An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Some days after the Scions are returned to the Source, Aldera returns to the First to keep a promise to a friend. (In which the Warrior of Light says a private farewell to Minfilia.)
 “I’m going to go let Ryne know how it went,” Aldera says as she peels an apple with her pocket knife. Morning has come to the Dawn’s Respite, and with it her friends are freshly conscious—something she had, much to her chagrin, been more than a little worried about when she’d stolen into the infirmary to see if they were awake. The anxiety of that is a new thing. To see the stillness in their bodies and faces, after all they’d struggled together on the First, it... disturbs her. Thancred, whose bedside she sits at, stills with his coffee halfway to his lips. She meets his gaze while the attention of the others falls on them. “She’ll want to know.”
 “...Yes, she will. Good thinking,” Thancred murmurs.
 Urianger leans forward in his bed, the tome he’d plucked from Y’shtola’s table spread carefully across his lap. “We are ever thinking of her. Wilt thou convey our well-wishes to her?”
 “Naturally.” She smiles at him, receiving an answering one in return.
 “Anything more you’d like conveyed to her?” Alisaie drawls, staring pointedly at Thancred, who sips at his coffee and scowls at her. “Come on. Where’s all that warm candor now?” Â
 “Check her temperature for me. She was under the weather when we left,” Thancred tells Aldera, ignoring Alisaie.
