She'd be a fool to say no. Might as well get something for her trouble, she reasoned. 

And if the airship didn't happen to fly so damn high, she just might have found the wherewithal to take leave of the whole business. Instead it took all the grit she could muster, tucked against the lacquered wall of the airship and hanging on for dear life, just to hold in her tears and lunch. So when it came time to make for Ul'dah, she'd sooner board a proper boat, one which rested upon something she could see, than take to the skies again. But a prolonged journey at sea, already tipsy with an earful of all manner of ill that might befall a sea-faring vessel... at least the journey across the skies wouldn't take as long. Quick, yes. Painless, maybe? Still, choosing a speedy resolution wasn't quite the same as hitting back. 

So enveloped in the logistics if the burden set upon her, it wasn't until Napha went weak in the knees on the Steps of Nald – or was it Thal? – that she remembered why she had left her warm bed and her meager frustrations behind. 

These damned headaches... 

So when she looked up from the cobblestone, mind yet swimming in the currents of time, she hadn't really considered how questionable the whole proposition was. 

"We have a friend just like you, you know." 

"Your head run ragged with visions, innit?" 

"Oh, we'd love to introduce you!" 

"What's that now?" Napha's voice barely sounded like her own amid the ringing in her ears. The taller one – Yda, was it? - answered. 

"Just tell Momodi the Scions of the Seventh Dawn have found their woman. Oh, but don't spread that around." She followed up with a stage whisper. "It's a secret." She couldn't see it, but Napha swore she could hear the wink in her voice. 

"So is this you telling me now, or," she gestured behind her with a thumb, "shall I towel off?" 

"Full glad am I of your interest." He narrowed his eyes at her. "'Tis a better tale than the one of why you changed your name, though I'm sure Mother would love to hear it." 

Napha rolled her eyes. "Those traditions used to mean something to some of us, Dajhir. Doesn't mean I'm above putting necessity before pride." 

"Oh, yes," he said with a sneer. "A matter of survival, most definitely. Ph." 

"You don't remember what it was like."

"I do," he said, his words heavy as an anchor. "You haven't been back though... have you?" 

Napha looked away, lips tightly pursed, silent. 

"Mm." K'dajhir nodded, having obtained the answer he expected. "Little Napha, slayer of primals, liberator of nations, Warrior of the newly-found Big Mouth, can't bear to show her face at home." 

"You left first."

"I had to. There was no future for me there, and no reason to go back." 

"You said the same of me." 

"I did, but they'd be proud of you." He looked down, adding a flippant slight: "Well, perhaps if you hadn't changed your name, Ja'napha." 

"What of you? Ran off to join a stronger tribe? Ashamed after proclaiming you'd toss it all away? After you swore up and down you'd be a city boy, an adventurer or what have you, only to run back to what's familiar?"

"I did not go back to tribe life. I was serious when I said I didn't want that. I'm just..." he seemed uncomfortable. "Sentimental. I knew you wouldn't understand." 

"Wouldn't understand? How can I even try if you don't explain?" 

K'dajhir sighed heavily. 

Napha insisted with a flare of her eyebrows. 

"His name was Mjrn." K'dajhir bit his lip and turned back to face the moon's soft glow. "I met him in Coerthas, a time after the Calamity. He was a hired guide for a band of adventurers I happened to cross paths with. They were making their way south toward the Rhotano Sea." He peeked at her, placing a hand on his chest. "Me, in the frigid wastes?" He let loose a nervous little laugh "Mjrn knew before I did I was half frost-bitten."

"l'm still not seeing..." 

"His mountain name, as he called it, was Kallvjnd." A smile split his face. "By the time we reached the coast, we chose to be bonded together. Nothing fancy. I adapted his surname to my name, because... I wanted everyone to know he was mine." He paused for a moment, staring into the dark water. "He wanted to do the same. Tribal Viera change their names when they settle somewhere new, did you know? He wanted to use my given name for his surname."

Napha stifled a laugh, unsure if it was appropriate. 

"Oh, trust that I explained that to him." A chuckle escaped. "The fool used it anyway." 

"Dajhir..."

"That's the thing with you adventurers. You're so damn good at leaving an impression, but you don't stick around long, do you? You take too many risks - and trust me I love you for it, I do - but," his ears bent back and his look of determination wavered, "loss either hardens you or softens you. I haven't decided which I am yet." 

"I'm sorry." 

The kitchen items went first to soak. Pots with spoons welded into the sticky, burnt mess of whatever had once been in them, followed by cutting boards caked with dried vegetable peels. There was a vine of tomatoes yet in the pantry, though Napha was not keen to check on it. 

Next she tore the dusty bedclothes from their place and dropped them in a heap. She did not have a second set and the sun was rapidly setting. She lit the lamps. It wouldn't be the first time she slept anywhere but the bed, even if her room in the Pendants had spoiled her. 

