Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There were any number of benefits to the aethernet. For those who could handle the trip, malms could be crossed in moments. With willpower and a strong conception of your end destination, you could send yourself to Thavnair or the New World or the far reaches of the known universe. (He was almost sure Mistress Soleil was making that last one up, but Archon Augurelt swore it was true and he seemed trustworthy enough.)

Or, more to the point, you could travel from Tuliyollal to Ishgard every week to say Mass for your church and keep a finger on the pulse of your congregation. Evrard knew full well that many of his compatriots would count him as an adventurer first and a priest a distant (very distant) second, but he was still a priest. Not even a long, achingly boring trek through the wilderness with three Scions, Alan (who was at least Scion-adjacent), and a would-be king of Tural was enough to keep him from his duties.

(And honestly, saying Mass was a welcome distraction. Archon Augurelt and Master Waters kept engaging in their own versions of flirting, Gantsetseg was one misguided comment from Koana away from flying into a murderous rage and endangering Evrard’s paycheck, and Alan...well, Alan was lovely, but he’d probably help.)

(So. Mass.)

Our Lady’s Mercy was the same as it always was. Dim. Smoky. Slightly chilly, even with the hearth stoked high and the torches crackling on the walls; he made a note to have several cracked windowpanes replaced. At the moment it was nearly empty; only Sister Pierrine was there to welcome him with a worn but heartfelt smile. (He’d put her forth for a proper parish of her own—had offered to see her raised to Mother Pierrine—but she’d refused every time.) He returned it wordlessly; later, he’d ask her for the standard updates on their congregation, but first he needed to prepare. He was not going to say Mass in worn armor with a sword at his side. There were standards. He’d never been one of those priests who took to the pulpit in full plate, anyway.

So he washed quickly, teeth chattering in the cold. He changed into his vestments, the plain everyday ones with the darned seams and the patched elbows. He lit incense and mentally ran through his favorite verses of the Enchiridion for a proper homily topic; the actual reading of Scripture for this week was the Vigil of Saint Stephannoux, which he’d never liked much but could nonetheless recite by heart. Applying it as an exhortation towards hope and resolve rather than the traditional wait ‘til your enemy is sleeping and stab them in the back interpretation would probably go over well.

By the time Sister Pierrine started ringing the bell—some ten minutes before Mass usually started; given the state of the Brume’s construction around the chapel spire the sound didn’t reach very far—some people were already filtering in. He breathed a sigh of relief at the familiar faces. There were the Redcliffes, Theobald looking much better than he had last week; that cough must have cleared up. There were the Lierresauxes, all seven of them. Even the Kytoh siblings had shown up; why anyone would voluntarily move to Ishgard baffled him, but the Keeper pair were fast becoming neighborhood fixtures.

There had been pews once, but pews were more useful as firewood. (There had been a copy of the Enchiridion once too.) Now, his congregation sat on carved wooden stools, with the young and the old given priority near the hearthfire he’d built in front of the lectern. Probably this was blasphemy, but if the diocese had a problem with it…

He rolled his shoulders, shook out his sleeves, and swept his gaze out across the room. It would probably be full later, once the smell of the stew bubbling over the fire overpowered the incense again. Especially since on Iceday there was actual meat in it, the most reliable source of protein anyone at this depth of the Brume was likely to see.

The bishop would fall into apoplexy, but the bishop was cordially invited to take it up with him. On the field of battle, if necessary.

(There were those who called him the Merciful. It wasn’t a compliment. They saw him prioritizing the stomachs of his congregation over their souls, and they thought that made him weak. But Halone was a goddess of war, and he was Her servant. There were many different ways to fight.)

Evrard cleared his throat, swallowing a cough from the rising smoke. The stained glass behind him had long since been darkened by the Brume rising up around it, but there was still enough clear space to speckle his people with scattered shafts of multicolored light. Patches of crumbling stonework had been reinforced with wood, holes patched with brick. The meat in the stew was almost definitely rat.

But this was his church. These were his people. And he was, and would ever be, their priest.

“Children of the Fury, be welcome to Her house.”

Chapter Text

He’d always been hungry.

Sometimes it was sharp, gnawing at his guts with a ferocity that made him fight the urge to curl up and groan. Other times it was a distant, dull ache, only close enough to make him stumble in his tracks and remind him that he really should check his snares. Occasionally it was metaphorical—when he sat by the fire with a blessedly full belly, his eyes half-shut, and thought, Is this all there is? Are these to be the long centuries of my life?

Even back then, the thought had made him want to gnaw his own leg off like a fox in a trap. The idea that this was to be his life—the idea that he would be patrolling the same malms of forest for hundreds of years, seeing other people only by happenstance unless he made the pilgrimage back to the village to do his duty, battling tigers and encroaching Nagxians and whatever monsters the depths of the forest saw fit to spit out at him—was almost more than he could bear.

But he’d tried to endure at first. He really had. He’d been so proud when his mentor had first deemed him fit to patrol alone.

By the end of the first year of solitude, he’d started rambling to himself.

By the end of the tenth year, the women of his tribe knew that Hjallmar Rehw-Setlas was clingy and desperate and very possibly hysterical. At least he wasn’t expected to sire any more children; for all they knew, it might be catching.

By the end of the twentieth year, he’d gone mute.

And he had still been so hungry.

(Not for venison or fruit or cassava bread. For something else, something he hadn’t had the vocabulary to name.)

But that had been a hundred years ago. He’d gotten out. He’d gorged himself on gold, on wine, on riches beyond compare. He was satisfied.

Oriax Tarkona picked at the remains of his dessert. It had once been a luscious fruit tart, honey-glazed and fragrant. He’d plucked the rolanberry garnish off the top and eaten it separately, held carefully on the tips of his fingers so as not to get too sticky. (It would have been easier if he’d grown his claws back out—but no. He was no half-feral Wood Warder anymore, matted and filthy and nearly starved. If he ate with his fingers, it was a deliberate choice.)

Ul’dah sprawled out below his balcony, a golden jewel in the afternoon sun. He gazed down at the streets below without really seeing them. The air was so dry it stung his nose, bringing the mingled stench of chocobo and cooking food and a teeming mob of people before it faded into the mellow perfume of his manor. If he shouted, someone would hear. He was wealthy. He was powerful. He wasn’t alone.

But he had a long memory, and right now he remembered—foolishly, uselessly—being hungry.

(He’d been dizzy with it, stumbling over roots and weaving across branches, spear white-knuckled in his grip. He’d eaten boar half-raw, skinning it with his bare hands.)

He took a long swallow of golden Thavnairian wine and rose to his feet. Maybe he’d go out tonight, find some entertainment. He’d drink and dance and take someone pretty home with him. Spending too much time alone made him irritatingly introspective.

Chapter Text

As much as she enjoyed working with fresh spell matrices, Ritanelle didn’t usually have an excuse to do it. Most of what could be done with arcanima had already been developed, required conditions the vast majority of people were never going to have access to (who else could say a tear from Hydaelyn Herself had landed on their grimoire?) or were only conditionally useful. Some people treated their carbuncles like children—indeed, some peoples’ were sentient enough to count as children—but she’d never had the knack.

Oh, sometimes she had ideas, of course. Usually they sent her bolting out of bed for her nearest chalkboard, piece of scrap paper, spare napkin, et cetera, while Avery blinked and made sleepy grunting noises behind her. But bolts of inspiration like that had, so far, been slow in coming since she’d taken up temporary residence in Tuliyollal. Something about the heat. Or the sun. It made her sleepy. At some point since coming here, she’d actually gotten a tan.

(Sort of. It had succeeded in making her slightly less marble-colored.)

Regardless, it meant that when she sat down to poke and prod at the crystal in what they were tentatively calling the Key, she was much less frantic and much more in the right frame of mind to set out all her supplies properly.

Loose paper, a stack as thick as her hand. No, Avery’s hand; she might need it and she didn’t want to get up later.

Pencils, a round dozen.

Colored pencils, ditto.

Powdered gemstones, assorted.

Garlean ballpoint pen and aetheric ink refills, just in case she found something worth making permanent. (Yes, yes, quills were traditional. Tradition could eat her arse.)

Block of uncarved electrope; the casing was mostly electrope, and she had no idea if that was significant. Preservation hadn’t left many uncorrupted records behind, and she suspected she’d need a degree in electrope engineering to understand them.

Mug of pineapple juice in case she got thirsty.

Finally, Avery Mordeterre, sitting in a comfortable chair with a book and a frown. “I don’t know how much actual help I’ll be,” he warned her. “You might want to call G’raha. Or Y’shtola.”

She made a face at the man she loved. If the choice was between him or the idiot who’d thought she was heroic enough to be worth dying for, she knew who she’d pick. (Alright, that wasn’t entirely fair. G’raha was an intelligent man with centuries of knowledge at his fingertips, and once he’d gotten over his hero worship they’d started working their way back towards friendship. It was just that there’d been so much stupid in the way first.) “It lit up like a firework with Azem’s symbol. Yours. You might be handy.” Since the frown didn’t abate, she added, “I’ll yell if I need you.”

Avery opened his mouth—either to point out that he might’ve inherited Azem’s seat but personally had about as much magical knowledge as a teacup and that she was far closer to the arcane crafts of the Ancients than he’d ever be (they’d had that argument before) or to protest that sometimes her experiments exploded (they’d had that one before too)—but seemingly thought better of it. With a deep sigh, he pushed his glasses up his nose and returned to his book. It was a Fifth Astral Era history that could probably cave someone’s skull in and she was definitely going to borrow it when he was done. (She hoped he left notes in the margins; reading them always gave her a happy little fizzing feeling.)

