the act of writing

***

Granddad was sick—that much she could see. Weariness lined his pallid face; his skin stretched wan and gray. Occasionally, a cough rattled his chest—a deep, throaty thing that racked his body and made him wheeze. He rushed to the only table they had in the cottage, where a pitcher of water and a glass that looked like it had seen better days stood side-by-side, and he’d down the cup quickly while waiting for the fit to pass.

Celes sat on the bed, her lips pursed.

“Granddad…” she began, her voice carefully bright. “You must be hungry.”

Granddad heaved a breath. He sat on the chair, head bowed, a tremor rippled up his spine.

Celes rose, then, patting herself and looking around, but the one-room cottage was bare save for the singular bed, a stove, a cabinet, and the table and chair. She spotted no handkerchief nor any sort of stray clothing. She strode to Granddad’s side and crouched before him, dabbing his sweaty face with her sleeve.

“Would you like to eat?” she asked. “I can make something quick.”

“I’ve actually not eaten for three days,” he admitted with a short, wheezing chuckle.

“Then what would you like?”

“Well, unless I ask for fish, I won’t get anything!” His laugh prompted another coughing fit. Celes patted his back. “That’s all there is here…”

“Then I’ll catch you one. Or some.” She beamed. “We’ll have dinner, and then you can rest.”

Granddad finally met her smile with his own, wavering though it was.

She helped him shed off his lab coat after that, before tucking him into the bed she’d previously occupied. Pulling the covers up to his shoulders, she held her hand to his burning forehead.

“Your sword’s in the cabinet,” Granddad muttered. “There’s a fishing rod, too, and a spear, makeshift from the woods around here."

“All right, Granddad, thank you. Now sleep. I’ll be back soon.”

Celes patted his arm, the way Granddad had often patted hers when she was little and had trouble sleeping. As the gentle touch of slumber soothed his features and his breathing grew steadier, dreadful thoughts which she’d fought to keep at bay pervaded her mind. Where had he slept, she wondered. What had he eaten? He’d mentioned there were other survivors, who’d long since succumbed to despair and leapt off the northern cliffs. How had he managed to hang on? Not knowing when she’d wake up or whether this nightmare would end—

—knowing full well that they were partially responsible for whatever had gone wrong with the world.

Her heart lay heavy. Celes waited until Granddad had truly fallen asleep before she slipped off the bed and crossed the room to the solitary cabinet in the hut. On the first shelf was her sword, the blade gleaming bright as though Granddad had not forgotten its care even once. She set it aside.

On the second shelf were the fishing rod and wooden spear, the sharp tips of which would be enough to skewer a fish, though she doubted they could kill wild beasts. Were there wild beasts? She hoped not. Her muscles had grown lax from sleep. She would not be able to wield her blade as properly as she should.

Celes grabbed the spear along with a bucket lying around.

***

When Granddad said the world had gone to ruin, Celes couldn’t imagine the kind of landscape she would meet outside. Certainly it hadn’t been a sky painted in crimson stretching from east to west; nor had it been of a red-tinted sea, whose waves rolled into shore like a sick imagery of blood.

But one look at her surroundings had led a surge of emotion she could not name swell in her chest. Buildings stood dark and lifeless, with roofs torn apart and walls crumbling away. The trees were bare. Tumbled logs lay scattered amid blackened shrubs. There was no one, no signs of life, not even of animals nor wandering beasts. Surely this couldn’t be the work of a year of neglect? Had the world changed so drastically that one year felt like ten?

The heaviness in her heart grew, threatening to drown her whole. At the ridge leading to the beach, the sight which greeted her stopped her short. Wreckage, garbage, refuse—the entire ocean was littered with them. A strange smell, the kind which permeated the Empire’s waste depots but so much worse, rose from the water. Celes swallowed the bile rising in her throat as she made her way down the sandy slope. She would not think; she refused to acknowledge her new reality. She moved along the length of the shoreline, seeking a cleaner patch where she could hunt for fish.

She found it eventually, along with a school of plump, delectable-looking fish swimming in the water. She adjusted her grip on her spear, took her aim. It wasn’t her first time spearfishing. Memories of some distant military campaign surfaced in her mind.

Her arm moved; her spear struck true. She pulled it out of the water, but no sooner had she retrieved her spear than her lips twitched into a grimace: an odd purplish hue tinged the fish’s swollen stomach. Celes tossed it back into the sea and watched it bob belly-up. Dead. Like everything else in this godforsaken world.

Unbidden, a quiet, strangled cry tore out of her throat. Celes’s ribs cracked with a weight she could not unload. She would not give in, just as she knew that Granddad had denied its claim.

But Granddad hadn’t eaten anything for three days. He was sick. There was nothing but fish on the island, but even the fish was inedible. Some manner of poison had contaminated the water, as though the world itself had gone mad and decided to kill everyone with it.

Locke…

Her heart whimpered a name—one name, belonging to a man who had once promised to protect her even should the world end. But now the world had ended, and he was nowhere to be found.

Celes’s legs dropped from underneath her. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wept.

***

For as long as she remembered, Cid was always by her side.

Celes never knew her parents. Her earliest memories were of pristine tubes; black, obsidian chairs; shots she would take every other week; and Cid, his fatherly face warm every time he looked at her, telling her she’d be fine, that she was strong, that he was there and he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Once you attain magic,” he would say, “you shall be a hero to the Empire.”

Magic.

They said it was for the good of the people.

They told her it was for the betterment of the world.

But time after time, one burning village after another, Celes couldn’t help the feeling of her resolve slipping away, even as her blade cut through flesh and sinew so quickly and cleanly that the blood of her foes had splattered her hands before they knew what had been done to them.

A carnage.

“What are we doing, Cid?” she’d asked him once in a vain attempt to extract any sort of justification for her deplorable actions. “What are we fighting for?”

Cid might have parroted the same reasons until Celes found herself numb to them. The way the other knights had gone numb and would, instead, compare kill counts at the end of each campaign. When they laughed—laughed—at a boy no older than ten being burned alive, Celes had decided then that she’d had enough. That this was wrong. This had to end.

Whatever Cid saw on her face stopped him short from relaying the Empire’s slogans. The only person she would call family looked at her for a while, and Celes saw the way he wilted, the way his shoulders drooped and his age suddenly caught up to him. All of sudden, the person standing before her was not Gestahl’s foremost scientist, but a tired old man.

“The Empire seeks to rebuild the world,” Cid said without conviction. “One day, the people will see it.”

***

The northern cliffs loomed in the horizon as Celes made her way back to the cottage. She would not look at it—would not even spare it a glance. Granddad was still here. They’d promised to live out their lives together in peace.

The door’s noisy creaks broke the otherwise silent air. Granddad was asleep on his bed, but as Celes approached, she realized his face was too pale. A tinge of blue colored his skin, and his chest barely moved. Celes rushed to check his pulse; she sensed a beat. Once. Twice. Too slow. Too shallow.

“Granddad?”

She shook his shoulder. No response.

“Granddad, I’m home. I brought food. I’ll cook dinner. It’ll be ready in a bit and then you can eat your fill.”

Silence.

Her breath hitched.

“Granddad!”

Granddad jolted awake, bleary eyes blinking rapidly as he stammered, “Huh—what—yes. Celes, dear? I’m up, I’m up.” His vision swam. He did not see her.

He was too weak.

But he was alive. And that was all she could ask for.

Celes threw her arms around him and sobbed.

Three days of no food. With the state of the ocean now, Celes could not blame him. It was by a stroke of luck, and hours of search, that she found a few that bore no (or little) blotches of discolor. Though none of them were plump (or bloated, thankfully) nor delectable-looking.

Feebly, Granddad patted Celes’s back in the way he would do when she was a child and crying in his arms. Celes buried her face in his chest.

“I’m fine, my dear,” Granddad managed, his voice thin and hoarse. “Did you say you went fishing? I hope you caught something good.”

She shook her head.

“Ah, well, it is what it is. Go ahead and cook it. I’ll wait.” When Celes didn’t move, he prodded her back. “Celes?”

She shouldn’t have lain asleep for a whole year. She should have been here, helping him, supporting him. How had Granddad lived to be in the state that he was now? He was the closest thing she had to a family, and he was fading away.

Celes clutched his back.

“You’ll stay with me, right?” she whimpered, like a child prodding her parent for an answer she was afraid to hear. Her arms tightened around him. “Granddad?”

A gentle hand stroked her head. “Of course,” he said. “Of course, my dear girl. I’m not going anywhere. Once I’ve a taste of your grilled fish, I’ll recover my strength.”

She heard the smile in his voice, but she couldn’t force herself to meet it—couldn’t find in herself the shred of hope that he would be all right, that this would not be his last meal. Should she go out and fish at another spot? Perhaps the island had another place that was not tainted by poison.

“Celes?”

Tears rolled down her cheeks at his warm, fatherly voice. Familiar and nostalgic. She forced herself to move away and attempted a smile.

“I’ll make you the most delicious fish you’ve ever tasted, Granddad. Just you wait.”

Aerith often found her foster mother tending to her garden quietly. Ever since her husband died, she hadn’t been quite like herself. Not that Aerith knew how Elmyra was normally—they had only lived together for a handful of months, after all—but Aerith could see the subtle change. A more withdrawn demeanor, her unseeing gaze, and sometimes, in the middle of the night, Aerith would hear quiet sobs coming from the kitchen.

Aerith turned in her blanket, wondering if she should sneak downstairs and give Elmyra a hug. Her foster mother couldn’t see the world like she did. Perhaps, if Elmyra could have seen his spirit, she wouldn’t have to feel so lonely. Like Aerith, who, even with her mother gone, could still feel her in the wind, on the brush of fresh leaves against her palms, or hear her voice in the babbling water of the stream outside. Her mother was never truly dead. She had only returned to the Planet. Just like Elmyra’s husband.

Aerith lay awake for a long time. After a while, she heard the sobs fade. Aerith propped herself on her elbows. Then she slipped her feet off her bed and sneaked toward the door. She turned the knob and carefully pulled the door off its hinges. The lights turned off in the stairwell. Footsteps approached, the wooden stairs creaking under Elmyra’s weight. Then Aerith spotted a bob of brown head through the railing, and she immediately shut her door and hid under her covers. 

Elmyra’s feet stopped in front of her door, but she didn’t push it open. Aerith waited with bated breath until she heard a quiet, trembling sigh. Then Elmyra was gone, crossing the hall to the other room across from hers. A click; her footsteps receded; another click. 

***

It had been a month since they buried Elmyra’s husband. 

Early the next morning, before the sun was even out, Aerith sneaked out of the house to the garden outside. Past the bridge to the patch of grass on the other side of the river, Aerith made her way to a small hidden alcove against the cliff face. It was right by the waterfall, so the water ran pure. Aerith crouched before the flower bed she had built, where delicate pale yellow primroses thrived. 

A smile spread across Aerith’s lips. “They’ve blossomed,” she murmured. 

The soft petals crowned feathery green stalks that were almost as long as her forearm. Their leaves, verdant and broad, covered the moist ground. There were enough of the flowers to fill several vases at home, but Aerith had another thing in mind. 

Carefully, she snipped each bloom at the base of their stalks. A crown, she thought, as she began twining the stalks together. But Aerith had never weaved a flower crown before. She had only seen pictures of it in a book at the lab. She’d told her mother once that one day, she would like to make a flower crown for her, if they ever got out. 

And now they had… 

But her mother wasn’t with her anymore.

Aerith’s fingers slipped, and the crown fell apart in her hands. Before she could huff in frustration, a whisper of a laugh caressed her ear.

Don’t rush, my dear. Take your time.

Aerith’s head snapped up. “Mom?”

The flowers seemed to smile. I’m here with you.

By the time the sun rose over their part of the Slums, Aerith finally finished her flower crown. Pride swelled in her chest as she looked at her somewhat haphazard wreath. A little too much twig and vine. She plucked a few more primroses from the flowerbed and slipped them into the headpiece. It wasn’t perfect, and some jutted out of place, but it was a crown nonetheless, and she couldn’t wait to show it to Elmyra. 

The wind kissed her cheek, as if to say “Well done”. 

Just then, she heard a different voice calling her name. “Aerith?” Elmyra’s shout echoed from their house. “Aerith, where are you, sweetheart?” 

“I’m here, Mom!” 

She leaped from her hiding place and rushed back up the garden and across the river. Elmyra stood at the doorway, looking positively distraught until she caught sight of Aerith barrelling from the garden. 

“There you are! I was looking for you everywhere!” she said. “What happened to you? Your dress is all dirty, and your hands—”

“I was making this.” Aerith brought her primrose crown up to her foster mother’s eyes. “It’s for you.”

“For… me?”

“Uh-huh.” Aerith beamed. “Do you like it?”

Elmyra blinked even as she accepted the flower crown. “Well, I do, but… what brought this on?”

“Well…” Aerith fidgeted. She hung her head, hands clasped on her back. “Your husband wanted you to have it.”

Elmyra froze. “My husband?”

“That time his spirit came to visit, he asked me for a favor. He’d found some primrose seeds that he kept in his pocket. He… wanted you to have them. So when they returned his body, I took the seeds from him and planted it secretly in the garden.” Aerith looked up now, her pulse stammering anxiously because Elmyra did not look quite pleased. “Are you… not happy? It was supposed to be a surprise. I thought you would like a surprise…” Her voice, having grown quieter with each word, finally trailed off. 

Elmyra did not say anything for a long while. Aerith squirmed in her feet. Was she wrong again? Should she not have kept it from Elmyra? 

Aerith had been afraid that if she’d spoken recklessly, like when she’d told Elmyra her husband had returned to the Planet, Elmyra would be sad. But her husband had said that Elmyra loved the flower. If Aerith could grow them in their garden, perhaps her foster mother would smile once she saw them in full bloom. 

At least, that’s what she’d thought. 

“Mom, I—”

Before Aerith could say another word, Elmyra had dropped to her knees and brought Aerith into her arms. 

“Thank you,” she whispered. Her breath shuddered. 

In the flower book Aerith once read at the lab, it’d said that primroses meant new beginnings. She had looked up at her mother and said, “If we ever get out, I want to plant primroses in our garden. Then I’ll make a crown for you and you’ll be queen.”

Her mother had smiled. “Then I’ll also make one for you so you’ll be my princess.”

She’d giggled at the thought.

Now Aerith stood crushed within Elmyra’s embrace. Her mother wasn’t here anymore to wear a crown, but Elmyra was. A cottage for just the two of them, with a garden beside. They hadn’t left Midgar, but the days of painful syringes and glaring light were behind her. 

She could live here. 

Elmyra pulled away, wiped tears from her eyes. She smiled. “Show me where the primroses are. I’ll make you a crown too.”

Aerith beamed. She hummed her response and led her mother back to the alcove with the pale yellow flowers.

Yet now… 

Now all he wanted was to cling onto her, to bring his small hands around her shoulders and ask her not to go. Not to leave him. She didn’t have to leave now, did she? She could stay and teach him all about the world. He was old enough. He could start learning now. He’d be a good learner. He’d listen well and do everything she’d tell him. Just so she’d stay… 

But his arms stayed where they were, awkwardly crushed between the strength of his mother’s embrace. His heart roared, but his body stood frozen, limp, like a puppet cut from its string, refusing to listen to orders. 

Then Cahciua let him go. “Listen to Iyaate, you hear?” she said, ruffling his hair.

Erenville swatted her hand away. “I know, I know. You don’t need to tell me twice.”

Cahciua stroked a thumb over his cheek, then placed a gentle kiss on his forehead. “I’ll return home soon,” she murmured. Her parting words, always. 

When she rose to her feet and made to turn, Erenville felt the urge to run, to let go of Iyaate and stop his mother from leaving. Don’t go! His heart screamed. But his feet remained rooted to the spot. 

A blinding light swallowed Cahciua whole.

***

Erenville woke to the gentle sound of lapping waves underneath him. A mattress on his back, plush. Familiar. It didn’t feel like the hard surfaces of the Backroom. His fingers felt for the sheets. A little coarse, but comfortable nonetheless. Not like the little bed with its thin blanket he’d used to sleep in at his home. 

His former home. 

He peeled open his eyes to the sight of dark wooden beams crisscrossing the ceiling of his cabin. For’ard Cabins. His mind was slowly coming back to him. The inn, then, he thought. He was back at the inn.  

He stared at the ceiling for a long time. The shadows were still deep, but through the ocean-view opening, light began to seep and slant. Dawn. Yet even as the day had just started, he could already hear distant shouts and hollers of men and women working in the streets. 

A deep, weary sigh drew the life out of him. It didn’t feel like he’d slept at all with how heavy his limbs seemed to be. His chest weighed down with an invisible load. He attempted to rise, but didn’t feel like moving. He blinked, eyes bleary, and was surprised to find them wet. Erenville reached up to his face, and his fingers met several wet streaks down the outer corners of his eyes.

“Huh…” A quiet, breathy remark slipped out of his mouth.

Tears coated the tips of his fingers; they still pooled beneath his eyelids.  

***

“Good morning!” 

The loud, obnoxious voice greeted him the moment he opened his cabin door. As to be expected, Roga stood outside the entrance, dressed in the dancer outfit he’d received from Lamaty’i a while back. His strawberry-blond hair shone under the light, as did the grin splitting his face in half.

“Off to work again, are we?” Roga chirped. His energy matched the bright sunlight now grazing the rooftops. A clear sunny day, with only thin wisps of cloud marring an otherwise perfect countenance. In the distance, seagulls squawked, their alabaster wings flapping against the wind. 

Erenville bit back a sigh and closed his door. “Still lots of work in the city,” he replied tartly. 

“I’ll come with you, then!”

“You don’t need to,” Erenville muttered under his breath, too quiet for Roga to hear. But apparently his grumbles didn’t slip past Roga’s notice, as the younger Viera turned his head and asked what he’d said. Erenville sighed again and said, “Nothing.” Ignoring the pair of feet catching up to him, he made his way to the heart of town where most of the work would be had. 

After Zoraal Ja’s attack last month, the city was in shambles. While they’d gone inside the Dome, Koana had done his best to assuage everyone’s fears and amass their strength to help rebuild their homes. The effort was still underway when Erenville and the Scions returned from Solution Nine. Feeling the sudden need to keep himself busy, Erenville had gone and volunteered to help with the city’s restoration. 

All the way to the city center, Roga wouldn’t stop chattering. Erenville was only half listening, offering occasional nods and vague responses at appropriate times. This had been a routine now. The young Viera would greet him at his door, follow him everywhere, then call it a day once the sun began to set and Erenville would be heading home. Erenville hadn’t thought much of it at the beginning. Roga had always been friendly, even before they properly knew each other. Then after learning that their parents were travel companions, he’d grown so overly familiar to the point Erenville would rather avoid being left alone in his company. One energetic yapping was enough to occupy his ears for the rest of his life; he didn’t need another. 

But then Roga began asking:

Are you okay? 

Are you hurt? 

Wait, don’t carry that, I’ll help you. 

Here, something to eat. You haven’t had breakfast yet, right?

Erenville, let me know if you need anything.

It had gotten to the point that, just a couple of days ago, Erenville had paused in his work and rounded on him. “What’s with you!?” 

Roga had blinked. “What?”

“You—” The words he’d wanted to utter died in his lips. Pity. Was it pity? Did Roga pity him? Was that what Erenville saw in his pale green eyes? Roga’s overly bright persona was a clever mask of whatever deeper emotion he might feel inside. One might think Roga was an open book—and he was, in certain aspects—but there was something hidden underneath his sunny smile that Erenville had only glimpsed a few times when Roga thought no one had been looking. And that was what Erenville saw: a deep-seated pain reflected in the drawing back of his brows. As though he knew what Erenville was feeling.  

In the end, Erenville had shut his mouth and turned away. 

“Eren—” 

“Don’t follow me.”

He’d thought that Roga would finally listen to his request, but the young Veena still came over the next day. And the next. And now Erenville found himself spending half the morning listening to Roga’s incessant babble about nothing of import: Hrodger getting mad at him for drinking, Thancred dragging him out to fish, Y’shtola seeking him to help study the Interdimensional Key, and so on and so forth. 

“…so of course I had to hide at the Xbalyav T’ve,” Roga was saying. “Is it my fault if Br’uk Evu offered me tequila?”

“How many glasses did you drink?” Erenville asked. 

“Uh… five?” Roga said. Erenville stared at him over his shoulder. He bent down to pick up a sack of sand. “Okay, ten. Not my fault that Tural has lots of delicious drinks. And I wasn’t drunk, thank you very much!”

Erenville inadvertently scoffed. He rose, easily lifting forty pounds of sand to his shoulder. Roga made an exaggerated wowed expression, then clapped heartily. Erenville gave him a deadpan stare before flicking his eyes to the other sack on the ground. 

The Veena groaned. “Look, I would help if you were carrying small boxes, but you can’t expect me to lift a hundred-pound sack all by myself!?” 

“It’s not even fifty.”

“Look at these brittle limbs!” Roga raised his arms, showing off his muscles… or a lack thereof. “The moment I lift anything more than ten pounds, they’ll snap. You want me to break my bones?”

Erenville huffed an exasperated sigh.

“Honestly, why do we even need to strain our muscles when we have magicks? Let’s see here, I recall there was a levitation spell that G’raha used…” 

Fisting his hand before him, Roga concentrated the aether on his ring, then held his fingers out to the sacks of sand stacked outside Wachumeqimeqi. The place had been repurposed as a resource center, and Erenville had been sent to fetch some sand to the Resplendent Quarter. A long way, to be sure, but the Quarter had run out sand that morning. Erenville had just arrived with wood when one of the women saw him and asked if he’d be a dear and grab some for them. Of course, “some” didn’t mean just one or two sacks that Erenville was now carrying, so he would appreciate it if Roga did some hand lending too. 

But at the last second he remembered that Roga’s magick used to be unstable. Didn’t Hrodger warn the Viera not to overdo himself? 

“Wait—” he shouted, hand shot forward. 

The gemstone on Roga’s ring glowed with green energy. Its light twined around five sacks. With a flick of his wrist, Roga’s spell lifted the sacks of sand high into the air. Erenville watched open-mouthed as his companion performed the entire trick with ease. 

