thing indeed, to walk down the broken paths of the Landlord Colony and see dragon gathered in delighted song. A strange thing, but a healing one.

First to arrive was Hraesvelgr, Ysayle's hands clutched tight to his mane lest she fall from his back. He landed on the raised earth near Tharl Oom Khash, lifted his head, and bellowed.

On the heels of the roar came Vrtra, Azdaja behind him a tiny dot of shadow against the evening sky. He stayed hovering in the air above, his one-eyed gaze fixed solemnly ahead of them, but Azdaja wheeled down to where Estinien and Ar'telan were stood.

"'Tis good to see thee, mortals," she said, and Ar'telan smiled.

"I'm honoured to be here," he replied.

"I've never seen so many important dragons in one place!" Orn Mahr exclaimed. "My sire told me stories about Vedrfolnir! How big and imposing and wise he was!"

"He's not that wise," Orn Khai replied, which made Estinien roll his eyes.

"But he's H U G E!" Orn Mahr said. "When I change shape I'm going to grow even bigger and I'm going to lift up a whole building!"

"Thy companions are as eager as ever," Azdaja said, an amused rumble to her voice. "We shall see thee at the gates. Fair travels to thee, brave warriors."

As the sun began to touch the horizon, the sound of another roar broke through the air, and Tiamat broke through the cloud bank and settled upon the stone with a huff and a shuffle. Surrounding her were almost a score of dragons, all green and blue-hued, and some of them Ar'telan recognised from the Ragnarok's stasis pods. But only some.

And last, not least but for her sister's grace, came Ratatoskr.

The hum of dragons on the wind was so loud that, for a moment, it felt to Ar'telan like he could feel the Song. Though it was not his first time seeing her, Estinien's eyes were still fixed upon her like she was a holy relic, shining in the sunset light. Her companions, one as diminutive as she, were quickly lost in the hubbub of dragons surrounding their little older sister.

"We should get moving," Ar'telan said, and Estinien shook his head as if to clear the haze.

"Aye. Odds on they'll forget us in the furour," he agreed.

"I want to see big sister!" Orn Mahr exclaimed, wheeling up with an excited patter of wings. "I want to tell her about what we've seen!"

"He talks a lot," said Orn Khai. Ar'telan grimaced.

"He is fond of it, yes," he allowed.

---

The Aery had not sat empty since their fateful assault, all those years ago, but it had lain in deep disrepair. Nidhogg's song had not faded with ease from the minds of his brood, and there had been many years of agony for those that yet remained. For Ar'telan, it almost felt wrong to have his feet once more upon the rock where he had committed such deep and abiding sin.

His hands had not held the blade. But they had not stopped it.

The two of them walked up to Ysayle, now stood by Hraesvelgr's left leg. She nodded to Estinien, and he nodded back. Ar'telan, at least, got a smile from her.

"Ice ladyyyyyy!" Orn Mahr did the mid-air equivalent of skidding to a stop in front of her. "I'm so glad you're here they said I could talk to you about the weird lady nobody wants to talk about!"

"I do not understand a word you are saying, little one," Ysayle responded to the babble of Meracydian she received. Orn Mahr pouted.

"BORING!" he declared, got halfway through a loop to fly away, then changed his mind. "But I want to see if you're actually cold. Become my noble steed!"

"Orn Mahr, please," Ar'telan tried as the dragonet settled himself decisively on Ysayle's shoulder. "…Forgive him. He is yet to learn manners," he added.

"I know manners. I just don't use them," Orn Mahr said.

"It is fine," Ysayle assured him, an amused undertone to her voice. "Better that someone here is enjoying themselves." Hraesvelgr dipped his head low, then, and Ratatoskr flew over.

"Many years it has been since I last did walk upon the Aery's stones," she said, her voice far stronger than her tiny frame would suggest. "It has been… difficult a journey, to learn. To know. But I am thankful to have been given chance to learn it."

"Blessed are we to see thee once more, sister," Hraesvelgr said, to which Ratatoskr did a little loop in the air.

"'Tis most joyous a day!" she said. "Full many times hast thou sung to me since my return, and each time I have listened. But thou hast grown not an ilm, my brother, holed up in thy lofty nest with naught but sorrow for company! 'Tis not well, no."

"A scathing indictment," Estinien remarked. He seemed just as uneasy as Ar'telan was, now they were here, though his reasons were likely different. He had made a different kind of peace with what had become of the past. Made it with Nidhogg, perhaps, if the way the dragons reacted around him was any indication.

"My mother tells me thou art known among my kin as Shall Ahm," Ratatoskr added, turning her bright, keen eyes to Ar'telan. "Though I wish I needed it not, my brother's roost is most damaged. Thou shalt guide me through it." Ar'telan made a surprised noise at that.

"As you wish," he allowed, and Ratatoskr took up a dainty seat upon his shoulder. Orn Mahr's exclamation of dislike was unheard.

---

The place where Nidhogg's earthly form had first died was silent.

The night had long since set in by the time the expedition reached the apex. The loud, chattering meeting had turned more solemn as they had progressed, and now there was not a rumble between the dragons in any way that Ar'telan could hope to hear. And so the only silence was a clatter of talon upon stone, and the flutter of air as wings displaced it in their multitude, until they stopped.

Ratatoskr hopped from Ar'telan's shoulder, and landed in the centre of the place which had once been Nidhogg's resting place. Above her, Azdaja circled down until they were next to each other, two sisters plucked from time contemplating the consequence.

"We shall rebuild it," Ratatoskr said. "Though I have once more been graced with life, my roost lies empty, my children afraid to return lest history replay. It is mourning for a thing forever lost." The trust she had once had she would never hold again. That boundless hope, the care that had borne her aloft - King Thordan had killed it when he had killed her. "Though I have much to see upon the earth, some day I will return. Thus do I bid thee, my children, my brother's children: build upon this barren rock. Right the fallen stone and mend the weathered cracks. Make of what became a war machine a home again, and live thusly. Live in hope."

One by one, the dragons began to raise their voices. From the deepest roar of Tiamat, bellowed out unto the sky, to the shrill cry of Azdaja, youngest and yet older than so many others, they joined a chorus that could, if you knew how to listen, have been song.

"Was a time once that noise would make a man's blood turn to ice," Estinien remarked, folding his arms.

"If we never again see such times in my lifetime, I will have lived it well," Ysayle said, her voice quiet.

Thou art beloved, Shall Ahm.

Midgardsormr's voice, so long silent in his mind, was enough to make Ar'telan start in surprise.

Oft has thy guilt haunted thy steps. Know this: there are many times that one is faced with choices. And there remaineth nary a path that one would wish to follow. When first we met, thy steps would have faltered. Yet thou didst not, at the apex. Thou art beloved, Shall Ahm, least and last of my children. Walk.

Slowly, Ar'telan walked through the throng of dragons, coming to a stop by Ratatoskr and her sister. He knelt upon the stone, and pressed his hand to it. Felt the hum, the dying gasp of the aether that had whipped the wind into a frenzied shield. The last breath of Nidhogg's rage, the last piece of a love so strong it had destroyed him.

We shall mend it. Together.

"On your return, I shall gift you a beautiful flower."

Slowly, piece by agonising piece, life had whispered its way back into the memorial to the dead. Air had bloomed into the vacuum. The wind had moved it. Behind him, Ar'telan had left a trail of bitter belief. In front of him, the path was marked with glimmering light.

His heart felt heavy, but not for the atmosphere in Ultima Thule. It was a maelstrom of terror, the yawning void in every direction, but every loss had built new barriers. Guiding him forward, keeping him safe. The land trembled with it.

The memory of his failure was fresh to him now, but Meteion had been given an age to sit with it, sinking in to the despair of her sisters. He knew well enough how being steeped in something could change you, he had seen it in the dragons again and again. He had heard people saying, over and over, that they were here to stop her.

What did it mean? What did it always mean? Stop her. Kill her. End it. The same thing everyone always wanted.

But in his heart, he knew he couldn't fail her again.

Step on heavy step guided him up the path. Memories and whispers, of belief and hope and fear and death. A world she would swallow whole, if she could, to keep them safe from sadness. Because a lost and desperate man had asked the wrong question, and she had let it buoy her through the empty void, a hundred beautiful sisters taking wing on currents of pure feeling, a shout of hope before it had run into the emptiness.

Hear.

Hers wasn't the first voice he had listened to as it broke, unable to bear the weight. Hers wasn't the first hope snuffed out because he hadn't been enough. But it had hurt so keenly.

No Echo to let him try, again and again until the viciousness of fate broke on the rock of his stubbornness. Not for her.

Feel.

She had trusted him to protect her, and he had tried. And she knew he had tried, and had offered a moment of peace before she had walked past him. A wellspring of emotion they would not, could not touch, so content in the superiority of their aether that they had not even thought to try.

Think.

They had failed because they hadn't listened, perhaps, but he was not so arrogant as to think himself infalliable. Even if they had respected his wishes, it might not have been enough. To be able to go home to a world that let him go back at all, his failure had been inevitable. Was time a circle? Was he closing the loop? Had he managed to change anything?

Minfilia, whispered away to Y'shtola's Flow, because he'd told Venat it was the only way the First survived.

("It's not your fault," Minfilia had said, "but I forgive you all the same.")

Ysayle, pulling so much magic through herself that it had burned her Echo out, lying still and cold in Zenith as Hraesvelgr watched over her, the way he had once watched Shiva. Because it was the only way to reach Thordan.

("I would do it again," she had said, "and I did not do it for you.")

The soul of a dragon, ripped from his body and used as fuel for something desperate, because it was the only way to make people move.

("Thou art a coward," Midgardsormr had said, "but thou art stalwart in the flood.")

A desperate plea to Elidibus, reaching out across the battlefield as if he could ever have heard over the voice of Zodiark ringing in his ears. Begging for it to be different, but it could never be, because it was the only way he could reach Elpis.

("At duty's end, we will meet again," Elidibus had said, and reached out to a ghost that was not there.)

And he had said to them, those Ancients so sure in their purpose, that they were not to follow him. For all they claimed to shepherd the star, not a one of them knew how to comfort a child. And they hadn't listened, because they never could have, because they had to die so he could live.

("I'm sorry," Venat had said, "I should have tried to stop them.")

And the road of light ended, and Meteion waited for him, like she had for all the others.

"Your journey ends here," she said, her voice level, matter-of-fact. "There is no way to reach our nest. You did all of this for nothing."

He took the stone of Azem's seat from his pocket and looked at it, sitting quiescent in his palm. Y'shtola had told him that he could not restore them to life, lest all their changes, all their sacrifice, be for nothing. He had known it the entire time, of course - if there was no Thancred in the aether, there was no air. If there was no loss, there was no change.

Where lies happiness?

He took a step towards her, and she did not move. She was still small compared to him, even though at her true size she would have been far taller - his present-day form not benefitting from Emet-Selch's 'generous' donation of aether. She believed she should be smaller, and so she was smaller. So worked dynamis.

"It's nice to see you again," he said, sitting down on the rock. She watched him, her despair-blackened eyes devoid of all emotion. No fear, no sadness. Just apathy. "Was it you who spoke to me in Elpis, or one of your sisters?"

A frown. The words meant something. Nothing was ever truly empty.

"We remember you," she said. "We are one and the same. Only when we do not listen are we different."

"I'll take that as a yes," Ar'telan decided. "Would you like to sit with me, for a while?"

"This does not help you," she replied. Ar'telan shrugged.

"Not everything has to," he replied. "I've some stories I could tell you, if you like. Ones we didn't have time for, back then."

Meteion sat down. She was still the pitch-black of crushing despair, but there was something resembling an emotion on her face, even if it was confusion.

"Your friends labour even now to keep this place from killing you," she said. "The longer you wait, the more likely that they lose their fight." She tilted her head to the side. "Do you want that?"

"No," Ar'telan said. "But they're strong enough to hold on a little longer." He offered her a gentle smile. "Would you like to learn about the dragons?"

"We have met them," she said. "Crushed beneath the weight of their dead star. Their young suffocating and deaf in the egg. No future on a broken planet. An elegy of death." Ar'telan shook his head.

"Not the ones on the dragonstar," he said. "The ones who escaped." She frowned.

"Escaped?" she repeated. "You cannot escape death."

"Sometimes you can," Ar'telan disagreed. "Sometimes it's worth flying alone through the expanse to find hope. To find a future." He closed his eyes. "Sometimes it isn't easy. Sometimes hope has teeth. But one dragon found a future on Etheirys." He smiled at her. "And now his children are found in all corners of the world, as welcome as we are."

"We will take your world as we took all the others," Meteion said. "Will he flee again? Or is he tired of running from the inevitable?"

"Just because something is inevitable doesn't make it wrong," Ar'telan said. "Every mortal knows, once they reach an age where they can understand it, that they will one day die. Some fight it. Some don't. But that does not mean we should seek it." He thought of trying to make the same point to Emet-Selch, on the First. Just because a life will end does not mean it is worthless, does not mean it had to end early to save the pain. A foreign thought in an enthralled mind. "Tell me, Meteion. If you and your sisters succeed - if you usher every soul in the universe into your nest. What happens to you then?" She blinked. "You offer them this peace you call happiness, but what of you? Do you get the same rest?"

"We were to find the answer," she said. "Our work is not yet done." Ar'telan sighed.

"Hermes wanted an answer, yes," he agreed. "But I don't think that meant he didn't want you to have it. Happiness. You deserve it as much as anyone else." The crystal was warm in his palm, and he reached with his other hand into his bag and drew out his gift.

He had spent night upon it, after the flower Krile had preserved for him had withered in his hands under the force of the final days. Cast in glass, with gold in the petals, he had poured every colour he could find into it. Not bright and white, the same dull drone that had followed everyone but Hermes around Elpis, but a rainbow of colour. Every emotion he could name.

This is for you, he thought, unable to speak with his hands thus occupied, and handed it to her.

The pallor faded from the tips of her fingers, just a little, as she took it from him. She held it in her hands, a silent wonder in her eyes, and when she closed them he thought he saw the beginnings of tears.

"You cannot hold enough hope for a universe," Meteion said. "Your quest is futile. Your allies lost to you." She looked up to him. "Why do you do this?"

"Because you deserve happiness," he said. "Because every journey deserves a conclusion. Because those who promised things to you hurt you so deeply they cannot hope to fulfil them. So I will take their place."

He closed his fingers around the crystal, and wished.

Thou findest thyself at the road's end, yet still thou dost call out to what cannot be.

It can. Here, it can.

The light spilled out around him, so bright the orange tint reached through his closed eyes. Warm and comforting, the gift of the sun in the heart of a dead star, the last offering of a dying Goddess.

This time, it will be different.

"…Ar'telan?" Venat's voice, no longer caught in the reverberating power of an eikon, sounded confused. Perhaps she had the right to be - if her soul itself had been used in Hydaelyn's creation, just as Elidibus had been unwound, perhaps it could be said there was nothing left to find. But if her life was written upon Hydaelyn's aether, and Her aether lived within the crystal, then where could he find her but here?