Right, she told herself, shaking her head a little. Focus.

Her supplies were at hand, her lover was on standby, and the Key was in her grasp.

(Hmm. Maybe she should call a few of her fellow Scions. Both for backup and because she wasn’t sure if Shtola would ever forgive her if she made a breakthrough and the Miqo’te Archon wasn’t around to see it. On the other hand, she was focused now. She was ready now. And the Key was right here.)

Time to throw aether at it until it did something.

Chapter Text

“I would expect such behavior from men of the Empire, not soldiers of Ul’dah!”

Yaellia hasn’t been this angry in...well, alright, at least a few hours. Accepting the Brass Blades’ commission in the first place wasn’t easy—Thanalan may be the mirror image of her own home back in Corvos, all dusty streets and soaring towers, but the thing about mirrors is that they reflect, and she doesn’t always like what she sees in them. But they offered a handsome purse of gil, and her family needs to eat. (Annie and Klemens are growing like weeds, her family’s vineyard is suffering in the chaos of a freed Corvos, and Malavai…)

(He’s walking again. It’s not as bad as it could be.)

So she’d swallowed her reservations and made the long trek out past Highbridge to the Qiqirn camp, where a strange rabbit woman was supposedly inflaming the natives.

She really should have started questioning then. It wasn’t until she’d actually been standing in front of her quarry and wrenched her gaze up to the woman’s face and asked that she’d fully allowed herself to recognize the sinking feeling in her gut. The feeling that, once again—once again—she was being lied to.

(“They’re naught but beasts, miss.”)

(“They are only savages, Centurion quo Ivros.”)

(“They rebel against our rightful authority. Show them the error of their ways.”)

So she and the woman—Thekla Camoa, herbalist, swordswoman, Gyr Abanian fencer and false gods Yael is never going to tell her where she was stationed—have marched back to Highbridge for answers, Yaellia hoping against hope that it might be a misunderstanding. That it was a few bad apples and the entire barrel isn’t rotten to the core. That she left that sort of corruption back home.

She’s not that lucky. Not only have these soldiers slaughtered innocents unprovoked, with naught but their species to paint them as targets in response to some half-imagined slight, they have the nerve to brag about it. To call their victims animals. Beastmen they may be, yes, small and scurrying with twitchy ratlike fingers and twitchy ratlike hands, but the key part of that word is men.

These men are murderers, and they laugh about it. Worse, they expect her to laugh with them, to throw a good woman in chains for coin. Because she’s only an adventurer, isn’t she? Who is she, to have moral objections to what she is asked to do? Who is she, to judge them as they deserve?

She is Yaellia rem Quinctius, pilus prior of the Ist Legion. These venal, cowardly fools should fear her.

But Lady Camoa is at her back, and she would rather not have such a noble woman as an enemy. So she breathes slowly, draws herself up straighter, and wrenches her golden gaze to the face of the soldier in charge. Her voice comes out in a whiplike snap, the exact tone and inflection that made her subordinates practically piss themselves when she was in the XIIth. “Your testimony, ser, paints you as no better than a beast yourself. Must I teach you shame?"

Now one of the men—most importantly, the one actually holding the manacles—takes a wary step back. Good. He has sense, and may survive this. His sergeant snaps, “Oy, get back up there and cuff the criminal, you dog."

She’s aware of Lady Camoa shifting her weight behind her, in the sort of fuzzy way she’s aware of things when she’s got a hat on. (There’s a reason Garlean helmets have a hollow space in the forehead; third eyes aren’t as useful when they’re covered too tightly. But getting stabbed for what she is would be far worse, so her hat is coming in handy.) "This does not have to come to violence,” she manages to force out, sweeping her gaze across the assembled soldiers.

Honestly, she wants it to come to violence. These men are scum; it would be an honor and a pleasure to trounce them. (She is a gardener. She knows weeds when she sees them. And she knows weeds must be pulled out at the roots, lest they spread and choke out the flowers she loves.)

But still—still—it is right to give them a chance. They might surprise her. She might go back to Drybone with her blades unbloodied. “You may choose to rethink your life. Set a better example for those who look up to you."

They don’t. Shame, that.

But she does feel much better afterwards. And as she bids goodbye to Lady Camoa—who surely deserves the honorific, she’s actually paying Yael to guard the Qiqirn now, with enough gil to keep Annie in new socks for months—she dares to hope she’s made a friend.

Chapter Text

Rrisya Otombe has been in Tural for some months now, Hahki’a barely ever out of reach. It’s nothing like Gridania. It’s not even anything like Ul’dah, her only other frame of reference for what Rita had meant by hot and sunny.

Oh, it is both of those things.

But the key thing about Tuliyollal, the thing that really jumps out at you when you get off the ship, is that it is vertical. And not in a pleasant, easily traversable way with lots of trees or fences or scalable rooftops. Tuliyollal is built on top of a vast spur of rock, and looks like it. From the beach, everything slopes sharply upwards to the palace at the city’s peak, and most people don’t have alpacas. The Otombe siblings certainly can’t afford to rent one, and Rrisya has her pride; she won’t take handouts from Rita no matter who her best friend is friends with in turn.

(Vow Wuk Lamat? Really? On purpose?)

So. They walk. Everywhere. They’re used to walking everywhere; the family chocobo back home is for deliveries and emergencies, and while Rrisya’s Hiss is a full-grown coeurl and could take a rider, he’s currently back in Gridania being spoiled rotten by their sisters. So this should be more of the same, easily handled…

Hahki’a all but throws himself onto his bed in their inn room and starts brushing out his tail with a vengeance. It’s not an easy task. “You said Rita told you Tural was wet,” he hisses.

Rrisya is trying to do her own basic grooming on her own bed. They both have thick, dark fur—his is more green than hers—and long, luxurious tails. They blend into the Shroud like dappled shadows and stand out in Tuliyollal like sore thumbs, and they pick up every. Single. Grain of dust, sand, dirt, and other peoples’ hair in the entire city. She keeps finding feathers in hers, and not on purpose. “This must be the dry season,” she offers, but her heart’s not in it.

Hahki’a closes his eyes, pained. It turns into an actual grimace a moment later, as his comb catches and pulls out a chunk of hopefully-already-loose fur. “At least we’re safe,” he mutters. “Though if I had known about this bloody weather—”

“You don’t mean that,” she says, too sharply. But the idea of her baby brother in Gridania now, with Stillglade Fane desperate to recoup their investment into his education when he only went there for the sake of their clan, when the conjurers call their kind poachers and criminals and little better than beastmen—it makes her ears pin flat back. She can’t fight an entire city for him. (Rita could, but Rita’s supposed to be a hero and, additionally, has been up to her pointed ears in arcanima theory and something called elextrope since before they arrived. Rrisya knows her better than to interrupt. The woman will resurface eventually.)

He sighs heavily, sounding far more like an adult than she’s ready for. Somehow, in her head, he’s still twelve and trailing her like a second shadow—not nearly eighteen, taller than her, with the serpent tattoos of an Otombe shaman circling his arms. “You’re right. It’s just a pain in the arse.”

She can’t say he’s wrong.

“I heard that the Wing of Reflection is hiring for a trip into the forests of Mamook,” she says instead. “Mamook has rain. And trees.”

And more to the point, getting there requires a long dirigible ride. It might still be dusty, but at least they won’t be trudging through it.

Chapter Text

Oriax had left Golmore with the clothes on his back, a few ponzes of boar jerky, and the herblore he’d gleaned from decades of living in a jungle that wanted him dead. And from that, he’d built an empire. The advantages of wealth were endless, of course, but there was one that those short-sighted fools calling themselves the Monetarists never really seemed to understand.

Namely, that it could be spent on other people. On things that did not immediately enrich oneself, and instead paid dividends in other currency. A fascinating notion, really.

Manufacturing somnus and pluto, growing blackroot rose and poppies and hundreds of other plants—those things were expensive, but the payoff was worth it. People would get their supply from somewhere, after all, and he’d learned to take pride in his work. Very few of his customers actually died. (There was always the occasional idiot, but the dosage was on the package and it wasn’t his fault if they didn’t read.) It was more than he could say for some of his competitors.

“Where,” he asked coldly, “did they get this?”

They were a shaking, shivering couple on a cot in a filthy room in the depths of Ul’dah’s slums. The inside of Ori’s skin wanted a shower. This was an empty packet of something advertising itself as essence of milkroot in something very similar to his own underlings’ handwriting. And he was addressing the question to the man who’d brought him here, one of his guard’s neighbors, who wrung his hands and fidgeted and blurted out, “They didn’t say! Somewhere down in the old ruins—some pub, I think?”

There were a thousand pubs, boltholes, and dens in the ruins of Sil’dih. Ori moved product through them on a regular basis. Well, not personally anymore, he had people for that, but he knew the area. He tapped his left foot once and restrained himself; he was wearing closed shoes so there was really no point in reminding this peon how sharp his claws were. “A name?”

“Uh.” His informant had a wary eye on the couple on the cot. One of them, the Miqo’te, was starting to babble. “Named after a rat—no, a shrew! The Many Shrews!”

Ori’s ears bristled. The place was a dive even he wouldn’t be caught dead in. Now it was a dive he’d probably wind up owning. “Thank you for your time.”

