#the exarch

The people of Lakeland and the Crystarium might not know just who to credit for bringing back the night, but their hope fills the air like the tension before a storm breaks. That they don’t know she’s the one to bear it for them helps, but only a little.

And it won’t stop—she knows how this will go. First it will be “oh, Frydlona, if you can just make a delivery,” and then it will be, “and deal with this dangerous beast,” and then “and relieve that outpost,” and then it will be “and make a speech to these battalions,” and before she knows it she’ll have armies all looking to her again, or die trying.

As if to ward off the thought, or the danger, she lifts a hand to the icy metal of her earrings.

She’s not dressed to be the First’s hero. She’ll do it; she has no choice about that; even if it hadn’t been for Urianger’s vision, and even if she could just abandon her friends here, there seems to be no one else fit to save this world. She wouldn’t ask the Exarch to bring anyone else here—certainly not Krile, but not Arenvald or Fordola or any of the others either—to do work she isn’t willing to do, even if he could without risk to them and the people around them, and more moons lost, and…no.

So she makes her way to the Ocular again. The guard lets her in without demur. She’s expecting the Exarch to protest, or at least ask her what she’s doing in his office, when she enters, but he doesn’t.

(Does he sleep there? Does he sleep at all, part crystal himself as he is? There are people she might ask that, but the Exarch—as he’s so unambiguously told her to call him—certainly isn’t one of them. Maybe he melts into the rock of the tower when none of them are speaking to him. She doesn’t know; she won’t care.)

“Did you need anything?” the Exarch asks, looking up at her. The hood casts his face so far into shadow that she can’t even judge his expression by the set of his mouth. His voice is…not neutral, exactly, but still unreadable.

Frydlona clasps her hands behind her back, just like any Company member reporting to their commander. “I need to go back to the Source for a day or two, if I can be spared.”

She had expected argument, maybe even outright refusal—a portal between worlds is no small thing, in spite of how casually he’d mentioned it. The aetherite maintenance needed when she’ll return must be awful, unless the aether washing over the First makes it easier somehow.

“Of course.” He gestures to the portal; reflected light glints within his arm. “I hope you’ve had no bad tidings?” How could she have, here as she’s been? If he realizes it was a foolish question, though, he makes no sign.

“There are supplies I need to get,” Frydlona says.

It’s even true, not just an excuse to salve her pride, which she appreciates. Some of it is just for simple morale, bringing the Scions some little luxuries they’ve had to do without: a Lominsan sweetmeat Alisaie is very fond of, the latest book by Alphinaud’s favorite author—there are a few reference tomes Urianger will want, too, and a brick of Ul’dahn tea for Thancred, and…

Tataru and Cid she’s been able to reach by linkpearl from this side of the portal, though she couldn’t say much to Cid, but Tataru had done something special to the Scions’ linkpearls that means she has had no luck reaching anyone else. Frydlona wants to talk to Fufucha about soil treatments, in case there’s anything that can help the thin earth of the First yield up greater bounty, and then gather whatever she’ll need to make them. She wants to talk to—well, not Severian, but someone else from the Alchemists’ Guild—about ways to enhance medicines made with poor ingredients or stretched too thin. Lyngsath might be able to suggest something for the cooks, too, since she’ll be in Limsa Lominsa anyway.

Those questions are all too big, and any amount of growth formula Frydlona can make is going to be like trying to bail the ocean dry with whatever vessel she brews it in. Still, she can’t not. What she really should do is talk to E-Sumi-Yan, but that might need to wait until she’s found Y’shtola or Urianger; she doesn’t know enough about what the aetheric properties of the First actually are to know what questions to ask about how conjury will affect her here.

But the first place she’ll go, before she even starts asking her other guildmasters to try to help her make things a little easier for the people of—or trapped on—the First, is to Nashmeira.

“If there is something the Crystarium lacks…” the Exarch half-asks. Frydlona isn’t sure if he’s offended that she wants to go to the Source for supplies or already planning to make changes. “You are of course welcome to return to your home, but we are the hub of trade over much of Norvrandt, and if what you require is to be found in Eulmore instead…?”

“I need plants that grow in real dirt,” Frydlona says, as the simplest answer. “And some other things,” she adds, out of honesty and because it’s not as if he won’t notice.

This time the Exarch’s voice is definitely rueful. “Ah. Then by all means.”

Nashmeira had helped her with the look she’d presented from defeating Thordan to arriving in the First: gleaming gold and white and silver, something worthy of the Warrior of Light Haurchefant had died for. It shone even through the smoke of a battlefield, the dust of a crumbling city. Fires smoldering around her only made the gold brighter. Aymeric and Hien had both commented on it in half-awed tones; Zhloe’s orphans loved it and always told her she looked just like Khloe always said she did.

She’s wearing plain travel gear now, undyed leather and practical mail. White and gold mean fear and death, here, not hope. Nashmeira will be able to think of something, though—something dark, something still beautiful. Something that on the Source would say villain and here will just say I am the help you’ve prayed for.

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