"Where do we find ourselves?" the other voice was unfamiliar to Ar'telan's ears, unheard for a thousand years. But if all of Ishgard prayed for deliverance, did Ratatoskr not deserve it, too?

"What… is this?" Meteion said, an edge of fear in her voice. Ar'telan opened his eyes.

"Hope," he replied. From behind him, Venat placed a hand upon his shoulder.

This time, we give her what she needs.

The aether bloomed upon the rock, no extravagant gesture or show of power. Blades of grass that pushed through dead soil, and a hundred little flowers, ones so insignificant in their time that they had been given no name but the place where they resided. Bright and strong, in this realm of dynamis, this place made up of the very thing which gave them life.

White and shining, with the hope they had conjured.

Meteion fell to her knees, her glass flower held in her hands, eyes wide and staring. A russet shape darted past Ar'telan, and the dragon - no larger than a dragonet, for all his wishing, but full of life - landed at her feet. Even though all Ar'telan had ever seen was the carvings on the floor of an empty nest, he knew her for who she was, her horns framing her inquisitive face.

"No home is empty if your heart dwells within it," said Ratatoskr, and the star above them heaved and cracked.

"You cannot fight the end," Meteion whispered, but she did not sound like she believed it. The blue was coming back to her feathers, just a little. "Why… How…"

"Because there is always hope," Ar'telan said. "No matter how dark the night, the morning sun always rises. Even when all seems lost, life will find its way into the ruins." He held out his hand to her, and, shaking, she took it. Gently, he pulled her into a hug.

Fame, Riennaut mused, was a fickle thing.

The bustle in the Quicksand was the same as ever. An overlay of tension to it, perhaps, but it would have been easy for a visitor to think that all was well. Momodi had looked nervous as he ordered his drink. There were men in blue coats in the corner. But other than that? Not a whisper.

"You really think this is going to turn anything up?" Foulques asked. Riennaut took a sip of his drink. Most adventuring hubs served slop that could barely be called a drink, alcoholic or otherwise. The Quicksand was no different, but if Momodi knew you, there was at least the good mulled wine from the back.

"Perhaps," he said. Foulques glowered at that. If they had done things his way, however, the two men in blue coats would already be dead on the floor, and they would have been kicked out for causing a fuss, and they would definitely have learned nothing. "If you are capable of being patient."

"This isn't a patient kind of situation," Foulques muttered, a dark look on his face. The mug of what could, if one was feeling generous, be described as ale lay untouched in front of him. There was tension in every muscle Riennaut could see on his body. He did not like Ul'dah. He didn't like most cities. Riennaut did not precisely blame him.

"It will be your kind of situation when we are done being patient," Riennaut said, to which Foulques only huffed.

---

A man could learn a great deal by listening.

Duskwight were excellent listeners, in fact, a lingering adaptation to Gelmorra's dark halls. There were all sorts of interesting conversations to pick up on when nobody thought you could hear them.

An adventuring group discussed the bounty on the Warrior of Light's head. Quietly agreed among themselves that even if they thought themselves capable of collecting it - which they didn't - it wasn't worth it.

A group of crystal miners discussing renewed threats to their caravans, with a terror in their voice that came from knowing that there was nobody to turn to if a primal came knocking.

Two men in blue uniforms, wondering if the change that had been promised - that hadn't been delivered - was worth the setup.

Hearts in the right places, but necks pulled firmly back from the chopping block. The men in blue had seen what had happened to Wilred, and did not wish to join him. Thus, the price for their loyalty was fear of death, and nothing else. Given an out, they would talk someone's ear off. If they knew something, it might be worth doing.

"Verdict?" Foulques asked, seeing the frown on his face. He was on his third ale, and if Riennaut had thought there was any alcohol content in it he would have worried for his performance.

"Very few of them truly believe in the Braves' vision," Riennaut said, keeping his voice very quiet. "They should be simple to… convince. We just need to find out who is worth convincing."

"Aye. I'll paint 'laboured metaphor' on my lance for you," Foulques replied, and Riennaut rolled his eyes. Better not to comment on the nature of virtues.

---

"Narrowed it down to three folks who are likely to crack and likely to know," said Riennaut's contact, a hyur Riennaut trusted about as far as he could throw him. People he trusted said that he could be trusted, though, and that was about as far down the chain of hearsay that Riennaut was willing to go. "You'll find 'em hanging about near the dancers at this hour. Perfectly normal activity to be walking past, eh?"

"Quite," Riennaut agreed. Coin changed palms. "A shame we never had this conversation."

"Gods be fucking good," Foulques muttered, and Riennaut pretended not to hear him. A quick flick of the fingers had Foulques following him, the noise of his bone armour the furthest thing from subtle a man could be.

"Two duskwights in Ul'dah ain't exactly easy to miss," he said, and Riennaut sighed.

"No. Which is why we must be careful," he agreed. The soul stone set into his staff attempted to protest two duskwight, Riennaut ignored it just as he had Foulques. "Did the man in Coerthas not teach you 'careful' yet?"

"Alberic's got his lance shoved too far up his own ass to do careful," Foulques replied. There was no malice in it, but it was uncharitable. Perhaps not inaccurate, however. "If these fuckers have learned how to fly recently, I can deal with that."

"Useful," Riennaut said, his tone sardonic. "We will make do."

---

They were nervous.

Furtive glances over shoulders, a general shuffle of the shoulders. The actions of people who did not think their actions would be liked. They only straightened around the Brass Blades, which Riennaut thought was rich, given the Blades liked the current situation even less than most of the Braves did.

They tailed a man who lived on the outskirts of the city - poor, but not so poor as to be banished to Stonesthrow or reduced to begging in Pearl Lane. Not Ala Mhigan, either, but not an Ul'dahn native from the way he kept tapping the aethernet shards to recall where he was. It was the kind of neighbourhood where you ignored loud noises, because the Blades wouldn't come even if you reported them. This, Riennaut reasoned, was ideal.

They gave him fifteen minutes to get settled, before a nod from Riennaut sent Foulques in. Ideally, Foulques would have broken the lock with his lance, but the man was not a subtle instrument, so Riennaut settled for the door being kicked in with the force of a man who had spent entirely too long sitting on his arse.

"Who the hell are you?" the man sputtered, then slumped to the floor as the Sleep spell took.

"It really that easy?" Foulques said, disappointed.

"When dealing with the rank and file? Usually," Riennaut replied. "Let's go somewhere more amenable to conversation."

---

Sometimes, all you needed to offer someone was an out.

Foulques had been ready to rough him up, but he had cracked like an egg at the first indication that his kidnappers might be able to shield him from the wrath of the Braves' leadership. They wanted it to be done with. Weeks to sit with the consequences of your actions would do that to a man, Riennaut supposed.

They were holding Raubahn in Halatali. The intention, as far as their new friend understood it, was to use him as bait to lure the Warrior of Light out of hiding. They had planted clues to lead the friends they knew about to the location, but not the conclusion. Riennaut assumed that meant Yugiri, not that any of the Braves knew her name, only what she was.

"Can we spring it?" Foulques asked. Riennaut raised an eyebrow.

"I was expecting you to call it 'bloody stupid'," he said. Foulques scoffed.

"Sure. It is. Stating the obvious," he agreed. "But you're not going to let him stumble into it. So we're going to spring it. Yeah? That's how it works." Riennaut frowned.

"It benefits us, certainly," he allowed. "The hold Ilberd has on the land's law lasts as long as Lolorito is willing to let it."

"Until the next primal comes around," Foulques translated.

"A man who buys loyalty with fear and coin is someone of concern," Riennaut said. "He will have a mixture of fanatical and desperate loyalists."

"Do I care what the difference is before I put the sharp end in them?" Foulques asked. Riennaut shrugged.

"I suppose not," he said. "Halatali is not precisely hospitable at any time of the year, however. Any trap that Ilberd intends to spring will use this to his advantage."

"Alright. So we get in the loop with the raen chick and tell her we're here to help," Foulques dismissed, which made Riennaut grimace. Manners were too much to expect, but a little respect was not.

"Certainly it would be better than…" he began, frowning. Whatever it was Ar'telan was doing, he wasn't sure of it. But certainly he had no desire to drag the man back into an Eorzea that was yte to forgive him. Raubahn could handle that part. "Inconveniencing our friend," he settled for.

"Whiling away the hours in sunny Ishgard with the knight who's pretending they're not-"

"Whatever he is doing, it is not our business," Riennaut cut in.

"Whoever."

"I meant what I said." He pinched the bridge of his nose. Earth give him strength. "Either way. We shall solicit Yugiri's aid and deal with the problem at the root." Foulques shrugged.

"Favours in high places. Works for me," he said, as if he hadn't been the one to suggest it. "They even colour co-ordinate so I know who to stab."

"They are polite like that," Riennaut agreed, a faint smile on his face at the thought. "I shall handle the finer details. You can busy yourself with complaining and sleeping."

"My favourite things," Foulques said. Despite the tone, there was a grin on his face.

Telan sat in silence.

There had been a great deal of movement, in the week he had been in Thavnair. He had been shuffled between places, passed around like a mislabelled package, words he didn't understand exchanged too rapidly to even try. He didn't know what the place he had been left in was called, or who the people he was with were, but he had seen the strange apparati that they had in every corner, and assumed these were the alchemists he had been sent to see. He hoped.

They had understood the broad scope of his problems. The people working here had rooms which were very bare-bones, clearly only used under duress when they absolutely had to rest to be able to work a little more, but this room had been converted for him on purpose. Somewhere isolated from the hustle and bustle of the area, because the huge numbers of people moving about were making his fear rise with every set of hurried footfalls. Somewhere with a comfortable set of cushions and a light blanket to sleep on. A little lamp which turned on and off when he clapped his hands together, no need to mess with lighting the oil or speaking a command word, neither of which he was much up to doing. The air smelled of incense and the salt of the sea. It was nice. It was entirely foreign to him.

But they had let him sleep through the day, and brought him food when the evening came. They had so far left him alone aside from that, though he had the vague sense that they were waiting for something, from how they acted. But he wasn't sure what. So he sat, and he waited.

The room he was in had not always been a bedroom, though - they did not precisely receive guests here, to his understanding, though his condition was a very unusual one. There were still shelves lining the walls full of all sorts of paraphernalia, a dizzing array of colours and scents. He couldn't reach half of them, because they were sized for arkasodara, and though he assumed there had once been a ladder for the hyur and au ra among them, it had been removed upon his arrival, to better pretend it was a bedroom and not storage.

He had gone through the things he could see, catalogueing what he recognised and what he didn't. Beautiful Thavnairian silks, of course, one of Meracydia's primary imports from the island. A grand collection of herbs, some Meracydian, most not. A variety of prepared concoctions, none labelled in a script he could read. Some not labelled at all, for some reason. Familiar but not. He had learned a little of everything, back home. It was expected, as apprentice lorekeeper, to have enough knowledge to get started on pretty much any problem you could encounter. He could treat a wound well enough to let the chirurgeon arrive and apply deeper knowledge, he could cook enough to feed the night watch, he could mend the wear and tear in the hunters' gear while the weavers made them new ones. A passing knowledge, but no master like these alchemists. His only true talent was the reading and writing, as one who made copies of all the important stories they had, which were useless to him in a land with a foreign alphabet. Just like everything else they had taught him, left by the wayside in the wake of the Calamity which had buried his future along with him.

A knock at the door made him glance up, though he could not call for them to enter, nor would they know what he said if they did. A moment later, the door was eased open, and an arkasodara woman in the same bright orange sari as every alchemist shuffled her way through the barely-large-enough frame. She had a smile on her face, one big enough to be easy to pick out even around the tusks, and she seemed friendly. Telan wondered if they were going to start poking and prodding him yet.

Hello, she signed, and his eyes widened. Meracydian sign? On Thavnair?

Is there something you wish of me? he answered. She paused, and pulled out a book from the bag at her side. Not a native speaker, then, which made sense, even if his heart sank just a little. To be able to talk at all was good, but…

Sorry. Still learning, she told him. Satrap gave me this. Said I could teach you our words. Every sign was slow, deliberate, and some were slightly out of order, but the intent itself was clear enough. I speak our sign. So will translate for you.

Thank you, Telan replied, the surprise still clear on his face. They were here to heal him, he hadn't expected… hadn't expected them to care. Maybe things would be different when nothing they had to offer made a difference, and they had wasted so many frustrating, pointless weeks on a hopeless cause, just like his tribe had done.

Tell me your name? she asked. I am [Nidhana]. N-i-d-h-a-n-a. The sign for her name wasn't one he could piece together - perhaps one he would learn the meaning of if he could pick up their words. But he could mirror it well enough.

I… he began, then hesitated. Which parts of his name could he still lay claim to? Which parts would they want him to keep? [Telan], he settled for. T-e-l-a-n. It didn't feel right, somehow, but he wasn't a part of his tribe any more. Wouldn't be until he could go home under his own steam, not be a burden any longer.

Telan. It is lovely to meet you, Nidhana said, and her cheery demeanour suggested she meant it. We will teach each other, while we work on healing you. Isn't it exciting? It was more exciting than anything else he had done, stuck in his dark rooms to stop the bite of terror overtaking him like the latest fever.

The sensation of teleporting from the planet's surface to the moon never ceased to feel strange.

Not as strange as walking through the Rift, which Ar'telan did altogether too often for his liking these days, but still strange. The aether of the world wrapped its way around the moon, Zodiark would not have been able to weave his protections otherwise, but it was still apart from it. People did not, typically, die on the moon. Ar'telan was not sure if lopporits died at all, but there was nobody else to die there, usually.

"…It feels strange, to walk upon this sacred earth again," Elidibus said, his voice quiet. They had arrived at the aetheryte by Sinus Lacrimarum - well, Ar'telan had. Elidibus had an innate attunement to Zodiark's aether, and had arrived roughly ten feet in front of him, instead. It was good enough.

"Does it still feel like Zodiark?" Ar'telan asked, and Elidibus let out a long, low sigh.

"There is a little of it in the air," he admitted. "It is not the home it once was. The solar energy of the Tower has purged that part of my soul." His eyes were on the crater, still distant, but the outpouring of dark energy still clear to see. "But it is difficult not to feel the nostalgia." He looked to Ar'telan as the miqo'te drew level with him, an unreadable look in his pale blue eyes. They had made the decision to come here, together, but that did not make it easy.

Silently, Ar'telan took Elidibus' hand in his own, and they walked forwards.

---

There was always a particular serenity to the moon. Even the first time he had come here, hot on the trail of Zenos and Fandaniel, it had been eerily calm - even with the shades shaking themselves loose from Zodiark, whose projected visage watched over them from captivity. Elidibus had remarked on spending a great deal of time there, when he had still been an Ascian. Zodiark had been bound without his Heart, but his presence had still soothed the shades into a new kind of calm.

Now, though, there was just the airy patter of lunatender feet upon the rock, and the low hum of the brands. Zeromus had been undone, so there was no function for them now, but just in case they still stood vigil.