“...You can save ‘em, right? Only—Hereward said you’re th’ best alchemist in th’ city—”

Some part of him couldn’t help but preen a little, even though it was simple fact. He’d learned with Hannish scholars and the ancestors of Ul’dah’s own guild, and last he’d checked Severian’s people were still using his notes. The drugs? They were a means to an end, spending gil to make gil. Alchemy was his passion.

And some bastard in the ruins was using his means to distill substances that were killing people. He cast a brief, judgmental eye over the two on the cot. Overdose caused convulsions and seizures, but there was something more in it. The bright red gums visible in the woman’s open mouth said it had been cut with shriekshroom, and the two absolutely should not be mixed. But shriekshroom was cheap and made the highs last longer, and so far too many dealers cut corners. The thought made his blood boil.

“You are mistaken. I’m no healer; you want to bring them to the Phrontistery and ask for S’alma.” The woman was firmly both in his pocket and in his debt; after the things he’d proved could be cured with essence of moldy cantaloupe, she’d walk through fire for him. Saving two lowlifes from acute milkroot overdose was trivial. “Here. Keep the rest.”

He flipped the man a fifty-gil piece and stalked out.

“Wait! Ser—”

“I have business to conduct.”

Starting with a visit to the Many Shrews, preferably with a trio of his best guards and his bone spellcasting needles woven into his hair. He was going to find whoever was supplying cut-rate product, and he was going to destroy them. Death would only be the start. He’d take their informants, their network, their gil. And when the time came to share that wealth around…

Hereward was on his left. (He never traveled with less than two guards, and the stocky Highlander was a mean hand with a knife. Not as mean as Ori himself, admittedly, but—well, Ori didn’t particularly care for physical altercations. It was usually messy, and not in a fun way.) “How many legs we breakin’, boss?”

“As many as necessary.” When both of his guards grimaced in tandem, he added, “I’ll triple your overtime pay.” And when this was over, he’d see about promoting one of them. Whatever he gained from this would need someone to oversee it. Personally.

Never let it be said that Oriax Tarkona was stingy.

Chapter Text

Tiber is wandering the streets of Tuliyollal when he hears a sound so unexpected it stops him in his tracks.

Music.

Not the lively woodwinds or enthusiastic guitars that characterize traditional Turali music as he’s heard it so far, nor the heavy drumbeats that sound the hour by the city gates, but something fast and swingy and brassy, something that reminds him sharply of home. It’s not quite the same—in Garlemald, jazz would be more electronic, with a strong metallic undertone—but it engenders a wave of homesickness so strong it almost knocks him over.

Not that he doesn’t like Tuliyollal. It’s vibrant and bustling and the people are resilient even in the face of the tragedy visited upon them by Alexandria. Every street seems to be full of delicious food or brightly colored cloth or fine handicrafts that make him wish his coinpurse was just a little bigger. But it’s not home, no matter how welcoming the Vows are or how much his fellow Scions fit in here. His home is black iron and white snow, and he’s three weeks’ long journey away from it. Until a moment ago, he would’ve said Garlemald was the opposite of Tural in every way.

But the music—he has to hear more. He follows the sound under bridges and along increasingly narrow streets until he comes to what seems to be a disused lot or perhaps the remains of a garden; whatever it is, there’s a porch and an open patch of dirt and a porch with an awning, and on that porch the musicians are warming up. There are five of them; a Vanu—sorry, Hanuhanu—on an upright piano, a Miqo’te with a trumpet, a very small Pelupelu with a set of drums, and two Hyur with a bass and a clarinet. They’re practicing that same tune to a half-dozen mostly disinterested onlookers.

Tiber, on the other hand, is very interested. He pauses on the edge of the square, frowning thoughtfully as he listens. It needs...something. There’s depth missing, notes that feel as though they should be there.

One of the Hyur must reach the same conclusion, because when they pause in their warm-up she sets her bass down and asks, “Where’s Illari?”

The Pelupelu grunts. “Couldn’t make it.”

“Well, shit,” the Miqo’te mutters. “There went our saxophone.”

Tiber perks up. He can’t help it. That’s what their song is missing, and all of a sudden his fingers itch for his own instrument. Surely it wouldn’t be rude to offer, if they needed one? But the thought of putting himself out there, when he’s not sure of his welcome...he doesn’t consider himself a coward, but he takes an awkward step sideways anyway, taking refuge in the afternoon shade.

“Hey, you with the forehead.”

Reflexively, a hand goes to the forehead in question; people here barely know what Garlemald is, nevermind care, and so he’s been going bareheaded more and more. It’s nice to get some air, and most people are at least well-mannered enough not to ask about his third eye even if they will stare. They probably only called out to him because he’s closest to the porch and not visibly multitasking, but he still wonders if he’s done something wrong. “Um. Yes?”

The Hyur with the bass motions him forward. “Know anyone who plays a saxophone? Trumpet? Hells, we’ll take a tuba.”

His face goes hot. “Ah. Um.”

He is a Scion of the Seventh Dawn. He’s faced lunar primals and voidsent and the end of the world. He can say, out loud and in the common tongue, “I play, if you’ve one to lend.”

The Hanuhanu cheers. “Excellent! Oh, silly me, we’ve been rude—I’m Arahali, and this lot is Wohali, Kharwasisa, Tsabli, and Maonehe. I sing sometimes. You?”

“...Tiber.” He pauses, clears his throat, and adds, “Saxophone. Ah—it is what I play.”

After a moment’s silence—it’s a very Garlean name, which means it must sound rather strange to their ears—Arahali waves him up onto the porch. “Come on, then! Show us what you’ve got.”

“You can use this one,” says Wohali, and hands him a familiarly-shaped case. “Illari keeps it here on account of her nosy siblings.”

“I have an older sister,” he says, and finds himself smiling. “You do not have to tell me.”

The saxophone is shaped a little differently than what he’s used to, but there’s only so far you can rearrange one before it ceases to be a saxophone. The reed is harder than he likes. Still, it’s clean, and he can make it work.

This time, when the band starts playing, he joins in.

Chapter Text

This electrope shite was going to kill her.

Gantsetseg of the Bayaqud stared at the cube of unmarked purple-black rock in front of her as though prolonged exposure would somehow unearth its secrets. It didn’t.

Alan, who read much faster than she did, was still hunched over the manual and muttering to himself in Garlean. In between the profanity, she caught things like <...only half an equation,> and <...bloody fucking geometry...>

Give her wires any day. Gears. Alloys. Piping and machine-formed plates and tubes filled with aetherized gases. She knew what to do with those. Not rocks with geometry on them. But...she grimaced, lashed her tail against the floor, and thought about the glories that electrope had made within this very room. There was a machine that dispensed ice water at the press of a button and took up less space than a sheet of paper. There was a screen broadcasting some Arcadion match in full color—the Garleans hadn’t even figured out cheap color film yet. There were consoles and terminals and keyboards that pulled information from across the city to her fingertips. Garlemald had similar systems before its fall, but they took up half a room and threw off enough heat to fry an egg. The computation machine Shale had loaned her fit in her back pocket.

And if she could make it work…

She exhaled. Cracked her knuckles. “Honey?”

Alan grunted something, and then belatedly registered he was being addressed and sat up so fast his hair flopped into his face. “Yeah?”

“Hand me that manual, I’m gonna try something.”

“Oh, boy,” he muttered, but obligingly handed her the manual and scootched closer. There were tables and chairs, but both of them were used to working spread out on the floor by now. At least unlike their yurt, there wasn’t a nosy hound trying to help.

The kit they’d bought was for what Sphene (and Rita, who Gan trusted considerably more in matters of arcanima) assured them was a very simple transmutation of lightning-aspected electrope to a personal heating system. It would be invaluable in Garlemald until they finished hooking up all the gas lines again, and much less smoky than a hearth. But first she had to get it to work.

She glanced at the first page, flinched at the first sight of the array she was supposed to copy—the array with a blank space in the middle, because anyone trying to transmute electrope from scratch had better know what went there—and made herself look again. Made herself really study it. Her unoccupied hand itched to be holding a wrench, and she set it flat on the stone instead. It was cold, and hummed under her palm.

Rita would’ve loved the arcane geometry involved. Gan was pretty sure lines weren’t supposed to do that. But it was math. She could do math, right? Engineering was full of it.

It was just that normally, she had something to measure with her hands before she started actually working on it.

Let’s see. If this line goes here, and the overall shape is kind of a squarish oval, and they want you to chart these points…

Slowly, she traced a fault line on the stone where it had been cleaved from the larger whole. She was so close. She could feel it. If this was a physical thing, she’d already be up to her wrists in its guts. But since it wasn’t, and all she had was a diagram and a rock—

Understanding didn’t do anything so graceful as dawn. It was more like being slapped upside the head. She lunged across Alan for her tools, sharp focus reducing her words to, “Etching needle!”

He blinked, confused—but only for a moment, finding her wavelength and sliding onto it. He was always the one who got her, even when she barely understood herself. A bright, excited grin curved his mouth and lit up his eyes. “You’ve got it?!”

“I think—you draw what I tell you, I’ll pump aether into it—”

“—and hope it doesn’t blow up—”

“Hey, on a scale of one to Nero—”

“Please don’t remind me about the Praetorium,” Alan muttered, already scratching lines deep into the electrope. “Or I actually might kill him.”