Roga turned around with an almost-smug grin, as if saying, See? No sweat broken, only to find Erenville’s incredulous stare. He stepped back, defensive. “What is it?” 

“I thought you couldn’t use magick.” 

“I never—wait, you already saw me use magick before. In battle.”

“Well, yes, but the Scions were always so careful with you. So I thought you weren’t cured. You were sick, were you not?” 

“I—well… yes, I was. Am. Sort of. I’m better, though. But, come on, you saw me use magick in battle and you’re surprised to see me use a simple levitating trick?” Roga harrumphed. “Well, I’ll show you!” 

He went to take the other sacks off the ground, but Erenville stopped him before he could: “Not all of them!” 

Roga rolled his eyes, then went to lift the forty pounds from Erenville’s shoulder instead. “Come on. The cart’s up here, right?” He went up the steps to the heart of the market where their borrowed cart and its ox waited. He set them all inside—or, rather, dropped them all in a haphazard manner. Then he wiped his hands and rolled his shoulders as though he’d done a taxing physical labor. Erenville shook his head in astonishment. 

“What? I helped you, didn’t I?” Roga said.

“That was easier than lifting one sack at a time,” he agreed, “so thank you. But why did you drop them all at once?”

“What’s the big deal? We’re taking them out later anyway.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, the sand isn’t the only thing we were sent to fetch.”

***

They spent the remainder of the morning checking off their list from the Resplendent Quarters: sand, paint, stones, and timber. By eleven o’clock, they’d gotten everything they needed in their cart, laden now to almost overflowing. Erenville wondered if it might be too heavy for the ox.

“Maybe I should carry the timber,” he mused, when a booming voice suddenly rang across Wachumeqimeqi.

“Hey, everyone! Care to take a break? I brought tacos from Aunt Tii’s!”

Erenville lifted his head to see who else but the Vow of Resolve standing atop the steps with a huge bag slung over her shoulder and a wide grin spread across her face. The people around him squealed with delight, stopped everything they were doing, and rushed to her side.

“My Lady!”

“Vow of Resolve!”

“Good to see you!”

If Koana was calm and collected and Zoraal Ja silent and imposing, Wuk Lamat was the very definition of boisterous and warm. Like the sun. 

She climbed the stairs down and set her bag on the ground. “I figured you all haven’t had breakfast, having worked since dawnbreak and all, so I went ahead and ordered a handful of Aunt Tii’s.”

“Nothing from Xbalyav T’ve?” a woman asked, dejected. 

Lamaty’i grinned. “Don’t worry, I got tacos from both of them. See?” She opened the bag to reveal yet two more different bags, one labeled Aunt Tii’s while the other Br’uk Evu’s. All of them laughed and smiled and thanked her for the food as they each got a portion for themselves. None of them returned to their post; quite, they hung about the square, eating their meals. 

Across the distance, Lamaty’i’s golden gaze found him amidst the crowd. So easily, as though she’d known he was there. A different smile shone on her lips: warm, tender… perceptive. Erenville fought the urge to look away. 

Grabbing a couple wrapped tacos from her bag, Lamaty’i rose to her feet and approached Erenville and Roga. “Had breakfast yet?” she asked, still with that infernal smile.

She gave them each a taco. While Roga immediately wolfed his food down with no regard to present company, Erenville could only stare at his. Aunt Tii’s, from the smell of it. He liked Aunt Tii’s tacos. He hadn’t had breakfast. He should be hungry. Yet his stomach churned at the thought of eating. 

“Haven’t seen you for a while,” Lamaty’i went on to say.

Since Solution Nine, Erenville added internally. Outwardly, he said, “I’ve been busy.”

“I’ve heard; you’ve been helping with the restoration. Not that I’ve been idle either. Zoraal Ja left a mess and Koana’s neck deep with all the paperworks in the office. I finally have some time to spare today to visit everyone and see how things are coming along.”

There should be nothing wrong with her words; as the Vow of Resolve, Lamaty’i had her duty to her people, to supervise the restoration efforts and offer help where it was due. Yet the way she phrased them, her tone, so carefully articulated as though she was avoiding a certain topic. Alarm bells rang in his ears. 

He should leave—

“How are things with you,” Lamaty’i asked, “after…”

“I’m fine.” He sounded too crisp; his throat too dry. He cleared it. “Perfect.” Never better. He plastered a smile that he knew fooled neither Lamaty’i nor Roga. He cleared his throat the second time. “We’ve got somewhere to be.” Erenville indicated the cart and the ox. 

“Oh, yeah, sure, don’t let me keep you.” 

Wuk Lamat stepped aside, and Erenville tried not to look at the pained expression on her face. Just like Roga’s. As though they knew what he was feeling. 

He was fine, godsdammit! It wasn’t like he was burying himself in work just to keep himself busy, keep himself distracted from the gnawing void in his heart where his mother had once been. He’d accepted her death. Embraced it. Smiled at her even when the node shut down and her visage, distorted by countless cubic particles that belied her digitized nature, dissolved into motes of golden light.

Cahciua was dead—had been dead for years. It didn’t matter that he’d only just seen her three years ago. For her, it had been more than thirty. Enough time had passed for whatever ailment or injury to take her, overpower her. She had been like a gleaming pillar of light that outshone even the sun itself, his guiding star, and he’d known Death would one day conquer her.

But not like this.

Not with an extradimensional Dome falling on Yyasulani.

Erenville remained quiet as the ox trudged along the city’s main road, through the bustling crowd of Bayside Bevy. Most of the debris had been cleared, but a few still littered the streets, like the big chunks of stone on the corner of the steps leading to the Aetheryte Plaza. Until then, their passage had been smooth sailing, despite Erenville’s lack of navigation of the beast and cart. The clamorous noise of the market as well as the restoration effort muted all other senses. All he could see were the steps in front of him: dodging a woman holding Dodo eggs and a group of men lifting timber over a stall, sidestepping children running through the streets and the mother yelling at them to stop. Shouts, laughter, squeals. If only everything would just stop—

“Erenville!” 

He jerked to a sudden stillness—

—right as cold water splashed all over him. 

Gasps that should’ve been drowned in the din echoed loud in his ears. The clamor died. Glances, furtive and otherwise, shot from all three-hundred-and-sixty degrees of him. Footsteps rushed from somewhere above and behind him. 

“Erenville!” Roga, panic in his voice. “You okay?”

“Oh my Lord, I am so sorry!” came a second voice, a Tonawawtan woman around her thirties, dressed in a smock with her dark hair tied in a bun. She’d just dropped from the ladder next to one of the dock warehouses, her features twisted in shock. “I—I didn’t see. I thought there no one—”

“Lady, please!” Roga stepped forward. “Watch where you’re dumping your water.” 

“I did! He wasn’t there!” 

“Of course he was there. He’s been walking straight as an arrow. You didn’t give any warning.”

At that, the woman bristled. “Warning? I did give a warning.” She walked around them to a sign strategically placed at the corner of the warehouse. Big red letters spelled No Crossing. Wet Floor. “Now whose fault is it that he didn’t see the sign and just walked straight in?”

Erenville felt Roga’s glance—felt, again, that pity. Dripping wet from his hair and clothes, he sensed countless eyes prickling his skin. 

‘Poor guy. He looks so out of it.’

‘Think he lost something?’

‘Everyone lost something. Can’t blame him if he didn’t see the sign.’

The whispers rose relentlessly over the crowd. Before him, Roga was still locked in an argument with the lady over the sign and the water. Heat rushed to his cheeks. 

“Who’s going to compensate him, huh? He’s got work to do and now he’s late.”

“Roga,” Erenville called, quiet. 

“What, you’re asking me?” The woman scoffed. “If he’s late, then what about me? I’ve still got this whole warehouse to clean, if you haven’t noticed. Part of it’s destroyed and there are rubbles everywhere—”

“My friend here is soaked by your action! What’re you gonna do if he’s late with his delivery!?”

“Roga!” Erenville shoved him aside. Roga’s eyes flew open, startled, which then warped to confusion when Erenville hissed, “Shut. Up.” 

He turned to the woman and bowed his head. “Apologies, ma’am, I was preoccupied. I did not see your sign.”

Faced with a contrite apology, the woman was at a loss for words. “Well, I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to dump water on you. I honestly didn’t see you.” She looked around at their spectators. “Well, go off then. Nothing to see here now, is there?”

The crowd broke apart. The noise, which hadn’t quite died all the way through, resumed its previous boisterous quality. 

The woman returned to face him. “I’ll get you a towel. Least I could do.” Before he could say anything, she had already retreated inside the warehouse. 

Mortification turned his cheeks red. Erenville whirled on Roga. “What was that for?” His voice was too quiet to reflect the indignation burning in his heart.

“What?”

Erenville waved at the general direction of the warehouse. “I didn’t ask you to come to my defense.”

Roga blinked. “I was… only trying to protect you—”

“I never asked you to!” The sudden rise in Erenville’s voice startled Roga, startled passers-by. “I was wrong, Roga. I stepped into her area of work! I didn’t see the sign!”

“But, you were…” Roga trailed off, looking away.

“I was what? Sad? Everyone’s sad! You’re sad. Lamaty’i’s sad. Everyone’s lost something in the course of their lives. It’s not some unusual emotion that warrants you to… coddle me!” Erenville seethed through his nose. “Zoraal Ja’s attack left everyone in the city devastated. Some lost their homes. Others, their livelihoods. I just happened to lose a mother I haven’t seen in three years, but apparently she’d waited for me for thirty! Don’t waste your pity on me.”

He spat those last words, his anger surging through each syllable, each sentence uttered. Roga was left taken aback. He opened his mouth, then closed it, unable to conjure anything to say. Somewhere in the periphery of Erenville’s senses, he thought he felt the glances return, but he was too preoccupied to notice. 

“Where’s the cart?” he asked, because apparently, their cart and its beast of burden was not behind Roga. 

Roga turned around and pointed in the direction of the Aetheryte Plaza. A little to the side, one of the wheels of their cart had caught on a stray boulder. 

“I was calling you,” Roga replied timidly, “but you didn’t hear me. It got stuck and…”

Without waiting for Roga to finish, Erenville strode across the street to where their cart lay stuck. He bent down and made to move the boulder. It was heavy.

His arms strained. He changed positions. Fuck it, move! “Stupid beast. Stupid cart. Stupid—” The stone shifted. Erenville fell back. He returned to the stone, pulled it again. He pulled and pulled until the cart’s wheel was free of obstacles. The beast and the cart could move again. Erenville sighed with perspiration as he rose to his feet and lightly slapped the ox’s flank. “That’s why you look where you’re going, idiot.” He half-directed his own words at himself. 

Across the street, Roga was still looking at him uncertainly. Erenville’s jaws fluttered shut. He led the ox through the throng of masses.

“Erenville, the towel—” he heard Roga call. He ignored it. 

***

Tuliyollal’s sun was a force to be reckoned with. 

By the time he reached the Resplendent Quarter, his hair was mostly dry, hanging in thick, messy clumps down his face. His heavy gleaner garb had stopped dripping water, but they clung uncomfortably to his skin. His shoes, however, still made squelching noises every time he moved. It wouldn’t take a genius to know that he’d been drenched in water. 

When the people noticed him, he could feel their surprise even from yalms away. He claimed he’d tripped and fallen into the water when someone asked. “You should get some change, lest you catch a cold,” they said. In fact, Erenville was meaning to do just that after he completed his delivery. 

Roga was nowhere to be seen. After Erenville finished dropping his cargo at its designated place, he cast a cursory glance at his surroundings. No signs of peach-colored leporine ears anywhere to be seen, nor of any ponytailed strawberry-blond hair. Erenville could hear no jingling sounds that came from the little adornments on Roga’s dancer outfit.

Had he left?

Erenville’s heart made a painful twinge, small enough to be unnoticeable, but with the rawness of his heart that day, every subtle shift of his emotion was perceptible. Probably even to everyone else. Perhaps that was why Roga had been more cheerful, more careful; why Lamaty’i even deigned to ask about his mother. To make sure he was all right. Truly all right.

A muscle twitched along his jawline. 

Erenville bid the Quarter residents goodbye, then made his way down the slope back to For’ard Cabins where he’d take a long bath. It might have been his imagination, but along the way, the skin on the back of his neck prickled at the sensation that someone was watching him. He looked over his shoulder but saw no one of note. Not by the bushes, nor the pillars at Morrow’s Measure.

Roga? He wondered, but the gaze didn’t feel like his. If the younger Viera was still checking up on him after all that Erenville had said, perhaps he’d give him a real piece of his mind. 

But whatever presence was watching him refused to reveal themselves, and Erenville was not in the mood to call out to them. If Roga was content just by watching him, then let him watch. At least then he wouldn’t get in Erenville’s way. 

Back at his room, Erenville took his bath. It was still a little past noon. His stomach grumbled. 

He hadn’t eaten breakfast. He’d gone straight from his cabin to the city. The taco Lamaty’i had given him lay in a trashcan somewhere in the Resplendent Quarter. Drenched as it was from whatever dirty water the warehouse worker had dumped on him, he’d thought the meal was no longer edible. Not that he’d meant to eat it.

***

Roga didn’t appear for the rest of the day. Getting himself a piece of bread from the market, Erenville had half a thought he would spot a tuft of peach-blond hair peeking around the stalls. But there was none. Even as he downed his bread with a jug of water. Or when he made his way back to Wachumeqimeqi for another delivery. 

By sundown, he’d forgotten about what had transpired that morning, feeling content at the rare peace and quiet. It was only after he stepped down from a ladder, having helped a storeowner repair the signage of his shop, that he turned, and his eyes met those of the woman he’d gotten into a quarrel with. The woman, noticing him, stopped in her tracks. 

Mortification washed over Erenville once more as he recalled his conduct. Returning his equipment to the storeowner and bidding him farewell, Erenville crossed the street to where the woman stood, a cross look on her face. 

He bowed his head without preamble. “I’m sorry,” he said. “My friend and I caused a scene this morning when we could’ve resolved it easily with a simple apology. I did not see your sign. It was all on me. Yet we had deigned to put the blame on you.”

The woman didn’t say anything for a while. Erenville waited, head bowed, until he heard a sigh. 

“You should thank your friend,” the woman said, her voice weary. “He stayed behind after you’d left. Told me he was sorry… for both of you, mind. I’d have been very cross had I seen you two gone after I fetched the towel.” Her scowl deepened momentarily before, slowly, the corners of her mouth edged upward. “But it’s a hard time for everyone. You were under the weather. Your friend was only trying to stand up for you. Let bygones be bygones? I do feel bad about drenching you. I’m sorry for that.”

The woman left, and Erenville returned to his Cabin with a conflicted heart. Not toward the woman from the warehouse—he had separated with her amicably—but her parting words had struck a deeper chord than Erenville would like to admit. 

Arriving at his doorstep, he paused at the sight of a package by the door. A pale blue meal box sat on the floor, the same one Roga had often given to him while he was at work. 

Here, the Veena would say. Something light to eat.

As Erenville bent down to retrieve it, its contents sloshed inside. Soup, he thought. Again. Always. He could picture the creamy pottage brimming within, filled with cuts of potatoes, carrots, and sausages.

The box was warm in his hands. No note whatsoever was attached to it. He looked around the pier, but aside from the splashing waves underneath the wooden pier, nothing disturbed the tranquil evening. Erenville’s gaze lingered at the cottage three doors away, where Roga was staying with Hrodger. His heart trembled at the thought of knocking their door, but he shook his head, and entered his room.

Erenville turned on the lights, brought the box to the table, and sat down. Despite his aversion to food the entire day, his mouth watered at the creamy scent wafting from the small box. Indeed, upon lifting the white-rimmed lid, he found a cream soup waiting inside, with a single parsley decorating its surface. The thick appetizing broth made his hunger all the more prominent. His stomach growled, bereft of sustenance as it was since the measly bread he’d eaten that afternoon. 

He grabbed the utensils Roga had prepared and spooned the pottage into his mouth. Warmth spread from his tongue to the tips of his fingers. It slid so easily down his throat, his stomach welcoming it with no resistance. 

How many times had he had this soup and never had trouble downing it, when all the food Tuliyollal had to offer—food he had grown up with—made his bile rise and stomach roil? Was it because it was nothing like the soups back home, with its many spices that made his tongue burn? It tasted familiar, but he could not quite name a region. It wasn’t the bland broth of Sharlayan, to be sure.

One thing he appreciated from being a gleaner was the fact that it had brought him to many places across the world. Not just Eorzea, Erenville had gone as far as the Far East in order to fulfill a commission. If time had permitted, he would stop at local shops or taverns for an exchange of culinary culture. 

Being the worldly adventurers that Roga and Hrodger were, he had no doubt either of them had come across a recipe or another in some obscure part of the star. It could’ve come from beyond it, Erenville realized with a scoff. Or even an altogether different reflection. They were not so different from his mother, in that regard… 

The thought made him pause. 

His hand stilled at the rim of the box. 

His mother… 

He wondered if Cahciua had ever tasted this particular brand of soup? Even with all her adventuring proclivities, she had never left Tural, as far as Erenville knew. She had pushed him instead, to board the ship, to see the world. He still remembered the brilliant smile gracing her lips. 

Would things have been different had he stayed? 

If he’d stayed, his mother might not have to suffer alone for so long, but… would it have made her happy?

Let bygones be bygones. 

He stared at his empty soup for a long time, alone with his thoughts. 

***

He waited for Roga to show up the next morning, but the Veena never did. No boisterous greeting barrelled into him from behind or ambushed him from the corners. Unease settled in his heart. 

His day was unusually quiet. Weeks of constant yapping in his ears, and suddenly, there was no one bothering him. No one that prattled about their day nor badgered him to eat something. No one who asked if he needed any help.

Noon came approaching, and Erenville was about to lift lumber up a set of stairs. All of a sudden, another pair of hands grabbed the other end. He looked up, expecting a pair of leporine ears and a grinning face, only to be greeted by a pale, bored mien with striking green eyes. 

Hrodger didn’t say anything as he lifted the lumber easily on his shoulder and promptly carried it inside a house. 

“Wait—”

But Hrodger had already disappeared beyond the door. 

A Hyuran who easily towered over him, Hrodger kept to his side as Erenville cleared a section of the neighborhood from boulders and fallen beams. Every time Erenville meant to lift a sack or stone or wood, the bulky warrior was already one step ahead of him. Yet his was a different sort of presence from Roga. Where Roga was bubbly and bright (and filled Erenville with overwhelming energy and pointless chatter), Hrodger was calm and cool and… rather slow-moving. As though he’d just woken up—even though it was past the eleventh bell. His eyes were half-lidded and he dragged his feet everywhere he went. 

“You don’t have to help,” Erenville muttered. 

Without missing a beat, Hrodger said, “Who says I’m helping you,” even as he, again, lifted a crate Erenville had been about to take. 

Erenville cocked his head to the side. He bent down to lift a different crate, but as he was about to climb the stairs, Hrodger was there, taking the load off of him. 

“Hey!”

Once again, Hrodger disappeared inside the raised house without looking back. Erenville stomped up the stairs and joined him inside.

“What’s the big deal?” he said.

Hrodger looked around. Half of the house had been destroyed during the attack, but had now been mostly patched with new timber. The owner, a female mamool ja, bowed her head in excessive gratitude. The last crate had been the final item they’d needed to bring in. The only thing left was to paint over the wall. Hrodger’s face twisted in a frown that said I’m not doing that. Erenville fought against the urge to roll his eyes. 

“Hrodger!” he called again. 

Hrodger glanced around at him. Then his green eyes widened, as though he’d just remembered something. 

He fished a small wrapper from his pocket and placed it in Erenville’s hand. “Here. Something to eat.”

Erenville blinked. He felt around the wrapper. “A cookie?”

“You haven’t eaten, right?” Hrodger asked. 

This felt very deja vu, except it wasn’t a Viera who was asking him these things. Erenville pursed his lips. “Have you seen Roga?”

Hrodger shrugged. “Saw him leave this morning. Dunno where to. He was moping last night, though, so…” His brows pinched in contemplation. “Well, bye, then. Try not to overwork yourself.”

Before Erenville could get another word in, Hrodger had already turned and left the residence. Like air, coming and going whenever he pleased. Possibly in the hunt for Roga at Xbalyav T’ve.

Erenville faced the mamool ja and said, “I can help with the painting if you’d like.”

***

No soup waited for him by his cabin later that evening. Erenville entered his room with a building sigh, which he let out in a heavy huff of breath. Deflated. Unsettled. As he turned on the lights, his eyes naturally fell on the meal box sitting on the table.

Roga had not appeared in any way or form the entire day. 

Erenville washed his hands, took a bath, changed his clothes. Then he sat on the table and stared at the meal box. 

Had he been too harsh yesterday?

He hadn’t meant it. Not really, at least. He was irritated, yes; he didn’t want—didn’t need—anyone’s pity. But… perhaps he could see where Roga was coming from. When he first learned of Cahciua’s death, Roga had been the first one who’d looked for him.

All I wish is for you to have friends, his mother once said, years ago, before she ever brought him to Tuliyollal, before he’d met Lamaty’i and the others. 

For better or worse, Roga reminded him of the young Xbr’aal. Both loud, both meddling, both… endearing. They were both younger than him, both immature, yet somehow they could always hear his unspoken words—see the truth in his heart. 

Erenville stared at Roga’s meal box a moment longer. Then he grabbed it and rushed out of his room. 

***

Three cabins down was the room rented for the warrior of light. The sun had completely set; shadow now engulfed the pier, broken in regular intervals by small patches of light that came from the little bulbs adorning the walkway. Erenville stopped in front of Roga’s door, hand poised to knock, when it suddenly opened from inside. Hrodger stood at the doorway, stopping short at the sight of him. 

“Erenville,” he said in reflex. 

Erenville’s gaze dropped to a familiar box in Hrodger’s hands—identical to the one that he was returning. “That—”

“Oh, are you done with that?” Hrodger indicated the meal box Erenville was holding. “I was about to head to your place and ask for it. Thanks for bringing it here.” 