"A strange thing, Hydaelyn's bindings," Elidibus said. "All-encompassing, and yet utterly irrelevant. When we had finished our work, the strength of a rejoined Zodiark would have been able to shatter them with trivial ease. But before it was so, they were absolute." He closed his eyes. "A strange thing it is, to be free and yet long for freedom."

Ar'telan looked at the spiralling aether, still reaching out towards Etheirys, Zodiark's last plea to return home. He thought about Zeromus, and Azdaja begging to be set free. He thought about making an impossible choice in a situation with no right answers.

Nidhogg…

"We did not come here for me to be morose. Come. Your friends will be waiting for us," Elidibus said, and Ar'telan shook the haze from his head and nodded.

---

Bestways Burrow was a polar opposite to the rest of the moon's surface in almost every way.

It was bright. It was loud. It was packed to the gills with scurrying creatures, who had never heard the word 'sedate' and had no interest in learning it. The door, which would have been ludicrously large even for an Ancient, ground its way across the stone with a tortured noise, and the warmth and sound cascaded out to meet them.

"Welcome ba-" A lopporit began, before stopping mid-word at the sight of Elidibus, jaw slack and eyes wide. It was almost comical.

"Hi," Ar'telan said, and the lopporit did not move. "Namingway told me to come." The lopporit jumped up, shut their jaw with an exaggerated hand movement, and nodded with a rapid bobbing of ears.

"Right! Right! I'll let the ways know you've been kidnapped!" they said brightly. Ar'telan did not know their name, but he assumed it was something like 'Greetingway'. They were not a particularly complicated people when it came to names.

"No, no, that's not-" he tried, but the lopporit had bounced off before he could finish. Elidibus made a pained noise.

"They quite pointedly avoided us," he said, an off-hand comment as his keen eyes took in the architecture of the burrow. "When they were awake, of course. I believe they thought that if they did not move, we would not see them."

"Well, if you didn't bother them, it worked, didn't it?" Ar'telan replied, which did get an amused noise for his troubles. "Were you ever big enough for this to be a reasonable number of stairs?"

"Absolutely not," Elidibus said. "I shall teleport us, if you do not mind."

Ar'telan found that he did not.

---

"Fiend! Unhand our brave adventurer-friend immediately!"

They had found themselves surrounded by no fewer than ten lopporits, only one of them recognisable to Ar'telan immediately. They did not have any weapons - there were supporter bots in the background, but Ar'telan had done enough work on them in his time at the burrow to know that they were just as likely to roast an errant lopporit's behind as do what they were told.

"I think there's been a misunderstanding," Ar'telan began. "I've not been kidnapped."

"You haven't?" said Fightingway, surprised.

"I have not," Ar'telan confirmed.

"Do we know he's not lying?" asked another lopporit.

"I can assure you that I have no ill intent towards your friend," Elidibus said, to which all ten lopporits yelled in unison. It was not the same word, but all of them were insulting. At least, Ar'telan assumed that being called a leafless carrot was insulting.

"Elidibus is-" he began.

"NOT ALLOWED IN THE BURROW!" the lopporits cut in, in almost perfect unison.

"-No longer enthralled to Zodiark's will," Ar'telan finished, although he was not sure he would be listened to. "We wanted to help with the development initiative that Namingway told me about last time I was here."

"You want us to let an Ascian into a top secret operational area?" one of the lopporits said, gobsmacked.

"It is hardly top secret," Elidibus said, disbelief in his voice. "I have seen no fewer than five mammets in Sharlayan distributing flyers."

"Well, if you live in Sharlayan, of course-"

"I spent precisely ten minutes walking through the streets," Elidibus disagreed. The lopporits looked at each other. Ar'telan could sense that there was about to be a great deal of blame-flinging that would be entirely counterproductive.

"He is here at my behest," Ar'telan settled for. "I will vouch for him myself."

"He won't turn us into rabbit stew?" said one particularly nervous-looking lopporit.

"Mercy! At least boil me with my most beloved carrots!" cried another, collapsing in a dead faint upon the floor.

"There will be no boiling, with carrots or otherwise," Elidibus said, tiredness in every syllable. "As one of the last of my people, I consider it my duty to see what we once scorned. There is beauty on those distant stars, and we turn our eyes from it at our peril."

"Healingway said it wasn't a good idea to stare at the stars," said one lopporit.

"They said that about the sun, you dolt!" said another.

"Could you please show us to whoever is actually in charge?" Ar'telan asked. The lopporits all looked at each other.

"Drivingway's job," three of them decided. "This way!"

"But we're watching you," another added, pointing accusatively to Elidibus.

"I am sure that you are," he allowed, with far more grace that was perhaps deserved.

---

"Hey," Drivingway had said. "He with you?" A gesture to Elidibus. A nod from Ar'telan had been enough for them, apparently, and they had gathered them into the back of the lunar rover with the strict instruction to keep all hands, paws, and tails inside the vehicle at all times.

"You will need to find someone to liase with on Etheirys, I think," Elidibus remarked, his hands folded in his lap. The lunar landscape rushed past them at a dizzying speed, but there was barely any wind. Ar'telan was choosing not to worry about it. "The lopporits are… Quite dedicated, but most single-minded."

"I had noticed," Ar'telan said. The indignity of the 'clothes' he had been forced into on his first visit had never left his mind, and he had precisely zero intention to tell Elidibus about it. "A lot of the people in Sharlayan aren't much better, at times, but I'll see what I can do."

"You need but ask if you require my assistance," Elidibus said, grimacing slightly as the rover screeched to a halt with a most unfriendly noise.

"Sinus Ardorum," Drivingway said. "No relation to his lot."

"I should hope not," Elidibus said, getting to his feet with another grimace. Ar'telan was offered a hand before he could get up himself, and he accepted it with only a little embarrassment. Drivingway had no reaction behind their sunglasses. Ar'telan was not entirely sure how they stayed on their head, but he knew better than to ask too many questions.

"Hopefully they've not already had some sort of disaster," Ar'telan said, and Elidibus chuckled at that.

---

It was… an operation, technically.

There was, of course, the rainbow cystal in the centre, hooked up to all manner of wires and machinery. Elidibus had regarded it with a curious look, and Ar'telan had taken in the rest of it.

Four tents around the crystal - actual pitched gazebos, with very uncomfortable looking stools as their only seating. There were six big metal boxes covered in some kind of shiny canvas covering, three put-upon hyur trying to back what looked like a mechanical suit into one of them. There was not, apparently, any accomodation.

"Hello hello! I'm Commandingway!" said one of the lopporits, upon seeing Ar'telan walk around the plaza. Plaza felt like a strong word, but it was the only one he had. "I'm in charge of operations! Why is he here!" Ar'telan fought the urge to sigh.

"Because I asked him to come," he said. "He wants to help."

"That doesn't sound like an Ascian," Commandingway remarked.

"Have you ever actually spoken to an Ascian?" Ar'telan replied. Commandingway frowned.

"Nope!" they settled on. "So I'll take your word for it! Here's an exotablet for both of you." They handed Ar'telan a pair of thin metal devices that looked disquietingly like tomestones. "You'll find anything you might need to know about the initiative on these - our current progress, needed items, et cetera. Have fun!"

"I'll do my best," Ar'telan said, pacing through the plaza with a cloud of white moon dust back to Elidibus.

"The crystal generates an envelope of localised air," he remarked. "I am most curious as to precisely how. Have the lopporits insisted I be shipped back to the surface yet?"

"Not yet," Ar'telan replied. "Here. This one is for you." Elidibus took the exotablet and regarded it with a look of fascination.

"Almost akin to a concept crystal, but…" His fingers darted over the surface, a curious look on his face as he familiarised himself with its workings. "Fascinating. They would put you to work immediately, I assume?"

There was a stillness to the dead of night that Ar'telan found to be calming.

Ever since they had fled from the chaos in Ul'dah, everything had felt like pressure. He had to not be caught. He had to make it right. He had to hold them up. He had to be what was expected.

They were less worried about eyes on them in the dead of night. Not that many of the Crystal Braves would have been able to pick Ar'telan out of a crowd if he wasn't at the head of it, but it was still a worry, so he remained within the buildings of Camp Dragonhead during the day. It had been a week now since they had arrived, despondent and broken and alone, and things had not got much better, all things considered. Alphinaud had fallen into a pit of depression as the consequences of what he had done caught up with him. Tataru found herself out of place with nothing to do. And he… He was a living weapon who could not fight, because that was how they would find him.

Not that he wanted to fight the Fury's enemies all that much, but he would not say that where the inquisitors might hear.

His feet had taken him up the stone stairs to the walls, and then up a ladder to the top of one of the towers. There were a few guards out, just in case - the dragons did not pay much heed to the hours that mortals kept - but he was left alone, for the most part. He preferred that, these days. There were very few people he felt comfortable speaking to.

He sat on the rampart and stared up into the sky. Most nights, the clouds blanketed the stars, the constant patter of snow the only companion he had, but tonight the skies were clear. There was less of the quiet of snowfall because of it, but he did not mind.

One of the things he had noticed since coming to Eorzea was that the stars were wrong. He had been taught how to navigate by them by one of the elders in Meracydia, and he knew the constellations well. But when the moon began to hide from view, it tilted to the side. The stars were in the wrong parts of the sky. It had been one more out of place thing on a mountain of them. But he did recognise the Dragonstar.

The glint of that distant beacon had heralded pain for Meracydia, much like it did for Ishgard. It was the only thing, perhaps, that they had in common. When the Dragonstar shone bright, the Tempered would rise from the woods, howling their mournful, broken words to a dead sire and an absent mother. Blue scale or green, both broods had lost many to the Tempering during the war. Those few of Tiamat's brood who remained had closed their ears to much of the song, and it became harder when the Dragonstar pulsed. And now, it shone bright.

He wondered if Nidhogg's song could reach the Tempered; if it reached Tiamat, wherever she made her lonely roost. There were three of the First Brood who had not come to Meracydia's defence during the war with Allag, concerned with keeping their own safe as the Empire swept across their lands: Hraesvelgr, Nidhogg, and Ratatoskr. Vrtra had been driven from his home by their armies, and Azdaja had followed her brother to their siblings' lands, seeking shelter until the storm passed. But the storm had followed them, all the same. What had happened to the others?

His thoughts were drawn, inevitably, to Aiatar. Isgebind had been wracked by dark magic when they had stood against each other, and he had no proof that the dragon had heard any of his words before it had limped off into the sky, mere moments before the knights arrived to finish the job. He had stood under many a tongue-lashing for letting it go, when they knew full well he held the power to stop it. Somewhere, he hoped, Koschei had found Isgebind, and they had recovered. But he did not know.

Aiatar had been different. The green of his skin had reminded Ar'telan of home, but he was not of Tiamat's brood, but of Nidhogg's. He had howled in agony when Ar'telan had tried to speak to him, lashing out in pain and fury and expecting nothing but that in return. The little hole where he had made his nest had been littered with broken eggshells, and Ar'telan did not expect that the hatchlings had crawled out alive. But he had, eventually, talked. Spoken in halting words of a song of anger and hatred, spoken of the seething disdain that seeped between every scale. It pushed him over towards brutality, he said. He had flown to La Noscea to escape the spears of the dragoons, after sustaining a severe injury, and the distance had let his head clear, just a little. Nidhogg sang clear, and Nidhogg sang loud. Nidhogg sang angry. But Aiatar had not dared speak to why, lest the madness grip him anew, and had instead begged to be left be to slumber.

It had not been an easy negotiation, but that was by the by.

Here, every dragon they knew by name came with a story. Svara, in the Steel Vigil, had led the arm of the Horde that had killed Chlodebaimt de Haillenarte. Isgebind had led those that took the Stone Vigil. When he passed by the mess hall, he would hear the names of others thrown around like enemy generals. It was hard to tell what was an old wives' tale, of a great and terrible dragon which devoured young squires who did not adhere to their duties, and what was a dragon true.

The Dragonstar glimmered, and Nidhogg had roared.

And it was the only part of home he still had.

"The knights are most worried that you do not sleep, my friend."

Haurchefant. Of course.

"I sleep," Ar'telan disagreed, looking over to Haurchefant as the knight rested his arms on the higher stone of the crenulations. "But it does not come easy to me, at night."

Haurchefant's appraising look could find no lie in his words, it seemed, and so he turned his gaze to the view from the battlements instead, his breath misting in the cold night air. Ar'telan did not mention that it was a little hypocritical for him to be awake while he lectured him.

"A pleasant view, of a sort," he remarked. "Though I found it better when there were fewer ruins in the distance." Haurchefant had lost friends and colleagues during the Calamity, just as Francel had lost a brother. The dragons had taken it from them. Meracydia's laws did not consider that there could be a dragon who tried to kill you when it was not Temper-mad, this was true. But given time, they could hear themselves think again. Would they still turn fang and claw on Ishgard's people then? Would Ishgard have any reason to believe them?

Did Ishgard even think they were people?

"I'd be happier with fewer Aevises," Ar'telan agreed. Haurchefant had not come up here to lecture him. Haurchefant had never really been the lecturing type, as Ar'telan understood it. His heart was heavy, too, though Ar'telan knew but a little of the reason why.

"If there is aught I can do to ease your heart, in the wait…" he began, and Ar'telan sighed. Smuggling wanted criminals into a city that did not want them was not something that happened overnight. Ar'telan would, privately, be surprised if it happened at all, but Haurchefant had insisted it would work. It wasn't like Alphinaud could feel any worse for the time it took. And Ar'telan was perfectly happy to simply be as far as possible from Ul'dah, in the meanwhile.

"I'm fine," he said, which was a lie, and Haurchefant knew it, but it said something. That he didn't want to talk, maybe. That he didn't think his pain was worth talking about. "I prefer it out here." He would have said on my own, but that wasn't true for Haurchefant. It was for most of the knights, but not Haurchefant.

"I worry about you," Haurchefant confessed. There was a frown on his face, but he was not looking at Ar'telan. "I know that you have… struggled, with Ishgard, in the past. If you do not wish to be admitted to the city…" Ar'telan made a surprised noise at that.

"No, I… I appreciate your efforts," he said, which was true. Alphinaud had barely roused from his depressed stupour to lecture him about it, but Ar'telan was not stupid. To be granted passage into the city would not be free, no matter how well-liked Haurchefant was or how well-thought-out his speech in their favour had been. He would be expected to be of use. This, at least, he was used to, but for Ishgard…

Haurchefant had seen him on the Steps of Faith. He had to know, by now.

"I will not kill dragons for your family," Ar'telan said, the first time he had ever signed it so explicitly. Haurchefant looked pained - not disapproval, but hesitation in the way his fingers tensed, his brow furrowed, his feet tapped nervously upon the stone. They had not talked about it. Ar'telan had hoped never to have to.

"I do not believe the Count is likely to request that of you," he said. Not my father. The Count. "…I have not asked, but might you trust me with the why?"