“And make Cid cry? Oh, okay, a right angle there…”

“Please, Cid would thank me.”

She grinned, fangs flashing in the building violet light. There was nothing better than working with her man.

Chapter Text

There were moments when it paid to be precise. Dealing with the account books, or talking a junkie out of buying a dose you knew would kill him (after which he wouldn’t be a repeat customer), or counting change to make sure you weren’t being scammed. Ship repair, even with the Tormorjargal grounded as he rummaged around the engines, wasn’t one of those.

His airship was tough, okay. She’d ferried supplies to rebels and various dry goods to paying customers from Hingashi to Ala Mhigo for years. It didn’t take much to keep her running. (Good thing, too; Jaiyu wasn’t much of a mechanic.)

They’d set down in a dimly lit, freezing hangar just outside of Camp Broken Glass; if Jaiyu hadn’t been bundled up to his horns they would’ve frozen off. It was the cold that was really the problem; the engine blocks were Garlean-made themselves, but malms of hard use had rattled something loose and they’d never make it back to Thavnair in time for the next supply shipment if he didn’t get this fixed fast. Without an engine, they’d be at the mercy of the winds. And if he was late, they’d probably dock his pay.

(Him. Working for pay. From the government. It made his scales itch. But he looked at the pinched, battered faces of the Garleans around him and thought of the glittering wealth of Thavnair, and he could live with it.)

Zeiran was sitting by the heater, performing the absolutely vital function of entertaining/distracting Fortis. This was delicate enough work without a thirty-ponze beast of a cat slipping his belled harness, slapping things with his meathook paws, or trying to murder the deflated rigging. Zeiran was half eyeing the string he was pulling across the icy concrete for Fortis to chase, but most of his wary attention was on Jaiyu. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Been flying this ship for years, haven’t I?” He got a crowbar up under the loosened cover and heaved, dislodging the stripped screws with a grunt. They pinged across the floor, and there was a brief flurry of activity as Fortis lunged and Zeiran went to his knees to scoop the cat up before the furry bastard could try to eat a screw or something else disastrous.

Jaiyu mostly ignored this. He was busy, damn it. There were screws to tighten and loose pipes to force back into shape. Since reaching for an actual wrench would take too long, he pressed the crowbar into service again.

Over the din, Zeiran snorted, “I have no idea how you managed to escape the Empire for years.” It was pure snooty Garlean drawl and would’ve probably been much more impressive if not for the fact that Jaiyu knew, without looking, that Fortis had just shoved his fist-sized head into the man’s neck to escape the noise. Nobody sounded dignified when they were wearing a cat.

Well, the fan belt needed replacing. He swore, pulled its shreds out of the engine, and informed Zeiran, “Zeizei, baby, you fuckers couldn’t shoot for shite.”

“Excuse me—” Zeiran started, and immediately cut himself off with a yelp as Fortis used his shoulder as a springboard to get to the back of the chair for what were, no doubt, Important Cat Reasons.

Jaiyu couldn’t help but laugh. Sure, he was stuck in a frozen hellhole doing ship repairs, but it wasn’t all bad. There was their cat. (And somehow, Fortis really had become their cat—argh, no, sappiness could come back later when his arse wasn’t elbow-deep in fuselage.)

He got the fan belt replaced eventually. And the screws replaced. And the pipes...mostly fixed, even with some of their mammets offering extremely unwanted advice. As the sun bathed the hangar in golden afternoon light, Zeiran stood beside him and said, “Congratulations. You’ve got her looking airworthy, at least.”

“Oh, shut up,” Jaiyu muttered warmly, and thumped the engine. It rattled again.

Eh, close enough.

Chapter Text

Come to Phaenna, the Loporrits had said. It’ll be fun, they’d said.

There’s fucking glass rain. She’s going to make a Loporrit-skin coat.

She says as much to Alerot, who winces. “At least it’s habitable…? And think of what it could tell us about the conditions under which life could flourish.”

She gives him a look that ought to scorch his eyebrows off and gestures to the awning above their heads. Glass shards are rattling down in a cacophony that’s starting to give her a headache. “Garlemald would almost be an improvement. At least there we’ve got the normal kind of rain.”

Since Alerot has known her for months and furthermore has been to Garlemald—he’d first come with the Forum to escort Thavnairian refugees during the Final Days, fell in with a group of Garlean engineers, and never left—he raises an eyebrow and asks, “Which is different from this...how?”

She punches him in the arm.

Honestly, the most annoying part is how much it’s keeping her from her work. The base here requires vast amounts of metal; even with magic speeding the way and making the task less dangerous it all has to be smelted, molded, hammered, and riveted into shape, and that’s her job. She has half a dozen people working for her, Garleans and Sharlayans taking in the knowledge she’s brought from Tural and Limsa Lominsa. Together, they’ve been working marvels—or they would be, if the weather would cooperate. A full-fledged foundry has so far not been the highest of priorities.

As she’s cursing the weather, a sound cuts through the tinkling of glass on metal. A long, whooping siren, loud enough that Alerot goes pale. “The supply party.”

Fuck. It’s one thing to be in the manufacturing line; most of it can be safely done indoors, and the crafters have long since sought shelter. But they sent out dozens of people to see what raw materials can be safely gathered on this rock, and now those people are in danger. Loporrits are already rushing around, directing the nearest people of Etheirys towards rescue efforts and hopping into vehicles themselves.

“Alerot—” she starts.

But Alerot’s already throwing her the keys to a magitek loader. “Don’t crash it!”

As if she would. She’s always been a great driver. Granted, she learned on Garlean automobiles and hasn’t been behind the wheel much in recent years, but since this lunar initiative started she’s gotten loads of practice in. The exotablet flashes coordinates, and she sets it on her dashboard to keep it in view as the engines rattle under her feet. They aren’t far; she’ll have them back safe before the Loporrits can finish twisting their ears into knots over it.

But she’s forgotten something. Namely, while the cargo area is protected, the driver’s perch isn’t.

She’s dressed for cold weather, with thick gloves and a solidly padded helmet and the latest in Sharlayan protective wear. It’s the only reason she’s not instantly shredded. But everything has weak spots, and the first time a sharp shard of glass lodges into her shoulder she instinctively swerves before realizing she’s just under attack from the damn sky.

“Just.” It burns. She grits her teeth and flies on.

After what feels like forever, her back and shoulders a pincushion of glass, she spots the supply convoy taking shelter under a shelf of twisted rock. Some of them are already wounded; she barely slows down as she whips the loader around and bellows, “Get in th’ bed! Now, now, now!”

They get into the bed. She has to jump down from the perch and help lift people and supplies, ignoring the screaming of her muscles. She’s Garlean. She’s had worse. Say what you will about her people—and she won’t deny there’s plenty that can be said, most of it viciously accurate—but you can’t deny they’re strong.

Time passes in a blur. Glass digs into her jacket, finds purchase between the treads of her heavy boots, slices past her goggles to leave a red line of fire down her cheek. She ignores it.

She barely remembers the drive back. She has six people and their gathered bags of ore and flora in the truck bed, and all she can think about is getting them to safety. Her eyes blur, all three of them. Her hands are trembling.

She keeps going.

By the time she pulls into the base, almost every ilm of her is in some form of pain. Her skin stings, her joints ache, her teeth are being rattled out of her skull...still, she doesn’t think it might be bad until Alerot sees her and gasps, “Shit—shit. Portia—”

Alerot is almost unflappable. She’s seen him take in the chaos of a Loporrit all-hands alert with only a slow blink and a sip of coffee. She lifts one hand in a wave and calls, “Still alive!”

Of course, that’s when she tries to step down off the loader, almost falls over, and is only saved by Alerot catching her by the shoulders and yelling for Healingway.

Oops.

Chapter Text

Ysayle was dead.

Ysayle was dead, and the Garleans had killed her.

(The last words she’d ever said to Rita, teary-eyed but clear, had been, “I’ll be alright.” And now she was dead.)

It had all been so sudden—the Garlean airship, Hraesvelgr, the fight, the fall. The explosion of aether like a cold wind across Rita’s face. Avery and Gan holding her back from leaping after her on Garuda’s wings. At that distance, against such a foe, there was nothing she could have done.

(“She would have made a wonderful Scion,” Alphinaud had whispered, his voice cracking. She’d been unable to speak.)

And then they were in Azys Lla, the floating remnants of Allag and its horrors, its monstrosities, and she—heritor of Allag, master of the lost art of summoning—was almost too numb to feel anything at the sight. She could be disgusted later. Later, when her heart beat solidly in her chest again.

(They’d braided each other’s hair as they traveled through Dravania. Rita had redone her own braids since then, but she’d seen—as Ysayle fell—that her hair was loose.)

She didn’t let herself feel anything. It was safer that way.

But then they reached the Garlean camp, and her frozen heart cracked.

Usually, it was Gan they had to hold back, Gan who’d been kidnapped from her tribe, who’d seen her family slaughtered, who longed for Garlean blood on her hands. And indeed, Y’shtola and Alphinaud and Estinien were already reaching to hold her back as she snarled, tail lashing like a bladed whip. They weren’t looking at Rita.

Rita, who stood a little ways away, grief and fury warring in her chest. Rita, whose feet were carrying her forward. Rita, who had drunk deep of the aether of gods.

One of the patrolling soldiers turned. Saw her, out in the open with her hair a tangle of braids and the dragon-horned mask that had struck terror into the XIVth Legion gleaming in the weird multicolored light. Started to yell an alarm.