Unperturbed, as though it was the most natural thing to do and he hadn’t just revealed that he’d been making Erenville a meal for almost a month, Hrodger grabbed the blue meal box from Erenville’s hands. Then he replaced it with a new one. 

“Dinner.” As though that explained everything. 

Erenville had an inkling Hrodger had a hand in his meals. Between him and Roga, he was the one with the culinary skills. But to have his suspicion be confirmed in such a blasé manner… 

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

The box lay heavy in his hands—heavier than usual. His ears picked up another sloshing sound from inside it when he adjusted his grip. Another soup, he deduced.

“Is it an Ishgardian soup?” Hrodger did come from Ishgard; it wouldn’t be a surprise.

Hrodger cocked his head. “Not quite,” he said after a while. “Someone made it for me. While we were in Dravania. It perked up my appetite when I hadn’t felt like eating, so I thought it might work for you too.”

Erenville blinked. “You thought I didn’t feel like eating?”

“Roga was whining how you were skipping breakfast, and that the most you ate was either plain bread or some bland soup from the tavern. I realized Turali cuisine could be rather strong for an empty stomach.”

“Huh…” Erenville didn’t quite know what to make of Roga whining, but more than that, he realized so much thought had gone into the making of the soup. Such a simple meal… easy to digest, light to eat. And now, once more, it lay in his hand, renewed and refilled to satiate him for the whole night. 

Unbidden, a lump formed at the base of his throat. 

“You—” His voice, previously strong, now trembled at the edge of breaking. He cleared his throat. “Why do you care so much? You and Roga… You always—” 

His breath hitched. Erenville’s chest fluttered in unspoken shame, grief, sorrow. For all that he’d lost. For all that he couldn’t convey. To have drowned himself in his sadness that these younger men worried for him—him, who would’ve been nothing more but a passing acquaintance had Fate not ordained him to be their guide in Tural, the same Fate that had placed him aboard that ship bound for Sharlayan, forever tearing him away from his mother.

Silence stretched between them. When Erenville’s breath had steadied, when he was no longer holding back his tears, Hrodger said:

“Because we know how it feels to lose the only parent we have.”

He told Erenville of a father he once had—a foster father—who, by any reckoning, had saved him from a lonely life at a Gridanian orphanage. That same man, it turned out, had been Roga’s biological father, who’d left his home in Sharlayan in search of a cure for his ailing son. Hrodger had lost that father figure when the Calamity struck, watching him succumb to his wounds for a whole year before he finally passed away. Roga hadn’t been so lucky. Bereft of his father’s presence since he was a child, he hadn’t had much warm memory of the man… only to learn years later that he’d died malms away in a distant land, caring for another boy. 

“After I lost my father, I didn’t have much appetite,” Hrodger said. “So when Roga told me you were experiencing the same thing, I’d thought about whipping up something light for you. So you’d eat, at least.” He paused; Erenville said nothing. Then he went on, 

“As for Roga, he knew what it’s like not to have that parental figure in your life, and then suddenly losing it before you had any chance to reconcile. That’s why he stayed with you. He… well I guess that’s just the way he is, isn’t it? He cares too much, and I understand that can be suffocating, but he’s just very concerned for his friends. After Gulool Ja Ja died, he’d thought of consoling Wuk Lamat, but she had Koana, so he kept his distance. But you…” Hrodger scoffed. “People like us often shun company, and that’s all the more reason why he was hell-bent on making sure you’re not alone.”

Silence followed, filled only with a whisper of evening wind caressing Erenville’s cheeks, cool and salty. “Is Roga inside?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

Hrodger made to answer, but stopped. Erenville saw his eyes shift to the right, spotting something behind him, and he turned just as Hrodger said, “There’s the guy.”

Just behind a column that supported For’ard Cabins’ front desk, Roga stood eavesdropping. It made a poor hiding place, with how narrow it was. Roga might have thought he was concealed, but even twenty yalms away with dim lighting, Erenville could see his silhouette clearly. 

“Roga!” he called. 

The Veena flinched. He peeked from around the column, eyes wide with trepidation and uncertainty. But he stepped around his hiding spot all the same and crossed the pier to where Hrodger and Erenville waited. 

“H—Hi.” His shoulders hunched, Roga refused to meet Erenville’s eyes.

Erenville couldn’t help but smile. “Roga, I’m not mad at you. Not anymore, at least.”

“You’re not?” Pale green eyes looked up in anticipation. 

“I’m not. Though I would be again if you repeated what you did.”

“Oh.” Roga shrunk again. 

Erenville chuckled under his breath. “Though I guess you’re not entirely in the wrong either.” His voice trailed off; Erenville gazed at his meal box. “I’m sorry, Roga. I was too harsh before.”

Roga stared, then stared again, unblinking. “Wha—wait… what? No. No! You’re not wrong. I… I was worried. And I… guess I didn’t know how to show it. I didn’t want you to be alone. Because I was alone. And I hated it. So I… tried to be there… for you. So you wouldn’t have to be alone. And you’d have someone to lean on. Someone to talk to. Someone to help you…” His voice grew small with each sentence. He fidgeted on his feet. “But Hrodger said I was being overbearing, so I thought I’d give you space…” He hung his head. “I’m sorry.”

It was Erenville’s time to be taken aback. He’d never seen Roga look so nervous before. Roga’s stuttering confession drew a deep, throaty chuckle out of him, especially when he heard Hrodger calling Roga overbearing. His chuckle turned into a full-on cackle that made his stomach hurt, chest tighten, and unshed tears spring to his eyes. 

“Overbearing.” Erenville laughed, unable to contain his amusement. Even Hrodger snickered while Roga looked at them in perplexity. “He got that right, at least.”

Amidst Roga’s wide-eyed whinings and complaints that no, was he truly, really overbearing, they were laughing again until Ereville couldn’t keep his posture straight. Then his stomach rumbled, so loud they could hear it even above the chaos of their cacklings, and Hrodger and Roga laughed some more. 

“Well,”—Roga was beaming—“now that the serious stuff is over, what do you say we have a picnic?”

“Huuuuuuh!?” It was Hrodger’s time to complain, his features twisting in distaste. “Are you daft!? It’s already fucking dark and I want to sleep early!”

Roga feigned a shocked expression. “But look!” He brought his hand to the sky. “There are so many stars! The air feels fresh! And the waves are peaceful tonight!” When Hrodger still looked reluctant, he added, “Come ooooon! Treat it as my reconciliatory party with Erenville?”

“Then you go with him. I have no business with this reconciliatory stuff.”

“You helped clear the air between us, silly.”

Roga grinned and Hrodger fell silent. 

If there was something Erenville had learned in his travels with the Scions, it was how innocently persistent Roga could be in his arguments with Hrodger, so much so that it would be easier to relent and follow along with whatever Roga suggested. Unless, of course, Hrodger was truly uncompromisable, then he might very well retreat into his room and lock the door. But that didn’t seem to be the case. 

Erenville lifted his face to the night sky, where stars were indeed now winking to life. Musing to himself, he said to no one in particular, “The sky is pretty tonight.”

Hrodger followed Erenville’s gaze, and his eyes sparkled at the sight. 

“See!?” Roga beamed in triumph, hooking an arm around the older Hyur’s elbow. “The night’s still young! Come on! Move that leg, Hrodger River!”

Hrodger groaned as he reluctantly let himself be dragged away from the safety of his room. 

***

The sky truly was pretty that night. Clear and cloudless, they had an unobstructed view of the entire blue-black spread sprinkled with tiny twinkling lights. Once or twice, Roga would point out galaxies from faraway star systems. Hrodger would scoff and say Roga knew jackshit about astrology, to which Roga said, “Hey! I’ve learned a bit!”

They set out a picnic blanket over the white sand now painted gray and silver under the moonlight. They’d chosen a spot a safe distance away from the ocean, but still near enough they could see each wave lap and race toward the shore. 

Hrodger had brought out more of the feast he had apparently prepared for his own dinner: beef, mutton, pork, with mashed potatoes and the same soup he’d given Erenville, as well as an assortment of vegetables and fruits. “Why is there so much meat?” was Erenville’s first response. Hrodger only grunted a reply, and Roga mouthed, don’t ask.

Roga ate a lot, taking little bits out of everything and praising Hrodger’s cooking to the moon and back. Hrodger only half-listened, nodding occasionally and offering vague responses. Sometimes, he’d tell the Viera to hold back on his food and to chew, though as far as Erenville observed, Hrodger’s plate held even more meat than either of theirs. Erenville couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of his two comrades wolfing down their dinner. His own plate only bore Hrodger’s soup. Eventually, he tried the beef and mutton, and some of the side dishes. Surprisingly, his stomach accepted them, so he ended up grabbing more than he usually could. 

Was this what his mother had meant? For him to have companions he could call friends—people who would share in his woes and triumphs. 

Everything that lived must one day die, and those which had died weren’t meant to return. 

His mother’s words echoed in his ears. A lesson once, which then became her final farewell. He understood why she chose to leave despite him begging her to stay. It was the way of nature; her undying existence had been a perversion of life. Perhaps, deep down, Erenville was still that little boy she’d left with Iyaate, clinging onto the older Shetona as he watched his mother’s back recede into the horizon. Wanting to scream, yet never deigning to. 

Be a good boy. I’ll return home soon. 

But she would never return. His mother was gone.

“Erenville…”

Erenville looked up before he noticed the tears rolling down his cheek. “Oh.” He paused, fingers reaching up, found them wet. He laughed it off, said it was nothing. He was okay. He was fine. He wiped his eyes. But the thing about crying was that, the moment he knew tears were brimming in his eyes, there was no stopping them from streaming down his face. 

Roga and Hrodger stopped eating and whatever else they were doing to take a seat beside him. 

“I’m alright,” he tried to say. “You don’t have to—”

“You don’t need to put up a strong front,” Roga murmured, patting his back. “You’re not okay, and that’s alright.”

The dam, and whatever control Erenville had imposed upon his heart, crumbled and broke. Waves upon waves of anguish swelled and crashed onto him like a tsunami. Sobs tore out of him. Erenville hugged his knees to his chest and cried. 

His mother was gone.

But he remembered her smile. He remembered the way she had pulled him into her arms and called him her pride and joy. He remembered how she had cried even as she claimed her farewell was the happiest moment of her life. 

A star shot overhead. The three of them looked up. 

“Is that—” Roga began. 

Another star followed it. Then another. Until, at once, a million silver lights streaked across the blue-black heavens.

“It is!” Roga jumped to his feet. Looking at Hrodger, he pointed a finger at the starshower. “That’s the starshower in Father’s journal! Quick! Make a wish before they disappear!” He brought his hands together in prayer, then went on to whisper an unholy amount of wishes in rapid succession: “Please let me have an apartment, please let me have an apartment, please let me have an apartment. And a dog. I want a dog. A cute little one that rivals Hrodger’s cat Stew. And no I will not name it after a food. Please oh please oh please—”

He opened his eyes and saw both Erenville and Hrodger staring at him in disbelief. 

“What are you two doing!? Wish!” Roga’s outburst echoed across the empty beach. 

“You don’t believe in the Twelve, yet you put your faith in a shooting star?” Hrodger asked, genuinely astonished. “Amazing. And you call yourself a scholar.”

“Shut it, you!” He pointed a menacing finger at Hrodger, who only snickered at the sight. “Just make a damn wish and we’ll see if it’ll come true or not.”

Hrodger grumbled under his breath, but still he brought his hands together in prayer. Initially skeptical, Erenville saw his countenance soften before it hardened into serious lines. He smiled. Hrodger always had a soft heart for the young Viera. He wouldn’t be surprised if the Hyur wished for Roga’s wellbeing. 

“And you too!” Roga directed his threatening finger at Erenville, who started, eyes shifting toward the younger Viera. “Wish!” 

Erenville doubted any wish forcefully made would be granted, but to appease his young friend, he closed his eyes and brought his hands together. 

He had nothing to wish for. Whatever he wanted, he would get it himself. His wandering mind then nestled on a visage of his mother, cloaked in warm light, just as she had been in his dream two nights ago. But instead of leaving, she was staying, albeit a little far from him.

She smiled.

I hope you’ll have the adventure of your lifetime, Mom.

***

That night, Erenville dreamed of his mother again. He was small, around seven or eight. They were sitting in the field of grass outside their village under a starry sky. 

Cahciua must have just arrived from wherever her adventure had taken her for she carried the smell of distant winds, flowers he hadn’t seen, and so much sun. It was his favorite time. He could listen to his mother’s tales till late at night and no one would tell him to go to bed. 

His mother would talk about her companions. One was a Shetona like them, but he was pale-skinned and came from a faraway land. A healer of some sort, who’d come with another man—large and imposing—on a boat across the sea. Then of course there was Gulool Ja Ja, their Dawnservant. Erenville could not imagine the leader of their country traipsing about the continent with a band of… well, adventurers.

“But that was before he became leader,” Cahciua would correct him. It never helped his imagination. 

That night Cahciua took him up to the grass fields outside their village, streaks of light began shooting across the sky. “Hurry, Elene’shpya! Bring your hands together and make a wish!” she said excitedly. 

“Wish for what?”

“Anything!”

Erenville wished his mother would stay at home longer. 

Afterwards, Cahciua told him that she’d met some tribespeople in the mountains who said that when they prayed during a starshower, the stars would grant their wish. “Pretty silly,” she later said, “but it’s a nice sentiment, nonetheless.”

Erenville tilted his head back to look at his mother. “What did you wish for?” he asked. 

His mother smiled. “For you to have friends. Ones who can be your close confidants.”

“Close… confidants?”

Cahciua nodded. She drew Erenville into her arms. “Yes, close confidants. So that, one day, should you ever experience hardship or sadness, you won’t have to be alone.”

Erenville blinked, uncomprehending, but as he made to ask his mother what she meant, she was gone. 

Erenville jumped. “Mom?” 

The grass and moon had disappeared. Erenville stood in a field of golden grass, its blades so tall that they almost touched his abdomen. He himself was no longer the boy of seven summers clinging to his mother. Even as a full-fledged adult, Erenville spun, desperately scanning the endless plain for Cahciua's familiar silhouette. But there were no trees, not even a mound to possibly hide his mother. A brilliant sun hung overhead, casting its glow over a gilded sky.

Where was she? Had she left him again? 

Wind brushed against the knotted locks of his hair, untangling them, kissing them. 

Erenville…

A whisper of a voice caressed his ear. His eyes flew wide. He whirled.

Cahciua stood not ten yalms away. 

“Mom?”

“My boy.” The softness of her voice soothed his anxious heart. She spread her arms. “My dear, brave boy.”

Erenville choked. Tears he’d held back for so long sprung free. He kicked his feet against the ground and dashed across the field, throwing his arms wide and around his mother, crushing her in his embrace. 

“I’m sorry!” he cried. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I should’ve gone straight back to you. I should’ve written more to you. I shouldn’t have pushed you away. I should’ve tried to see where you were coming from. “I’m sorry, Mom!”

Thirty years…

Thirty years of waiting till he could finally reach her. 

Thirty years of wondering whether he was safe. 

The passage of time might be an inconsequential matter for a Shetona, long-lived that they were. Thirty years was barely half of the long age Cahciua had lived. But thirty years were longer than the years Erenville had walked; and despite his acceptance of her death, he could not help but wonder what he would have done had he gotten back all those lost times.

Cahciua’s arms enveloped him, held his back, patted the back of his head. Oh, how much he had longed for her familiar scent… Erenville buried his head in her shoulder.

“My dear boy,” she murmured. “You were never wrong. You were, as ever, my pride and joy. All I’d ever wished was for you to forge your own path, find your happiness. And you did. Surrounded as you were with people you could argue with, laugh with.” 

She pulled away from the hug. Wiping tears from his cheeks, she smiled, even as her own eyes brimmed with unshed affection. 

“The greatest joy of my life had been when I saw you again at the edge of the Outskirts,” Cahciua went on. “I love you, my darling Elene’shpya. Do not ever think that I blamed you.”

She pressed a kiss to his forehead.

Erenville held onto her, to the hand cupping his face. But even as he did, her form was fading, her hold receding. He clung onto the last vestige of her embrace until he could not feel her again. 

And then she was gone. 

Erenville stumbled forward, lost once more. 

Yet her scent remained, in the breeze that caressed his face, and the stalks that grazed his legs. 

In his hands and his clothes and his hair. 

In his heart. 

I’m always with you. Her whisper, carried by the wind, teased his ears. 

Erenville stood in the endless golden field and gazed at the horizon.

***

“Erenville!”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Erenville, answer me if you’re there! You are there, right? Oh Gods, please don’t tell me you’re really eaten by an octopus!?”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“For the love of Halone, shut up! It’s seven in the morning. Who in their right minds would be up at seven in the morning?”

“You may sleep through the morning, but Erenville doesn’t!”

Shuffling noises. Grunts. Oofs. Another set of hands banging the door. “Erenville, I know you’re there! You’re not scaring me! Not one bit! Nuh-uh! Big man-eating octopuses don’t exist in Tuliyollal, so you’re there, right? Sleeping? It’s not like you got kidnapped or some—”

Erenville wrenched his door open. “What!?” 

Lamaty’i stood at the doorway, hand poised for another banging. Roga was a little to the side, mouth forming a perfect “O” of surprise. Hrodger, farther away, only sighed in exasperation. 

“See?” he said. “He was sleeping!”

Indeed, Erenville was asleep, until he was wrested out of his peaceful dream by the banging and shouting and screaming that made his ears ring even in slumber. Now his head ached. 

He took a step back, away from the light, cupping his head to massage his scalp. “Tell me,” he said, narrowing his eyes both in pain and in vexation. “Who got it in their heads that banging someone’s door so early in the morning was a good idea?” 

A pause. Then two pairs of eyes—striking green and golden hazel—fell to the cowering Veena hiding behind Lamaty’i’s tall figure. Erenville raised a brow at him.

“W—Well, I…” Roga stepped around Lamaty’i, fingers fidgeting. “I waited in front of your door at six, like usual, right? But you didn’t appear. I knocked a few times, but no one answered. I’d thought maybe you’d gone ahead to the docks… or somewhere. Then I met Lamaty’i, and she said you might still be asleep. But you know how we stayed up late last night? I… I don’t know, I had a dream that we were on a boat in a storm and this giant octopus came attacking our ship—”

“So he thought you might’ve gotten eaten by a giant octopus,” Lamaty’i chimed. “In which case I said it was preposterous because there are no giant octopuses here and we’re not at sea. So I suggested we head to your room again. We knocked on your door a few times and…”

Both Lamaty’i and Roga hung their heads. Hrodger sighed behind them. “And then,” the oldest of the three filled the silence. “Since you still didn’t come out, these bollocks got the idea to wrench me out of bed, and one was screaming how you’d gotten eaten by a big bloody octopus, while the other was afraid someone had kidnapped your arse, because apparently, Erenville not waking up by seven in the godsdamned morning is an anomaly. So here we are.” He smiled, all toothy grins, which didn’t reach his eyes. In fact, he directed that smile to the cowering youths, who trembled even more at the invisible force emanating from behind them.

Erenville joined Hrodger in his exasperated sigh. His head pounded even more. “Let me get ready. Just… wait for me at the front desk or something.”

Free from the intrusion, Erenville sagged into the chair at the dining table. He grabbed a jug of water and poured himself a glass. 

In the silence, his mind wandered back to his dream. A trace of his mother’s warmth still lingered on his skin—her featherlight kiss on his forehead. Her pale citrine eyes that mirrored his had brimmed with tears and life. 

A small smile played across his lips. 

I’m not alone anymore, Mom.

~*~*~*~

EPILOGUE

Roga and the others waited for him at the Cabins’ front desk. Two of them were chattering, giggling, chuckling—fussing over something on the ground between them. To the side, Hrodger yawned, his face set in a perpetual scowl. 

As Erenville neared, he spotted what had drawn such coos and giggles from the group: a puppy—or a small dog. A chihuahua, with fluffy brownish fur that was especially poofy around his neck, ears, and tail. His large ears perked with each chuckle from Roga and Lamaty’i. It barked—a cute little sound—and jumped, again and again, at something in Roga’s hand. 

Erenville stopped behind them in curiosity. “Where did that dog come from?” 

Roga looked up with a grin. “I don’t know but I found it wandering outside earlier, and it followed me.” He patted the dog’s fluffy head. “Think I’ll keep it, if it doesn’t have an owner.”

“Just make sure it doesn’t cause Stew any trouble,” Hrodger grunted. Erenville glanced at him, met his eyes. A brief silent exchange, which held nothing more than a flick of Hrodger’s eyes before he quickly averted them, a tinge of faint pink on his ears. 

Erenville hid his laugh. Hrodger must have brought the dog with him. Found him somewhere then decided to gift it to Roga, while the other party remained oblivious to its source. 

“Your wish came true, huh,” Erenville murmured, indicating the starshower wish they’d shared last night. Roga beamed.

Perhaps, his wish might come true too. 

The adventure of a lifetime…

His mother was no longer here, but her dream lived on. 

And Erenville would like to fulfill it.

The mother pulled her daughter out from behind her and sat her on her lap. Hold out your hand, she said. There. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Let him come to you. 

The child did. Themis stared at the small hand—so small, it could only cover his muzzle. He sniffed the outstretched palm, making the girl flinch. Then he touched the palm with the tip of his nose and purred as he pressed his forehead against her warm skin. 

He could tell the child was breathing very fast, but the more he purred, the more he felt her muscle tension ease. Before long, the girl began stroking his head—tentatively at first, which grew bolder with every second that passed. Themis did nothing but sit and purr and probably lick her small thumb. The child giggled. 

So he’d received an extra helping from the humans for a very good job. Now he idled away the rest of the afternoon until the store’s closing, watching people and cars pass by outside in blurs. 

“You did well with the girl.” 

Themis turned his head to see Venat approaching the window. The white she-cat leaped nimbly to the sill and made an elegant land next to him without so much as a hair of her thick, snowy fur out of place. Venat curled her tail around her paws and looked out the glass. 

“We could always count on you to make the little ones feel at home.”

Themis dipped his head. “Thank you, though I only did what the others would have done.”