Ar'telan knew that there was an Inquisitor in the camp, who had been nothing but polite to him, even when the heretic had been stirring up resentment against him. He did not trust the idea of an Inquisitor, nor any status quo that might require one. She had been polite, but she had not thought it odd that one of her own might drag a man to Witchdrop. He was friendly, to an extent, with Haurchefant's immediate subordinates, Corentiaux and Yaelle. They liked him - not just for what he had done to help at the Camp, but for how his presence cheered Haurchefant. But they did not know specifics, because Haurchefant had not dared to trust them with it. If they knew about them, it was through inference.

Who did Haurchefant trust? His father, the man he could not call that? He had mentioned brothers in passing, but had not said their names, for fear they were not allowed in his mouth. Francel, he supposed.

It wasn't about trust. It was about the fear, deep and biting, that it would make Haurchefant turn away from him. That this, finally, would be too much. And then he would be alone, and friendless, and utterly without a lifeline against the storm the world seemed determined to toss him in. But he couldn't hide from it forever. Either he would admit to it, or he would compromise, and he knew he would never do the latter.

"It's… complicated," he said. Haurchefant's tense stance did not ease - he expected to be rebuffed, as he had been every time before. "But I will try."

"You will?" Haurchefant said, surprised, then shook his head. "Forgive me. I swear to give your words the weight they deserve." He was perhaps the only Ishgardian Ar'telan had met who he believed when he said that.

"My people… You know I am from Meracydia," he said, and Haurchefant nodded. He had mentioned it, once or twice, but had not lingered on it. "We are…" He shook his head. "For generations we have been guided by dragons."

He heard the surprised noise in Haurchefant's throat, but did not dare turn to see the look on his face. He had admitted to the greatest sin, now. To Ishgard, his people were heretics to a man. He could hardly turn back. "When Meracydia's people ceased their wars, it was because of dragons. When conflict would arise, it was settled by dragons. When Allag attacked our shores, keen to claim our lands for their own - we fought back, yes, but we were protected by dragons."

"Protected…" Haurchefant echoed, wonder in his voice.

"It was from Meracydia that Allag took Bahamut," Ar'telan said. "I don't… I don't know if your people remember that. But they killed him, and…" He felt the disgust rise in him again at the memory of the Eikon. that corrupted, pulsing heart, locked away by Allag and used as a vehicle of torture on the dragons of Meracydia for so long. "Tiamat tried to bring him back. But it went wrong. And now… Now there are very few dragons left on Meracydia still possessed of their own minds." He felt his nails scrape along the stone as his fingers curled up. "But they guide us. They protect us. They keep our history and guide our people and ensure we never forget. Because a dragon's memory is eternal, and its wisdom is the wisdom of all its forebears." He closed his eyes. "There is no greater crime on Meracydia than to kill a dragon."

There was silence, for long enough that Ar'telan worried he had said too much, before he heard Haurchefant finally move. The noise he made was… troubled.

"The dragons of which you speak… do not sound like the dragons that have made of Ishgard a mortal enemy," he said, and Ar'telan flinched.

"No. They… They are different, here," he allowed. "I spoke with one, moons ago now. He spoke of, of a voice in his head. A song of rancor and ruin, so deep in his soul it overrode his senses. But they are still- they are thinking, feeling. They are not beasts."

"Nidhogg is oft described as the cleverest among the wyrms," Haurchefant remarked. "It is he who guides his Horde against the Holy See, he who decides when they attack."

"Do those tales describe the why?" Ar'telan asked, finally raising his eyes to Haurchefant. The knight had a frown on his face deeper than even the one he had worn when Francel's life had been in danger.

"There are many accounts, all vague," he said. "It is generally accepted that the Horde takes umbrage to the presence of Ishgard in lands they see as theirs. That they attacked once Ishgard had been settled on the mount, and have never since ceased."

"That is not a why," Ar'telan said.

"I had assumed that… When one makes their home in the territory of beasts, then one must sometimes drive them back," Haurchefant said, words which hurt to hear from his mouth. "If you build your cottage where the rattels roam, of course they will roam into your garden. But if- if they are not only thinking, but wise enough to rule nations…"

"My name was not always Ar'telan," he said, which made Haurchefant blink in surprise. "I took the name when I arrived in Eorzea, because… I was asked for it, and my old one felt ill-fitting. But on Meracydia, I was Rhei'telan." It hurt, just a little, to feel his hands sign a different way for the name he had held before. Proof, not that he needed it, that he had truly been distanced from his home. "I was named for Rhei Narr, the dragon who watched over my tribe. She is as much a mother as the woman who birthed me, and I have ever valued her wisdom. When the mountain buried me, during the Calamity, it was her claws that finally dug me out. When the boat that would take me to Radz-at-Han left without me, it was she who flew me out, that I might finally find help. I do not exaggerate when I say that I owe my life to her, and I owe the man I am today to her patient teachings. So I will honour my people's laws. I will not kill a dragon." Haurchefant was silent for a long while, his eyes staring off into a distance that was not the horizon.

"What does it mean?" he asked, eventually. "Her name. It is Meracydian, no?" Ar'telan shook his head.

"No. She is named in dragonspeak," he said. "All dragons take such a name, once they have enough years on them to decide. Their true names they keep in their hearts. Hers…" It felt wrong to tell an Ishgardian, but he was listening, wasn't he? Surely that counted for something. Surely? "It means 'Prayer of Salvation'. The Dusk Wyrm was lost in the aftermath of the war - her brood-mother, Tiamat. They still long for her return, to hear her song again. Rhei Narr's name honours that."

"A sentiment that many an Ishgardian could understand," Haurchefant said, his voice quiet. He did not speak of his mother - Ar'telan had assumed it was because of the complicated mess that his family seemed to be, but he had not asked. But it was always in the past tense. "…Forgive me. I had not expected it to be an easy answer to hear, but…" He laughed, though there was little mirth or strength behind it. "You were right to call it complicated." He turned wondering eyes to Ar'telan then. "And yet you have willingly spent time in Ishgard, when all that we do…"

"Coerthas has you in it," Ar'telan replied, averting his gaze in embarrassment as his fingers formed the words. "And I have no desire to see people suffer. The dragons here… There is a reason they are different. When I assisted with the assault on Snowcloak, I spoke with their leader, the one who calls herself 'Iceheart', and I feel that they might know. So there is an answer to be found, somewhere. If I cannot set foot in Eorzea for fear of being branded a murderer, I can offer my aid here, at least."

"From anyone else it would seem a most conceitful boast," Haurchefant said, an amused note to his voice. "It means a great deal to me that you would trust me with this, Ar- do you wish to be called Ar'telan?"

He blinked at the question, caught off-guard. Did he wish? He was not Rhei'telan any more. Perhaps he never could be again. But did he wish it?

"I would rather you not be caught speaking the dragon's tongue in an unguarded moment," he settled for. "Ar'telan is fine."

"Then Ar'telan it shall be," Haurchefant declared. "…I will confess, it is not easy to hear. But I will sit with it. I know you would not lie to me, not about something so dear to your heart." Ar'telan managed a faint smile.

"Do not endanger yourself on my account," he said. "I will do whatever is asked of me, so long as it is not dragonslaying."

Generally speaking, there were a lot of technical terms that Ar'telan did not fully understand. He could get the vague gist of things like 'aetheric balance' and 'elemental tilting', because they were words that he understood in isolation. But once the numbers started coming out, he was quickly lost.

He had sat and nodded politely as T'laqa had laid out the basis of his thesis. Certainly Ar'telan understood the concept of fish, it was hard not to. But once he had started talking about the flow and volume of underwater aetheric currents, it had very swiftly veered out of Ar'telan's area of understanding.

He had already done the thesis, apparently - laid out a theoretical groundwork for his hypothesis, and other such long words that presumably were arranged in those orders. But he had needed hard data, and he couldn't secure it with the aether sickness that afflicted him. Going to specific places and fetching specific things was a series of events that Ar'telan understood a great deal better than the specifics of T'laqa's thesis.

So far, he had been sent to a series of far-flung, but understandable locations. Aetherlice from Labyrinthos, clams from Garlemald. The salmon were not supposed to be in Thavnair, and certainly not in such large numbers that the populace ended up overrun with them, but they had been easy enough to procure. To be honest, he hadn't even needed to fish - just standing in the river with a basket would have done the job. T'laqa had been muttering about tidal shifts and aetheric surges the entire time, but Ar'telan did understand 'basket of salmon'.

T'laqa had talked to him, or perhaps at him, for several hours as he studied the salmon. He had scribbled graphs on his blackboard in squeaky chalk that set Ar'telan's teeth on edge, and frowned at tables in very heavy books. His conclusion, as Ar'telan understood it, was that it was Zodiark's death and subsequent release of aether that was agitating the wildlife. Not the Final Days, which had of course left a fairly significant mark as they rampaged across the land, but the aether. The moon. Tides. Ar'telan had started to lose the thread after that.

His theory, though, was not one that could be tested without a control group. Ar'telan had asked him what that involved, and he had said, in the most defeated voice Ar'telan had ever heard, that it would need animals from before the destruction of Zodiark. Ideally, ones from before Zodiark had even existed. Such a control group was, of course, impossible to obtain, and thus his research would be forever mired, and Ar'telan had told him to leave it with him.

As he had walked from the Crystarium's aetheryte plaza to the Ocular, he had wondered if he was supposed to keep it a secret. It wasn't like anyone on the Source was able to access the portal to Elpis, so in theory it didn't matter if they knew it existed. But what would they think? Had he garnered enough praise, in his efforts to save the star, that he could casually mention that he could visit the past and get nothing but understanding nods?

Well, perhaps ironically, it was a problem for future him.

---

The researchers of Elpis were more than happy to help the strange little familiar in its very important quest to fetch fish. He had described, in the broadest terms he could, the concept of a salmon, and it had baffled them. He was directed to one specific researcher, whose job was, as far as he could tell, to look after the kind of fish that never left the water and mostly existed for other creatures to eat. That only somewhat described a salmon, but if he could not fetch a precise match, he would make do with what he could get.

He was directed to Lethe - he had not needed to be directed to Lethe, that part being incredibly obvious, but they were not fond of crediting him with intelligence - and had a fish called the Smaragdos described to him. The researcher had focussed on the stunning emerald scales the fish possessed, which was not particularly descriptive, and Ar'telan had questioned him for a solid ten minutes before he had a basic picture of the thing. It seemed most akin to a bonytongue, if anything, which was not much like a salmon, but he wasn't sure things like that mattered all that much to the researchers here. He was perfectly capable of catching a few bonytongues if T'laqa needed them, however, so he had sat down and fished up a bucket of them.

The problem, of course, became transporting them.

The infusion of aether he had received from Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus had stabilised him at a sensible scale in the past, but - as he had discovered to his dismay upon taking his first few smuggled items back to the present - this did not stick for things that were not attached to his person. His manifested robes, made specifically for him, had stayed approximately the correct size. Caduceus, who he had not brought back intentionally, had come through the size of his arm and then adjusted himself with a little pop of aether. the purple popotoes, already large enough, had come back the size of his head. The smaragdos were a healthy size now, about the length of his arm, but as soon as he returned to the correct size they were going to be big.

He had, of course, left a big bucket full of fresh water in the Ocular, despite the confusion of the guards. How many smaragdos would T'laqa need? Six was a reasonable number of clams, but his hurried estimates of the true size of the fish meant his bucket would almost certainly not be enough. He could put them in a proper tub, but then how would he get them back to Sharlayan? The trip through the rift was uncomfortable enough when not trying to stabilise six very confused fish.

He looked down at his bucket. One smaragdos was, at his best guess, about as long as his leg. He had been instructed on previous excursions to bring back the biggest specimens he could find, so he had spent the better part of an hour catching and releasing fish that didn't make the cut. He thought about the popotoes, held in his hand in the past and big enough to use as a weapon in the present. He did some mental mathematics.

The tub in the Ocular was not going to be big enough.

With a huff of annoyance, he locked the lid on his storage bucket - the gods only knew what kind of horrible semi-aquatic animal would eat his catch if he didn't - and traipsed back to the nearest aetheryte.

---

"Oh, hello! How did your fishing trip go?" one of the researchers asked, in the tone of voice that one might ask a child if they had successfully finished making a mysterious pile of toys. Ar'telan steeled himself.

"Fine. I was wondering if you might be able to put them in concept crystals for me?" he asked. He knew they could do it. He'd watched multiple people do it, in fact. When they weren't being unmade whole cloth, putting a concept into a crystal was par for the course for your average Ancient. The real question was if they would.

"Oh, I don't know if that's strictly protocol…" they mused, tapping their fingers against the side of their face as they considered. "What are you using them for?"

Ar'telan considered the answer to that question. He knew exactly what he was using them for, of course. They were for research into the effects of killing a god. Simple. Completely insane, to his conversational partner. Sometimes he missed the sense of the present.

"Um, Azem needs them. For research," he said. This was not, strictly speaking, a lie. He was the new holder of Azem's legacy, and he did need them. For research. "It's six smaragdos. Not much."

"You fished up six of them all on your own?" the researcher said, surprised. Ar'telan had fished up significantly more than six of them, but he did not have time to correct their assessment of his skill level.

"Yes. But… I need to move them, and they're very heavy." He put on his most pathetic face. "And it was very tiring fishing them out of the water, and now I have to take them all the way back to Azem…" The researcher gasped at that, and tutted to themselves about how Azem was overworking their familiar and other such myriad horrors. Ar'telan continue to look as hopeless as he possibly could. He even slumped a little, in the hopes that it would sell the idea.

"No, no, this won't do. Yes, I'll have one of the Words of Lahabrea over to Lethe immediately," they decided, which made Ar'telan straighten immediately. Words of Lahabrea? What were they doing in Elpis? Wasn't this supposed to be Fandaniel's purview?

"There's no need-" he tried, but they had already gone.

Well. It was Azem's problem now.

---

By the time he got back to his little fishing spot, whoever had been contracted for his problem had already been and gone. Where once had sat a bucket of fish, he now had a bucket of crystals. Hopefully they were the same thing he had left in the bucket to begin with.

Arms now full of crystals, he made his way back to Anagnoresis, and from there, back through the rift to the Ocular. The crystals notably increased in size as he materialised, but they were significantly less troubling to manage than six fish the size of a bungalow, so he considered that to be a victory.

He wondered if T'laqa would have space for them.

---

"You're back!" T'laqa remarked, looking exceptionally stressed. Ar'telan presumed it was possible for him to not look stressed, but he was yet to see it. "…What are those?"

Ar'telan attempted the sign for crystals, almost dropped half of them, and fumbled them onto a table with T'laqa's bemused assistance.

"Concept crystals," he managed, his hands now free. "They have fish in them."

"They do?" T'laqa replied, picking one up and holding it up to the light. "I can't see any…"

"They're not- it's complicated," Ar'telan said. "You have to put aether into them to make the concept real again." He glanced at his collection. "I don't suppose you have any… larger tanks available?"