Aether surged within her, around her. When she breathed, she tasted salt and blood, and thought of Ysayle’s shattered, martyred smile.

“Miss Rita—” Avery started, reaching for her. The dear, sweet fool.

The others were already backing up. “Shite,” Gan hissed, grabbing for Avery’s arm. “Get back!”

Ritanelle was past listening. She was only dimly aware of her comrades scrambling out of the potential blast zone, only dimly aware of the rumble of magitek engines and the shouts of Garlean soldiers. The aether within her was a roar, her world washed in crackling blue-white energy. Her teeth felt like fangs in her mouth.

The soldiers stood in a tight knot, bracing for impact. Someone called her an Eorzean savage. Someone else screamed, “Eikon-slayer!”

She lunged for them, aether bursting into wings to aid her flight. Dragon’s wings, as her scream was a dragon’s scream. These were the people who killed Ysayle, who snuffed out her light in a torrent of gunfire. They thought they owned the skies. They thought that their strength mattered.

There was one crash, then another. Then an explosion. Someone was shooting—her enemies? Gan?—but she didn’t care. They were ants to her. The world was a long drawn-out howl of azure flame.

The Garleans had freed Bahamut, and cracked Eorzea in half.

She freed the merest sliver of his power, and the island trembled.

Chapter Text

There were people who looked at Oriax Tarkona and saw a vain, hedonistic, greedy sadist who thought hard work was for peasants. Those people were right.

But they knew him from parties and drug dens and backroom meetings. They’d never seen him here, in the midst of his workshop, with his long hair pulled back and his sleeves rolled up and thin Garlean rubber gloves up to his elbows. With his mask and goggles, he was as protected as he was going to get.

...Even so, he’d taken the extra precaution of kicking out his so-called assistants and closing all the windows. If someone was going to wind up poisoned, at least it’d only be him, and he’d had worse. Hells, he’d done worse to himself on purpose.

He took a moment to eyeball the herbs he’d just finished weighing, grinding, and weighing again. The bubbling chunk of apollyon shell he’d set to boiling was even now rendering its aetheric essence down. The whole room smelled like peppermint and shellfish, not a pleasant combination at the best of times. It would only get worse once he started adding the rest of the ingredients.

Why do I do this to myself?

There were alchemists who scooped up ingredients with their bare hands and measured them by feel or the voices of their ancestors. Not being suicidal, Ori used a spoon. At arms’ length. If he could have moved it with his mind he would’ve done that instead. One scoop into the alembic. Two. Three.

Nothing exploded. He waited, watching the water turn from green to blue. When it began to bubble, he added the distilled shell and an eighth of an ounce powdered aethersand. Steam rose, stinging his eyes.

Ah, right. Science.

If this worked, it would sharpen the drinker’s mind and speed their hands—not to mention make him a significant amount of money. If it didn’t…

He watched it boil, one eye on the timer he’d set. At the first shrill beep, he swooped in to take his new concoction off the fire.

Of course, that was when one of his smarter—or more sycophantic—assistants called through the door, “Master Tarkona?”

“If you hear a thud, come scrape me off the floor!” he called back.

She muttered something about him being a nutjob. Since this was true, he decided to ignore her.

Meanwhile, the tisane had cooled enough to be drinkable, so he braced himself and took a swig. It tasted predictably disgusting—he made a mental note to add sugar—but he didn’t immediately keel over.

Long seconds passed.

He was still alive. He could test its efficacy later.

Well! Putting that in the partial success column.

Chapter Text

Alan Vesper had once been a decurion of the XIVth Legion. He could lead troops into battle, fight beside them, and shoot almost as well as she could. He wasn’t a bad cook, and he knew his way around magitek. The Ironworks had already hired him on; last she’d heard, he’d been working on an air-cooling system to help keep their food supplies from rotting in the heat. He looked fine as all hells in a tank top. If he’d been Xaela and not, y’know, an ex-Evil Shite Bastard Fucker from the school of Evil Bastards, he would’ve been perfect husband material. (Not that Gan was thinking about marrying him! She’d only known him a month! But. Well. He wasn’t the worst option. That was all.)

He also didn’t know how to ride.

“I know how to ride,” he said, offended.

She gave him a long, level stare. It was a good one; she’d learned it off Rita.

And it worked, too, because he couldn’t meet her eyes and kept glancing around the Reach’s stable as though the Ala Mhigan chocobos or Rita’s drake might help him. “I do,” he huffed. “We had canes montani at home—back in Ilsabard—and Father Briardionne made me learn to ride that horsebird of his—”

“Birds an’ giant dogs don’t count,” she said flatly, and patted West Wind’s side. The golden mare flicked an ear in her direction.

“They do so.”

Portia had served under him back when he was, to hear her say it, a snooty uptight arsehole. If she could see the huffy pout on his face, she’d laugh herself sick. Gan’s own lips twitched, but she managed to bite back a smirk. This was a serious matter, after all. It was like sewing or cooking—everyone should know how to ride. “Al. Get on the horse.”

He got on the horse. She winced. “Bloody ‘ells, not like that—you sit like a sack of feckin’ popotoes!” Granted, she couldn’t actually tell him what he was doing wrong—she’d first sat on a horse when she was four and her instruction had involved her granny poking her with a stick to keep her properly in the saddle—but she knew shite posture when she saw it.

Annoyingly, she didn’t have a stick, and settled for smacking him more or less in the kidneys until he straightened up. “No, keep yer bloody shoulders straight—where are your heels an’ why ain’t they down? You think the stirrups are a suggestion? And don’t—”

Too late. He’d already instinctively brought his knees in, probably because she’d just poked his calf for emphasis, and West Wind was taking a step forward. The frozen panic on Alan’s face was hilarious. (Not cute. Totally not cute. She was not going to—aw, hells, who was she fooling? It was cute.) “Um?! Miss Gantsetseg—”

She sighed. “Relax. I won’t let her bolt off with you. But ‘tis like horsebirds—if you’re tense, she’s tense. And if you squeeze with yer legs like that, she’s gonna think you wanna run.”

Almost imperceptibly at first, Alan started to relax. How he managed to do this without losing his posture was a mystery. Maybe it was a Garlean thing. “Like dogs.”

“Exactly.” She paused, eyeing him. “You know, that’s just proof the Empire is idjits. You lot have technological miracles and dogs big enough to ride, and you think war’s the best way to conquer the world? Sell us the swivin’ dogs!”

He huffed out a laugh. “If the Empire was ruled by intelligent men, they wouldn’t be here. And they’d be very surprised that anyone cared about their local livestock. Even they don’t care about their local livestock.”

If they did, she’d probably have never met him. He’d still be running his family’s kennels in Ilsabard, instead of joining the army for fame and glory. Sure, it was evil fame and evil glory doled out by people who weren’t fit to brush her Khatun’s horses, but she couldn’t fault the outcome. Not if it led to this warm, dusty afternoon smelling of hay and horsebirds and saddle leather, Alan smiling ruefully down at her.

“Like I said,” she replied, idly patting his calf and trying not to think about how red he went. “Idiots. Alright now, what you do here is hold the reins loosely…”

By the end of the bell, he wasn’t going to win any awards but he also hadn’t fallen off, so she counted that as progress.

Chapter Text

My dear children,

Perhaps this letter will reach Tural before you do, but I wanted to reassure you Both that we are all quite well. We have received no Unwanted Visitors. Mother says the hunting is poor.

Always
Mama & Dad

[One week later]

Mama, Dad,

We have landed safety in the city of TudiTuliyollal. My friend Ritanelle was there to greet us, & made us very welcome. She assured us that we will be Safe in this country for as long as we wish to stay, but I hope it will not be a very long vacation. Kiki was quite Ill on the trip over, but has since recovered. The city is beautiful tho’ very hot even this late in the year. I am sending you scarves for the coming winter. Tell Grandmother I will hunt when the hunting is good; it is very poor here indeed.

Your daughter

[One week and two days later]

Children,

Still doing well. Miss you terribly. Business is good, but we have had Visitors. Mirra is stepping out with Firmien from down the street; do you remember him? I hope you’re enjoying Tural. The scarves are Wonderful and will keep us warm. The hunting has improved; without you and Rita around, the pests have grown bolder. Do Not fear. We are safe. Your sisters send their love.

Mama & Dad

[Three days later, by moogle post]

Mama & Dad,

How can I not fear? When there are vermin threatening you? Kiki is enjoying the city life here; I can come home if you have need of me. Only say the word.

I do remember Firmien. As long as Mirra is happy, so am I.

Rrisya

[Two weeks later]

Children,

Stay there. Enjoy the city. We have received help from an Unexpected Source. While we knew your friend Rita had many cousins, we did not expect so many of them to arrive. We are guarded, and our business increases. Her Cultural Center is a very comfortable place. Love you always. We hope to see you home soon.

Mama & Dad

[The letters end here.]

The scuff of bare feet on reed mats. A low growl.

“Rrita.”

“What?” Indignant, but not surprised.

“You didn’t need to do that.”

“Of course I did. We’re friends, aren’t we? Would I let your folks suffer because the Conjurers’ Guild is a pack of cunts?”

Silence.

And then a soft impact and a squeak, as though someone has just been hugged very hard.

Chapter Text

Outside of Ishgard, he is just another adventurer. A reasonably well-off one, perhaps, whose free company estate is full of the trophies of his slain foes in case his current ones get any ideas. But still just an adventurer, one of thousands.