A snort came from up ahead. Hephaistos had returned to lounge on his usual perch—the highest platform of their cat tree that the others, Hythlodaeus mostly, had dubbed his “Pride Rock”. The dark ginger tom never cared to correct him, so the name stayed. Now he lay on his side, head straight, surveying the room and the masses the way a king might survey his subjects. When his gaze landed on Hythlodaeus in his cage, grooming his long yet perpetually unkempt lavender coat as though nothing had happened, his nose wrinkled in annoyance. Then he averted his eyes away toward the window. 

“Not everyone,” he said in his gruff tone. 

Themis glanced over his shoulder at Hythlodaeus, having finished grooming and was now staring at a food bowl sitting a little ways away. Hades, standing not far from the cage, rolled his golden eyes and stalked over, about to give another lecture his friend probably wouldn’t listen to. Across the room, Hermes lay curled on his plush bed, listless and forlorn, as his gaze refused to leave the door through which the humans had taken away his favorite plushie—a little blue bird someone had given him once. 

It wouldn’t have been a normal day for Themis without the usual chaos that followed wherever Hythlodaeus went. On that particular day, it manifested in the form of a broken potted plant when the mischievous tom, curious of the new object the humans had placed on the high beams, went up the cat walks and leaped onto the beams. He was nimble on his feet and could balance himself even on the thinnest of platforms. Themis hadn’t quite seen what exactly had occurred, only that a crash had sounded across the room followed by frightened screams and startled yowls. When Themis had looked, a potted plant had broken into shards, dirt scattered on the carpet, and both Hythlodaeus and Hermes were drenched after the former fell flat on the latter’s drinking bowl, splashing water everywhere. Small wonder the girl had gotten scared. So while the humans cleaned the place and put Hythlodaeus in the cage as punishment, Themis had attempted to ease the girl with his company. 

Hermes, on the other hand, had been inconsolable because his blue bird had gotten caught in the chaos. Venat’s efforts to appease him had been in vain. It hadn’t been until Themis touched his shoulder with the tip of his tail and said, “Let’s bring her to the humans’ attention,” that some semblance of reason returned to the dark cat’s jade eyes. They’d pawed at the nearest human legs and meowed at him to fix the bird. 

“I swear,” Hephaistos went on, “we shall never know peace if Hythlodaeus doesn’t rein himself in.” 

“The boy is curious. Could you fault his curiosity?” Venat asked. 

“The boy, as you gracefully put it, is six years old. He should act his age.”

“Oh, come now.” Venat chuckled. “Don’t act like you’ve never done a reckless thing in your youth, Hephaistos.”

Hephaistos scoffed. “He should be ashamed that someone four years his junior has a better head on his shoulders.”

At that, a swell of pride blossomed in Themis’s chest. Hephaistos, with his sharp gaze and thin, dark orange pelt, was the oldest of them, and Themis liked to think the wisest too. He rarely strayed from his Pride Rock, rarely interacted with the rest of them. Themis always looked at him with a reverence one might give to their elders. While Hephaistos and Hades often bickered and Venat always tried to get under his skin (though she always seemed to want to get under everyone’s skins—Hephaistos and Hades were just her favorite targets), Hephaistos always treated Themis with a measure of respect and, dare he say, friendliness. He would give Themis little bits of stories and wisdom in his brusque manner, and Themis always absorbed everything like a sponge. So to hear Hephaistos praise him so casually made Themis sit a little straighter, a little taller. A small smile played across his lips. 

Venat noticed it and giggled. 

Over by the cage, Hades and Hythlodaeus were still at it. 

“That’s why I told you not to climb the beams!” An irritated grumble drifted up to the window sill. Hades, small and gray with his mouth set in a perpetual frown, glowered at his friend. 

“It’s not my fault if they’d put the pot in such a precarious position,” the lavender cat retorted. 

“Well, it’s your fault if the pot fell because you bumped into it.” 

“I did not bump into it. I just brushed past it.”

“Semantics.” Hades’s voice was clipped. “In the end, the pot fell, and you’re grounded inside the cage. Again. So don’t complain to me if you’re hungry—”

“But I aaaam!” 

Themis always found it funny whenever he saw Hades and Hythlodaeus bicker. Always it was the smaller one scolding the bigger one; but despite their constant arguments, Themis had never seen such an inseparable pair in all his yet-short life. 

“Just push one of those bowls to me and no one will know how I got my food,” Hythlodaeus went on. 

Hades looked incredulously at him. “How could you even eat it from inside the cage?” 

Before Hythlodaeus could respond, a groan sounded from the green plush bed, where Hermes lay with his paws covering his ears. “Could you two please stop? I can’t stand listening to you squabble any longer.”

Hythlodaeus paused, then turned his attention to the languid cat. “Hermes,” he began, his voice quiet, “I really am sorry.” He did look like he meant it, but the black tom didn’t give him the chance to properly apologize. Before Hythlodaeus could finish, Hermes had already turned away and burrowed himself deeper inside the plush bed, slipping his head beneath one of the pillows to quell the noise.

Silence fell. 

Hades stalked away. Hephaistos huffed under his breath. Hythlodaeus pursed his lips before moving to the other side of the cage, curled, and tucked his paws underneath him. Venat frowned at the sight while Themis stared at the plush bed where Hermes had taken his refuge. 

“He’ll come around,” Themis said. “He always does.” 

Indeed, it wasn’t quite the first time Hermes had drawn into himself. Before he received the blue bird doll, it was almost a weekly if not daily occurrence. Sometimes, Hermes didn’t even have the energy to get out of his bed. Themis often found himself accompanying the older cat, grooming his dark pelt until his fur shone sleek under the light. 

One day, one of the human visitors who’d taken a liking to Hermes gave him a toy—a doll in the form of a small blue bird. The look of joy that had crossed his face was nothing like Themis had seen before. Rarely could Hermes be seen without his new possession since. He’d taken it with him everywhere and he wouldn’t let any other cat play with it. Everyone had respected his desire and left him alone with the bird. A reserved but happy Hermes was a better company than a despondent one, as Hades once voiced to Themis. 

So this was nothing new. Perhaps Hythlodaeus did get what was coming for him. Perhaps Hermes should have left his bird behind in his bed when he’d gone to drink. But regardless, the bird only needed some cleaning, and possibly a little stitching as Themis had spotted some of the seams fraying. Hermes would get his blue bird back either tonight or tomorrow morning. 

Themis turned his attention back out the window. The sun had sunk so low, it was almost impossible to see beyond the line of trees across the street. The sky blazed red with dozens of golden streaks shooting out of one point from beyond the horizon, uselessly fending against the crowding darkness. On the streets, lamps flickered to life, casting orange glows against the glass that reflected off their pelts.

The throng of people had thinned outside. The shop would close soon. A couple of the humans lived in adjacent rooms so they wouldn’t be entirely alone. In a few hours, the humans would give them dinner and turn off the lights before returning to their abodes. Then the cats would have nothing to do but sit or sleep or stare somewhere across the room. 

Hythlodaeus rarely shut up. He’d talk about anything and everything and try to get everyone to be his conversation partner. On most occasions, it was Themis who indulged him, mostly because Hades quickly grew tired of it. Tonight, for once, Themis wondered if it would be a quiet night. 

“What do you see, Themis?” Venat’s soft voice broke through his reverie. 

Themis glanced at the older she-cat. With long snowy pelt and brilliant cerulean eyes, he’d sometimes heard human visitors ask if they were related—Is she the mom?—to which they would receive a chuckle and a shake of the head. Venat often took the joke further, calling him “son”, and Themis never minded to play the part. However, sitting side by side now and seeing their blurred reflection on the glass, he realized how similar they actually looked: same fluffy fur, same bushy tail that curled around their paws, same bright curious eyes. Except her fur was thicker, especially around her collar, and her tail was bushier. 

Her elegance masked her age. One wouldn’t have thought she was over ten summers old, only two years younger than wise old Hephaistos. The gleam in her eyes made her seem like a newborn kit who’d just had her first experience of the outside world, drinking every scent, every sound, and every sight that she could take. Her childish behavior often grated Hephaistos, especially whenever she rattled his cat tree, attempting to make him slip from his perch. One time, she walked past Hades and intentionally brushed her long tail over his nose. The grouchy tom had let out an earth-shattering sneeze that made Hythlodaeus and Hermes jump. 

Now she stared unblinking at the dimming light. Soon, the sun would disappear, and the first stars would wink to life. 

Themis followed her gaze. “I see the sky, boundless and free,” he said. “I see the trees, a vast expanse of green, like a carpet, stretching far into the horizon.” He looked down at the street below. “I see people, heading somewhere, doing something, all with a purpose, all with a destination in mind.” How nice they looked from his second-floor window sill—to see a crowd of humans going about their everyday life in their untroubled way, as though the only thing occupying their minds were their most mundane of concerns.

But Venat seemed to have a different thought. She barely glanced at the humans. Her gaze was fixed on the distant sky. 

“I see life,” she said. “Unbounded, unlimited life.”

Once upon a time, Venat had joined him on his window sill much like that evening. Only, the sun had just begun its slow climb over the sky then, and there hadn’t been as many people outside. In a whispery, wistful voice, she’d asked him, Have you ever felt it, Themis, this indescribable desire that spurs your very being? Every time I glimpse the open sky, I see the myriad possibilities to be discovered.

Sometimes Themis wondered if Venat was bored with her life at the shop—if she dreamed of leaving and wandering the earth. But the she-cat never required an answer to her rhetorical question. After posing her inquiry, she’d spent the next several moments marveling at the sight of the outside world, before a pensive expression slid across her face, just as it did now. Themis could almost count the seconds before it disappeared behind her mask of nonchalance once more. 

Venat looked at him and grinned. “Guess I better see how Hythlodaeus is faring.”

She leaped from the sill and strode to the cage at the other side of the room. Themis followed her retreating figure, then shifted his gaze up to Hephaistos, who’d long since closed his eyes. Whether or not he’d heard their short conversation, he didn’t show any signs.

Unbounded and unlimited life… huh?

On the street below, people still passed idly by—peacefully, serenely, seemingly free to do anything to their hearts’ content. He could see it—Venat’s vision—albeit his idea was rooted more on the humans inhabiting this star. 

Themis’s lips curled into a  small, quiet smile.

He left the window sill and followed in Venat’s wake. 

Her hands trembled. And not just that, but her shoulders, jaws, and feet, too. Even with the fire burning in front of her, her teeth chattered, and she pulled her coat tightly around herself. She’d forgotten how frigid Garlemald nights were. 

Not that she’d bothered to remember. 

But just as she had grown to accept that her missing memories would not define who she was, she’d met Zenos. Crossed blades with him even. The slight widening of his eyes had been the only indication that that had not been their first meeting. Then of course his scornful smirk had followed. 

Kasia folded into herself and rested her chin on the crook between her knees. 

Camp Broken Glass was not what it was called when she still lived in this frozen land. Laterum had been its name, if memory served. The village used to be a checkpoint for travelers before they reached the Capitol. Kasia remembered being stationed here, though her memory was still fuzzy at best. Cid had explained it might be due to the Slave Crown they’d made her wear—“they” being the Garlemald Royal Family. Apparently the Emperor had once commissioned the Magitek Academy to design a mind-controlling device. Kasia had a vague recollection of the headpiece—more a circlet than a crown, with cold stainless metal and no adornments whatsoever. One could not have guessed it had the ability to repress any sort of inner will or thoughts. 

A mere puppet. Zenos had mocked her so. 

Fire flickered in the wind. Hushed murmurs followed each person that came, the soft crunch of snow under their boots lulling the anxious beating of her heart. A few yalms away, the Cook stirred his pot beneath a tent, and a couple soldiers handed out bowls to any who approached. Kasia kept away, sitting on a log by the fire unprotected from the elements. The scent of the stew had made her stomach turn.

Kasia didn’t know how much time had passed when the sound of familiar footsteps reached her ears. She looked up. Zorig was standing over her. 

His black scales, dark hair, and equally dark cloak blended him well with the darkness. If not for the firelight dancing on his brown face, or the pair of golden limbal rings that shone in his eyes, stark against the night, Kasia might not have noticed him. An exaggeration, for sure. 

A small smile broke across Zorig’s face, stretching his thin, chapped lips all the way to where his scales adorned his jawline. He didn’t look freezing at all! The big Xaela stood with his arms slightly apart to make way for the thick-layered cloak Tataru had provided him with—provided all of them with. Kasia’s own winter cloak had been a gift from Tataru, yet why was it that she couldn’t stop herself from shaking while he just stood there like he could brave the cold even if he had his clothes off?

Kasia harrumphed and dropped her gaze back to the blasted fire that she could hardly feel. Shouldn’t someone pour ceruleum on it? Make it blaze brighter, higher, hotter—enough to burn away the frost and drive the shadows far that people from malms away could see where the camp was. There was a lake full of the flammable stuff nearby with warehouses chockful of tanks. But instead she had to endure the quake in her jaws, the locking in her knees, and her frozen bum glued to this Twelve-forsaken log. 

Wordlessly, Zorig took a seat next to her and asked the Cook for a bowl of stew. Kasia made a point not to look, not to smell the chicken and the pepper. 

But then the smell was next to her, and from the corner of her eyes, she could see steam wafting off the bowl in Zorig’s hand. He grabbed a spoonful of it, then blew on it. Her stomach inadvertently churned.

He stopped, and looked at her. “You okay?”

Kasia nodded. “I’m fine.” Her voice came out in a croak—her throat had dried from the overexposure of icy winds. She cleared it away but the itch remained. 

“Here.” Zorig brought the spoon and the bowl to Kasia’s mouth, but the presence of such strong scents made her stomach flip. She pushed the bowl away. “It’ll warm you up!” Zorig pressed. 

“I’m fine, Zorig!” Kasia hissed while keeping her face turned. Bile rose to her mouth and she had trouble swallowing it down. “I’m fine, just… no stew. Please.”

Her shoulders shook. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and the harsh, unrelenting cold only pushed her teeth to chatter more fiercely. Kasia drew Tataru’s cloak tighter around herself, but it could not shield her from the weather. She bent forward, mouth agape to draw in more air, more oxygen. But the air was thin. Her chest constricted. 

Somewhere to her right, Zorig called her name. His usual sunny voice seemed to be laced with concern, but Kasia could not hear it, could not make sense of any words being uttered. In a span of seconds, the world had gone muted. A high-pitched ringing replaced all sounds in her vicinity.

Kasia fell off her log and dropped to the ground. Frost seeped to her hands and knees. Her heart thundered. Brown arms held her back, and then the bile came out in a burst of yellow and green. 

Then she saw fire—a conflagration so bright and so high, it drowned out all the scream before they reached her. A hand rested on her shoulder. When she turned, she found herself in a splendid obsidian hall with a single throne on a dais. A man, even in his old age, stood imposing and intimidating. It sent a quake deep in her core which she dared not show. A once-burgundy hair which had turned gray over the years; his golden gaze which could see through everything; he spoke, reaching a hand to her forehead. Kasia screamed. 

Burn.

Pain seared her mind. 

Kill everything.

Her muscles spasmed. She could not think, could not see.

Rain destruction on this wretched world.

Ice surged through her veins. Kasia held out her hands, and it burst out in spirals of frost and snow that coated the black marble floor and columns. Cold hands cupped her cheeks. Had she retained her senses, she would have recoiled. 

“Good girl,” the velvety voice had murmured. 

Kasia jerked. 

Gasps. 

Shouts. 

Her name. 

Kasia. Kasia? Kasia!

Kasia blinked. Another hand, a different one, warm and familiar, held her face. A pair of heterochromatic eyes—green and hazel—pierced the fogginess of her mind.

“Nayra.” A whisper, almost soundless. Kasia heaved a breath and closed her eyes. She heard similar sighs of relief around her. 

“She’s back,” Nayra said quietly. 

 “I’m sorry. I didn’t… I didn’t know what—”

“Sshhh.” Nayra pushed Kasia back down when she attempted to rise. A bed. A cot, more likely. Kasia tried to blink the haziness away but she couldn’t quite focus her eyes. She noted the wooden construction, though: the walls, the beams, and the ceiling. When she turned her head sideways, she spotted the screens the Contingent used in their infirmary. 

“You’ve been out for a bell or so.” A clinical voice drifted to her ears. Y’shtola was standing next to Nayra. “Minor exhaustion,” she went on. “And hypothermia. We’ve warmed you up as best we can.” Her unseeing eyes spoke knowingly, though she didn’t say it aloud. It was no secret that Kasia had been a conscript. The Scions had known it ever since she regained her memories. Sensing her gratefulness, Y’shtola nodded to herself and patted her leg. “Get some rest.” Then she left the makeshift room. 

Kasia met Nayra’s eyes. The Warrior of Light made no effort to hide her worry, swimming as it was in her gaze as it always did. But she didn’t voice it, and for the next several moments, they stared at each other, neither attempting to break the silence. 

Kasia was the first who fell to the pressure. “I’m not staying back, Nayra.”

Nayra sighed, her mouth pressed into a wry smile. “I knew you’d say that.”

“This is my problem. I’m not running away.”

“I know. And I commend you for it. But there is a thin line that separates being brave and being foolhardy. You told me that yourself, remember?” 

Kasia pursed her lips. “It’s not the same. You were running off to gods-knew-where without a care to your well-being. I’m—”

“Also running off to the heart of the Empire which had carved such deep scars in you,” Nayra finished for her. She smiled, gentle. Kasia turned away. She hated that smile. It always made her feel like Nayra could see through everything. Nayra stroked her head. “I will not stop you if that is what you wish, but I will implore you not to tempt your limits. Even the mere sight of the Capitol’s distant spires had elicited such a reaction from you. Don’t think I don’t know why you stepped out of the meeting earlier.”

Kasia bit her lip. 

Nayra paused. “I don’t want to force your help if it brings out fresh trauma from your heart.”

“I know,” Kasia murmured. “But I can’t let you go alone, Nayra. I want to help. I know the city inside out. I know the Palace like the back of my hand. Even… Even if everything is still a bit fuzzy, I know I’ll recognize everything once I see them.”

Nayra didn’t say anything for a while. Then she patted Kasia’s head. “The Operation isn’t until a while yet. We’re still taking stock of everything. Get some rest.” She rose to her feet. Her parting smile was her usual warm and reassuring grin, but Kasia knew Nayra hadn’t quite agreed with her. 

Kasia slept for a short while after that. She woke up to the sound of familiar footsteps now quietly thudding against wood. Peeling open her eyes, she saw Zorig approach her bed. He stopped mid-step when he noticed her stare. 

“Sorry. I might’ve scared you earlier,” she said. 

A muscle twitched along his jawline. A smile? A laugh? Or maybe he’d meant it as a frown. In the end, he remained expressionless, but the gleam of his golden limbal rings illuminated the disquiet creases on his forehead and slight downturn of his brows. Poker faces were never his forte. 

Kasia let out a breathless chuckle. “I’m fine, Zorig. Really.” He made no movement. Kasia sighed in resignation. She pushed herself to a sitting position, made to say, “See?” but Zorig was already there with his arm on her back before she could finish sitting up. 

“Careful,” he said, firm, and rather reproachful. “You just woke up. Don’t push yourself.”

A strong hand supported her, gently propping her up. Then he set a plate with a steaming loaf of bread at the edge of the cot, and pulled her blanket around herself. Her coat was draped over a chair. He reached for it and threw it around her shoulders. Tucking her. Keeping her warm. 

Heat rose to her cheeks. “I–I can do it myself!” she blurted, snatching the rim of her coat from his fingers. 

Zorig scowled. “Last time you said that you passed out in the middle of the snow.” 

“It was cold! And the stew made me barf!”

Guilt flickered across his brown eyes. 

“Hey—” Kasia began, realizing her mistake. “No, I didn’t—it wasn’t your fault.”

“Should’ve said you weren’t up for stew.”

“I did.”

“After I had the Cook brought me some.”

Kasia frowned. “Well I didn’t ask you to feed me.”

“I was worried, okay?” Zorig glared at her. “You left suddenly in the middle of a meeting. Then I found you in the cold. Alone. With some measly bread.” He paused, then looked away. “I didn’t want you to freeze to death.”

Kasia swallowed her embarrassment. “I was by the fire.”

“Which was ten fulms away. No wonder your hands were freezing.”

There was no light near Kasia’s bed; the only illumination came from the main hall beyond the white screens. Despite the dimness, however, she could see the anguish twisting Zorig’s countenance as clear as if the sun was shining down on them. And he was the sun. Always. Positive; encouraging; resilient. During the short years she had known him, Kasia could count on one hand how many times she had seen it cloud over—which it now did… for her. 

A lump formed in her throat, and her chest felt unusually tight. She cleared her throat, averted her gaze. It fell on the steaming bread at the edge of her bed. 

“Is that for me?” she asked. 

Zorig followed her eyes. “Ah, yeah. I had the Cook steam one for you.” He brought the plate to help lap. Kasia tested the surface with her hands and found it steaming hot. She hissed in pain. Zorig chuckled. “Let me,” he said, then broke the bread so easily as though the heat didn’t sting his fingers. He held one half for her, and Kasia tentatively accepted it.

It was still hot to the touch. She blew on it, then blew on her hands, juggling it between her palms until it was cool enough to bite. Warmth spread from her tongue to her entire body the moment she swallowed. 

“Is it good?” Zorig asked. 

Kasia beamed. “The best.”

A lone figure stood atop a wide-open plateau in the wilds of Eitherys, her powerful yet dismayed sky-blue gaze locking on the towering bird gliding toward her. Her robe whipped about her in the rising wind. One look at her and people would assume she was a mere traveler, but the hooded cloak and leather boots hid the glimmer of light armor underneath. 

Her name was Leirion, and she was a researcher of Amaurot. A former researcher now, though. She was once part of Akadaemia Anyder’s faculty members before her renowned skills as a beastmaster attracted the attention of the then-chief overseer of Elpis. Now, she had stepped into the shoes of her former master, holder of the fourteenth seat of the Convocation: Azem. 