"I- well, there's the studying pools at the back, yes," T'laqa allowed. "But I don't see-"

"Make sure they have fresh water," Ar'telan said, taking the crystal out of his very confused hands. "You're going to need a lot of it."

---

The first manifestation was met with a yelp of tandem surprise and terror as a fish significantly larger than the leg-sized specimen Ar'telan had fished out of Lethe popped back into being and hit the water with a tremendous splash. It was the same bonytongue-like creature with emerald-green scales he had caught, so he assumed the rest would also be intact.

"Wh-what are these?" T'laqa asked, fear and awe in every syllable.

"They called them smaragdos. They're a species of bonytongue, I think," Ar'telan offered.

"I didn't know they could get that big," T'laqa said. Ar'telan grimaced.

"They can't." Technically true. "You wanted fish with an aetheric profile that matched those found before Zodiark. So I got some for you." T'laqa stared into the water, where the fish swam in lazy circles, apparently content with their situation.

"There's nowhere on the planet that…" he managed, before turning to the table and picking up one of the empty concept crystals. "You can just do this?"

"Me? No," Ar'telan replied. "I had someone else put them in. Take them out, sure."

"You had- but to be useful for my research, they would need to be from a time before-"

"Zodiark existed. Yes," Ar'telan agreed. "Trust me."

"I can't cite 'trust me' in an academic publication!" T'laqa protested. "…I shall take the necessary measurements. I suppose the results of the analysis will prove themselves if they are true…"

"Let me know if you need anything else," Ar'telan said, leaving T'laqa blinking at a pool full of fish. This was fairly normal for him, as far as Ar'telan could tell, but normally he was a little more focussed about it.

It had been difficult to imagine seeing the sunlight again.

He had barely been conscious as they swam back towards the surface, aided by the Ondo they had assisted before striking out to Amaurot. He had forgotten how it felt to not be in pain. To not hear the drone in the back of his head. For every step to not feel like walking through mud.

He lay on the beach as the others picked themselves up around him, and stared at the sky. Bright and blue, the only white from the clouds that drifted lazily across it. He could feel the grains of sand beneath his fingers, and not the steadily slowing beat of his heart.

"Still with us, Ar'telan?" Thancred's voice inquired, but it was more jovial than it had been before. This time, the expected answer was yes.

"Mm," he managed, and pushed himself into a sitting position. He was soaking wet, and his eyes stung a little from the salt, but when he looked at his hand it seemed like his again. No more imagined tint of alabaster white. No more gold sinking down from lengthening nails. Y'shtola did not flinch to look at him, as though she had glanced towards the sun.

"Easy. We've plenty of time," Thancred said, sitting down beside him. The water that had lain still now began to lap back and forth, like a stuttering breath after a long time quiet. For a little while, there had been a howl in his head. A thousand creatures with golden eyes turned towards him, waiting for instruction, a loyal knight at the helm.

"Get your butt off the floor and use some healing magics!" Alisaie said, her voice directed at her brother rather than Ar'telan. He blinked, slowly. Looked over at Thancred, and managed a slight smile.

"Not that much time," he said, and Thancred sighed.

"You've got plenty of time," he clarified, then clapped a hand on Ar'telan's shoulder. It did not feel like being stabbed. "I'll get this sorry lot sorted. You sit."

It was strange, to be the only one not doing something. He had been at the forefront for so long - had to be, the only one who could take the Light. For what time that had held true.

If there had been two of me, there would have been no trouble at all.

Y'shtola had eschewed her sorceress' staff for a simple wand, channeling healing energy into the Exarch's slumped form. The man had suffered far more under Emet-Selch's supervision than Haurchefant. Then again, the Exarch had possessed something the Ascian wanted - the secret to how he had flung himself backwards in time. The fires of not-Amaurot lingered in Ar'telan's head, and he wondered if the people the Exarch had left behind had been happy with the idea that they might cease to exist. Not those who had sent him - they surely accepted it. But what of everyone else? Was there a tragedy so great that one man was allowed to decide it could never exist?

But the Exarch - G'raha - had held his tongue all the while. And even if he hadn't, Emet-Selch could not have harnessed the Tower. Perhaps the first boon the hateful thing had provided in all its life.

A part of him still expected to hear Ardbert's voice, see his ghost wander into his peripheral vision. A soul without a body, stranded outside of death because Minfilia had bade him stay. Because Hydaelyn had? Had she known, somehow, what it would mean?

Had Minfilia died so he could live?

With a huff of effort, he pushed himself up to his feet. They ached, but for tiredness rather than transformation. Slowly, he turned and walked up the slope of the beach, even the slight incline feeling like no small trek, and put his hand against one of the many large rocks that dotted the Kholusian landscape. Cold shale, rough and welcoming under his fingers. It felt like it was not just the physical ocean they had surfaced from, but a deep and drowning stillness deep inside his soul. The despair had shattered instead of the glass, and he could breathe again.

How good it felt, to breathe again.

---

The celebrations across the Crystarium lasted for days, and Ar'telan kept himself away from most of them. The light still hurt his eyes if he stayed out in the sun for too long, and he welcomed the cool air of night once the evening crept in. It was loud, even if it was the defiant shout of a people who had survived, and it overwhelmed him now he was not overcome by apathy.

He was at Haurchefant's bed when he first opened his eyes. Ar'telan pulled him into a hug before he could manage a word, fingers tightening in the fabric of his shirt as if he might disappear.

"I am still here, my love," he murmured, running shaking fingers through Ar'telan's hair. He always had been there. Ar'telan thought about the feeling of taking two breaths at once, and comforted himself with the external sensation of the rise and fall of Haurchefant's chest. The scars still spun out from where the spear had hit him like cracks in porcelain, but it no longer ran gold, only the pale white of poorly healed skin. Light. So still, so cold, a breath from the dead lungs of grave. But Haurchefant felt warm again, felt alive again, and he could sit near him and not feel like he had to put himself back together with pieces of Haurchefant's soul. His soul. Freely gifted, gladly taken.

Ardbert's soul.

Ar'telan moved back, taking Haurchefant's hands in his, and Haurchefant smiled through the tired lines on his face.

"It is good to see you feeling better," he said. "And good to see you at all." He had seen through two sets of eyes, moved with two pairs of legs, snarled with two mouths, and all Emet-Selch had offered was pity. But at the end of it all, Ar'telan had been right. It was those who stood together who triumphed, in the world of the sundered.

The link the Light had forged between he and Haurchefant was a depth of connection he prayed to never feel again.

---

It felt strange, to walk up to the mirror in the Ocular for the first time since he had begun the Exarch's crusade against the Light. It rippled like a stone on still water when he touched his fingers to it, knowing that the darkness of the rift between worlds lay beyond it.

On the Source, the bodies would still lie silent, souls still leashed to the First. Tataru and Krile would keep a near-empty house and a dour vigil. But he could tell them that they lived. They lived.

The Enterprise had gone down in Coerthas, so they were going to Coerthas.

It was not presented as an option, but a statement of fact. Ar'telan had nodded and taken in little else.

The cold had begun to bite soon after they had left the edges of Gridania's woods. Heavy footprints in the snow - the heavy crunch of Cid's boots, the determined stomp of Alphinaud's feet, the anxious marks of Ar'telan's shoes. The robe he was wearing offered little protection from the cold, having been put on to cope with the heat of La Noscea and not worried about since…

The crunch of snow felt a little like the splish of stepping into a pool of congealing blood. Blood on his boots, blood on his knees, blood on his hands and his arms as he desperately tried to find someone, anyone who would wake. The thick and sticky sap that had drip, drip, dripped from the back of Noraxia's head where she had hit the wall. The vision…

His companions did not notice, because his steps still carried him forwards. Alphinaud was not paying an ounce of attention to him, and Cid struggled to see through the snow. Cid was struggling, too, with the memories Alphinaud had so rudely unearthed. He shouldn't take it to heart. Shouldn't.

The bridge crossed over a river devoid of fish.

---

"We have no interest in assisting outsiders," said the elezen outside the tower.

"It is but one record," Alphinaud protested. "The fate of a city-state-"

"A city-state we have no interest nor obligation to help," the man cut in. Ar'telan stared at his hat. Conical. Sharp. The man stood so ramrod-stiff it may as well have turned him into a stake. "Go away. We have important work to be doing."

Alphinaud made the kind of frustrated noise that could only be made by the kind of person who was not used to being told 'no', and beckoned the two of them into a corner of the snow-covered settlement.

"Ishgard has ever kept itself close, but this is ridiculous," the teen muttered, rubbing his hands together as if to ward off the cold. "But they are worried about something. Perhaps if we make ourselves useful…"

The eyes were on him. Alphinaud would be too busy with the work of pestering the man, of course. Cid theoretically had useful talents, but he couldn't remember what they were. Ar'telan, though. Point at problem. Make him kill it. Blood in the snow and the screams of the Tempered as they were put to necessary sword.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

"Tell me," he said, but Alphinaud was not looking at him, so he went back to staring at his feet. What did they have out here? He had seen biasts on the road. Giants, skulking about the enormous shard of Dalamud that still scarred the earth, and not looking friendly. A few giant salamanders, whatever they called them here, skittering into caves. Sheep? He could kill those. That was the point of him, wasn't it?

"Ar'telan!" Alphinaud's voice was sharp and irritated. He walked through the snow. "Here. Do this," he instructed, and shoved a sheet of parchment into his hands. "I have summarised it for you," he added. Ar'telan nodded, looking down at the paper. Eorzean script. He recognised the numbers. At least, he thought he did.

"…Need a hand, lad?" Cid asked, once Alphinaud had stomped off, and Ar'telan nodded mutely.

---

No help. Terse and dismissive voices. Dead crocodiles on the path for them, faces splitting open in a final grimace at death. The magic had done it, so barely a trickle of blood. Not like the Garleans.

"Stubborn fools," Alphinaud muttered as he marched them up the path. There was a fortress rising in the distance, but their path took them into the little buildings sunk into the rise before it. One knight told him they were called the Skyfire Locks, and had explained the defence mechanism it provided against dravanian attack.

Dragon attack?

"…And so, I am humbly requesting…" Alphinaud's voice did not sound humble, but the knight commander was hearing him out regardless. In the corner, a young-looking elezen stared down at the table he was sat at like he was seeing ghosts, and Ar'telan walked over to him.

"Oh, hello," the man - boy? - managed, and Ar'telan pulled his face into something resembling a smile.

"Are you alright? You look tired," he asked, and the elezen recoiled from him in shock the same way many did when they first 'heard' him speak. A shake of his head righted his thoughts, and he offered that same bone-weary fake smile in return.

"I have had better days," he allowed. "You're here for the airship, too?" It was hard to miss Alphinaud's insistent interrogation, Ar'telan supposed.

"Alphinaud is. My job is to do what I'm told," he replied. "But if there's something you need, I can help, maybe." The elezen heaved a weary sigh.

"Not with my troubles, I fear," he said. "Ah, where are my manners. Francel de Haillenarte." Francel held out a hand. Ar'telan shook the hand. It felt stiff from both of them. "If there is anything you need I can offer…" He shook his head. "Though I doubt there is. I cannot help with your airship. I don't think I can help with all that much, in truth." Ar'telan glanced down at the table. Ink smudged through eorzean letters, again. Ink stained on his fingers. Lines of stress in his face.

Not a list of tasks. Not an airship's location. But something.

---

As Alphinaud continued his brusque way through the Locks, Ar'telan talked to Francel's personal guard.

The man had also flinched away from him at first. He had accused him of heresy second, but the words had died on his lips. Ar'telan asked what that meant, and was treated to the most baffled look he had ever seen.

Heresy, it was explained, was turning from the righteous cause of the Fury. Ar'telan knew of Halone, of course - worship of the Twelve was not precisely common on Meracydia, but it persisted among those descended from Allagan defectors who had made their home there. Allag, the dragons said, had despised the idea of Gods, of religion, and thus this worship was one last act of defiance against a dead empire. None of his knowledge suggested what such a cause might be.

The cause of the Fury, it was explained, was to kill dragons.

He had taken a step backwards at that one, and the knight had acknowledged that it was a terrifying prospect, to face such a beast in battle. That was not Ar'telan's problem, but he did not see much to be gained by voicing dissent, so he nodded meekly and resumed staring just beyond the man's shoulder. The dragons were brutish and monstrous, of course. Slavering beasts and agents of death and destruction. They were also canny and wise, and lured many to their cause with the promise of power. Ar'telan had questioned how both could coexist, and was informed that it was not dragons, but the heretics who used their power, who lured good people from the path.

Francel had been accused of heresy.

Ar'telan had looked at Francel. The elezen was small and meek and clearly terrified, but trying to hide it. If he was a wily and cunning traitor who coveted power, he was doing a good job of hiding it. But a rosary had been found among supplies bound for the Locks, and thus everything had been thrown into disarray. Francel was the son of an important man in Ishgard, it was clarified, and he had lost one brother to the dragons already. The knights feared for his father if he lost another son.

It sounded like nonsense, but Francel had been polite enough, which was a change from everyone else in the snow-blasted hellscape of Coerthas, so Ar'telan had reported it to Alphinaud, and Alphinaud had made the decision that it was worth his time to point his killing machine at Francel's enemies.

He hadn't quite used those words. But he might as well have done.

---

Ishgard, it seemed, had a very large problem with heretics.

He had helped the overworked knights at the Locks and been rewarded for his efforts with no clearing of name, but a letter held tight between his fingers. Alphinaud had suggested he might be better suited to carry such an important missive, and Francel had told him that it was not Alphinaud he trusted.

So they trudged through the snow to the fort.

The knights on the gates gave them a cursory glance, then waved them through. snow covered every ilm of stone, but a rough path marked by chocobo footprintes was worn between the various exits of the place. A brazier stocked with wood burned in one corner, in defiance of the cold. From the harried looks of the soldiers around it, the defiance was not strong enough.

"Do not mishandle this introduction," Alphinaud told him, his tone clipped and his body shivering. "I shall see what information I can gather from the knights here." Ar'telan swallowed back nerves at the tone, and turned towards the Keep.

Crunch in the snow. A pair of spectacles fallen to the floor, shattering under his feet…

If you love me, then you-

His job was to do what he was told to do.

A wave of warmth washed over him as the door was opened, and he stepped inside with the letter clutched against his breast like a shield. There were easily twenty knights in the large room, mostly crowded around the war table in the centre, moving pieces with vague shapes around and muttering under their breaths.

"Something you need, adventurer?" one not involved in the fray asked, a warm smile on his face. Ar'telan swallowed down his nerves.

"I have a letter for…" he started, before peering down at the letters as if they would help. "Lord Haurchefant?" he tried. This knight took his signs far more in stride than the others, though there was a clear interest in his keen gaze that unsettled Ar'telan.

"Certainly. Milord! Have you a moment?"

There was the sound of wood scraping against stone, and the telltale thunk of armoured feet across the floor. He strode past the gaggle of knights, and offered Ar'telan the most sincere smile he had seen in weeks.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked, and almost sounded like he meant it.