In Ishgard, he is a priest of Halone, and that still means something. Especially when someone is trying to interfere with his congregation.

And most especially when they interrupt the end of Mass.

Parishioners are getting to their feet, buttoning up their coats, ushering their sleepy children towards the door. If their bellies aren’t all full, at least they’ve had a bowl of soup each. (This time, the meat is fresh loaghtan; Gantsetseg was so horrified at the idea of his people subsisting off rats that she’s been personally supplying the sheep these past few weeks. He is allowed to pay her back in kisses. It works out.) He’s given a sermon of just under an hours’ length, enough to give them something to think on but not long enough to bore them to tears. While he can’t speak for the rest of them, he is looking forward to going home.

Of course, that’s when a particularly ragged young Anneliese Desrolins body-checks the door open, sprints blindly inside, nearly knocks over old Madame Smythe, swerves around the hearth in the center of the room, and barrels towards him. He opens his mouth to shout—

And then a pair of Temple Knights barge in after her, clanking like a bag of silverware and armed to the teeth.

His congregation, nearly as one, shrink away. They have little enough in this world; they can’t afford to risk losing any of it. Anneliese dives behind his lectern as he steps out of the way, ice filling his veins.

(It is not fear. He is not the one in danger, nor will he allow danger to enter here. It is the closest he has ever felt to the Fury.)

One of the Knights—he doesn’t know their names, there’s been a significant shuffling of the ranks since the war ended—demands, “Hand over that thief!”

Now, it is possible that Anneliese is a thief. Likely, in fact. But her shoes are patched with old newspapers, and her coat is mostly holes, so he really doesn’t care. (Things have gotten better—so much better!—since the Firmament was built, since the poor folk of the Brume have a chance to leave it for a better neighborhood with thicker walls, but the Firmament is only so large and these streets are home. He will not begrudge his people for surviving.)

More importantly, she is trembling. He will not stand for it.

He walks forward, aware of what the Knights must see. A tall, gray Elezen, his priestly robes much-darned, seemingly unarmed. They step back as he approaches.

His voice is even. Measured. Cold as the falling snow outside. “I think, perhaps, you have forgotten whose house you are in.”

The louder Knight splutters, “Father Briardionne—”

He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to. The room is so quiet that the crackling hearth is almost a shock to the ear. “Your zeal is noteworthy, but would be better saved for our true enemies. The Fury will hear the most secret whispers of your heart.”

“But…”

Evrard tilts his head, deliberately looking down at the Knight with an expression that suggests he’s something he’d scrape off his shoe. “If you seek spiritual counsel, sers, you are of course welcome in Her house. If not, I am sure that such staunch defenders of Ishgard have more important things to do than baselessly accuse Her children. Yes?”

These are men with swords. Men who are accustomed to throwing their weight around, to bullying those weaker than them. But the body of a priest is sacrosanct, their words the words of the Fury Herself, and while Evrard isn’t normally one to lean on his position…

Well, he does take a grim satisfaction in seeing the Knights awkwardly shuffle out. Particularly when he adds a casual, “I will pray for your souls,” and one of them actually flinches.

Chapter Text

Theoretically the Academia Militaris is merit-based (the test takes hours, and a depressing amount of would-be officers wash out at the physical), but everyone knows it’s wealth and patronage that determines who gets in and the pecking order once you do. Senators’ children and the scions of noble houses know they’ll get the best spots, the most opportunities, and they brag accordingly. None of them are shy about discussing their aspirations, typically at great length and volume. This one wants to be a supply officer; that one won’t be happy until there’s a mal in front of her surname. The less ambitious ones coast along, hoping for a cushy posting in lush Locus Amoenus or the busy, bustling capital.

Yaellia pyr Ivros—a courtesy title, one she hasn’t truly earned until she graduates—keeps her dreams to herself. Oh, nobody would be surprised by her lofty goals; she’s the daughter of provincial vintners, and even though the province is Locus Amoenus and her parents are rich vintners, almost anything would be a step up in her classmates’ eyes. But she’s not naive. She knows what will happen if she tells them why.

At best, they will laugh in her face.

At worst, a knock on her door in the middle of the night, and official condolences to her family.

So she says nothing, and lets her silence stoke her resolve. One day, she will be tol Ivros, van Ivros, and on that day—when she marches at the head of an army, second only to the Emperor himself—she will return to Corvos. And she will make it better. Citizenship for the Aan, food for hungry bellies, death and demotions for those soldiers who disgrace the ivory banner. No one will fear midnight knocks or their neighbors’ whispered ire. There will be peace, freedom, justice and security in her Empire.

She just needs to get there first.

“Spar with me,” she says to Alanais pyr Venditor. He’s in his last year, due to ship out any week now with the war against Eorzea ramping up. He’s not from the provinces, but his part of Ilsabard is so rural he might as well be. Like her, he burns with ambition. Unlike her, he favors the gunblade, and she’ll need the practice.

(She’s seen how her fellow soldiers act. She knows there are duels in her future, and she’ll have no one saying she’s unfit to hold her position by right of combat.)

They spar. She loses.

“Again,” she snaps, picking herself up off the dusty ground.

She starts to win. One match, then another. And another.

In between, she studies law, philosophy, ethics, logistics. Her teachers praise her diligence even as they tear apart her essays. She freezes when the frumentarii look at her a moment too long, but their shark eyes slide past her and she remembers to breathe. She will survive this. She has to.

Alanais is sent to Eorzea, and dies there. His family doesn’t even have weapons to bury.

She misses him. She mourns him.

She redoubles her efforts, because that will not be her.

The war moves on, from Eorzea—a crippling defeat—to uprisings in Doma, Nagxia, Gyr Abania. That last one is where she’s eventually stationed. She is told it is a great honor; the Crown Prince himself leads the XIIth. If she does well, she may impress him, and then all that she’s ever wanted will be in her grasp.

(It’s been years since she’s seen the sun-soaked fields of Corvos, the rolling hills full of grape vines, the stables where the workers taught her to play dice. She wonders how many of them are still there. False gods, she wonders how many of them are still alive. The Populares have not been well liked recently.)

(She knows how the Crown Prince handled the rebellion in Doma.)

Yaellia pyr Ivros has earned her title, but there are yet greater heights to aspire to. She goes to Gyr Abania.

Chapter Text

A dark alley, lit only by the moon. The thump of four pairs of booted feet. The rattle of a cart’s wheels, slow under a heavy load.

The quiet snck of a struck match. A long, meditative sigh. The smell of expensive pipe tobacco.

A different set of booted footsteps; a single man this time. He’s walking fast, but he’s tired and it shows.

“This the shipment?” His voice is a low, rumbling drawl.

A sharp huff. “You’re late.”

“Well, you know...traffic.”

“You flew here.”

Clothes rustle as he folds his arms. “You don’t bribe the Radiant Host enough, old man.”

“I’ve tried. They are irritatingly principled. But your ship is still airworthy, correct?”

There is a distinctly insulted silence. As if he would let his ship—his home—fall to pieces. “This all you’ve got for me? Doesn’t look like much.”

“I don’t pay you to ask questions, Captain. I pay you to fly.”

“Speaking of...”

“Here.” The jingle of coins. Quite a lot of coins.

He whistles lowly through his teeth. “Thanks.”

“Oh, you’re quite welcome.” The soft, silken sound of a blade leaving its sheath. “Do be aware that if any of it is missing when you arrive, my buyers will be quite displeased.”

A soft huff of laughter. “Who do you think I am? You?”

There’s a long pause, and then a sharp chuckle. “You brat. Whatever happened to respecting your elders?”

“You see any worthy of respect, point ‘em out—” A quiet impact. A hiss. The faint rustle of someone rubbing their head, possibly because they’ve just been smacked upside it.

“You’re lucky I like you.”

“I’m a likable guy.”

An amused snort.

A grunt. The creak of wheels. “...Hey. Listen. Might not be around for a bit after this, I’m headin’ up north.”

“Corvos?”

“Bozja. They’ve got right of plunder up there, with the rebellion goin’ on.”

“...Try not to die.”

“Heh. Will do. See ya ‘round, mate.”

Chapter Text

“Forgemistress? Cen Gallius?”

People—mostly Garlean—had started calling her that a while back, and by now Portia had gotten in the habit of responding. She lifted her head, already annoyed. She was working, damn it. The forge was smoky and loud and now she also had to deal with clients on top of the pipes she was riveting? Bloody rude, was what it was.

The woman who’d interrupted her was already wincing, yellow-eyed gaze directed somewhere over her shoulder. Her voice was low, a little raspy, and painfully over-enunciated. “I’m terribly sorry to bother you. I have swords I was hoping to have repaired, and I was told you are the best. Of course, there’s no rush…”

Portia wouldn’t call herself the best, but the reputation was pretty flattering. She set her hammer down, studying the woman properly. Wiry where Portia was bulky, dark where Portia was fair, but she held herself like a soldier and her hair didn’t quite hide her third eye. No uniform, of course, but there was something familiar about her.

“You’re one of the ex-tempered lot from the Ist Legion, aren’t you.”

The woman flinched minutely, and then drew herself up straighter as though that would help. “Yaellia rem Quinctius, Forgemistress. Forgive my lack of manners.”