But sleeping on the floor after a long journey would be much more hospitable on clean floors. 

Sweeping, then. 

She blew dust from the tomes stacked on the floor and made for them a place on the tea table. All were much overdue back to the Noumenon, including those Napha had borrowed under G'raha and Krile's names when the reference mammets insisted she return some tomes before checking out yet another dozen. Some have exams approaching, the mammet had said. 

Napha grimaced and offered a silent prayer for whomever might have failed their arcane geometry exam several months ago on her account. 

There was also the matter of returning Y'mhitra's notes from their time together with Principia. She gathered the scrolls together and shook out the contents of her rucksack to replace them with the notes. Most were gifts to be sorted and delivered - from Ryne, Lyna, Runar and sundry. Still, things were not becoming much tidier. So much had happened it was seemed like a flash of time. No matter how much she sorted, sifted, reconfigured everything from her home, to her perspective, it just didn't feel right anymore. 

The bureau near the bed made a soft scraping sound as Napha opened it to reveal a set of green and gold robes she'd been all too happy to receive some time ago. They didn't belong in a drawer in the Shroud. They belonged in the hands of someone who could truly appreciate and care for them. No matter how Napha felt about it these days, they were artifacts and evidence that, for those who had helped her succeed over the years, their endeavors meant something. But she wouldn't not assist them further in reviving this long lost art. Napha drew a finger along the length of the Evoker's horn. Useful as it had all been, she beheld it now and felt nothing but guilt. 

Napha could no longer deny that fighting fire, so to speak, with fire had not in its own way contributed to deepening the wounds caused by primal summonings. From the fury of Dalamud's Bahamut, to Tiamat's keening anguish, to those tortured for their faith, and the trust betrayed by Varis-cum-Anima, whether by crystal or one's own aether, Etheirys had no love left for such effigies. And Napha would not remind its people of their scars still healing. 

She lifted the robes from the drawer. She grasped the horn in her hand.

"Dural Tharal of The Mythril Eye, and you are the warrior they've taken to calling Ifrit's Bane, aren't you?" 

Napha knitted her eyebrows as she strained to hear over the din. "No, thank you, I--" 

He waved his hands in wide sweeps before him. "Ma'am I am a reporter. From The Mythril Eye." 

She nodded. "So you are." The reporter's expression showed her manner did little to clear the vacant look from her face. He pulled out a paper tablet and made to take notes. 

"They say you struck down the mighty primal Ifrit, is it true? Is it true you were able to approach this fell creature without becoming tempered, as they say?" 

"Oh." It was the kind of remark that comes with being corrected. It took a moment for the wheels to turn, but it churned out nothing. "Somehow I managed." 

"Fascinating! Some say it is a blessing of the gods - your natural resistance. Still others believe it is a trick of your armor. Is that it there?" The eager man shoved a squat finger upward toward the disused gear in her arms. 

"Oh... unfortunately, it is. It's in terrible shape. Not a special thing about it, I'm afraid. The cheapest I could buy." 

"Egads! The Primal Slayer running about wearing cast-offs and popoto sacks... Will certainly be interesting to see how Sunsilk Tapestries can turn that couture." He scribbled hurriedly onto his tablet. She was beginning to sweat more in the breezeless corridor with every stroke of his quill. 

"N-now, I mean no disrespect to the leatherw--" A tremor in her voice, she began to sink lower to better hear the Lalafell, but then thought better of it. "They're still fine leather goods, I assure. I-… I have to go." Napha eyed the thoroughfare for an escape, but he continued to pepper her with questions, and somehow over the deafening noise of the city, it's all she could hear. 

"There's been talk the Immortal Flames are seeking to recruit you to their ranks." He leaned around her to catch her glance again. "Have you given it thought? Word is you previously served as Gridanian envoy – have the Twin Adders already heard your pledge, then?" 

"Oh, I don't know much about that." She used the relative advantage of her height to fix her gaze upon some distant point. Truth was she did know quite a lot about that. "The Grand Companies fight wars, don't they?" The very prospect terrified her. "To put it politely, I think my talents are best used elsewhere." She meant she was still awaiting her welcome letter from the Carpenters' Guild. 

"Too good for the mighty Immortal Flames! Dear, that's nearly unfit for print! Such a post is an honor, you realize!" 

"I suppose it is," she said, absent-mindedly. Her eye caught a familiar face- the mender she'd been seeking. "I must be going...." She strode away through the throngs of shoppers to the mender's booth and reached for her coin purse. "Seven hells!" Amid all the barking and bustle, it seemed she'd crossed paths with a cutpurse. 

To some, she was Ifrit's Bane, the Primal Slayer.