As Azem, it was her job to be the counselor of the people. If Elidibus was to be the Convocation’s advisor and spokesperson, one to represent their laws and beliefs, then Azem would be the one to bridge them with the people of the wider world—one to listen and advise and bring about a collection of aspirations back to their congregations. As such, she was often away, moons at a time. It might even be said that she felt more at home in her travels than she had ever felt in the stifling metropolis city of Amaurot. But returned, she must, to bring the good and bad news. Thankfully there was more good news than bad this time. She hoped that might allay any tongue-lashing Lahabrea surely had for her. 

The bird landed beside her, and the resulting gust of wind propelled Leirion’s hood to fall off. Auburn-brown hair tumbled out, half tied in a bun halfway up her head. She reached up to keep the stray strands away from her face.

“That is one mighty bird.” A voice spoke behind her. Venat stepped forward beside her, eyes marveling at the gleaming gold that painted each of the bird’s feathers. As though noticing the stares, the bird reached up its long neck and ruffled its wings. Sunlight glinted off the plumes. Venat beamed, then held out her hand to stroke its side. “Is this not the creature said to make its nest off to the western seas? I heard the storms it manifests could wreck ships asunder. How ever did you manage to tame the beast?”

Leirion smiled wryly. She patted the bird’s neck. “She was only protecting her eggs. The moment I assured her I would not let harm come to her island, she stopped causing chaos to the sailors. Of course, I had to make a trade with the villagers in exchange. They had been plundering the island for their lack of resources, after all. Had to make a… well, a few adjustments to my plan to fulfill everyone’s needs.”

“Hmmm.” 

Venat cast her a sidelong glance, and Leirion felt a twinge of guilt, though to be fair, there was nothing else she could do. She couldn’t have gone to report to Amaurot and then back again. Who knew what would happen in the time she was away? Another occupational hazard of the Seat of Azem, she would say, one the rest of the Convocation members had likely—probably—gotten used to since before she came into office. Venat surely had done something worse than this silly thing. 

“I predict another earful from Emet-Selch is coming,” Venat added a moment later. 

That made Leirion flinch. “Nothing I’m not used to,” she mumbled. 

Venat giggled. “Well, for one, I am curious what you plan with the bird. Have you made her your traveling companion, perchance?”

“Well, yes!” Leirion’s face brightened. “You see, I’ve tried and failed to create a concept that would allow air travel, yes? Land travel—we have a multitude of those, and I have contributed a handful of them myself, being travelers that we are. Teleportations are too risky in the wilderness and I am tired of wasting weeks and moons on foot just to reach my destination. Not to mention what might happen in the time it takes to get there! And Lahabrea had the gall to berate me for being late when he never even stepped foot outside of that gods-damned city.”

Venat giggled again. Leirion wondered how much Lahabrea had berated her for it. 

“But with air travel,” she went on, “what might take weeks could be shortened to days, or even bells. Of course it will depend on how fast the creation could carry you, but Halcyon here has promised me she is able to fly me back to Amaurot in less than a day.”

“Halcyon?”

“Her name,” Leirion replied with a beam. 

“I see.” Venat didn’t question her. 

It was well-known that beastmasters were particularly fluent in the language of beasts. The most proficient ones could even talk to them and hear their voices in return. Leirion’s skill had been one of the best in the Akadaemia. So yes, the bird herself had told Leirion of her name, and offered to bring her to the towering city herself after Leirion had fulfilled her promise of protecting both her island and her eggs. Now the eggs had hatched and the chicks had learned to fend for themselves. Halcyon had deemed it a suitable time to leave with Leirion for a short while, though she would later return to her nest once her task was complete. 

You need but whistle, and I shall come to your side, said the bird before Leirion departed the island a week prior to tend to her other tasks. 

But late yesterday evening, she’d received notice from the Convocation of the next congregation taking place in a few days. Venat, who coincidentally had been nearby, had come to offer her assistance when she called. 

“Forgive me, master,” Leirion said. “I keep troubling you with all my inconveniences.” 

But Venat only smiled. “I ceased to be your master the moment you took up my former office a century ago.”

Leirion responded with a matching grin. “But you’ll always be my master to me.” 

She looked at Halcyon then, and nodded her head. The bird lowered her back, allowing Leirion passage to her seat near the base of the bird’s neck. Halcyon then rose to her full height. Leirion had to hold onto the feathers tight to keep herself from falling. Truth be told, she had never flown on a bird before, let alone one as big as Halcyon. When the bird spread her wings to their full length, the span of them might be comparable to half the height of Ktisis Hyperboreia. But still, her heart fluttered at the thought of flying, the image of pastures and mountains passing by beneath her crossing her giddy mind. 

The congregation would not be until a few days. She had promised Venat she would return here immediately after it concluded. But before that, she should have some time to spare to call for Hermes and have him help her analyze Halcyon’s specifications to better create a concept that would match her. Who better to concoct a flying concept than the master of avian creations himself? Besides, she couldn’t wait to show Halcyon off to him. Mayhap he would be as starry-eyed as she had been when she first laid eyes on these golden plumes. 

Leirion dropped her gaze to Venat, who was seeing her off from the ground. 

“I’ll be back soon,” she called over the distance. Venat only raised her arm in farewell. 

With a pat and a whisper through the mental link Leirion had forged with the bird, Halcyon flapped its wings and took off. 

His friend crossed the garden to a set of stacked platforms by the outer wall. He set down his potted plant on a sunny spot, fiddled with it, shifted it this way and that, then, nodding to himself, he came to stand on Xavier's side. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said in regards to the cherry blossoms. “I think we’ll finally see the most brilliant blossoms yet this year.”

Xavier glanced at him from the corner of his eyes, a wordless question in the slight crook of his brow. Jeremiah chuckled under his breath.

“The tree hasn’t been flowering much since I first acquired the place,” Jeremiah replied. “But these past several years, buds started growing on the branches, though they were never strong enough to blossom… until last year.”

“What happened last year?” Xavier asked. 

Jeremiah shrugged. “Just that one morning, I spotted petals floating down to the window sill. I couldn’t believe my eyes.” One corner of his lips tugged into a small smile, melancholic in a way. The brown of his eyes was lost in something Xavier couldn’t see. 

Was Jeremiah thinking of the girl he used to see, from all those years ago before everything changed? But then the knight-turned-florist slapped a hand to Xavier’s shoulder and grinned. “Reminds me of the times you used to sneak out and meet her out on the hills.”

Xavier blinked. A breathless “huh?” escaped his half-open mouth. His eyes narrowed in bewilderment, but Jeremiah neither elaborated nor gave him a chance to ask. His friend only told him to put his pot next to the others before returning inside.

Xavier watched his former subordinate’s retreating back, saw him disappear behind the door, which jingled open then closed. A lone wind tussled his hair, smelling faintly of the flowers crowning the tree next to him. 

The words Jeremiah left Xavier with teased a long-dormant memory from the deep trenches of his mind: of an ancient time and gleaming ivory spires, of pristine uniforms and academy-standard blades attached to their sides. A whiff of cherry blossoms hit his senses, and Xavier saw the smile of a brunette as she held out a four-leaved clover to him. 

“For luck,” she’d said. “On your new term.”

Spring had just arrived, and their first year had barely begun. That morning, she’d asked to meet him on the hill overlooking the academy. A great flowering tree stood there, majestic and grand with its golden-pink flowers and leaves. Xavier didn’t quite know how she’d found a four-leaved clover—rare that they were, as he was told—but he remembered looking at it with a mixture of awe and… bemusement.

When Xavier didn’t accept it immediately, annoyance flickered across her face. “Fine then, if you don’t want it—” She was pouting, her hand dropping.

Xavier caught it just in time and retrieved the clover from between her fingers. “Shouldn’t it be ‘on our new term’? Don’t you want to breeze through your academy years too?” 

She met his smirk with a grin of her own. Xavier tucked the clover in his breast pocket. Little did she know that he’d kept it close for years after that.

***

Xavier entered Philo from the back door and made his way to the greenhouse, where Jeremiah was busy spraying his flowers and plants. He picked up another spray bottle from a cabinet, then went to a different aisle. 

Spraying flowers here, adjusting the soil there, he checked to see if there were weeds that needed pulling or wilting leaves in need of nourishment. The motions were familiar to him now. Habitual. And quieting. He hadn’t visited Jeremiah’s shop a lot—he could count how many times a year he visited in one hand—but each time, Jeremiah would always have him do the same tasks. Xavier had ignored him the first time; reluctantly obeyed him the second time; then, by the third time he came to visit and Jeremiah once again asked him for help, Xavier had readily accepted the job. Because while he was cleaning, and spraying, and tending to the multitude of flowers and shrubs, he’d found that the discordant noises in his mind would quiet, the crushing weight in his heart would ease, and the rush of adrenaline in his bloodstream would loosen its hold.

A timepiece chimed somewhere in the shop: four in the afternoon. The sun had begun to set. Rectangular blocks of light slanted in through the window panes, seeming to lengthen with each passing second. 

Jeremiah was the first to break the comfortable silence with a sudden outburst: “Oh, right!” Xavier glanced up from his work to find the florist looking back at him. “There’s going to be a flower viewing party at the park this weekend. You know, that stuff where people get together to watch the cherry blossoms?”

“Mm.” With a non-committal comment, Xavier returned to his task. He’d finished tending to one aisle. He then moved to another. 

“I’ll be going there with some of the neighbors. Would you like to come?” Jeremiah asked again.

“Why would I go somewhere just to watch flowers with a bunch of people I don’t know?” 

Jeremiah shrugged. “Thought you’d like to come. You did like to enjoy flowers.” At Xavier’s silence, Jeremiah set his spray down and propped his arms against the table behind him. “I heard people originally shared poetry and wine there. When they started believing that gods reside in the trees, and that they divine harvest, they began making offerings.”

Another bout of silence, during which Xavier thought he should say something. So he did. “They still do that?”

“Nah. These days most just use it as an excuse to get together. They have picnics under the trees—though I heard some still share alcohol.”

“Hmm.”

“So you’re not coming?”

Xavier replied with a wordless spray to his face. Jeremiah spluttered, and a brief water-spray battle ensued.

Later, when both men had their faces drenched and the fronts of their aprons and sleeves soaked, Jeremiah held his hands up in surrender. They shared a quiet laugh, after which Jeremiah fetched a towel for himself and Xavier. 

“The thing about cherry blossoms—” he started, but Xavier cut him short: “You’re not done yet?”

Jeremiah scoffed. “Hear me out here.”

Wiping his face, hands, and apron, Xavier wordlessly gestured for Jeremiah to continue.

His friend cleared his throat. “The thing about cherry blossoms,” he said, “is that they only bloom for really short periods of time. A vanguard of spring. In the span of a few weeks, every tree in the entire city will blossom to life, and we’ll be enveloped in its brilliant colors before the petals fall, one by one, making way for new birth.”

Jeremiah paused, hands halting in the middle of wiping the spray remnants off his face. Xavier cocked his head and waited for him to continue. But he didn’t, so Xavier said, “Did you just quote that from somewhere?”

A startled blink, then a clearing of a throat. “I just thought it’s a beautiful sentiment,” Jeremiah replied defensively. A wry smile broke through his tight lips. Then he moved away from the flowers and placed his spray back on its cabinet. He turned back to Xavier and asked if Xavier would like him to put away his towel, too, but Xavier shook his head. Jeremiah nodded with a “suit yourself” and stepped out of the greenhouse. 

Left alone, Xavier set to finish his task, but his mind lingered on the conversation he’d just had. A fleeting beauty, he thought. No matter what time or space he resided in, people could not seem to resist it.

Outside, the sun still shone bright enough to drive the shadows away, but it wouldn’t be long until darkness reigned.

***

Jeremiah had it right when he said Xavier enjoyed flowers, though Xavier was never the flower-nerd even in his youth. He could name a few, knew where to find them or where they grew. The only reason he bothered to learn about them was because she loved them. 

Sometimes, when the seasons changed from summer to fall, Xavier would go up the hill where the wavyleaf sea lavenders grew. It had been his promise to her—to take her away to a place where all their worries were for naught, where blossoms of multitude colors cloaked the entire star. He’d vowed to give her the world, and the universe. 

Xavier didn’t bring anything when he arrived at the park. Groups of people crowded the gate. The young and the old, men and women, all carried baskets and bags and cameras. He’d known the social gathering was a huge event but, having never joined one, he’d underestimated just how packed the park would be.

Perhaps it was a mistake to come. He made to leave, to turn and perhaps visit Philo instead, when a familiar lilting laughter met his ears. 

Xavier froze.

He pricked his ears, but the laughter had died. Still, he whirled, whipping his head up and searching, locating for the source of the fading sound. A sea of black and brown mass lay before him, stretching as far as he could see. Dissimilar voices; foreign faces; he scanned the backs of each head, knowing in his heart that he would recognize her, find her again no matter how much her appearance changed—knew that she could also hear the quake in his heart, feel the yearn of his gaze—

But no one turned around. 

Nobody heard the scream in his soul. 

He let go of the breath he hadn’t realized he’d held. Like a deflated balloon, Xavier stood limp and listless. She wasn’t here. She hadn’t come. What had he expected? 

Swaths of pink blanketed the entire park, but she was nowhere to be found.

Xavier turned around for real this time and headed back the way he’d come.

***

Later that afternoon, Jeremiah found Xavier sitting in Philo’s back garden, quietly sipping tea and watching cherry blossoms flutter in the wind. Xavier didn’t look up when the bells jingled, nor when Jeremiah set another stool down next to him and handed him a can of beer. 

“You didn’t come to the park?” his friend asked as a way of greeting. 

“Didn’t bother,” Xavier lied. He glanced at the beer. Local brand, of course. They always tasted funny to him, but it seemed Jeremiah had taken a liking to them. 

When Xavier didn’t move to accept it, Jeremiah softly scoffed, then placed the beer on the table next to them. He whipped out his own can. “It’s really not so bad once you get used to them,” he said, popping open the can and taking a long swig of the bland liquor. 

“No, thank you.” 

“What’s gotten you into such a sour mood?” 

Xaviel scowled. “I’m not.”

“Uh-huh.”

Jeremiah’s rolling eyes and bewildered side-eyed glance bored into the side of Xavier’s head. His frown deepening, he took another (pointed) sip of his tea. 

As the wind rose, the cherry blossom boughs trembled under its force. But they persisted, and resisted against the pull, the limbs holding on to the fragile petals like a life line. Did they know that once they let go they wouldn’t be able to meet for another year? What if the blossoms didn’t return then, as Jeremiah recounted the tree had only begun flowering again last year? What if this was just their feeble attempt to keep the petals close, knowing full well the flowers would inevitably die, just as Fate had ordained, and they would be left with nothing but remnants of their former lover, forced to wait out year after year for its return? 

“They really are beautiful, aren’t they?” Jeremiah chirped as he sipped his beer absently. Red tinged his cheek; how many cans had he drunk? 

“I’m not cleaning up after you if you vomit,” Xavier began, only for Jeremiah to wave his hand and say he was sober. 

“The owner of the antique store next door told me that these flowers represent life.” Jeremiah’s voice was still clear, his gaze unwavering, but there was a sort of dreamy look in his eyes that made Xavier think his friend wasn’t quite as sober as he claimed. He scooted his stool away. “And I don’t mean the birth of new life and all that like I mentioned before,” Jeremiah went on without a care to the world. “The flowers themselves are life. The beautiful, fleeting life we lead in this impermanent world. They burst with color come winter’s end—a brilliant, radiant surge of vitality that grabs your attention and screams, ‘Look at me! I’m here! I’m alive!’”

Jeremiah’s pause lasted so long this time that Xavier wondered if he’d fallen asleep. But then his breath shook. His hold around his beer can tightened. 

“We’re blessed with long life, but we are not immortals,” he muttered. “When our time comes to fall like the cherry petals, where will we be, I wonder?” 

Jeremiah drained his beer, then rose to his feet. He wobbled, but managed to make his way inside the shop with no trouble. The bell jingled twice and the door shut. It was several moments later when Xavier finally leaned back against the wall. 

“Fleeting life, huh…” His whisper fell quietly in the silence. Then he laughed, soft, mostly to himself and somewhat self-deprecatingly. 

Jeremiah wasn’t wrong, he thought. Or, rather, the antique store owner wasn’t. The idea of a transience of life mirrored his to a degree. A special existence, who would be reborn again and again until the end of time, to give way for life she would never know, and would never feel. A brilliant and radiant surge of vitality that had grabbed his attention from the first moment he’d met her. 

And he was the tree, hanging on to her for dear life and refusing to let go. 

Above him, streaks of soft pink swirled against a backdrop of blues and greens. Perhaps it was the tea, or perhaps it was the gentle caress of the breeze against his face, but whatever excitement or apprehension had overtaken his heart at the park had now lulled to a slow and determined beat. 

“Angeal’s already working you to the bone,” his friend went on. “You returned from a mission late last night, and now you’re already back training when the sun’s not even up.” I need my beauty sleep, came the unspoken words evident in the slight downturn of Kunsel’s lips. One corner of Zack’s mouth quirked into a smirk.

Kunsel’s sword missed the tip of Zack’s head by a hairsbreadth as Zack ducked and brought his own blade swinging down on Kunsel’s side. The other man leapt away nimbly, though he stumbled on his feet on his landing. Zack rushed forward and slashed Kunsel’s chest with his wooden sword. The orb strapped to Kunsel’s shoulder beeped red, signaling the third critical strike Zack had landed on him. 

Kunsel heaved a sigh and let his sword arm drop. “You’re getting faster,” he panted. 

Zack stepped back, his own chest heaving and sweat glistening on his temple. “Once more,” he said.

But Kunsel shook his head and held up a hand. “Let me rest. We’ve been sparring for one whole hour.” He then stalked away to the edge of the room where his water bottle waited on a steel table. 

Zack cast his eyes at the timepiece on the wall: 6:15 AM. The sun should be up by now, but the steel walls adorning the SOLDIER training rooms prevented any light from seeping in. Here, the white neon glares would even make the darkest of nights into day. They wouldn’t fade as long as the room was occupied. Zack set his sword down and closed his eyes. 

Visions of his previous mission flickered across his mind’s eye. A simple guard duty which even a Third-Class should be able to execute flawlessly, yet the mission had been given to Zack—a Second-Class—due to the weight of its nature. Zack had been tasked to guard an item of import during its transportation. But not only had he almost failed bringing the item to its destination unscathed, innocent civilians had been involved in the following altercation with the supposed bandits. 

The mission had ended well, in the end, with the item arriving intact, but there was no denying that Zack’s performance had been subpar at best. The mayor of the town had expressed his gratitude still, but Zack could not ignore the quake in his heart that he hadn’t done his best, that the mission could’ve gone more smoothly had he been stronger, smarter.

His arms twitched, screamed at him to move, to swing his sword, to train, train, train—

“Zack.” The call cut through his ruminations. A sideways glance revealed Kunsel holding out a water bottle to him. 

Zack pursed his lips. “One more round,” he said. 

“Not until after you’ve rested,” his friend said with a shake of his head.

Clenching his jaws, Zack finally let his feet move, leading him to the steel table where Kunsel stood. When Zack didn’t immediately take the bottle from Kunsel’s hand, Kunsel pushed it to his chest instead. 

“Drink,” he said. “Rest. We still have our real morning drill in a couple hours.”

Zack stared at his bottle, already uncapped. Adrenaline still rushed in his bloodstream, and his muscles ached to train. 

“Did something happen last night?” 

The question came so abruptly, Zack could only look up and say, “Huh?”

“Your mission,” Kunsel added. “You’re being unusually quiet.”

Zack blinked. “Well…” His voice trailed off. 

Kunsel scoffed softly. “It’s not like you to be so down in the dumps, not even when Angeal gave you a zero in your simulation test.”

A flicker of irritation flared in Zack’s chest. “That was only one time!” 

“Doesn’t change the fact that you got a zero.” Kunsel smirked, though it was only short-lived. “And then you had the gall to drag me out for an intensive training session that lasted ‘til midnight.”

“It gave you an edge to pass your next test though, didn’t it?” Zack countered with a laugh. 

It was a moment before he noticed Kunsel’s smile, and then another moment until he realized his friend was attempting to lighten his mood. And Zack fell for it. He scowled, and Kunsel chuckled lightheartedly. 

“So, what happened?” his friend asked again. 

Zack’s scowl remained for another fraction of a moment, before he sighed, then set his sword against the wall. He took several large gulps of water before he slowly recounted the events of the past several days: the item he was meant to protect, the bandits stealing it from right under his nose, the onerous attempt to reclaim it, and finally how, in the clash with the so-called bandits, civilians had gotten hurt. 

Kunsel listened quietly, his poker face revealing none of his thoughts. Sometimes, when they were in their full uniforms, Zack could tell what his friend was thinking if he just looked hard enough for a glint here or a smirk there. But now that they were only in their shirts and cargo pants without any helmet visors to shield their faces, not even a world-class calamity could probably get a rise out of him.

Zack concluded his tale with a big, irritated harrumph as he slapped his bottle on the table and slumped against the wall. Kunsel followed after him, folding his arms and leaning on the steel wall next to him.

“Did Angeal say anything?” he asked.

“Only that I needed to take better care.” Zack sighed. “In the end, the mission was completed. I got the item to where it needed to go. The bandits were apprehended. But…” He scratched the back of his head, then grabbed a fistful of his damp jet-black hair, as though pulling it out of his scalp might undo the wrong he’d done last night—not that he could pull it out; the best it could do was elicit a sting of pain. 

Kunsel's wordless stare stabbed the side of his head. Two and a half years of friendship had taught him that Kunsel was relentless in his hunt for answers, especially since Zack had dragged him out of bed in the wee hours of the night. So even if Zack feigned a laugh and a grin and said sorry, it’s nothing, the man would not let him out of the room even if it meant they’d be late for morning practice. So Zack heaved another sigh, and hung his head. 

“Angeal told me once that, if I wanted to become a hero, I’d need honor… and dreams,” Zack finally said.

“Uh-huh.”

“So what kind of honorable person brings harm to innocent bystanders? What kind of hero—”

“And stop right there.” Kunsel chopped his head, effectively stopping him midsentence.