"I," Ar'telan said, caught off guard, then shook himself to clear the fog. He was not allowed to mess this up. "I have a letter. From Lord Francel."

"Not a sign I am familiar with, and yet I find I understand you regardless. How curious," Lord Haurchefant said. "I would have care who you speak with in the camp. Though most here will welcome you, a great many have been on edge of late."

"The rosaries," Ar'telan said, and a sour look appeared on the elezen's face, just for a moment.

"Well, I shall not trouble you overmuch with it. Come. We can speak at my desk," he offered. "It is warmer there than in the doorway, and you look about ready to turn into an icicle."

Ar'telan glanced to the knight who had welcomed him, and was nodded further in, so he followed Lord Haurchefant through the hall. He was gestured to a chair, in which he obediently sat. It was far warmer, though still a far cry from the heat Ar'telan was comfortable in. Behind him, he heard snatches of conversation on movements. Quotes of numbers. Servants of the Horde. Lesser dragons. Aevises.

Heretics.

Lord Haurchefant opened the letter Ar'telan had carried so carefully by tearing through the top of the envelope with one gloved finger, and pulled the parchment from within. His jovial smile - Ar'telan could see the lines at the corner of it, even before he had begun - faded completely as he scanned the words.

"While I would be honoured to assist with such a quest, at present…" he began, then shook his head with a sigh. "I shall send word to some of my contacts, but until this unpleasant business is resolved, I do not think it likely I will hear much." Ar'telan nodded. Now he would be given an instruction, and he would make sure Alphinaud did not disapprove of him traipising about Coerthas for the Ishgardians, and then- "Though I would not wish to burden an outsider with petty Ishgardian politics, so you have leave to stay in Camp Dragonhead for as long as it takes." Ar'telan began to nod again, then paused.

"You don't… I shouldn't… You have no task for me, in return for this favour?" he settled for. There was a look on Lord Haurchefant's face that he could not quite place.

"Of course not. It is a trivial request, and you have already helped us plenty," he said. Ar'telan found that he was beginning to understand why Francel had put so much faith in him.

"Then…" he started, trying to collect his thoughts. Dredge himself out of the mud. Shut up and do what you're told. Even if they had cared about him, now most of them were dead, and he would never have an answer. "Lord Francel was most kind to me. If there is anything I can do to help, I offer my services gladly."

"With your most unique manner of speech, I worry you may be dragged into the accusations yourself," Lord Haurchefant confessed. "But if you can keep yourself from the eyes of the Inquisitors, perhaps…" Ar'telan wasn't entirely sure how speaking in sign could be considered heretical, but it was unfamiliar sign, he supposed. And the Echo, working its translation magic, might make them think of fouler means. A dragon of sufficient age could make themselves understood to any who heard them, the power behind their words rendering their meaning clear to any who heard it. But had a people who called dragons beasts ever truly heard a dragon speak?

"I am capable of healing magic, if that might assist?" he offered, and the wave of relief that washed over Lord Haurchefant was far less subtle than all the other emotions he had so far hidden.

"Greatly. Corentiaux can show you to the infirmary, if you do not mind," he said. "And you may let your companions know that the matter of your airship is being investigated, too." Ar'telan was treated to a bright but tired smile. "Do not let me keep you, ah… Ar'telan, is it said?" Ar'telan inclined his head.

"Yes. Thankyou, Lord Haurchefant," he said, and offered something resembling a smile.

It would be nice, to not be told to kill things for a while. It would be nice to see those he could help.

Glassy eyes, staring unseeing at the ceiling. Deep wounds through fragile cloth. The smell of gunpower and the cloying certainty of death.

"If you ever require respite, our hearth is always open to you," Lord Haurchefant added, and Ar'telan shook himself, as though it would help.

It was a strange experience, being back in Thavnair.

It would have been nicer if the black tower had not loomed upon the horizon, purple beam pulsing into the yawning sky. It would have been more enjoyable if he had trusted his attunement to the aetheryte whose name he did not even know and not taken the experimental teleporter. But here he was. Again.

The people of Thavnair were kind, and generous, and suffering greatly in the wake of the tower's appearance. He understood them now, rather than only knowing snatches of sentences, which was nice. And they understood him, and his companions hadn't even noticed that the shape of his signs had changed since their arrival.

The air, too, felt more welcoming. It was not quite the heat of Meracydia, but it was close enough that it felt more like home than anywhere on Eorzea could lay claim to. It was missing the dragons, though. Many au ra, who were the closest thing to dragon-kin a mortal could claim to be, but no dragons. But there had been none last time he had visited, too.

"You're in remarkably good spirits," Thancred remarked. "Especially with…" The gesture towards the tower was unneeded, but emphasised the situation all the same.

"It is nice to be back," Ar'telan replied.

"Back?" Estinien repeated. "You've been here before?" Ar'telan nodded.

"I was sent here from Meracydia, years ago," he said. "They hoped the alchemists might be able to treat… all of me." He remembered the desperation on the faces of his tribe, so far powerless to help him beyond keeping him in the land of the living. The lengths Rhei Narr had gone to, to ensure he had a second chance.

"Surprised they'd give you a boat," Estinien remarked.

"Meracydia and Thavnair have traded for generations," Thancred disagreed with a shrug.

"Thavnair carries the dragon's promise," Ar'telan said, which made Estinien stop moving almost immediately. "We have trusted them since the fall of Allag."

"Not a lot of dragons here, considering," Thancred said, Estinien frowning at the statement. Ar'telan shrugged.

"I don't know the specifics," he said. "But…" He did remember the whirlwind of his arrival, just about. How much care they had taken of him, considering he was little more than a sobbing wreck when outside overlong. That they had tried… "I think if it is important, I will talk about it," he settled for, a shrug easy on his shoulders. At his feet, his carbuncle chittered, slamming its head into his ankle as a gesture of comfort.

---

The Great Work was a little different to the last time Ar'telan had been there.

Well, alchemists that had worked themselves to exhaustion was not new, exactly, but he had never seen so many of them passed out at once. The way they crowded around Estinien reminded him a little of his own arrival, all those years ago. The questions they had fired at him rapidly in words he did not speak, his put-upon translator sparing him the most of them. But there was a sense of deep stress that underlined every interaction, a kind of desperate nervousness in every movement, every question - even if he understood them this time.

And Varshahn.

It was uncanny, how the boy who strode up to the alchemists with a basket full of honest-to-gods dragon scales looked identical to the same one who had met him on the docks. It had spanned enough years now that they could not be the same, and yet…

Ar'telan had not put any stock into it, the first time he had been here. The boy was an associate of the Satrap, he had said. He had heard that a Meracydian sought healing in their country, and since he spoke a little of the language due to his status as a diplomat, he had volunteered himself to help. Ar'telan - Rhei'telan had just been happy to hear a voice he could understand, spoken with kindness and patience. He had not offered it much more thought.

And yet.

He had long since returned Hraesvelgr's Eye. He had long since excised the pieces of Nidhogg that had longed to cling to his soul. Midgardsormr slumbered. And yet.

He felt so achingly familiar.

Ar'telan had met his eyes, just for a moment, a deep red more striking than any au ra Ar'telan had ever seen. A moment - recognition. Surprise? A flicker too fast to be recognised.

Rhei'telan had never questioned how a diplomat had known about his plight in advance to meet him on the docks. He knew about the dragon's promise, knew that Thavnair had stood with them after the war, when they had raised their nation on the places Allag had tried to trample and offered shelter to all who needed it. Rhei Narr had told them the stories. Bahamut had been murdered, Tiamat deceived, Azdaja stolen, Vrtra left bereft. Rhei Narr sang a mournful song to a mother who refused to listen, to a mother's sister who did not answer. But they sang.

"Perhaps you could assist the alchemists with their experiments?" Varshahn suggested, and Ar'telan had nodded like he had been given a most solemn task.

---

Nidhana did recognise him. He had received a hug so tight he thought it might break every single bone in his body, and when he had regained the use of his arms he had told her the specifics of his path towards healing. The Echo was a nice bonus, but the shape of it - the carbuncle, the purpose, even being thrown into Eorzea at the deep end with no choice but to adapt or starve - all of it was good information for her. Mostly the carbuncle part, she had admitted, but the rest was still data. Thancred had watched in bemusement as the two of them spoke, both of them in a sign language he did not understand, and had quietly asked Ar'telan how long he had known Thavnairian sign language.

"I was taught with the Satrap's blessing," he'd said. "You can ask him too, if you like."

---

Even Radz-at-Han felt almost the same.

He had liked it in the city, the first time he had visited. Everything crowded around the streets, an explosion of vibrance and colour that had crowded out the vastness of the sky. Even now, with his arsenal against the fear far more flush with weaponry, he felt little need to panic. His carbuncle, trotting around his feet, felt like a natural adornment of the city-dweller than a bright beacon to his unusual nature.

Even amidst their uncertainty, it was the same. The people were cheerful and friendly. The aetheryte plaza felt alive with colour and footfall. The Satrap, too, recognised him when he heard his name spoken aloud, and seemed heartened by his recovery. There had been a time, in the haze of it, where he had thought they had put him on that ship to be rid of him, just like his tribe had tried to be rid of him. To hear the explanations - that he had been sent to Sharlayan, that they had hoped the sages would help him, that it had never been about getting rid of him - soothed an ache he hadn't known was there.

And yet.

He had looked past the conversation and towards the curtain before the room had stilled. Something that still lingered in his aether felt drawn to it, somehow, the same way Estinien, leaning against the back wall, had his eyes on it. They had never talked about the feeling, not out loud. Ar'telan wasn't even sure why he was so certain it was the same, he just knew that it was. That there had been a moment, after Estinien had picked up the Eye that had fallen from Ascalon and before Ar'telan had forced Nidhogg out, when they had been the same.

And Vrtra spoke from behind the curtain.

He spoke in the common tongue, now, the one that traders used to ensure they were understood on almost every shore. No dragonspeak, the certainty of the words written bone-deep on the soul of the listener. His sides were bloody and torn from where the scales had been scraped from the skin, a willing harvest to benefit his people, and he had but one eye, that Varshahn could see the world.

He had made himself so small.

"The dragon's promise," Thancred said, voice quiet and full of wonder.

Ar'telan had not known. There had never been a conversation in which he had heard, explicitly, that Vrtra ruled Thavnair. But there had been an understanding among his people that Thavnair was dragon-blessed, whatsoever form that took, and so the boats had been tolerated in port so long as they flew the satrap's flag. Not welcome, precisely, for a mortal man could still come under a false flag and bring death with him, but tolerated. The dragons which swam in the harbour let the ships dock, but circled their hulls as a warning.

Vrtra would know that he had killed Nidhogg. Would know that a child of Meracydia had committed the ultimate sin. He had looked him in the eyes at the Great Work and managed not to show his disgust, but surely he understood. It was a crime so grave only Allag had ever come close to it. Killer, not just of dragons, but of that most sacred among them, the first of Midgardsormr's children.

In a moment, it all felt cold. The room too large, the city unwelcome, the shores too close to a home that would disown him. Dragon-killer, an epithet that fell so gladly from Ishgardian lips, a damnation on his ears. He had tried so hard. He had. He had tried everything at his disposal to find another way, and he had not had enough. And he had chosen the lives of Ishgard over a dragon.

Murderer. Dragon-killer. Hero of Allag.

Thancred's hand on his shoulder was all that shook him from the terror, and it was all that kept him from bolting from the room as soon as he regained his sense. How could he explain it to them? He had tried, so many times, and had received so many useless platitudes about how people would understand, as if there was any nuance in his crime. As if he would ever forgive himself, much less find forgiveness from his people. He had killed Nidhogg. He had abandoned Tiamat upon the heartless rock of Azys Lla, even if she had since taken wing once more. He had killed the Eikon, and he had killed the Lunar primal, and he…

"Thou art terrified, child of man."

His head snapped up to meet Vrtra's gaze, and instantly regretted it. Surely now-

"You have naught to fear from me."

"But I-" Ar'telan tried, trembling fingers stumbling over the shapes.

"Well do I know your history." His voice, though not speaking the old tongue, still echoed in the room with a power that was hard to deny. "What you have done. Know that if Thavnair wished to reject you, we would have done so long before you left Yedhlimad."

Kind words. Open arms. The delight of those who had once known a broken, terrified man, and now saw someone who could stand on his own feet.

"I think I'd be a bit less comfortable here, if we're worrying about that," Estinien added, and Ar'telan grimaced.

"I am sorry," he said, which got a rumble of a laugh from the dragon.

"I can tell. Put down your fear. You are welcome in Radz-at-Han."

His heart did not calm. His heart did not believe it. But he was not being devoured whole, and that, he supposed, was something.

The neon lights were no less bright for having lost count of how many times Ar'telan had walked down the streets.

He knew most of the street names in the parts of Solution Nine he frequented, at least, which was an improvement from being lost in the dizzying movement of it all those first few weeks. Now he knew: Neon Stein, True Vue, Nexus Arcade. And he sat beside a mirror of the woman who had taught him those names, and had to teach her in turn.

"I will confess it is quite overwhelming," Sphene admitted, holding the coffee they had given her between her interlinked fingers as if it were a normal mug and not some kind of disposable cardboard approximation of one.

"I thought much the same, when I first visited," Ar'telan said, and wondered if it would hurt her if he told her he struggled to exist in what had become of her kingdom. How much of a hand had she had in building what had become the Regulators? He had seen her memory in the Meso Terminal, but how much of that was what had been pasted onto the Endless Sphene, and how much was real?

She was real enough that Lamaty'i treated her like an old friend, he supposed.

It was not the first time they had walked this circuit of the city. When she had first awoken properly, after the lightning had been washed from her system, they had shown her what she was waking to. The others sometimes went out with her now, as they tried to track down the man she knew as Calyx, but she felt the safest with Ar'telan, or so she said. A strangely common happening, these days - though Ar'telan was not sure when these days had started, and the days where he had been just as afraid as everyone else had finished.

Today was a little different, though, because Ar'telan had invited a friend. So they sat with their terrible coffee in a busy thoroughfare not to attempt the impossible task of acclimating to the rush of the crowds, but to wait. Solution Nine did not much like waiting, but it tolerated them because they were both very good at making themselves small, it seemed.

"Ar'telan!"

He had not invited Orn Mahr.

The dragonet barreled into him with the force of a dog-sized creature that was capable of free flight, and both Ar'telan and what was left of the terrible coffee promptly exited the bench they were sitting on and instead met the floor with enough force to make his vision swim.

"Oh, goodness," Sphene managed, a stutter in her voice as she tried to comprehend what, precisely, she was looking at.Ar'telan blinked up at Orn Mahr, who was hammering his tiny hands on his shoulders like he was a particularly wriggly drumstick.

"You have to STOP sneaking off to the BRIGHT LIGHTS PLACE without ME!" he declared, and now Sphene was blinking in confusion at the utterly incomprehensible language coming out of Orn Mahr's mouth.