Mentally, Portia rolled her eyes. Forgive my lack of manners—she’d met snooty pili before, but this one talked like her tongue was made of solid gold. “Ah, ‘s fine. I’d love to know why you need swords, though, seein’ as how there isn’t a war on anymore and your old commander’s dead as a doornail.”

Yaellia’s lip curled. “Van Cinna was unfit to command so much as a dog kennel, and I hope you don’t think I’m stupid enough to restart a war against people who saved my life.”

Portia looked at her.

The silence between them stretched until Yaellia made eye contact, winced, and conceded, “...Though I grant you that my Legion have not exactly been shining examples of good sense so far.”

“Could be worse. I was in the XIVth.” As Yaellia’s face lit up—fuck, right, Baelsar had been a national hero at one point—Portia hastily held up a hand. “The idiots who dug up an Allagan superweapon and blew up their own damn castrum, mind you. Strategic genius and common sense don’t always go together.”

That earned her a snort, effectively defusing whatever tension had been threatening to gather. “A lesson I have learned many times over. But to answer your question…”

Yaellia trailed off, twisting her earring-less earlobe, and continued in a tone that said she’d absolutely rehearsed this, probably in front of a mirror. “I have just been medically cleared, but my husband is still recuperating. While I am grateful for the aid your Ilsabard Contingent has rendered to me and mine, we have nothing but the clothes on our backs, and—we have children. They are safe in Corvos, but I can do more good for them as an adventurer than I can attempting to exercise my nonexistent construction skills.”

Portia considered this. Adventurers—the ones that survived, anyway—did usually make gobs of gil. Gan was constantly showing up with aetherwoven cloth or magically-enhanced metal or Allagan Tomestones of Whateverthefuck (which were more useful than you’d think; the Allagans might’ve been evil buggers, but they were evil buggers who knew how to build shite that lasted). And Yaellia called her home province Corvos, which wasn’t a word you’d hear out of the mouth of a loyalist.

Unfortunately, the woman was still talking. “...id consider running for office, but. Well. There are clearly more pressing matters at hand, and I would not think of seizing power while my countrymen struggle to secure food and shelter—”

“Have you got the swords with you?”

Yaellia stuttered mid-sentence, gaping at her like a fish. “Gah—oh, yes, here—”

What she mostly had was two very fine hilts, their guards curved like crescent moons, one with a fulm of straight, double-edged steel still attached and the other almost entirely bladeless, its remaining shards wrapped in an old shirt. At one point there’d been a channel down the middle for ceruleum, enabling the blades to ignite in blue flame. They looked bad, but there was promise; if nothing else, they’d be an interesting challenge to break up the malms of sewer pipe and I-beams.

Portia looked from them to their owner, made a few mental calculations, and nodded. “I’ll have ‘em ready by the end of the week.”

“Oh, thank you—”

Portia waved her off before she could do something embarrassing like bow; the clasped hands and shining eyes were warning signs. “Thank me when I’m done.”

Chapter Text

“Your mentor was a godsdamned asshole.”

Pavo opened his mouth to protest. It hadn’t been that bad. He’d had food, a mostly warm place to sleep; he’d been taught his letters. Surely—

“He was, and you know it.” Pause. “You...do know it, right? You were a child. You deserved better.”

Rather than answer right away, Pavo turned to stare out at the forest below them. Waxak Cib, father to his cousin Wak Chanil and half a dozen other children in the village, unquestionably knew what he was talking about when it came to mentorship. None of the children of the Fallen Stars were scared of him. Nobody even flinched when he raised his hand. Soft, hissed a voice like Kalju’s in his mind. Soft and weak.

He’d been helping Pavo stretch canvases for half the day, and now his concerned gaze was boring into the side of Pavo’s head.

Well, he was owed an answer. “I’m starting to realize that,” he muttered finally. He was. Really. It helped more than he thought to be here, in this collection of villages, surrounded by Viera who all mostly liked each other. Who all mostly liked him. Kalju had been so consumed by his dreams of a free Dalmasca that there had been no space for a boy-child who didn’t serve them, and Pavo had learned that anything more than quick sketches had best be done in secret. There had been few kind words between them.

He would never have helped Pavo prep his canvases. You should be training. Don’t you have anything better to do?

This is better, he thought. With the birds in the trees, the sound of rustling branches and laughing children, the rich smells of mole sauce and grilled meat and sour pulque covering up the stink of the gesso. I’d forgotten what it was like to have fun.

It still felt a little like betrayal.

...And he was clearly slipping when it came to hiding his expressions, because now Waxak Cib was frowning at him. “Sure, he gave you the bare minimum necessities of survival. But were you happy? Safe?”

“I wouldn’t have been safe back in Golmore, either.”

Waxak Cib grimaced, bending over his frame again. “There are ways to minimize harm. That prick threw you into a cenote and expected you to swim to the sea.”

“It wasn’t a cenote—”

Waxak Cib cut him off with a gesture, his ears laying back. “If you keep telling me horrible shit he did, I am going to take the next boat to Dalmasca and make sure he’s dead.”

“You’re not a fighter.” Nobody in the Fallen Stars was, really; they had guards to deal with wild animals, hunters for game, and occasionally someone took up arms and joined the Landsguard, but by and large they weren’t lethal. They hadn’t had Kalju to hammer them into a knife. Hells, he’d trounced all their best hunters in an afternoon. Waxak Cib was an accountant in Tuliyollal who made the trip back to the village on weekends.

“I will learn,” the older man huffed.

Jingling footsteps marked the arrival of Wak Chanil and her ankle bracelets. “Who’re we beating up, Dad?”

“Your cousin’s disgrace of a mentor.”

“Dibs!”

Pavo spluttered. He’d kill you without a second thought warred with He’s probably dead already, but what made it out of his mouth instead was, “If anyone kills him, it’s going to be me!”

Waxak Cib sighed. Wak Chanil grinned at both of them. “Excellent, we can plot your revenge after lunch. Come on, the grill’s still hot.”

Chapter Text

Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen
We daren’t go a-hunting…

It was all her fault.

She’d let go of Avery’s hand. They’d been half running through the woods, barely caring where they wound up as long as it was away from the Eulmoran army, and she’d been so focused on keeping up with the rest of the Scions and not falling flat on her face and not listening to any horrible songs or childish giggles from the too-tall trees or wriggling shrubs that she’d let go of Avery’s hand.

And of course, the Good Neighbors had seen him—knight that he was, braver and stronger than any of the rest of them because he’d chosen this, he hadn’t had the memory of Louisoix or the love of Hydaelyn urging him to walk the path of the Dawn—and stolen him away.

Thancred said Feo Ul was fond of Avery. Pixies on the First probably weren’t the same as the fae she’d grown up with a healthy respect for back home—where you spat, and touched iron, and never ever called them by name because the Elementals were bad enough—but that wasn’t as reassuring as he probably thought it was. The Good Neighbors weren’t the sort to surrender their favorite toys easily.

A toy was about how Feo Ul spoke of Avery too, their precious sapling. But they were a furiously flitting orange beacon ahead of her, seeking out any trace of the pixies who had stolen him, so at the moment...

She’d been terrified. She still was. But this was Avery.

(He’d taken half the Light of Holminster’s Lightwarden into himself and then wrapped warm, solid arms around her to hold her together as the rest of it tore at her seams, as her world was blank pain. His voice had been so soft.)

(“Forgive me, my lady. I—I couldn’t let you bear this burden alone. Not if I could carry it for you.”)

(She was a Warrior of Light. A champion of Eorzea. One of Hydaelyn’s beloved children. Nobody had ever done that for her before.)

She was past caring about the shifting, dappled shade. About the thorns catching her clothes and slicing her exposed skin. About what might be moving in the trees, watching her, waiting to strike. She didn’t care if the oak looming ahead of her was about to crush her with its branches or if the pines she passed were actually hungry treants. The slippery leaves under her boots might as well have been solid stone.

Every seven years, lady,
They pay a tithe to hell
As I’m so fair and full of flesh
I fear ‘twill be myself

She was vaguely aware of Thancred keeping pace with her and Alisaie lagging behind, the same way she was aware of her lungs burning and her legs starting to voice complaints. It didn’t matter. She could count the number of real, close friends she had on one hand, and she wasn’t going to let the bloody pixies have this one.

Thorns left trails of fire across her forehead, her shoulders, her bare thighs. Feo Ul zipped into a hedge she summoned Titan-Egi to crash through.

And on the other side, bound in thorns and faerie dreams, lay Avery.

She’d never cast herself in the role of Janette. The boys she’d known growing up had barely been worth crossing the street for, never mind fighting a Wilding Queen. But Avery’s chest rose and fell, thorns dimpling the leather of his breastplate, and she forgot all the tactics she’d ever learned.

The pixies were fast. She, wrapped in Garuda’s wind, was faster. Her bare hand hit the nest of thorns just ahead of their dive.

"Avery Mordeterre!” she snapped. “Temple Knight of Ishgard. Scion of the Seventh Dawn. Wake up, damn you!"

And then she threw herself into the dream.

A little while later, Avery’s eyes opened.

Chapter Text

Her scales weren’t her own anymore.

Her horns were foreign to her. Had she really heard through these all her life? Hadn’t her eardrums been naked, exposed to the world?

Her limbs were clumsy as a newborn foal’s, her tail an awkward whippy length of sharp-tipped muscle and bone almost too heavy to move. She could barely remember how.