Zack whirled around, arms covering the spot now pulsing with pain. “What was that for!?”

“For preventing the spread of your contagious stupidity,” Kunsel said. 

“Whu—?”

“Look,” his friend went on. “Did Angeal say anything about you being dishonorable or anything of the like?”

Zack set his jaws. “No.”

“And did you do everything in your power to minimize the damage done to the civilians?”

“Well, yes. But—”

“Then there you have it. You’re already pretty much the hero of the hour to me.”

“But that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been so careless!” Zack shouted. “I’d have delivered the item on time and unscathed! None of the people would have gotten hurt! If only I’d been smarter, stronger, hadn’t rushed ahead—”

“And would wallowing in your misery do anything to further your dream?”

Kunsel stared at him, his brown, mako-rimmed eyes meeting Zack’s blue ones. “I get that you’re angry, but there’s a fine line between drowning yourself in despair and learning from your mistakes. It seems you already knew what you did wrong. I’m guessing that’s why Angeal didn’t say much of anything else.”

When Zack failed to respond, only looked at him with a half-open mouth, Kunsel broke into a resigned smile. He grabbed his discarded towel from the table to wipe the sweat from the back of his neck. 

“Why did you want to become a hero, Zack?” 

Zack blinked. “I—” It was a simple, childish dream, borne from fairy tales and bedtime stories his mother used to tell of warriors bringing salvation to their kingdoms. And then the radio started relaying news of a group of soldiers saving entire villages and towns. They were regaled as heroes. 

Zack scratched his jaw and averted his eyes. “I wanted to help people,” he said.

Kunsel smirked. “Not for the fame or glory, then?”

Heat rushed to Zack’s cheeks. “No! Well—I mean, it would be nice to be called a hero, but that’s not really the reason why…” When he was younger, Zack was often called to help around his village. Odd jobs, for the most part: taking out a dog for a walk, guarding a chicken coop, feeding chocobos, among others. It’d been less about the reward and more about the gratification he’d felt after successfully completing his duties. Perhaps even a nobody like him from a small backwater town could make a difference in someone else’s life and leave a mark in the world.

“I wanted to help as many people as I can,” Zack repeated a little more firmly. “But instead of helping people, I’d brought them harm…” 

“Will you let that thought stop you?”

Zack shook his head. “I need to train more but—” He glanced at his sword. “This isn’t the only form of training I should do.”

Kunsel grinned. “If you ever need someone to train on stealth missions, I’m your guy. You may be the strongest in your batch, but I’m pretty confident this is the one field where I’m better than you.” Then he clapped Zack’s shoulder, grabbed his bottle and sword, then crossed the room to the exit door. 

“Hey! Where’re you going?” Zack called over.

“Getting ready!” Kunsel replied over his shoulder. He pointed at the timepiece—6:42 AM. “Drills start at 7:30. I’m not missing out on breakfast.”

The chocobo, its name Choco for the chocolate-y colors of its eyes, huffed indignantly when Zack called it “Little Bastard”.

“Oh, look, you made poor Choco angry.” Aerith giggled, patting Choco’s beak before resuming feeding it corn. 

“I’m sorry Choco,” Zack said in contrite, without missing a beat, but immediately launched to his wild idea again. “So what do you say? I think it’s perfectly safe to learn to ride a chocobo in a chocobo ranch instead of out in the wilds. You won’t get many chances like this at home.”

At home, meaning Midgar, miles away from here. Well, to be fair, she’d had no use for chocobos in Midgar to begin with. The bipedal birds were present in a form: as the main force behind a sort of delivery service run by Chocobos Sam. Carriages were drawn for the slums people’s use as a means of transportation between sectors, but Aerith rarely left the Sector Five Slums. Even when she did, it would only be to a neighboring sector that was easily accessible by foot. Though whenever Chocobo Sam had stopped at her sector, she would find herself spending time with the birds, petting their soft feathers and learning how to feed them. 

It would be a lie to say she had never entertained the thought of how it would feel like to ride them. And now with Zack’s offer dangling in front of her, she couldn’t help the swell rising in her heart. 

Both Zack and Aerith left the stables to ask for permission to ride one of the chocobos. They wouldn’t leave the premises, they promised. “Just to give her the impression on how it feels for now,” he added. Then he grinned. “Though one day once she gets the hang of riding them, perhaps we might rent a chocobo or two?”

Bill, the elderly man with graying hair and beard who ran the entire ranch, pondered on the request. “Well, you did track down our Choco,” he said, “and it seems he has taken a shine on you.” He beamed at Aerith. “Sure, why not. Take the boy out for a ride around the perimeter. We actually have a track surrounding the ranch. Why not take him out there?” 

So it was that they borrowed a saddle set and arranged it on the unsuspecting Choco. The bird had looked curiously at the equipment, and when he realized what it was and what it meant, he had looked at Aerith and kweh’d in delight.

Aerith laughed when Choco pressed his beak to her cheek. “Please be gentle with me,” she said. 

They took Choco out to the track outside the ranch, then had Aerith wear a helmet. “For safety,” Bill had said. “In case she falls.”

“Do falls occur frequently?” she later asked Zack.

“Well…” Zack scratched the back of his neck. “They do,” he admitted. “But only if you make him accidentally gallop when you’re not ready, so let’s avoid that if we can, shall we? Besides, I’m here. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.” 

His grin made her smile, softening the edge of an anxiety she hadn’t realized was building alongside her anticipation.

Zack set down a stool and then helped Aerith up the saddle. She grabbed onto Choco’s feathers once she was seated, finding herself so high above the ground. Wow… Before, she had wondered if being so high would make her dizzy, but her face now morphed into pure, unbridled joy. She could only imagine how her eyes might sparkle at the exhilaration of it. 

“You’re only just sitting on its back,” Zack commented mirthfully. He helped Aerith slip her booted feet into the saddle rungs. 

“Okay, now what do I do?” Aerith asked, excitement lacing every word.

Zack chuckled. “No, to make him move, you press your heels softly to his flanks.” He made a gentle movement to press her leg against Choco’s flank. “To make him stop, to press down on his back, like so.” And he grabbed her waist and pressed gently down against the saddle. “Don’t pull the reins all on its own. You’ll hurt his mouth and, worse, anger him.”

“Okay.” Aerith nodded solemnly. 

Zack took a step back. “Okay, now try.”

Zack’s instructions had been clear enough, and Aerith did as he told her, but with every press of her heels against Choco’s flanks, the bird refused to walk. He only shuffled his feet on the spot, stepping back and forward a few times. “Hey, move. Choco, move,” she said to no avail. Zack chuckled under his breath. “Press harder,” he said. 

Harder, she thought. She did, but Choco only jerked, and then ruffled his neck. 

“This is harder than I thought,” Aerith grumbled. “Why do you make it sound so easy?”

Zack laughed again. “I told you. I’ve ridden them since I was a small boy. But that’s alright. No one gets it right on the first try.” He took hold of her leg again and pressed it firmly against Choco’s flank—

—and the chocobo moved. 

“What? How did you—”

“You need the right amount of force. Else they won’t know what you want.”

“Huh. I see.” Controlling a chocobo was harder than she thought. 

After Zack’s urging, Choco walked down the track, but it didn’t take long before he stopped again. Zack told her to make the same movement, muster the same amount of force, on both flanks this time. Aerith’s face scrunched to a frown, and she did as she was told. This time, however, Choco jerked, and finally moved on her accord. 

A grin split Aerith’s lips from ear to ear. “Look! Zack! I did it!” 

“You did it!” Zack’s praise accompanied a boisterous clap. “Now, make not to exert—”

But his next words were lost, because Aerith realized Choco was moving faster and faster. His walk  turned to a trot then a canter. Aerith held the reins in a deathly grip. “Zack?” she called behind him, but whatever Zack said in response was lost to the wind. She thought she heard a curse and a shout of her name, but all her senses were zeroed in on the bucking of Choco’s back and the tight grip her legs had on his sides to keep herself from falling. 

What did Zack say again? Press down her weight to Choco’s back to stop? 

She did so, but Choco’s speed showed no sign of decreasing. Wind assaulted her on all sides, threatening to throw her off, as Choco’s canter had transformed into a full-speed gallop. A scream erupted from her lungs. 

Aerith wasn’t sure what had happened. Had her maneuver succeeded after all? Or had there been an obstacle in Choco’s way that had prompted the abrupt halt? Whatever the case, Aerith had had her eyes closed, hugging Choco’s neck for dear life, when the bird suddenly stopped. The sudden change in momentum threw Aerith off her seat, another scream bursting from her lips. 

“I got you!” 

A thud and an oof—Zack had caught her safely in his arms. But the force of the throw caused him to lose his balance; he fell on his back with Aerith sprawled on top of him. 

“Ow…” both of them groaned. 

Aerith blinked, dizzy from the adrenaline. 

“You all right, Aerith?” Zack croaked. 

“Yeah…” She sat up slowly, and he followed suit. She blinked again to clear the fuzziness from her mind. Once clarity found her, she met his wry grin staring back at her. Aerith smiled sheepishly. “Guess I made him accidentally gallop when I wasn’t ready.”

“Sure did.” His hand plopped down on her head, shielded as it was with a helmet. “Good thing Bill had you wear this.”

“Wonder how many too-eager would-be riders he’s met in his lifetimes,” Aerith joked. 

“Too many, I would assume.” Zack stood up then, and extended a hand to help Aerith to her feet. She swayed, and he held a hand to her shoulder. “Okay?”

She nodded, then dipped her head. A wave of embarrassment suddenly took over her.  “Thank you, Zack. And… sorry. I didn’t know what happened.”

“That’s all right. I’m sorry, I should’ve made the instructions clearer, but hey, you got him moving.” He clasped her hand. “We’ll need to work on your control next. If you’re still up for it, that is?”

One wouldn’t have expected it from how barren the region was, sucked of all mako by Midgar’s pipelines as it was, but inside the town itself, trees stood tall and alive, unlike the artificial greens that dotted Midgar’s upper plate. And there weren’t just trees, but all manner of plants decorating storefronts with a small waterway splitting the town in half. 

Aerith’s eyes had feasted on all that she saw; every foliage, every petal, every breath of life that permeated the air filled her lungs until she almost forgot how to breathe. Her knees buckled at the overstimulation while Zack regarded her reaction with mild amusement. If you’re that happy just seeing this, wait ‘til you see the Grasslands, he’d said, because apparently, he still had a mind to take her elsewhere. 

But the beauty eventually chafed on her conscience as she remembered her own home—particularly the city she lived in.

“I wish we could grow flowers like this in Midgar,” Aerith said then with her chin resting between her palms. She was quite content with just watching the tiny stalks sway in a gentle breeze, but when the thought invaded her mind, she couldn’t keep her pout from showing itself.  

“Well, you could,” Zack replied. “Aren’t you growing a garden at home?” 

“Not home, but… Midgar.” 

Aerith made a gesture with her hand to indicate the entire steel metropolis sitting just southwest from there. The brown desolate soil was even more barren than the area surrounding Kalm, and what manner of greenery in the upper plate failed to mirror the lushness of her own garden. Aerith had attempted to spread more flowers there, with Zack’s help, but ultimately, what she did was only add more color to homes, not injecting them with much-needed life. 

She could see Zack’s eyes boring into her from the corner of her eyes. Eventually, she met his gaze, her lips pulling into a wry grin. “I guess it is impossible,” she admitted, “with how devoid of lifestream the soil is.” 

Zack cocked his head, then glanced at the pot. “Well…” He plucked a yellow flower from the pot and gazed at it for a while. “Even if you can’t change the city, you could make small steps in your immediate surroundings. The Sector Five, for instance. If we could redirect a little bit of the course of lifestream from your garden to the rest of the sector, don’t you think you could start planting more flowers there?”

Aerith blinked. “And how do you suppose we’d do that?” 

“That… is what we need to figure out.”

Aerith snorted, and Zack chuckled. 

“If anything,” Zack went on. “I have a tech-savvy friend who I know will jump at the first chance of an intriguing endeavor, and what is more intriguing than bringing life back to Midgar soil?”

Aerith stared at him, a small smile playing across her lips. “Can I hold you to that then?”

“Sure. Leave it to me.” He thumped his chest twice, all proud. “There’s nothing I can’t do once I put my mind to it.” Then he gazed at the flower again, rolling the stalk lightly between his fingers. “It won’t be much at first, but I’m sure once we find a way, you’ll find yourself in a flower field before you know it. And it’ll be beautiful.”

Zack slipped the flower through her hair, right above her ear. He smiled, soft. 

Aerith let the moment last, soaked in the warmth and the tenderness in his mako-rimmed sky-blue eyes. When she felt her own face cracking with a smile, she made to say, “Okay,” but a pair of boots in the periphery of her vision stopped her.

Both of them looked up to see the thin face of a man they assumed was the inn’s proprietor, judging from the pin attached to his lapel. His arms were crossed, lips pursed. His brown eyes swept from Aerith—lingering a second longer on the flower on her hair—to Zack.

“And how were you going to compensate for that, sonny?” he asked, his tone clipped. 

Zack ended up relieving a few gils to the inn proprietor’s hand. The man humphed before returning inside. Once he disappeared, Aerith couldn’t contain her laughter, though Zack still looked half-dejected.

“Well that teaches me not to pluck random flowers,” he said. 

“Random flowers off the ground may not be a problem,” Aerith chimed. “Random flowers in front of stores may earn you a glare and a scolding.”

Zack chuckled under his breath. “Anyway,” he said, grabbing her hand. “Let’s go eat. There’s a cafe up ahead with the most beautiful cakes you’d ever see that you’d feel bad about eating them. But it’s sooo delicious, you won’t be able to stop eating.”

You thought Azem had overstated the beauty of the place, but upon your arrival, you realized how wrong you had been. Green spread as far as the eye could see, undulating like the waves of some terrestrial ocean and broken only by darker patches that marked copses of trees. Clouds glided lazily by, beneath which groups of herbivores grazed and snored upon blades of grass. Somewhere ahead, some sort of avian creature cried as it dove then climbed back up with a mole in its claws. Hermes watched it fly into the distance, where the hills melted into the sweeping heavens. A stolen glance at the man beside you was enough confirmation that this was the perfect decision. Hermes couldn’t take his eyes off his surroundings. Who could, though? Even you were briefly rendered speechless. 

“Marvelous, isn’t it?” you said in his silence. 

“Simply,” he replied. 

Now you peek through the kitchen windows at the orchard behind the cottage. You spot Hermes still picking apples there, reaching for the lower branches and then inspecting every specimen as though his life depends on it. He’s looking for the best of the best. Azem has given you the go-ahead to harvest the entire orchard—which you would rather avoid, to be perfectly honest. Prior to your departure, you had clearly articulated to Hermes that he needed more nourishment than a mere apple can provide, despite how easy it is to obtain and consume or how his own orchard yields plentiful harvest every moon. Yes, you know about his secret picnic spot behind the Cthonic Horns. Whatever he says, it is not a replacement for a proper meal and rest. Weariness lines his face and his shoulders have begun to stoop. If he only lets you, you would take half his burden into your own hands, but you know as well as anyone else that your partner has a tendency to drive himself to exhaustion. That he cannot see it himself frustrates you sometimes, but is that not why you are here? 

The enamel clock rings on the counter. You shake out of your reverie, return to the oven, then open the lid. Sweetness pours out in waves of enticing scents. Wearing your mitts, you take the tray out and set it next to the stove. The surface has hardened to a charming golden brown. You’re tempted to taste it but decide against it, instead placing it on a shelf to cool. 

That is the last of it. You’ve laid out the rest of your lunch on the table: stir fried vegetables, grilled salmon, lamb skewers, green salad with sliced apples and smoked chicken, and a pot of light potato and mushroom soup. A crystal decanter of fresh apple juice sits neatly at the center of the table between two identical mugs adorned with gold-painted leaves. Now all you need to do is collect Hermes. 

You exit the cottage through the back door, then climb the slope up to the orchard at the top of the hill. He’s already set a mat on the slope, where a basket is sitting, already filled to the brim. Upon your approach, he pauses mid-apple picking, a natural smile blooming across his handsome features. 

“Ah, you’re here.” He breaks the apple stem from its branch. “Good timing. Here, try this. I think this is the best one yet.” Wiping the apple on his robe, Hermes then pivots it right to your lips, and you unbiddenly take a bite. Cool sweetness fills your mouth with each crunch of the apple flesh between your teeth. You blink in surprise. It is much sweeter than any you’ve tasted at the Horns. The best of the best, as he says and Azem claims. “Delicious, isn’t it?” His smile is too bright for a piece of apple now in your hand. 

As he walks back to the orchard seeking more of the prime specimens, your gaze inadvertently follows him. Dappled sunlight dances along his dark countenance, his black robe stark against the warm colors of the trees. He has taken off his mask, his face a picture of quiet jubilance as he moves from one tree to the next—checking, inspecting, examining, all with that scrutiny that marks every researcher of Amaurot. And when he finds another sample he’s taken with, his jade-colored eyes will crinkle, and he’ll pick the apple off at the stem and offer it to you again. 

Part of you wonders if this has all been Azem’s ruse as no one in their right mind would have any need for such an extensive orchard, let alone one exclusively for apples. But then again, Azem is quite the eccentric amongst Amaurotians. You cannot guess his mind. And does it truly matter? This was the reason why you helped Hermes harvest his first batch and made a pie and juice from it. Now he has a second batch and on the way to filling his third. A wry smile tugs your lips. You finish the apple in your hand and then join him at his side. 

“Look at this,” he says, “have you ever feasted your eyes upon a specimen so perfect, so marvelous in every aspect? The rich red color, the plumpness of its flesh, the way it glints gold under the sun.” Hermes swivels and brings the fruit to the dappled light. Indeed, however he turns it, the apple seems to be layered in gilt. “I must ask Azem how he achieves such magnificent results.”

There it is: the beam that always pulls at your heartstrings—a soft quirk of his lips that instantly erases any signs of fatigue from his face. The way his features contorted into pure rapture the moment the two of you arrived, how the jade of his eyes gleamed as he took in the grazing animals and bountiful trees; extracting him from duty is worth it if it allows you to see his unbridled joy. 

A gentle breeze ruffles Hermes’s hair. You reach up and tuck a stray strand behind his ear. He glances at you and you meet his gaze with a smile. “Lunch is ready. I’ve got lamb skewers, grilled salmon, potato soup. The apple juice from the apples you picked tastes divine, and of course, your apple pie is waiting too—cooling, still, but ready.” That piques his interest and you can’t help but laugh at his childish excitement. 

You mean to let go of his face, but in one swift movement, he has tossed the last apple into his basket and captured your hand.

“Hermes—?” 

His name dies in your throat when a soft sensation presses against the center of your palm.

Time stops. 

You blink once, then twice. Heat rushes to your neck when Hermes looks at you with half-lidded eyes. 

“Thank you,” he whispers. He holds your hand against his cheek and leans against it. 

“What for?”

“For this.” His gaze sweeps over the trees and the firmament and the little cottage with the puffing chimney where his lunch awaits. “For everything. If not for your adamance, I might not have agreed to come on this vacation, averse as I am to leave my work unfinished. But I see you are right. The trip has been worthwhile to replenish the soul.”

One would think the chief overseer of Elpis was a workaholic, and he is, but his ethics come from an earnest love for his creations and the desire to see them thrive. You cannot blame him for his passion, though it would be a tremendous boost if he could only see the pallor of his face or the dark circles under his eyes. For now, it is the only thing you can do to prevent his body from utterly crumbling. The perfect reward: bringing him to the most beautiful place known in Etheirys, recommended by the Traveler himself, where creatures of all shapes and sizes can be seen frolicking in the sea of grass and the high heavens above.

You tug at his hand. “Come, let us get some color back into those cheeks.” 

Halcyon.

Hermes had come across the name in an ancient crystal tucked in the deepest corners of Anamnesis Anyder: a one-of-a-kind creation whose origins eluded even the scholar who had recorded her sightings. It was said that the avian creature had taken to create a nest on a small island out in the western seas. The crystal noted how her breath had the ability to calm the wind, assuring safe passage for sailors that crossed its realm—although as far as he knew of recent recounts, across the past several centuries the bird was more inclined to tear ships asunder. Seeing the bird dipping her long neck down for Leirion to stroke, Hermes wondered if she had not only been protecting herself. Leirion’s previous task might have been related to the change in the bird’s demeanor—if the rumors were to be believed. 

“Have you bonded with her?” Hermes asked as he continued to marvel at the legendary creation. Each golden plume glinted under the light. Her elegant tail flowed in beautiful tendrils of feathers, like a river cascading down from her back. Her sturdy legs supported her enormous body, each ending in thick, sharp claws that seemed ready to tear the world apart. Yet her amber eyes were gentle and soft as she purred into the hand of her apparent master. 

Leirion, on her part, did not act as though she were a master. She glanced at Hermes with a surprised look on her face. “Oh no, she only let me ride her as a show of her gratitude for helping solve the conundrum with the fishing village.”

Hermes would bet the bird would not have let just about anyone to ride her, even if they had solved a centuries-long problem between her and the people. 

Leirion held out a hand. “Would you like to pet her?”

“What—”

“You’ll let him pet you, yes?” she asked the bird, who seemed to nod. Then she grabbed his wrist.

“Wait—Leirion—”

Unheeding his protests, she pulled him to her side and held his hand out to the bird, palm-up. “Let her come to you,” Leirion whispered before stepping back to give him room. 

His wide-eyed stare whirled toward her, but his friend, the Traveler and holder of the fourteenth seat at the Convocation of Fourteen, only nodded encouragingly. Hermes’s heart thundered within its cage. He gazed at the bird, whose flaming eyes bore into him in scrutiny, as though it were assessing his worth. 

Hermes racked his brain for any scant information he had gleaned from the crystal all those years ago, but he could not remember the scholar denoting any sort of temperament. In fact, if he recalled correctly, the scholar had only been able to gaze at it from afar. Mayhap they hadn’t dared move closer, or the bird might not have allowed him to. Regardless, Hermes could imagine two scenarios playing out in the next several seconds: either the bird would tear him from his innards with those sharp claws and burn him into cinders—or she would allow him to touch her. He hoped for the latter, but whichever it goes, he would not tear his eyes away from her. 

