my last piece:

I left my world to wander in This endless midnight sky,

For space is just a starry night Where no suns ever rise.

Me and a friend at UT (with the last one being when he first reached it)

Venat + Seasons

Lune + Blade

Rose + Flowers

Oooh, as tempting as it is to write Venat, I already have an idea lined up for Rose.

~

Rose still visits the flowers at the edge of the universe from time to time. Sometimes for an hour or two; sometimes for half a day or more.

Thancred asks her about it after one especially long visit. "Why keep going back? After what happened in that place, I'd think you'd want to avoid it where possible."

She shrugs. "It's peaceful there. Quiet."

He raises an eyebrow. "Plenty of quiet places here that don't involve retreading painful memories."

"Less than you might think." She mutters, then holds up a hand when he opens his mouth to respond. "I'm fine, Thancred. It's about..." She chews her lip for a moment, trying to put her feelings into words. "You came back. All of you. It's... not a sad place for me anymore."

He doesn't entirely believe her, she can tell, but he doesn't press further. She's grateful. Her feelings on Ultima Thule are - complex. A place of darkness and despair by its nature, yes but - she'd walked alone there, deprived of all her companions, and had come out the other side. She'd felt the weight of the world at its heaviest there; ironic that it was now the place she went to escape it.

She walks the crystal path upward and lets the memory of hope chase the shadows from her heart. She curls up in the bed of glowing flowers, lets herself feel everything she keeps tucked away, and watches the colors change. She revisits the memories, time and again, because -

My new Starbird bags I debuted at con a few weeks ago! I'm really happy with them, the printing on the side panels came out great.

['person telling you that their dress has pockets' voice] It even has zips and pockets! And gussets!

Thancred's entire deal is being the protector, literally from his introduction in 1.0 is his entire deal to try and protect others from harm (and failing to do so is what makes him crash so badly every single time, from Minfillia's father over Louisoix and Minfillia herself, etc). We reach Ultima Thule, and literally within seconds the strongest and most precious people he knows are like 3 breaths away from just dying. No fight and nothing, just dead. Even Black Rose was less effective in getting the Scions killed THAT efficiently. It's the worst horror scenario you could think of for him. And he gets up, and defies it. And this man, who's main attribute has become that HE HAS NO AETHER overcomes that horror and CREATES aether in a place that shouldn't have any. He makes ground, and air. He creates what had ever frightened him (leaving what he deems precious alone and unwatched) to save it.

Estinien's entire deal had been to see the dragon killed that had destroyed all he had known and all he had wanted. His entire life was dedicated to that one hunt. His body was literally reshaped twice by it: by becoming a Dragoon powered by draconic eyes, and then again when his body got corrupted INTO a dragon by said eyes. To see into the eyes of a dragon, recalling those days of fire, that's his personal nightmare. To him, the only salvation was to see that dragon dead. And then we roam in the first area of Ultima Thule, and he sees death and decay and so many dragons. It's Ferndale, all over again. Dead children, and ruins and dragons that stand on the path between him and what could be a safe place to be. And he gets up, and defies it. He doesn't slaughter every dragon there to finish the deal. He doesn't use that body that was trained to kill wyrms to do the obvious, and instead he stands down and decides to TALK it through. And by doing that, he creates WIND, something that one on the ground may not need, yet one with wings? And the animation as we get introduced to it is clearly meant to seem like something is flying past. Once more, Estinien has gained wings.

Y'shtola, and with her Urianger, are noted for their absolute stubborn and near destructive desire to know. Understanding what is happening and how the world works is their life's purpose to them. The grandiose wealth of knowledge, of the unknown, is all they love and desire. Y'shtola specifically is - perhaps due to Matoya's influence - a loner that does things by herself when possible, as she prefers to go at her own pace and with her own methods. Urianger on the other hand seemingly works with others, yet ever assumes that his own death is inevitable to secure the survival of others. Naturally thus did Y'shtola settle with a group that didn't even know her name or origin, and naturally thus did Urianger 'betray' us more than once. Their safe space is to be alone in a corner, to watch and learn, even if it will hurt. And then we meet the Ea, who are the personification of knowledge in all it's self-destructive glory. We know it all, so why keep living? We understand the world is cruel, so why resist at this point? They can feed Y'shtola, they can end Urianger, things both have done all their lives anyway. They tell Y'shtola that she has found the end of all to know with them, they inform Urianger that all his self-destructive desires are absolutely correct cause it's what they've done with knowledge as well. And both casually decide to argue and reject it. Y'shtola tells them outright that their 'knowledge of everything' will NOT satisfy her, and Urianger admits directly that he intends to stick to Y'shtola and not turn his back. The Ea's wealth of all things known are mere pebbles to them, not at all interesting and alluring, and both step on it because they dare keep making them stop when what interests them is just a few steps further. And with them engaging in that argument, they make an almost underwhelming small teleportation point. No grandiose magic, no epic light to go out in. Small, simple, obvious and straightforward is what we receive from two most obscure and usually more pompous people.