"W-would you like me to fetch the others?" she asked, and Ar'telan groaned. A head-shake stood in for 'no', and he hefted the dragonet from his person with all his strength.

"…My apologies. He was most insistent on accompanying me."

As Ar'telan hauled himself back up to something resembling his feet, Elidibus walked into view, his keen gaze taking in their surroundings with a faint aura of distaste. Too many people, at Ar'telan's best guess. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling.

"You're a big meanie who said I had to stay home," Orn Mahr pouted. Elidibus sighed.

"Yes, because last time you were in the general vicinity of Solution Nine, whatever foul concoction they plied with you had you awake for a week," he said. Ar'telan made a pained noise.

"This is perhaps not the introduction I had imagined," he said, lowering himself back onto the seat and wondering if the spinning was just the normal lights or if he should be worried. "Sphene, this is Elidibus."

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, your Majesty," Elidibus said, and held out a hand. Sphene stared at it for just long enough that Ar'telan was starting to worry she recognised him.

"A pleasure," she settled for, and shook it. "Ar'telan tells me there is much you could teach me."

That was not precisely what he had said, but he was willing to let it slide. He had explained that there was a certain overlap in their situations, and that Elidibus was willing to speak with her about it, if she wished. He had also asked Elidibus if he recalled anything about the situation on the Ninth, but had been met only with the certainty that there had been Ascian hands in their situation, once. So long as Elidibus had not personally overseen the deployment of Lindblum's electrope weapon that had torn the streets asunder and left a bubbling cauldron of levin where the town square had once been, Ar'telan had hoped it would be fine.

"They're going to talk about boring stuff," Orn Mahr complained, and Sphene glanced to him.

"Do you understand my words, little one?" she asked, and Ar'telan grimaced.

"He does," he answered, before Orn Mahr could. "Mostly. Don't worry about it."

"I did warn him that it would be a most dry and dour expedition," Elidibus remarked, not an ounce of judgement in his tone.

"It's always dry in here! They have the big metal disk thingy!" Orn Mahr protested, and Ar'telan suppressed a wince.

"…I'll take him on a tour," he offered. "…Again. And let the two of you have some peace and quiet." He glanced towards the aethernet shard - leynode shard? - and sighed. "I can take you to Neon Stein if you'd like to sit somewhere a little less busy."

"This time you can show me the fighty place Twintania sings about!" Orn Mahr declared, which was so far from off the table it had never seen the dining room.

"A little quiet would be welcome," Elidibus said, with the harried tone of a man who had just travelled a great distance with Orn Mahr for company.

"In our current situation, the fewer ears there are to overhear, the better," Sphene agreed, her voice quiet. "Though… are you quite alright, after that fall?"

"He has done worse to me before," Ar'telan said, getting to his feet and brushing the worst of the dust from his robes. "And probably will again."

"It builds character!" Orn Mahr said.

"Ar'telan has quite enough of that without your help, little summer," Elidibus said, the chastising note in his words going in one ear and blissfully out of the other.

"We can go to the fighty place! And the flashing lights place! And the place with the drinks!" Orn Mahr declared, and Ar'telan steeled himself for a very long few hours.

The crack of thunder was loud, and unrelenting. Noise that hammered on the ears and light that flashed off-time in the eyes. Ar'telan had been outside long enough that he had almost grown used to it.

'Outside' was, perhaps, a strong word where Alexandria was concerned. Above the dome, if they had any means to lower it, Ar'telan knew the bright Shaaloani sun was shining, but here they were trapped. Perhaps at first it had been protection, but Ar'telan wondered if half of their electrope wonders would even function without the constant barrage of lightning to sustain them.

He wasn't here to worry about that, though. If anything, he found it nicer than the open plains and bright blue sky, if only because it tempered the panic just a little. And today he was here to do a job.

He had been briefed by a frankly dizzying number of people, all of whom were approaching the current issue from an entirely different direction, of what was going on. The railroad had run their trains to the edge of the dome and back for a few weeks now, ever since the track had been properly repaired and the train rebuilt, and the general idea was that Turali citizens who had been trapped beneath the dome could go home. If they wanted to go home. If they remembered home at all.

And that was all well and good, but the act of getting from the dome to the last stop on the train station was not easy. Even those who had eschewed Everkeep's comforts still lived a far cry from the rotten ruin that Yyasulani had become, and even if they made it past the hollow village, there was the entirety of Vanguard to navigate through. Ar'telan had drawn up maps for Nitowikwe, and she had her boys working on clearing a sensible path through the building. Gulool Ja had shut down what few robots were still active in the facility, so that wasn't a problem. Ar'telan was here to deal with the rest of it.

The plan was quite simple: a path from the Yyasulani aetheryte to Vanguard. The old train track had, upon rigorous testing that had mostly involved Ar'telan hitting the struts, proved a sturdy enough frame to build that on. Unfortunately, the general area was infested with levin-mad creatures, contorted out of shape from the rampant lightning aether, and they were making it difficult to work.

So, it was Ar'telan's problem now.

So far, it had proved strangely soothing work. He had a cart of planks, and he would cut them to size and hammer them into place on the old rail tracks to turn them into a walkable path. Every few minutes, he would get chirruped at by carbuncle, turn around and stab whatever gibbering beast wanted to turn him into lunch, and then get back to work. As he went, he marked the areas of metal that seemed less sound than the others with a bucket of bright white paint, so someone with more specialised tools could fix it later.

He wondered what the people of Yyasulani had thought, watching the tracks slowly rot. The oppressive atmosphere, where the lightning only ceded the stage to let rain hammer down from the constant clouds, had clearly contributed to the rapid degradation, but it was still harrowing to consider. A train had rolled into the station, and then rolled out, and moments later the track had been replaced with the foreboding electrope wall, the air with the choking ozone-scented Alexandrian equivalent.

Had Alexandria brought its beasts with it? Had the hunters watched as their usual stock were torn to pieces by levin-mad beasts, only to succumb to the change themselves as time inched inexorably on? Ar'telan knew there were a fair few scattered villages of Shaaloani holdouts under the parts of the dome he had never visited, who were slowly being contacted by the resettlement initiative. People who had wanted to remember where they had come from, even though it was the very same ground beneath their feet.

Ar'telan thought of stories. Of dragons who still remembered, through the Song, the Meracydia that had been. Of Ratatoskr's brood, still caretaking an empty nest, even though there were so few of them that they could barely outpace the wilderness. Of Ishgard, who he had only ever known blanketed in gentle snow, but who so many of the knights remembered as gentle highlands.

Things they would never have again.

He missed home. He missed Meracydia. Even if he went back, it would be changed - if nothing else, for Tiamat's return, blessed as it was. The land would be the same, but he could never walk on it with the same feet. He had left a terrified firekeeper, and would return a godslayer. Was that the same as staying the same while your whole world fell to ruin around you?

The final board went in the same as the first had, with a little elbow grease and an application of hammer to nails. The cart behind him stood empty, but it would be an easy step onto the makeshift walkway even for someone who had aged thirty years since they had last set food upon the tracks. One day, they would clear a path through Vanguard large enough for the Dawnblazer, and then his walkway would be slowly dismantled as they reclaimed Yyasulani station. A line that reached all the way to Tuliyollal, perhaps, by then. It was nice to consider.

He walked up to the aetheryte and pressed his palm against it. Crystal and metal did not do much more than dull over time, but its aetheric signature was still unstable. He had teleported to it, once or twice, but he had been advised that for most people it would be 'extremely unwise'.

The path would need rails, and gates. Everkeep would likely send their automated servants, which Ar'telan wholly despised, but Nitowikwe and the rest of those at the railyard were more sensible than that. He would draw up some drafts, perhaps. Maybe they would be able to get some of the local craftspeople in to look at the houses in Yyasulani. Repair the rotted boards, fit them for people to rest in before they made the last leg of the journey.

It hurt to walk.

He hadn't told the others, but they had certainly noticed by now, if they could bear to look at him. They had given themselves the task of exploring Amaurot - fake-Amaurot, whatever this recreation was - and had given him no duty at all, skirting about him like he was made of glass.

Maybe he was. It felt like shattering with every step.

No need to worry, hero. I've taken the liberty of bringing your missing pieces to meet you.

All of this was his fault.

It would have been easy to blame the Exarch - blame G'raha - for putting the hopes of the First on one man's shoulder. But if Ar'telan hadn't been the best hope the First had, he would never have tried to call him. And it was only because… Because of his stupidity, his fate-breaking determination, that Haurchefant had been pulled through before him. Only because of that same agony that Haurchefant had begun to succumb far before he did. Only because…

Emet-Selch had professed that he intended to meet a monster. That he would, as one last act of kindness to the failure that Ar'telan was, caretake the Lightwarden as it ate the world, until the balance tipped so precarious as to allow him to usher in his rejoining, albeit a little delayed. He did not look like a monster, unless it was Y'shtola who was looking, but that was only thanks to Ryne. She had stabilised Haurchefant before, but without her intervention, what would become of him?

Ardbert had stayed with Haurchefant. At least, he assumed he had, because he hadn't seen the man since he had promised to do so. He had been stuck to Ar'telan before, but the difference was less pronounced, now. Another result of his folly.

An invitation for a monster.

They had told him to stay put, but he had been told by the tinny voice in the arrival lift to register, and even if he had not come for the reasons Emet-Selch had suggested, it would at least signal his presence. He felt every step ripple through his body like it was made of brackish water, thick but malleable, full of thorns. Pace. Pace. Pace.

Would it be quick, like it had been for Tesleen?

Would he remember, like Vauthry had?

Would he become an unrecognisable miscreation, like Storge?

Would he be a person-not-person, like those alabaster white angels?

Would he have enough will left to fight it, to resist enough to try and hold himself back?

Would it compel him anyway?

Plans in ashes. No escape in throwing himself to the Rift if it damned Haurchefant in the doing of it. No succor in the Exarch playing the villain when they both knew it wouldn't work. One hero, Emet-Selch had said. One person strong enough to stand against… whatever it was they had to withstand.

No sundered soul could stand alone. Ar'telan had never been alone in all his life, save for those few terrifying days in the aftermath of the attack on the Waking Sands. What use, a hero on a pedestal? Did Emet-Selch not work with his own co-conspirators, Ascians that could join hands so thoroughly as to become one being, as Lahabrea and Igeyohrm had?

An unwinnable bet. An impossible proposition. One hero to save the First. And he could have done it, albeit at the cost of himself, if he had not cursed Haurchefant with his aether.

Stupid. Stubborn. So many deaths in the Echo he had ceased counting. So many failures. So many moons watching Haurchefant's shallow breathing, praying for his recovery. The thought of the rest of the Fortemps family at his bedside even now, watching their son, their brother, still as a corpse and barely alive a second time. Hoping Ar'telan would save him. Blissfully ignorant of the rotten truth.

Fate would not bend the knee forever.

---

The names of the buildings washed through him like water, but friendly shades pointed him towards the right one. In one hand he held a piece of… paper? It felt like paper, but it was as fake as everything else in the city. It would let him apply for a visitor's pass. He would turn it in at the desk and they would review it. It had Emet-Selch's signature on it. It had…

A hundred little marks from when his fingers tightened too strongly around it when the pain spiked. His name written on it, even though Emet-Selch had never deigned to use it to his face. No mention of Haurchefant.

The chairs were built for people four times his height, and he had to tilt his head up to even see the seat. He hauled himself up - he could have jumped, if the movement hadn't set his nerves to screaming - and bit down the noise of pain. Sat on the cold marble. Stared forwards and tried not to see the Light that lingered in the edges of his vision.

One lapse of judgement would be all it took. Stop fighting it. Stop trying to save them. Give in. Give up. When the skin was cold as the grave it would stop hurting. When-

"May I?"

The sound of the voice, words that weren't the right ones but still translated in his head, snapped him back to reality. He inhaled sharply through his teeth, and turned to face the shade that sat beside him. Same as the rest of them. Formless, a vague gesture at a humanoid figure. A white mask, a black robe. Emet-Selch had made so many of them. A feat of extraordinary aetherial skill, which he could have used to save two worlds, and instead used to soothe his ego while he damned them.

"You, I think, are from a time beyond ours. Have you followed in the wake of Emet-Selch?"

Ar'telan blinked.

---

His name was Hythlodaeus. He had revealed this in the same easy sentence as his acknowledgement that he was not even real. He carried with him an understanding that the rest of the shades did not. The Final Days. Zodiark. Hydaelyn. Emet-Selch, as he was now, and not as he had been then.

Ar'telan did not have much patience for coddling a man who had raised empires for the sole purpose of wiping out an entire reflection. Seven Rejoinings. Seven Calamities on the Source. Allag. Garlemald. Even this city was puppets whose strings he held in tight fingers, commanded to dance to suit his purposes. Hythlodaeus would not understand that - would not understand the pain of being Meracydian, of having to walk a path of agony alongside a man who refused to leave, who judged you wanting, who admitted with a smile upon his face to having helped engineer Allag. Bahamut. Tiamat. A forest bleached bone-white. Ar'telan had grown up listening to the mournful, off-key chorus of the Tempered remnants of Bahamut and Tiamat's broods, rising like ghosts from what was left of the Heartwood.

No. No pity. The man made monsters. It was all he could do.

And Hythlodaeus did not seem inclined to argue.

"Did you come alone?" he asked instead, his voice light, as though he had not just finished summarising the demise of his entire people.

"Sort of," Ar'telan signed, and fought the urge to flinch at the pain the movements caused. Hythlodaeus tilted his head to the side.

"Your soul…" He began, then reached out and touched a single, ghostly finger to the top of Ar'telan's head. "It is familiar."

"Familiar?" Ar'telan repeated. The shades had no face, but still Hythlodaeus somehow exuded the aura of a man smiling with delight.

"We knew them, once," he clarified. "Even reduced as you are, it is unmistakeable. Yes, earlier…" He hummed a thoughtful note. "The faintest whisper of a thing. Something I could barely see. I doubt even Emet-Selch could see it, especially with…" He paused. "The Light."

"Haurchefant?" Ar'telan managed, as if that would mean something to this hollow ghost. Hythlodaeus raised a hand to his face, his eyeless gaze taking in the nothingness of the middle distance.

"The last time Emet-Selch walked the streets, he did so with dour purpose," he said. "He had with him two people, neither willing, neither awake. And this little whisper. So faint I thought myself to be dreaming. To be hoping…" He looked down to Ar'telan again. "You and your ghost - once you were one soul. Though you walk apart now, the hue is unique. Unmistakable. Once, your collective soul held so many stars." Another gentle tap on the top of his head, though this one felt more reassuring than querying. If nothing else, at least it did not hurt like every other interaction seemed to, these days. "I wonder if Emet-Selch recognised it. I wonder if he remembers. It has been a very long time, for him, I think. But perhaps he saw the memory of someone he once admired in you."

"He has a funny way of showing it," Ar'telan replied, hoping the Echo did not make him sound too bitter. Hythlodaeus chuckled at that.