She looked so beautiful, so majestic… 

When Halcyon leaned her head down, Hermes’s breath was caught in his throat. 

A heartbeat later, the bird had closed her eyes and pressed the crown of her gilded head against his palm. 

Exhilaration spread from his breast all the way to the tips of his fingers in shivers of contained jubilance. He did not move; neither did the bird. Then his hold shifted, just a fraction. Her feathers whispered softly against his skin. 

A heartbeat later, the bird moved away, the softness of her touch lingering on his hand. 

“I was hoping you could help me assess her,” Leirion began. “Whether it would be possible to allow for easier air travel outside the city. You know teleportations aren’t always safe.”

Hermes blinked then. Slowly, he regarded his friend who had come to stand beside him. 

“You want to make a concept like her?” he asked. 

Leirion nodded with no trace of doubt or apprehension marking her features. 

“Leirion, she’s a legend, almost a myth. Not even the archives know who made her!”

“That’s why I’m asking you.”

He was shaking his head. “It would take years. I don’t have the skills—”

“Says the expert in avian creations?” 

He looked at her, and saw, from the earnest glint in her sky-blue eyes, that she was serious. Hermes swallowed past his nervousness. 

He would not lie and say the logical, researcher part of him was not intrigued by the proposition. Who wouldn’t? To achieve such greats and recreate a legendary creation not even catalogued in the archives… While he cared not for the acclaim that might offer, he could imagine the pride and satisfaction it would bring, at the knowledge that he had contributed something worth noting to history. 

Yet another part of him quivered in fear. To undertake such a venture would mean countless trials and errors and failed experiments. Could they not just let the bird be—to let it be known as the only one of its kind, its existence shrouded in mystery; for her beauty to remain, untarnished by poor imitations of her regal presence?

But Leirion was still looking at him imploringly. Hermes had to close his eyes and sighed. 

“I will… try to evaluate her specifications, but I do not promise it will be the same creation. You ask for air travel, and air travel you shall have.”

Such was how Hermes began toiling on a secret project unknown to the other staff members of Elpis. True to his word, he didn’t quite copy Halcyon’s exact specifications into this new concept. It would still be a bird, with similar golden plumage, but it would be smaller—much smaller—allowing for easier, and safer, rides. It had shocked him when he measured the precise length and breadth of Halcyon. To think the entire span of her wings was almost half as tall as Ktisis Hyperboreia, the tallest tower in Elpis. How Leirion had managed to ride the bird was a mystery to him. She would be but a small speck in the midst of that field of golden feathers, and the vast wingspan would have allowed the bird to travel swiftly with nothing short of her plumes to hold on—but perhaps, being buried between Halcyon’s massive shoulder blades was enough to secure her safety.

Hermes’s research took several decades. He designed the new concept so meticulously that it bordered on insane perfectionism. But such was how it should be. Why should he deem a research complete if it would only yield subpar results? And when it failed to meet his demands, he should bring it to Lethe for its aether to be unbound?

He scoffed. Such travesty.

While a researcher would be allowed to modify designs on a case-by-case basis, ultimately, when a creation was deemed unsuitable for life, they would be unmade, and the researcher would start anew. 

And so, he would not fail. No, he could not! 

When Hermes was finally ready to release his concept, he went to Noetophoreon in the early morning before anyone woke up. In his hand was an intricate golden whistle, one end of it forming the head of the firebird it would summon. Bringing the whistle to his lips, he blew, and a shrill, high-pitched sound pierced the dark skies. 

He waited with bated breath, heart thundering in his chest. His design was flawless. The bird would come, and it would fly. 

He waited for another heartbeat before the golden whistle began glowing strikingly bright. In front of him manifested a swirling sphere of similar luminosity. The light expanded, the ball unraveled. Then, with a keening screech that seemed to split the very heavens, a bird with fiery golden feathers broke from its cage of light, expanding its wings and ruffling its plumages in a show of brilliant, unbridled life. 

A tear escaped Hermes’s eye as the bird landed on the ground. It cocked its head, scanning its surroundings. Like a chick, Hermes thought, who had just broken from its eggshells. 

Hermes marvelled at the sight. Nothing seemed to be amiss at first glance. The bird’s wings seemed to work. The sturdy legs supported its body. Its glorious tail trailed from its back in three beautiful tendrils of golden feathers. Its thinner torso might allow for swifter travel, and the beats of its great wings would be enough to send unwanted parties off its premises. Hermes had even added protective scales around its chest as well as on its head, forming an elaborate armor of sorts. Its size might be miniscule compared to the real Halcyon, but it still towered over him by over twenty fulms. A much smaller, safer ride. 

All it needed now was a harness and then Leirion was safe to use it. 

These thoughts and options were running through Hermes’s mind that he hadn’t quite noticed when the firebird’s gaze fell on him. He jerked to a stop when he sensed hostility. He looked at the bird then, and found its blazing amber eyes—a twin of Halcyon’s—boring into him, scrutinizing him in every which way and wondering if he was friend or foe. 

Once again, Hermes found himself imagining two scenarios: would the bird burn him into cinders with the fire in its eyes, or would it leave him intact, deeming him worthy to live? He had done a last-minute tweak on the bird’s aggression level last night. He needed it to have the judgment to protect its master, and so had increased its hostility rate—though not so high that it would deem all creations to be a danger to itself. He should have had Leirion present. Had the bird turned out to be too hostile, she would have been able to subdue it with her beastmastery. But who was he to demand for Azem’s attendance?

He tried to recall everything Leirion often did. The woman used to work in Elpis and had been his partner on more occasions than he could count. He held out his hand, palm-up, the way Leirion had gestured him the first time he met Halcyon. He looked into the firebird’s eyes and quelled any fear that lingered in his heart. 

They could sense it, Leirion once told him, your fear. For especially dangerous beasts, it might make you easy prey. But for others, it would tell them you’re not worthy of their attention—which might be the safest option on most occasions, but for a beastmaster, that’s not something you’d want. 

So Hermes did as she’d once told him. He met the firebird’s gaze unflinchingly. He was a friend. He meant no harm. 

A lifetime seemed to pass in which man and bird were locked in this stalemate, until, at last, the firebird…cooed. A low rumbling sound originated from its throat. Curiously, it cocked its head at Hermes, then slowly leaned down. When it pressed its armored head against his palm, he released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d held like a deflating balloon. 

“Firebird.” He breathed, elatedly. 

It might be only his imagination, but he thought he noticed the bird’s eye twinkle in joy. 

He called upon Azem the next time he heard she was back in the city. Leirion joined him in Noetophoreon, dressed in their black robe instead of her traveling gear this time. Now that she was not a researcher of Elpis, her mask hung around her neck, revealing the beauty that always took his breath away. 

“You’ve finished it?” she asked. 

“Quite.” he took her to the other side of the lone tree, away from any potential prying eyes. When he grabbed the whistle from his pocket, her eyes shone bright. He smiled inwardly. 

Hermes put the whistle to his lips and blew. The whistle glowed, then the sphere appeared. Not a moment later, Firebird broke from its luminous cage and spread its wings with the same keening screech as when he first released it. 

It hovered in midair for a few more moments, each great beat of its wings enough to send their robes flapping about them. Leirion’s hair tore from its half-bun and whipped behind her, but the woman only laughed at the intensity of the wind. 

Firebird landed on the ground, ruffled its feathers, and gave an endearing caw. It leaned its head down and nudged Hermes’s cheek. He nodded at the other presence, and Firebird shifted its fiery gaze on Leirion. A moment of scrutiny was all it took before the bird let her pet it. 

“It’s magnificent.” Leirion was breathless, her rapture visible on the quiet grin on her face and gleam in her eyes. 

“It may not be an exact copy of Halcyon, but I hope you like it.”

“It’s perfect, Hermes,” she exclaimed. “What’s it called?” 

“Firebird, for now, but you are free to rename it as you see fit.”

“Me?” And again, her eyes grew wide like saucers as she looked at him in bewilderment. 

Hermes nodded. “‘Tis a gift.”

“A gift?” Leirion tilted her head. “Hermes, are you not submitting the concept to the Bureau of Architect?”

A wry smile tugged the corners of Hermes’s lips. “I have a… slightly different creation for that. A slight tweak here and there. Still meant for air travel, as you wished, but yours will be one of its kind. There will be no imitations of it.”

“Hermes…”

Ignoring the warmth spreading in his chest, Hermes stepped closer to her. He placed the whistle on her hand. “Just blow on this, and it will come to you. Though I suggest you bond with it first, so it recognizes you as its master.” 

Bonding with a beast was a skill specialized for beastmasters. During her stay in Elpis, Leirion had often used it while dealing with especially unruly beasts. It allowed her to attune to a creature, speak with it mind to mind, and understand the complexities of its thoughts and feelings. Having her here had been a boon to the facility, significantly reducing the amount of researchers giving up and unmaking their failed creations. Yet now a couple centuries had passed since she went on to take the mantle of the Traveler, and Elpis had slowly returned to how it once was, as though her mark had never been here. None of the beastmasters they had employed since her departure held her level of dedication. Should an attunement fail, they would deem the creature unsalvageable. Unless the rare occasions arose in which the related researcher would ask to be allowed to modify their concept, the creature would be brought to Lethe and be undone. 

Seeing Leirion now whisper the ancient words he could never speak and touch Firebird between its eyes, Hermes realized just how much he missed her. He missed the sight of her beautiful smile, the sound of her joyful laughter, the whiff of her scent that always smelled like citrus and pine. 

Like home. 

Now all he could hope for was a brief glimpse of her every time he went down to Amaurot, or her short visits to Elpis every other decade. What he would do to beg her to stay, to return to his side and accompany him in these long, dreary days. But he knew she took great pride in her work. He would not take that away from her, not even if he were thrown into the seventh hell. 

“Done.” Her beam shone like the radiant sun. “Firebird.” She tasted the word in her tongue. “I’ll call you Firebird, then. Will you let me test ride you, Firebird?”

The bird nodded reverently, then bent its knees. Leirion climbed to its back and settled herself between its shoulder blades. Magical harnesses manifested around her.

“You even made harnesses,” she said giddily. Leirion tested them, then found them secure. Then she looked at him, grin still in place, as she held out a hand toward him. “Come.”

Hermes blinked. “What?”

“Let’s fly,” she said again. “I doubt even through all the testing you’ve subjected it to, you haven’t actually flown on it.” 

She wasn’t wrong, and his heart constricted at how she knew him so well. 

When Hermes still hesitated, Leirion rolled her eyes. “You are not afraid of flying; I know that.”

It was Firebird who implored him next, looking at him with those doe-eyed amber pupils.

“See? Firebird wants you to ride it too. Come; just one ride around the facility?”

Hermes was never immune to her pleas. Not when she asked him to create a flying vehicle. Not when she asked him to ride with her. 

With an inward sigh, Hermes grabbed Leirion’s outstretched hand and climbed astride Firebird. He did not miss her giggle as he settled behind her. 

“Hang on tight.”

Roga hadn’t come to harm—the Exarch had made sure of it. He didn’t know whether Hrodger was privy to the veena’s ailment or not, but the moment the Exarch saw that he had, once again, summoned the wrong person, and that it had been none other than his wayward former younger classmen, he realized the grave error he had done. Roga’s thin aether wouldn’t have been able to survive the journey, he’d thought, but after giving him a thorough examination, he’d found that Roga had simply been asleep. 

He should’ve known Roga would sneak out—should’ve predicted, at least, and made more preparations to curb it—because then Roga’s listless form wouldn’t be lying in the arms of a severely distraught Hrodger, his face so pale one would think his soul had passed.

“Get him to his chamber,” the Exarch managed to say past his distress before any of them could say a word. 

***

No one quite knew what ailed Roga. 

He’d met the young viera when they were small, back when they had still been part of the Baldesion Students. One might not have expected Roga to be sickly, looking at his fair complexion alone, but the pallor of his lips had been enough to denote an underlying illness, so much so that when it had then been revealed that he could barely do magick without giving himself a faint spell, the Exarch remembered it hadn’t been all too surprising. But it, nevertheless, had not stopped Roga from wanting to help, in any way he could. If one took that into account, it wasn’t quite mind-boggling that he had snuck out of the city to help his fellow scions when the sin eaters had come in droves. The barriers had kept the city safe. It had been outside where help had been needed most. 

Roga stirred on his cot. Sweat beaded his forehead, plastering his soft strawberry-blonde hair to his temple. The Exarch halted his spell, then retracted his hand, grabbing a cloth from the bedside table and dabbing it across Roga’s face. The veena’s eyelids fluttered open. 

“G’raha…” he croaked. 

“Ssh. Rest. You’re safe now.”

Roga groaned, then tried to sit up, but the Exarch gently pushed his shoulder back down. 

“You’ve overused your aether.” He thought he’d said it casually, but even he heard the sternness in his voice. Roga did too, and he whimpered before falling back onto his pillow. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… there were too many… I couldn’t just sit back…”

“I know.”

“Where’s Hrodger?” 

The Exarch pursed his lips before saying, “I sent him away.” 

Hrodger had been more bother than help. He wouldn’t stop pacing, wouldn’t stop berating. When he did stop, he’d only glare, his worry and anxiety slowly catching on to the Exarch who had been doing all he could to restore the aether Roga had lost. So when Hrodger accused him of being slow and not doing enough, the Exarch had immediately sent him to Spagyrics to get himself treated. Roga wouldn’t want to see him all bloody like that, he’d said. The length of his black dragoon armor had been painted in a crimson sheen. Hrodger had mumbled that it wasn’t his blood. However, despite his grumblings, he did obey and leave the room shortly. 

Now a troubled look crossed Roga’s face. “I need to see him,” he said weakly. “I was healing him before I passed out. But it’s not his fault. He doesn’t know… about me. I never told him. Please. I don’t want him to blame himself.”

The Exarch held up a hand. “What you need is rest.” He hissed when Roga made to object. As he had spoken to Hrodger, he told Roga the same thing. “Hrodger wouldn’t want to see you like this. Rest. Regain your strength. Then you can receive all the scolding everyone surely has for you.” Roga winced, then broke into a wry grin, albeit a weak one. The Exarch couldn’t help but smile at him. “I’ll let Hrodger know that you’re on the mend.” 

***

Hrodger wasn’t in Spagyrics when the Exarch arrived. His head chirurgeon, Chessamile, looked confused when he asked about the Warrior of Darkness. “He didn’t come here, my lord,” she said, prompting the first of the Exarch’s alarm bells to ring in his mind. Where had he gone? Surely not outside in that state of his. The Exarch offered his gratitude to Chessamile before heading out. 

Hrodger hadn’t been in the Wandering Stairs nor the Exedra. At least, the Exarch hadn’t seen him when he passed by them. For good measure, he gave the Exedra’s stone courtyard another scan, and yes, there was neither hide nor hair of the Warrior around. Hrodger would be hard to miss; the man had a stocky build and a tall frame. While his dark hair would mingle with the crowd, the Exarch could easily spot him from a malm away. An exaggeration, to be sure, and one that would have sent his younger self into a flustering mess had he admitted something like that even silently to himself; but now all that seized his heart was an even stronger sense of dread than when he had beheld Roga’s pallid flesh. 

The Exarch set out to the Ballistics then made his way up the stairs to the Crystalline Mean. For whatever reason, he thought he might find Hrodger there, procuring whatever herbs or necessary means to aid in Roga’s recovery. 

He didn’t find him there, but the staff at the Facet of Nourishing mentioned the Warrior did come asking for a cure. They’d attempted to direct him to the infirmary instead, seeing his state, but Hrodger had lashed out. 

“You think I have the fucking time for that!? Just tell me: is there a potion here or not? A high-quality, potent potion. One that’ll heal whatever affliction this Twelve-damned realm has ever seen?”

They had understandably turned pale at his raised voice. 

“And what did you say?” the Exarch now asked.

“I told him we need to know more about said affliction before we could prescribe something,” one of the staff said. “Then he cursed out some more before storming off.” 

The Exarch clenched his jaws and willed his anxious heart to slow. The ringing in his mind had doubled. “Any idea where he… might have gone?”

“Last I saw he was heading for the plaza, but that had been half a bell or so ago, my lord.”

“Understood. Thank you for your information.” 

The Exarch turned on his heels then headed the other way toward the aetheryte plaza, his disquiet hastening his stride. He prayed one of the guards had spotted him, or that Hrodger had simply returned to his room to wait for news. But he knew the man—had been watching him for the Twelve knew how long. Hrodger was not the type to sit idly when Roga lay dying. 

When he arrived at the plaza and the guard pointed back toward the Pendants, his heart swelled. Thank the Twelve that for once Hrodger had used his head for brains and not his muscles! The Exarch thanked the guard then made to turn—but before he could take another step, he heard a commotion break out in Rotunda. A familiar voice—shrill and distraught—rose above the din. 

“Out of my way!” 

Hrodger was seconds away from strangling the guard who was blocking his path. The refugees that still came in droves paused in their steps, shock written clearly on every one of their faces. 

Before Hrodger could make a fool of himself, the Crystal Exarch drew in his breath and spoke in one booming voice that resounded across the plaza and entire courtyard: “Warrior of Darkness!” The low monotonous murmurs occupying the city gate ceased. Hrodger flinched, arm halfway in the air, before he let it drop. 

Ignoring the stares, the Exarch approached him then bid the agitated guard to leave. The guard bowed and headed away. After another breath of silence, the crowd resumed their activity. 

“Were you heading somewhere?” the Exarch asked. 

“Shut up.”

“Your cuts are bleeding again. I told you to visit Spagyrics to get them treated.”

“Shut. Up.” 

“Roga wouldn’t want to—”

“Shut. The fuck. Up.” Hrodger whirled. His face, usually so sharp and beautiful, now twisted in anguish and fury. “Don’t you dare say his name. You have no right—it’s your fault he’s in this mess in the first place! If you hadn’t brought him here, if you hadn’t summoned him, he wouldn’t die… wouldn’t be dying—” 

His breath hitched. Tears welled in his striking green eyes. A heartbeat passed. Hrodger’s glare didn’t relent, but the energy seemed to seep out of him. 

“I gotta go.” His deep voice broke. “Gotta find something—some herb, some cure—so Roga won’t—”

“No amount of herb or alchemy will heal Roga.” Just as no amount of healing spells in the Source had managed to cure Roga of his affliction. The Exarch’s quiet voice seemed to pierce Hrodger’s perturbed mind, because then the Warrior directed another deathly glare at him. Before Hrodger could holler another insult, the Exarch added, “He is awake.” 

Had it been a more appropriate occasion for giggles and laughter, the Exarch might have found the way Hrodger deflated to be almost funny: all his anger and adrenaline drained out of him the moment he heard Roga was safe. However, in its place was a tiny pang deep in the Exarch’s heart at the knowledge that he could never amount to such love from him again.

It was a distant memory for the Exarch, but perhaps still fresh in Hrodger’s mind: the moment he had decided to lock himself in the Crystal Tower, he’d crushed Hrodger’s heart so thoroughly, the adventurer-turned-warrior he’d come to respect and cherish wouldn’t know where to begin to reassemble the broken pieces. A youth’s foolishness, he could now say. Perhaps there had been better ways to talk things through. So while his heart now yearned to reconcile, he knew he had no right for it. Not when, as Hrodger had articulated well, he had brought Roga into this mess. 

“Is he alright?” Hrodger croaked. “Let me see him—”

The Exarch held up his hand. “Spagyrics first. Roga will worry if you enter his room looking like that.” 

Hrodger wasn’t lying when he said most of the blood on his armor wasn’t his. They had him shed it at the infirmary where Chessamile then gave him a full examination. Having found only several cuts on his arms, and those already healed around his back—credited to Roga’s skills most likely—she then assigned him a cot, but with how crowded the place was with both refugees and the wounded, Hrodger then opted to sit on one of the benches outside. 

The Exarch then informed Chessamile that he would tend to the Warrior himself. The Spagyrics staff was already stretched too thin. He would rather they dedicate their focus on their most urgent patients. 

Outside, he found Hrodger slouched on his seat, examining the cuts on his arm—except, it wasn’t the cuts that held Hrodger’s attention, the Exarch realized. Three long scars circled up his forearm to his elbow before disappearing beneath the sleeve of his shirt: former gashes that looked more like huge jagged lumps of dead skin, dark against his fair complexion. Old, from the looks of it, as though once upon a time, his flesh had been gouged by sharp claws. 

The observation lasted only for what appeared to be several seconds before Hrodger noticed the Exarch’s approach and hastily pulled his sleeve down, hiding the gruesome view from sight. What happened? How did you get such wounds? But the Exarch’s words died in his throat. 

He stopped before Hrodger, who still refused to look at him. Perhaps it would have been better to let Chessamile do the job after all. Clearly Hrodger was not pleased to see the Exarch again. Much as the contemptuous look on Hrodger’s face chipped away at the Exarch’s heart, he knew he could not put more burden on his chirurgeons. Moreover, should he not heal Hrodger promptly, the Warrior would immediately head to Roga’s chamber regardless of his appearance, and Roga would feel that much more guilt upon seeing the open cuts when he should be resting free of stress. 

“I will be the one to heal you,” he said without preamble. Hrodger only grunted his response but didn’t offer any objections, so the Exarch took a step back and raised his staff. In one surge of aetheric energy, he called upon the Syrcus Tower and directed its power upon Hrodger’s body. Tiny motes of light cascaded around him, landing on every surface and every apparent cut. Slowly they closed, the bleeding stopping, and soon, there was nothing to be seen of his previous wounds. 

The Exarch lowered his staff, his gaze inadvertently drawn to the hidden gash. Hrodger, who, for a moment, had been marveling at his now-healed cuts, noted where the Exarch was looking, and his lips curled into a small frown. “You saw, didn’t you?”