G'raha Tia had - since birth - believed in one road. One destiny. He is the successor of Allag, his life bound to it and impossible to get broken as long as he has the red eye that marks him part of the bloodline. He lost his family for the sake of that destiny. He came to Sharlayan and finally Eorzea for that destiny. Fully merged with the allagan bloodline, locked himself away, traveled to the future and the past. There were prophecies to fulfill, a role to play. He loves playing roles, and he loves it when it's obvious what he has to do. Naturally, as the one in control of the tower he should become it's arbiter. Naturally, as the one who brought the heroes through the rift, he should send them back. And then we arrive at the Omicron, who have done the math and looked at the calculations and done everything exactly as should be the ideal outcome for them - and then reached the end of their road and decided they should thus stop. They have done what he had, and their ambitions had been so grand and yet so finite. Without Allag, what is there of G'raha Tia? Without a powerful enemy, what is there to fight for the Omicron? Mirrors, and they are only one or two steps ahead of the man whose purpose has run thin, now that Allag has become near entirely irrelevant. Where HIS blood has become near irrelevant. And he goes and says "so what? Then do something else." The Omicron deny and say that their bodies aren't meant to do anything else. And he goes and says "so what? Then BE something else." If your body can't dream, figure out how to do it anyway. If your path has ended, then just continue walking on the lawn. You are more than what you were meant to be, you do not need to adhere to what had been destined for your kind. And as he goes to them, he grants us crystal: his destiny, his prison. What had him trapped as he traveled through time, what would have trapped him forever to pay for the crime of having made us the center piece of his scheme. The part that had been that destiny he had chased, and what had hurt him for hundreds of years. Now a bridge to let us go and defy the fate laid out for us 12.000 years ago by Hermes.

Alphinaud and Alisaie seem different, but both are strongest at arguing with people. Alphinaud enjoys quiet debate, to discuss things, understand them and then talk his way into being. Alisaie is the opposite, she is passionate and emotional. She wants to understand YOU and then try to relate with you enough so you will do the same. Alphinaud had talked sense into the people of Eulmore, Alisaie had talked sense into ZENOS. They are different, but both believe that you can talk things out as long as you understand the other person: with logic or with compassion. While they can fight, they don't see use in fighting for fighting's sake. They utterly reject just accepting stuff (as both hit a point where they did [banquet for Alphinaud and Louisoix's fate for Alisaie] and fought their way out of that mud). To them, there's always someone to appeal to, at some point. And then they meet...no one. Ostrakon Hena is literally empty, a civilization long gone with nothing but hollow echoes of voices that say nothing. There is only them and Meteion, who has repeatedly said and shown that she doesn't care for talk, that she can't be argued with. The twins would have died of old age thousands time over before Meteion would have run out of even just a fraction of the thousands of civilizations whose demise fuel her. There's literally no one to argue with, their opponent is intangible, unmoving and literally deaf to reason. And the twins find that they need to accept this. They will not have a grand final fight as Thancred, or a last discussion with someone exciting like Estinien, Y'shtola, Urianger or G'raha. For them, all they will get will be silence and solitude. And, just as when they were imprisoned in Garlemald, they decide that they can sit down and accept that fate. No one there to talk to but each other. But they ever loved arguing with each other the most, the most unfruitful and unsatisfying of discussions for they argue so differently. And from their acceptance that they can't be "of use", they summon up those who ARE of use, who bring voices into the silence, who give light to the darkness and a way out of a dead end.

And then, finally, there's you. Warrior of Light, Warrior of Darkness. The one whose soul has merged 8 times, the one who had succumbed to AND defied fate. Destined to die a hundred times, yet still there, putting one foot before the other. Your entire journey was ever about walking, ever about making friends, ever about finding that one solution, even if you had to smash your way through it with violence. But the main thing of the WoL is ever that - when push comes to shove and they face a great evil - there will be people nearby to help. Azem's shtick, and yet even before we got that fun orange block of candy, we ever had 'luck':

No matter where we went, we'd draw in the people who want to help, who would be perfect for our needs. Friends in the making. But there's no one here, we literally LOST all of our friends, and without fighting for them. We journeyed backwards, until we were alone surrounded by death and memories only. We reach a dead end, and it is still miles away from where we need to be. Meteion thus rightfully mocks us for even still trying, for walking, because what is it we intend to do? She is in the thousands and we are but one. Her nest is far above us and we cannot fly or even jump like Estinien. No one is there, nothing is there. Just us, and her, and the remains of a hint of aether, wind, magic, crystal and voices. We DO have powerful magic to make one single wish, but we were also blatantly told to not use it to do the obvious and simply get our friends back. They offered up their lives to give us the ground and wind and air we breathe. To bring them back means for all of us to simply die again. And so we call not upon convenient friends, but upon unconventional enemies. The architects of all the nightmares back at home, the man who had tried to see us dead repeatedly even. People that HAD been friends without ever being one (cause we're NOT Azem now), people who have the power but no obligation to help cause it doesn't involve them in any way. All we have is that one plea to ask them nicely if they won't help anyway, because they are the ones who can 'make things'. Us, begging Ascians and Ancients to please not let the world end just yet. We had argued with them, and perhaps even pleaded for them to stop their machinations. But this is us ordering them to come to us, and this is us begging them to keep the lives they despised burning just a little bit longer. This is us showing them "this is what YOU gave up fighting" and this is us telling them to their face "this is what I will defeat, what I will be victorious against while YOU had lost". In the small hope they will not take offense and instead see poetry in it. And they do, one with humor and one with annoyance.

Ultima Thule is Pandora's Box. It contains untold horrors, the darkest of Dynamis and the most horrible of monsters - our very own private nightmares given form - to chase us in the dark. And yet, in all that horror, our trauma always contains a small seed of hope.