"He ever did." From behind the desk, Ar'telan heard a voice that spoke in something other than words call out his name. "The sorrow you carry with you is clearer to see than even the light that lingers around your form. But you will triumph over it."

"I thought you were on Emet-Selch's side," Ar'telan said. Hythlodaeus shrugged, an easy motion on his giant shoulders.

"I doubt his methods thrill you, but Emet-Selch has never been one to delight in suffering. And if you do not succeed, which - if you are truly the inheritor of their soul - I think unlikely, he will make it so." Ar'telan's name was called again. "The sun ever rises, my new old friend. May you find what it is you seek."

Fate would not bow to him now.

---

Another piece of paper, already creased with exertion. A gathering of people who breathed real air by the aetheryte.

"Ar'telan!" Ryne exclaimed, fear clear in her wide eyes. The other Scions immediately stopped talking at her proclamation, turning towards him - Thancred all but running over. Ar'telan gritted his teeth.

"I am fine," he said, fending Thancred off from trying to hold him up with a movement that burst with Light they could not see. "I have jumped through Emet-Selch's hoops, that he might deign to meet with us."

"I think he would have done it regardless," Thancred said, to which Ar'telan made a distinctly unimpressed noise.

"No. I think he would cling to protocol," he disagreed. "We do not have time to waste on your attempts to coddle me." Thancred flinched at that. It would have hurt him, before. It ran off him like water down glass.

Ardbert was with Haurchefant. They would have time. They would reach them. They would.

"You must look your best for an appointment with the Lord Speaker."

The title had been new, but the sentiment was not. Ishgard thrived upon formality, even in the wake of everything changing. Perhaps even more so, it being one of the few things they could still cling to in the storm. It was something Ar'telan could sympathise with.

But Ishgardian fashion he could not sympathise with. He had been scrutisised by Artoirel and Emmanellain - one of the few times he had ever seen the two of them agree upon anything - and been determined unfit to present himself. Ar'telan was unsure what made this visit, specifically, different. But different it was.

"Do not… take their words to heart," Haurchefant said, every breath still laboured. Ar'telan had spent many uncertain days at Haurchefant's bedside since Thordan's defeat, though it had been less comfort before. Ar'telan was not sure that he liked that Haurchefant was using what little energy he had to allay his fears, but this, too, he was having to accept as happening.

"I don't think I'm built for Ishgardian high fashion," he admitted, staring down at his lap. He had been surrounded by Ishgardian fashion for moons. Tall, floppy hats. Boots with heels tall enough to class as a weapon, irrespective of gender. Tight corsets and perfectly fitted suits. Cloth that came from a time before Ishgard had been plunged into the cold, and refused to change, just like so much else.

Ar'telan did not like fitted clothes. He did not much like anything that reminded him of his shape. Clothes which pinched at the edges of his skin, a memory of rock rubble and barely enough air to breathe. Stupid and foolish, like being afraid of something so ever-present as the sky.

"Very few… are," Haurchefant allowed. "But you would… cut a most… dashing figure." He paused to cough, and Ar'telan's eyes flicked up towards him with a flash of terror. No blood. No light-steeped wound. This, too, was part of healing. He recalled his own journey, far too keenly for something years past now. The fevered weeks that had passed to moons, that had passed him by before lucidity returned. The worried looks that creased faces whenever he had seemed to lapse back into it, fear that they would lose him for good this time. Learning how to breathe properly again, trying to speak, failing to speak. Pointless sounds and a broken tongue and a hundred little coughing fits.

He understood Haurchefant's frustration, then, with his convalescence. The knight would have leaped from the bed the moment he'd woken if his legs had allowed him, but they had not. To him, the time he had lingered on the boundary between life and death was lost, ephemeral and unknown. He had accepted death on the paraphet and then woken to being treated like he was made of glass.

I'll cut out your lying tongue.

And none of it would get him to look acceptable for dinner any faster.

"But Aymeric wouldn't mind if I went in something more comfortable," he said. Emmanellain had offered to have a suit tailored for him, which had been more embarrassing than anything else that had happened to him since his arrival in Ishgard. Artoirel had surveyed his wardrobe and declared Emmanellain to be correct. Ar'telan was perfectly capable of making his own clothing - he had often made his own clothing, and the clothing of the huntresses and gatherers and kits besides - but he was woefully out of his depth when it came to high class tailoring, it seemed. He could make it fit, but he could not make it fit, and he was at a loss as to the difference.

"It is… about the image," Haurchefant said. There was an unspoken distaste for it behind the words which both of them shared. Image had been what kept Haurchefant from the childhood he longed for. Image had been what had driven Ishgard into the death spiral it had been locked in with Nidhogg for so long. But image was key to making sure Ishgard stayed on her present course. A parade for all the people who did not matter to Ar'telan, but whose opinions mattered very much to Aymeric's new parliament.

He hated it.

"Perhaps I could change once inside," he mused, then sighed. "Fine. I… I will endure."

"That's the spirit," Haurchefant said, the ghost of a smile on his face. He still seemed too pale to Ar'telan's eyes, too frail, but it would heal with time. It would. "I would… help, but…"

"I would like to actually make it to the dinner," Ar'telan replied, an amused noise following the words.

Double-Edged/Jaws of Death

In the future, he'd say it had happened too fast to think. But it hadn't.

It had been step on agonising step, through the monument to Allagan hubris. Through sick air that reeked of oil and the stench of stasis fluid, to the finish line where the Ascians had mocked his failure.

Is a corpse that breathes without thought still alive?

Did you save anything?

Did you pour your life onto the altar of pointless mortal struggle?

And his fingers had tightened around the auracite, the prison wrought to catch the uncatchable. Promise. Uncertainty. Release.

If it had been anyone but Lahabrea…

And he held Igeyorhm's soul in his hands and watched as Thordan strode up to the Singularity Reactor.

"They warned me to watch you, you know," Thordan remarked, his back still turned to Ar'telan. The twelve knights and their bared steel were protection enough. "Dragon-lover and heretic. Imagine my surprise, then, when you returned at the head of the party who had slain the wyrm himself."

Thordan did not intend to let him leave alive. Thordan had never intended to let him leave alive, but he had hoped that the ascians might deal with him before he had even arrived. Now he stood between Thordan and his goal, an irritating fly to swat with his weapon of half-Tempered thralls.

The sea of what you do not know is fathoms deep.

But he could not speak, with a sword in one hand and his shield in the other, and Thordan knew that.

"I will extend my thanks for the assistance," he said, his voice almost dismissive. "But the damage you have done is unconscionable." He turned, finally, and regarded Ar'telan with the inscrutable eyes of a man who would torture his own son for the sake of power. "This is as far as you go."

Ar'telan recalled the edifice that made the 'mast' of the Flagship, metal effigies of the eikons Azys Lla tortured for power.

Sephirot. A wood of frozen white, like stripped-down bone.

Sophia. A populace in terror of uttering a word of prayer.

Zurvan. A dead-eyed people and a pile of burning offerings.

The cycle will continue if the pretender doth claim Thordan's throne.

Nidhogg. Blood on a spear, a prince who turned from the father, a peace in tatters on the altar of power.

Think'st thyself capable of standing against a wretch drunk deep on the power of false gods, mortal?

A spear of purest light through the flesh, cauterising even the flow of aether with its passage.

I have to.

Thordan raised the sword, and light exploded out from the knights of the Ward. Ar'telan narrowed his eyes.

Thy heart hungers for vengeance.

A hundred little cuts. A hundred little indignities.

I sense my kin's aether within thee.

Bahamut. Pinned in place and used as fuel for the empire's fire.

I could lend my strength to thee. Put paid the tyrant's dreams of sitting upon the throne of my sister's murderer.

Ratatoskr. Bright and shining, running messages across Hydaelyn to all of her kin, building roads between dragon and mortal. Running blood down those same streets when she told them too much, too much, too much.

You mean to entrap me.

The light cascaded outwards, and before him stood King Thordan. Easily three times the height of the withered old man he had once been, clad in shining armour that glimmered in the light of the Reactor. He would only grow more powerful the longer he stood in a place steeped in eikonic might.

So too did Thordan, yet thy steps brought thee here regardless.

It is necessary.

Is it not, mortal?

Ar'telan's grip shifted on the sword.

Tiamat. Bound and broken on the rock.

Did he not owe a debt? Was he not bound to prevent a repeat of Allag's mistakes? What purpose did he have, child of Meracydia as he was, on the shores of Eorzea - of Allag - if not to stop this? The only mortal left in all of Eorzea who knew the agony of an empty roost, a twisted, ruined home?

It is thy duty.

He was not wrong.

Then we end it. But that is all we do.

He had expected it to feel more foreign, the sensation of the dragon's aether mixing with his. Nidhogg was a ghost, and Ar'telan held but half of his soul - the other stood set within Ascalon, the blade this mockery of Thordan carried as though he deserved it. If he had been Ishgardian, if the remnants of Ratatoskr's aether had lingered within his blood, perhaps it would have felt like home. But instead, it simply was.

It seethes. It writhes.

Ar'telan was struck with the sudden certainty that this place had once moved. That once it had stood in the sky across from Bahamut, to tighten chains around the misshapen form of the Eikon. One last and final perversion, all that Allag had been good for.

All that man had been good for.

A voice called out across the floor of the room that had become their battle stage. Layered over with the might of the aether of twelve men, it echoed from the gilded walls.

"Heretic!"

Better a heretic than a murderer.

Wings tore their way from his back, ripping through flesh and cloth and flexing with a strength that belied their lack of age. He leapt from the floor as Thordan brought down the sword, amd though the confines of the roof would not let him evade the wicked edge entirely, they gave him far more space to work with than had he been but one man, facing off against a sword twice his height and far more sharp.

Thy blood singeth not for us, mortal.

I am a child of Meracydia, not Ratatoskr.

His fingers contorted, wicked claws building themselves over the tips from aether alone. His sword had long since clattered to the floor, but he still clung to the shield, emblazoned as it was with the unicorn of House Fortemps. A symbol. A reminder. A man only distinguished from a body by those shallow breaths, taken far too little.

How fitting for one who claimed Thordan's mantle to turn weapons on their own people.

"To me, my knights!" Thordan's voice commanded, and as if from nothingness did two of the Ward manifest beside him. Adelphel. Janlenoux. He recognised them from their weaponry, not their faces, which had been formed into metal and feather, no skin left to see. Light danced around the edges of their blades. Ar'telan had seen it before, and the memory resonated between he and his passenger. A flick of wings propelled them away from the spheres of light that they left in their wake, and they landed with a heavy clatter of scale and claw on metal where the first exploded.

Ar'telan had seen- Nidhogg had his own mastery of aether.

A great exertation of aether left balls of roiling fire beneath their feet. They dashed forward, away from the danger zone, and Ar'telan's shield blocked a blow from Thordan's mighty sword as fire vaporised what was left of the ghosts of the Ward.

They did not scream. They were not real.

There is nothing left of them but mindless worship.

True of all of Ishgard's blighted children.

Aymeric, aghast at revelation and yet steeled to confront it. Hilda, a proud voice for those the nobility would seek to leave behind. Stephanivien, building tools they could put into the hands of every man, every woman, every child whose lives were threatened - by horde or by countryman. Haurchefant, a bright smile and a warm hearth.

As it is of yours.

Below them, a frustrated noise issued forth from the helmet. There was a pulse - familiar aether - and the sword glowed red with power. He was drawing from the eye, in lieu of the slumbering eikons. Nidhogg snarled in anger, but it was a familiar pain. Had they not done this for centuries? Had they not shored up their country's safety with hypocrisy?

Blood. It is the only answer.

Ar'telan felt it, keenly, as Thordan drove the sword into the ground. The agony, the scream that had rent through the Song like snapping strings, discordant, wrong, stunning in its strength. Ratatoskr, confused and alone and afraid. A single word, a lamentation that had lasted in Nidhogg's spirit for all this time.

Whah?

Why?

For power. For a sense of superiority. For arrogance and greed. For the same reason Thordan sat before them now, simmering with power and protected by a bright shield of aether, as Ascalon sucked the life out of one more creature on the list.

Eikons. But it did not make it better.

It was akin to a dance. One of the Ward would manifest in a flash of light, backed up soon after by another, and another. They would throw all they had at the heretic and his twisted flesh - chains of fire, chains of will. Lightning crashing from the heavens. The spearpoint of a dragoon, trained to perfection upon the bodies of their kin.

Loskh.

Zephirin, that mocking spear of light in his hands as he tried to pin them down, before resorting to the greatsword with a snarl of frustration on his metal lips. Grinnaux, trying to dash them against the wall with the force of a gale of wind. Adelphel and Janlenoux, bringing blade and shield together to protect the mockery of nature Thordan had become.

Hess.

Reflexes that had fended off dragoons for a millenia commanded muscles unused to flight. Ar'telan felt speartips graze skin, but leave no lasting mark, unlike the claws that rent their armour apart like it was paper. Below, Hermenost conjured meteors from the aether, and Guerrique commanded the very earth to rise up to meet them.

Leehs.

Thordan pulled the sword from the glittering panels, the air thrumming with its passage. Around them, the knights manifested, an encircling net to trap the dragon just as the Allagans had once bound Bahamut.

Ratatoskr had never been offered an answer that was not the tip of the spear. Her children heard an empty space where their sire should have been. Nidhogg remembered still the searing agony of metal on skin, the feeling of his soul being wrest from his body. His self absconded with, his flesh bouyed up only by a brother's sacrifice, a continuation. Body without soul. Soul without body.

Ratatoskr was a thousand dying knights.

Ratatoskr was a hundred starving children.

Ratatoskr was a score of grieving widows over empty graves.

Ratatoskr was a dozen heretics, the warmth of blood in their throats, death of the self, death of the spirit.

Ratatoskr was a wyvern shunning speech with mortal kind.

Ratatoskr was a dragon slumbering in the rubble of what had once been a home.

Ratatoskr was the agonised scream of a brother that her killers mistook for war.

"I shall end your vain struggle!" Thordan exclaimed, and both Nidhogg and Ar'telan reached for the protective weaving that had kept Ar'telan safe from the great wyrm's wrath but weeks before.

The air around them shattered like glass, a shrieking mass of aether and hatred both. And as the pieces hit the floor, Thordan's foe stood across from him, the protective wards flickering away as they were no longer needed.

One last blessing from Hydaelyn.

The might of the First Brood.

"Y-you survived my divine reckoning?" Thordan managed, his voice breaking in his uncertainty. "Impossible!" He picked up the sword once more, but there was a truth in it that was hard to deny. He was old. He was afraid. He was living on stolen valour and borrowed power.

He would die the same as any other knight.

They leaped across the gap, a single flap of the wings powering the jump. Claws ripped through the metal of his armour as though it were flesh, and there was no blood, just pooling light and fragmenting aether. As the transformation distorted, Ar'telan saw Thordan's eyes, wide with horror and fear.

"What… are you?" he managed, and Ar'telan narrowed his eyes.