The Exarch blinked, his feet taking another, albeit involuntary, step back. “Apologies; I did not mean—” 

“Couldn’t be helped, I guess. Was my fault for letting it show.” His voice was unusually quiet, and while the disdain lingered on his countenance, there was no malice in his words. Hrodger looked at his open palm, now devoid of injury. “I was thinking… how awesome magick truly is. The scar you saw was a souvenir of my… involvement in the Dragonsong War. They didn’t have mages skilled in the healing arts at the time, and so my injuries were brought to the chirurgeons, and they did the best they could. Compared to that, Roga, even in his weakest state, could close every wound in the blink of an eye.” He fisted his hand, his tone taking on an edge. “If only I could use healing magick.” 

Silence stretched between them. Hrodger didn’t show any signs of releasing his death grip on his palm. 

“Roga’s recent collapse isn’t yours to blame,” the Exarch said.

“He exhausted himself. The least I could do is lighten his burden, or, I don’t know, heal him like you just did.” 

“That, you could, but even were you an accomplished mage, there is little you can do for his affliction.” 

That seemed to catch Hrodger’s attention because then he lifted his head. “You said that before too,” he said. “What do you know of it?” 

The Exarch pursed his lips—thanked his cowl for hiding it. Hrodger didn’t yet know; Roga hadn’t said anything. So how much could he say? Could he tell Hrodger about the true nature of Roga’s condition? How about the fact that the veena didn’t have much long to live? As much as the Exarch wanted to lift the burden of guilt from Hrodger’s shoulder, he knew that disclosing those information would only weigh him down even more. Yet the pained expression of Hrodger’s features rend his heart to pieces. The Exarch’s fingers twitched before he offered his response: 

“I have noticed that his aether is thin, and that may contribute to his nonoptimal use of magick, hence his bouts of collapse after subsequent use of it. During his stay at the Crystarium, your fellow Scions and I have attempted to limit his participation in combat, but as you can see from this recent altercation, ‘tis not an easy feat to achieve.”

A muscle along Hrodger’s jaw twitched. A frown? Or was it a resigned smile? He had pursed his lips, a mix of emotions warring in his features, before his shoulders shook in a deep bone-weary sigh, and he fell back against the wall. 

“I’m such an idiot. A stupid fucking idiot. I’ve been with him for years and didn’t notice a single thing.” He laughed, quiet and self-deprecating. “I knew he was sick. We all did. He was always so pale so I thought a good dose of sunlight would do. Made him exercise, fed him good healthy food, but he never… he never got better. Started wondering if I was doing something wrong, but I guess that’s the way of it then. His disease is incurable.”

“Hrodger—” 

“Will he die? Is that it? Is that what he’s been keeping from me? I know I’m stupid and we’re not really the best of mates, but isn’t that the least he should tell me? After everything we’ve gone through together? Is he content to leave me alone, away in the dark, after everything his father did?” 

Fire blazed green in Hrodger’s eyes. 

“The fool never deigned to go home even after I told him to leave. ‘Your son’s waiting,’ I said, but still, he stayed and asked who’s going to look after me if not him.” Hrodger scoffed. “I could’ve looked after myself, mind, but the fool wouldn’t listen. Then the Calamity came and he got injured—gravely. I tried nursing him back to health as best I could, but I was no healer.” Hrodger paused, long enough that the Exarch thought he might’ve finished, but then he spoke again, and his voice had dropped several octaves lower. “I lost him. I don’t want to lose Roga too.” 

Never had the Exarch seen Hrodger look so broken and lost. All his life, the picture Hrodger had painted in his mind was that of a formidable warrior—a reluctant one, to be sure, but mighty still. He was always there in the thick of things, ready to help where help was needed. Yet now he sat, hunched, a deep shadow crossing over his once-brilliant eyes. 

Curse the Exarch and his weak heart; he could not help the painful twinge deep within nor the urge to reach out and sit by Hrodger’s side, telling him everything would alright. But despite it, he stayed his ground. No longer was he the G’raha Tia they both once knew, to whom Hrodger had opened his heart and shown his most vulnerable side. To Hrodger now, the Exarch was simply another stranger, another ruler of a distant land, who had once again forced him and his loved ones to salvage his home from annihilation. 

Little did he know… 

With a shuddering breath, Hrodger shook himself then slapped his face. “Sorry,” he mumbled. He rose to his feet, gaze averted as always, but the contempt seemed to have disappeared from his bearing. He looked almost awkward, and with a jolt, the Exarch found that he was back at the crystal plain of Mor Dhona, under one of the awnings of Rammbroes’s tents. Sorry, Hrodger had said then after letting slip of his supposed adoptive father. It’s not like me to be sentimental. 

Yes, once upon a time, Hrodger had told him of the tale: that a man had picked him up from an orphanage and later took care of him. Of course, he had known at the time that the man in question had been Roga’s father. He hadn’t quite known what to feel, knowing the person who’d left sickly Roga as a child was in fact a loving, respectable figure to another. And yet, it did seem that Hrodger had indeed loved and cared for the man from the bottom of his heart, just as he did for Roga, who was now also facing death’s door. 

“I’m good to go now, yeah?” Hrodger asked, breaking the Exarch’s reverie. “To Roga, I mean. I’m gonna give that kid a piece of my fucking mind if he so much as thinks about dying in this Halone-forsaken land.”

The Exarch snorted, then quickly camouflaged it with a cough. “Yes, you may go. Although I would advice to refrain from being too harsh on him. There will be a time and place for that, but recuperation is what he needs now.”

Hrodger grunted but reluctantly agreed, muttering under his breath about “damned fools both father and son.” The Exarch had to stifle a smile. 

He expected the Warrior to leave, but Hrodger stayed on his spot for several more seconds before looking up. “Thanks.” A small tug to the corners of his lips. “And sorry, for going off on you earlier.” He didn’t wait for a response before striding away.

The Exarch was left flabbergasted at the change of attitude. Was it that little smile, or the brief nostalgia, that stirred his hard crystallizing heart so? When he deigned to turn, Hrodger had already crossed the courtyard, his small retreating back disappearing inside the Quadrivium and into the Pendants beyond. 

Would that time was simpler… 

But the Exarch had a shard to save, and a certain Warrior’s death to prevent. Stilling the rising drum of his pulse, he drew in a resolved breath and let the curtains fall once more on that chapter of his life.

“Why do you still care so much about them?” he asked during one of the times he dropped by with yet another bag of herbs he’d found in his travels. He set the bag on her working station as well as a vase he’d obtained somewhere, filled with water and a new bouquet she hadn’t seen before. Bright petals glinted in the sunlight filtering in through the window. Those were the same flowers she had mused to him a while ago, but with the careful way he regarded them, a part of her wondered if there was another meaning to the blooms—

Sorcha caught herself, then slapped herself internally. Stop with the weird ideas, she berated herself.

From the corner of her eyes, she noted him placing the vase on the window sill then lean against the wall next to her seat. He’d frequented the cottage so much, he almost looked like he owned the place. 

“They’ve basically disowned you,” he added finally. 

Sorcha’s hands stilled in her mortar. It was a genuine question, she knew. He was asking only out of good will. She hated that she understood him that much. She hated the way her skin prickled every time he visited, the way her mind refused to ignore his presence that was just barely inside the periphery of her vision. Couldn’t he have chosen some place else to stand? Why did he have to be so close? 

Another moment’s pause, in which she refused to meet his gaze, before she resumed her work. “They’re my people, still,” she eventually said. “I can’t quite disown them.” 

That seemed to satisfy his curiosity. Yet for some inexplicable reason, he still didn’t move, didn’t quite break his gaze away from her. Sweat beaded the back of her neck and her pulse started beating erratically. Was there something else he ne—

“Hey. Are you busy?” 

Sorcha jerked to a stop. She whipped her head up. “I am, if you haven’t noticed! I’ve been grounding this belladona powder for the past fifteen minutes so if you don’t have anything better to do than—”

He beamed—grinning like a child from ear to ear as he pushed himself away from the wall and took a step forward. Sorcha instinctively scooted back, but her seat only allowed her to move so far away. She was trapped, blinded by the smile that cursed her heart to skip a beat. 

“Do you need to finish that today?”

“I—well…” She glanced at her half-finished powder in her mortar. “Well, I still have a couple days but I wanted to finish this quickly so I could move on to another commission.”

“Then it’s okay if I borrow your time for a bit?”

“Wh—didn’t you hear me, Will? I still have other commissions to fulfill!”

“And I will make it up to you, I promise. I’ll stay day in and day out to help you finish them.”

“That’s not necessary—”

“There’s this pretty place I wanted to show you—” He was already grabbing her arm, pulling her up. 

“Hey—wait! I have conjury lessons!” she shouted as he dragged her away from her station.

“Can I borrow her for a while, Lynn?” he asked as they passed her mentor, an elderly lady dressed in the white conjurer garb, arranging their shelf of poultices and potions. 

“By all means,” Lynn said without averting her attention. “Twelve know how much she needs a break.”

“Lynn!” Sorcha wailed. 

But Lynn only chuckled. Light glinted in her gray eyes as she saw them out. “Just make sure to bring her back before sundown.”

“You got it.”

***

His name was Wilfram Woode, a carpenter’s son from a small village in the Shroud. Sorcha first met him a few years back when Lynn first took her to Gridania. Her mentor had had some business to take care of in Stillglade Fane. Apparently, she’d meant to introduce Sorcha to the guild too. But true to Gridanian culture, they hadn’t quite taken a brown-skinned foreigner like Sorcha well in their midst, even one the Elementals had given permission to use their bounty. So when a group of kids harassed Sorcha and made a bet on whether she could defeat a cluster of terrorizing mirochu near the village of Hyrstmill, Sorcha had no other options but to prove that she was just as good a conjurer as the others were. 

It’d ended in a disaster, as was to be expected for a girl who’d only started learning conjury not even a year prior. The mirochu overwhelmed her. That was when Will came to her rescue. Only, instead of being the knight in shining armor like in the stories elders liked to tell, Will was a green adventurer who’d just joined the adventurer’s guild shortly before. He barely managed to win against the horde, a solitary party as he was. Sorcha felt having him there was even more of a pain than if she’d been left alone. She couldn’t quite ignore him when the mirochu slashed at him and sprayed their poison at him. Her mana quickly depleted and by the end, her knees were shaking so hard, her staff failed to keep her upright. 

“Hey! You alright?”

She hadn’t known his name then, only that he was the annoying prick who took her glory away. Now what was she to show to those harassers?

She slapped his hand away and stood up. “Thanks but I didn’t need your help.” 

She’d stomped away, leaving the newbie adventurer dumbfounded. 

That encounter probably would not have meant much, just one of the many chance meetings that would have been shelved in the back of her mind, except that, in the midst of her battle against the mirochu, her family heirloom had slipped from her staff. It was a small unassuming stone, white and murky, definitely not something someone would steal. When she returned to where she’d fought the mirochu, she couldn’t find the stone anywhere.

The second time she met him came two years later, when she was helping a little girl’s father who’d been rammed by a boar. The gash was nasty and the man moaned in his bed. A miqo’te, with bright ashen red hair. A rare sight, seeing as most miqo’te here tended to keep to the deep woods, most of all the male ones. 

Another man accompanied the girl: hyuran, tall, with unkempt brown hair and the brightest blue eyes. Something about him had struck Sorcha as familiar but she couldn’t recall where she’d seen him—if she had seen him. 

She was still puzzling over the mystery when she noticed the bow on his back.

More specifically, the cord tied around the wood, with a white stone dangling from it. 

“Ah!” 

The man and the girl had jumped at her outburst. Sorcha went around him and held the stone in her hand. Small, round, and rough, its visage a murky white that would not sell for even a copper in market, but still it was the most priceless thing she had ever owned. 

“Where did you get this?” she asked. 

“I… found it in the forest…”

“I think it’s mine.”

“What?”

“My mother gave me a necklace just like it. I lost it when I was fighting some beasts in Peacegarden—”

“Wait.” The man turned around fully to face her. He peered into her face. “Are you the girl from Hyrstmill?”

And that was when it clicked: the familiarity she felt—the face, the gait, the voice. She’d only briefly encountered him previously, and for all she cared, he was one of the many faces that fleetingly entered her life, yet here he was again, with the necklace she’d lost. 

Sorcha didn’t believe in fate. After seeing her home burned and her family murdered, running for her life like everyone else to the one place they could take refuge in only to be treated like worms, she didn’t want to believe that was what Fate had preordained for her. Yet despite everything, he made her believe. Drawn as she was to his amicable smile, the glint in his eyes as he spoke of faraway lands, the tenderness in his gaze as he looked at her. It was a cruel thing to say, but had things played out differently—had Ala Mhigo not fallen—she might not have known the wonderful man that resided in Wilfram Woode. 

That afternoon he took her for a ride, she sat behind him on the saddle. “Hang on tight,” he said. She didn’t know how, so she held onto the back of his shirt. When he prompted his chocobo to a sudden gallop, the speed took her by surprise that she yelped. She threw her arms around his waist and pressed herself close to his back. His chest rumbled with a throaty-chuckle. 

The realization of their proximity made her cheeks warm and she thanked the Twelve that he could not see it. Oh, how much he would tease her if he knew. 

“Sorry,” he said, hand covering her fist. The touch made her pulse quicken. “But if we’re to return by sundown, we need to move fast.”

“We could’ve gone another day, you know. The place would still be there.”

“Would you have said yes, then?” He laughed, probably knowing she would have said no. “Besides, the flowers only bloom during certain periods of time, which just so happens today. So, no, we can’t really go another day.”

Excuses—probably. But still her heart fluttered and she sighed. “Fine.”

She couldn’t see it, but she knew Will was grinning like a child. He squeezed her hand before returning his hold to the reins. 

Sorcha didn’t want to admit it, but the sight of his joy brought warmth to her chest. She knew what it meant but refused to name it. 

Quietly, Sorcha sighed again. 

What had she gotten herself into? 

Now a similar image rose in his mind as he witnessed the same girl, older, playing on a different piano outside what looked to be a half-burned down music store. Meteor had come and gone. The streets of Midgar were littered with shards of glass and huge chunks of fallen bricks; storied buildings tumbled on their sides. This particular music store hadn’t been spared the carnage either. Men and women had been salvaging what instruments they could, and now, they’d gathered around Tifa’s piano along with several kids who had been drawn to her music. Cloud stayed a little ways away, partially hidden under the shade of a tree. He watched, transfixed, at the way Tifa lightly swayed on her seat, her fingers dancing across the keys in a lighthearted and familiar manner. 

Tifa finished her piece with a final flourish and her audience broke into a round of applause. 

“That was wonderful, miss!”

“Beautifully played.” 

Tifa looked visibly stunned at the crowd. She bobbed her head in embarrassment, shyly tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear and murmuring a thank-you. One of the children went up to her and asked, “Would you play another one?” 

Faced with an adorable pleading look, Tifa could do nothing but nod. “Sure,” she said. The girl stepped back as Tifa adjusted her position, preparing herself to play another piece. Her finger was about to press the first note when her eyes suddenly flicked up—as though sensing the presence of someone other than the gathered mass—and met Cloud’s across the distance.

Surprise broke across her face. It passed within a heartbeat and was replaced by a lovely beam as she held up her hand in a small wave. Cloud’s features tugged into the smallest of smiles, and he would have returned the wave if not for the glances he’d felt directed his way. He cleared his throat and folded his arms, looking away. He thought he caught Tifa giggling, but before he could get another look, she’d started playing again.

Tifa’s music was like a salve to their wounds. Cloud could see it in their content smiles and tranquil expressions. Another round of applause rang out after she finished her impromptu performance. Then the men and women returned to their chores while the children stayed and begged her to play another song. Tifa’s face twisted into a pained expression as she attempted to extract herself from them. 

“You can come by and play another time, miss,” a nearby woman then said. Her eyes crinkled into a smile when Tifa met her gaze. “Everyone would love to hear your music again.”

So Tifa agreed and promised the children she would return tomorrow. Some of them still whined but they reluctantly let her go. When she finally reached Cloud, she stopped short a few feet in front of him. 

“What’s that look for?” she asked. 

“What?”

“That smirk.” 

Cloud hadn’t realized he was making such an expression. He tried to wipe it clean, but the image of Tifa happily playing the piano was burned into his mind. How long ago had it been since he heard it? Their recent jaunt to Nibelheim came to mind, and of course that time in Costa del Sol too, but Tifa hadn’t quite played as freely as she had just now. A shadow that had loomed over her—one that was beginning to lie to rest. 

“Nothing,” Cloud said in the end. He reached for her hand, tentatively wrapping his fingers around hers. “Come on. Let’s join the others.” 

By ‘the others’, Cloud meant the rest of their party. Upon returning from the Northern Cave, they’d come to Midgar to see what had become of the city. The scale of the destruction had been beyond anything they’d speculated, so then Cloud proposed to lend the people a hand: to clear away debris and carry the invalid away to safer places. They’d gone their separate ways, but now dusk was approaching. As Cloud looked for his friends, he found Yuffie already wolfing down a piece of sandwich with Cid.

“So I went to look for you.” He ended his recount with a soft chuckle.  

Tifa giggled. “If only we still had the bar. I could cook you guys a decent meal.” 

“Aren’t you tired, though?” 

“I can manage. Besides…” Her voice dropped to above a whisper. “Playing the piano just now… It fills me with energy…” 

She paused. Cloud snuck a glance at her and saw the contours of her profile softening. Not quite a smile, but a sort of contentedness—a hesitant bliss—as though she wasn’t quite sure if she was allowed to feel this way. 

“After we went to Nibelheim,” she went on, “I realized how much I’d missed the piano. We didn’t have one at the bar, if you remember, but that wasn’t because we couldn’t find one. Some old guy offered his old piano to us, but I refused.” Another pause. “After mom passed away, I couldn’t find it in me to play. Not like before. Not without her. But you know that, don’t you? You used to climb the water tower all the time.” 

Her quiet mirth met his surprise. Cloud balked, a denial rising halfway up his throat only to leave his mouth in a strangled, incoherent noise. “How did you—” Because no one should have known, save for his mother—

“Your mom told me,” she said, and Cloud felt the sky crash on him. “After you’d left for Midgar.” 

Of course.

“I was helping her with chores and we were talking. I don’t remember how our conversation arrived at my mom, but she was asking if I still played the piano. I’d started training under Zangan, you see. The already rare moments where I would play had become non-existent. So I told her that, and she said it was a shame, because you would often listen to it, even going so far as to climb the water tower.” She chuckled then. “Honestly, I never realized you could even hear it from outside, but then I do remember seeing you from my room several times. Just lounging on the tower without a care in the world. I remember wondering why you liked it so much, so one time, when you weren’t there, I climbed it myself. And it was… freeing. I was so high, I could even see the plains beyond the village. I remember the sky being so big, so close, that if I could just reach out, maybe Mom would come back...” 

Her recount stopped. For a while, she remained silent, the deep red glow of the setting sun casting light on her quiet nostalgia. 

Cloud remembered it clearly now. The village had kicked up a fuss after finding her there. Then her father found him and blamed him for Tifa’s little stunt on top of the water tower. Brian Lockhart had even gone to his mother, telling her to keep a closer eye on him. “After the mountain, and now this,” he’d said, vehemence lacing every word. Cloud had hid in the living room, but still he’d heard it all, along with his mother’s response that he hadn’t done anything wrong, and that Brian shouldn’t be so overprotective of his girl. That had gone extremely well. Cloud had always thought the man despised him. Yet despite that, it had never deterred him from watching over Tifa in his own little way.

He squeezed her hand, lending her strength and comfort. The words that spilled from his mouth then were almost spontaneous, Cloud had to take a moment to process it himself:

“Would you like me to get you a piano?” 

Tifa stopped in her tracks. She stared at him, blank and surprised. Was it too forward of him—too odd that he would offer such a thing? He didn’t quite know; but her surprise was endearing. He didn’t mind if he could elicit such a response from her from time to time. 

He halted before her and lifted her hand, rubbing his calloused thumb over her gloved palm. Her fingers were long and hard, a testament to the years she’d spent as a fighter. Yet beneath it was a sort of daintiness that a part of him thought belonged to a pianist. 

“I like hearing you play,” he admitted. “And I liked going up the water tower… because I could listen to you whenever you had your windows open.” Cloud felt his ears going red. He cleared his throat, fixing his gaze on her hand. “So when you lost your mom, and I stopped hearing you play, I would go up there to check on you sometimes. We never really talked, and I didn’t really know what to do. So I’d sit there, hoping that if you saw me, you wouldn’t feel so alone. Your dad scolded me, though. He thought I was a bad influence.” 

He laughed, rather bitterly, half self-deprecatingly. 

“But the day after you went up the water tower, I heard you play for the first time in a while, and I remember thinking it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever listened to.” Tifa let out a noise that was half a laugh, half a gasp. Cloud lifted his gaze and met hers. “You should continue playing the piano. We could get one and set it up at your new shop. I’m not sure what’s going to happen here, but I wager you’re staying, in which case I may as well help you out.” 

For several long moments, she only stared, almost unblinking, until he caught the telltale sign of a tear welling behind her eyelids. Cloud almost froze in shock, but Tifa shook her head as she attempted to blink them away, wiping the corners of her eyes and mumbling sorry. He patted his shirt then his pants, but of course he carried no tissue or handkerchief. 

“That’s alright, I’m sorry,” Tifa said with a laugh when she realized what Cloud was doing. 

“But—”

“No, it’s just—” 

As Tifa composed herself, a familiar cry interrupted their silence. Yuffie had appeared from around the corner, waving at them with yet another sandwich clutched in her hand. 

“Hey, you two!” she hollered. “Hurry up or I’m gonna eat your sandwiches!” 

Yuffie left as quickly as she had come, without giving either of them a chance to respond, other than with a sudden loud rumble from both of their stomachs. Cloud and Tifa shared glances. With her tears now dried, both of them burst into giggles and laughter. Talks of any plans for the future would have to wait, because they hadn’t eaten anything since the previous night. They resumed their walk, no faster than their previous gait, but their linked hands now held a little sway with each step they took. 

Then, Tifa tugged at his hand with a little more power, and she murmured low enough that only he could hear: 

“I’d love that.” 

When Cloud looked at her next, her face wore the most radiant smile he had ever seen.