It had been so—so fast. One minute she’d been sitting down around the fire, clutching her bowl of soup and smiling at the Garlean refugee across from her. (He’d flinched, she remembered that. Probably it had been the fangs.) And the next there’d been that sound, and she’d—

Zenos had smiled at her. She’d had to see her own body propped in a chair like a doll, head lolling to one side and blood caught in the grooves of her scales, and Zenos had smiled. Why shouldn’t he have been smiling? He’d had what he wanted, after all. He’d always been bloody obsessed with her, with her strength. He’d called her his friend.

She couldn’t remember much for a while after that; maybe her brain was protecting her. There had just been cold, and snow, and pain. She thought there’d been screaming. She knew she’d been staggering by the time she’d made it to Camp Broken Glass, limbs turning stiff as a corpse as the frostbite set in.

Zenos had been wearing her skin like an ill-fitting suit, and he’d nearly killed the man she loved.

“You’re safe now,” Hoelun said.

“I’m going to rip his head off and shit down his neck,” Alan growled.

Her cousin had rallied every udgan and shaman in the camp to ensure her soul was safely back in her body once Alan had beaten Zenos out of it. (He’d been magnificent, if only she could appreciate it.) The entire room still smelled like blood and burning herbs, and there was something painted on her forehead scales. She didn’t know what it was. She hadn’t been able to bear a mirror yet.

Alan had held her as tightly as if a monster had never lived in her skin. He was still holding her now, solid and warm and alive. It should have been reassuring. It had been, until they’d told her what she’d missed while she was—while she was—

(White snow, shadows on shadows, flickers of movement out of what she couldn’t call an eye. Black steel too heavy in her hand; she only sort of knew how to use a sword. Zenos, red-black and laughing in her voice, with his pet demon trying to carve chunks out of Alan. The roar of a gunblade—her borrowed voice, screaming with a mouthful of blood—)

She said, “That’s a bloody fantastic idea. Can you do that after you get me some soup?”

He got her some soup.

Alone—finally alone, for the first time since she’d woken up—she sat and stared at her hands. She knew these hands, still. The blue skin, the midnight scales, the little scars on the knuckles from a thousand mishaps. She pushed her sleeves up. On her forearms, the scales were still warped from where they’d never quite grown right after the Praetorium.

One of her claws was broken.

They’d healed everything else. The hypothermia, the stab wounds, the sprained tail. She could feel bandages shift when she moved. But one of her claws was broken.

There was an odd scraping sound. It took her a moment to realize it was coming from her tail curling in on itself, the spines at the end scuffing against the sheets. She tried to breathe and almost choked, spots dancing in front of her eyes. There was a fist inside her chest, wrapping around her heart and squeezing. Dying, she thought, though the idea felt as distant as the moon. She’d survived Garleans and airship crashes and lunar primals. She couldn’t die here, in this bed, with her friends and family not fifty yalms away.

Her claws scrabbled frantically at her forearm scales, raking across them without finding purchase. She could dig through them if she really wanted, tear them off, and maybe the blood would purge this—whatever this was, this leftover demon clawing at her too-tight skin from the inside.

Sharp, stinging pain tore up her hand. She stared at it, uncomprehending.

She’d broken another claw.

Chapter Text

His vow of chastity had always lain lightly on him. Oh, he was tempted, like most any man might be, but in a contest between his desire and his goddess there was a clear winner. He’d been perfectly polite to unmarried maidens dropping off fresh-baked pies and unmarried men showing up to chop wood for his fire with their sleeves rolled up. There was a higher calling.

And then, sadly, he’d met Busari of the Bayaqud, and between the shock of the Dragonsong War and the...everything about the man, well…

He’s not a very good priest anymore.

He knows this. He’s accepted this. Most days, it doesn’t bother him; vows of chastity are meant to focus the mind on the Fury’s will, and he’s never aspired to a rank where they were actually required. If the Fury has a problem with Alan kissing him on the cheek or Gantsetseg wrapping her tail around his shins, She is welcome to tell him Herself.

But sometimes, he looks at both of them and feels like the scum of the earth.

“Are you entirely sure…?”

Gantsetseg is probably not trying to seduce him. Alan definitely isn’t. If nothing else, they’ve been trudging through freezing, rocky Urqopacha for three days and while he certainly wouldn’t begrudge a much warmer bedroll he’s fairly sure they’re all too exhausted. And there’s Master Waters and Archon Augurelt (“Thou hast helped me knit a man’s intestines back together, thou mayest call me Urianger”) in the next tent, which is extremely not soundproof.

(Koana gets his own, much larger tent to himself. The privileges of rank.)

So no, he really doesn’t think anything is going to happen. Nothing’s happened yet, and he’s been staying later and later in their yurt back home. But the bed in that yurt is enormous, big enough to fit all three of them and Alan’s long-legged fluffy white dog; he can be reasonably assured of not waking up wrapped around either of them like an octopus. At least, not accidentally.

They’ve had to put all three of their bedrolls together in this tent, and they’re still not all going to fit unless they all agree to flagrantly disregard each other’s personal space. He and Alan have shared tighter quarters before, but that was—well. Before. When they were only friends and their chief concern was not freezing to death. If his feelings had bloomed then—if either of them had said anything then, before Busari, before Gantsetseg…

But they hadn’t, and he doesn’t know what would’ve happened if Gantsetseg hadn’t been braver than both of them put together. Probably he would have spontaneously combusted the next time one of them wore a sleeveless shirt.

He looks at Gantsetseg again. She’s the shortest of them by a few ilms and has shamelessly claimed the middle spot, still bundled up to her nose. Her horn cozies have little tassels on them. It’s probably the least arousing situation he’s ever seen her in and yet there’s still heat crawling up his face, because now he knows how the body under all those layers feels under his hands.

She rolls her eyes. As well she should; this is normal for the Bayaqud, and she was the first one to point out they all had two hands. (In Ishgard, such a sentiment starts wars.) “Wouldn’t’ve asked if I wasn’t, aye? Get in here.”

Alan doesn’t say anything. He just shucks his boots and coat, sits down on Gantsetseg’s other side, and holds out a hand to Evrard with shy hope in his eyes. There’s a sliver of bare skin revealed by his loose shirt, warm peach-pale.

They have a long way to go tomorrow. They’re all tired. A good priest wouldn’t be having the thoughts Evrard is having.

He unbuckles his boots and gets into bed.

Chapter Text

“Hey, you’re from Garlemald, right?”

Tiber takes a drag of his cigarette and gestures at his third eye.

Maonehe shakes her head, grinning at herself. “Right, silly question.”

Now he’s grinning too. He can’t help it; ever since he fell in with the band of musicians calling themselves the Turali Tempest (“We’re still workshopping the name”), he’s found himself smiling more and more. He’s been happy since he joined the Scions—of course he has—but for so long he’s mostly thought of duty. Of protection. Of living up to the trust placed on him by his new comrades. Of fitting in, because it is an Eorzean organization surrounded by Eorzeans and while Vivian is as Garlean as him they’re not Garlean like him; his accent and his third eye and a thousand little cultural differences will always set him apart no matter how hard he tries. He doesn’t want to be set apart. He wants…

He wants this. Sunlight, friendship, not being any stranger than anyone else from across the salt. The only thing that would make it better would be if Vivian was here, but at least they’ve got linkpearls.

“Why do you ask?”

She shrugs, tail curling around her leg. Her fur and hair is bright orange everywhere except the tip of that tail, which she’s dyed a shockingly bright blue. “Was it weird, leaving it? I’ve heard you guys use magitek for everything. It must’ve been hard to adjust.”

The memory makes him wince. “It was. It is. But...the sacrifice is worth it.” Honesty compels him to add, “Mostly. I cannot tell you how much I miss the cinema sometimes.”

Strangely, she deflates. “...Oh,” she mutters. “Good to know.”

“What did I say?”

She flaps an irritated hand, and her tail, at him. “It’s not you! It’s just...I have a big brother. Had? He went north to Yyasulani for work.”

And then the dome went up, and thirty years passed in a month. He can see it in her face, and it makes him want to kill Zoraal Ja all over again. “I am sorry,” he murmurs.

She promptly knuckles his shoulder, so much like Portia that he jumps a little in shock. “He’s still alive! He’s just—he’s coming here, he’s coming home, and—I don’t know how to help him, okay? It’s got to be weird, going from all that electrope and shit to…” She gestures around them, shrugging.

Tiber has to admit that he can’t imagine a place less like Solution Nine. The Tuliyollal fountain they’re both perched on the edge of is sending droplets of cool water back into their faces. There are no flickering lights to give him a headache; he can’t hear even the faintest electric hum. If he takes a deep breath, he smells cigarette smoke and grilling tacos and the ocean. (Mostly the former. He stubs his cigarette out.)

“Well,” he says, considering his words. “Alexandria is much, much more...technological than even Garlemald is. But people are the same everywhere. He will likely be happy to have familiar food. Turali food. Alexandrian food is…”

“Bad?”

“...I have had worse.”

“Bad.”

“At least he speaks the language, so he is doing much better than I was already.”

Maonehe blinks at him. “You didn’t speak Eorzean?”

So, of course, he has to tell her everything, starting with enlisting in the Imperial army and being shipped to Gyr Abania (“Imagine Shaaloani, but vertical.”) By the end of it she’s laughing and telling him she feels much more prepared to deal with her brother, so—even though he’s bright red with retroactive mortification at just how bad he’d been—it’s worth it.

Chapter Text

Nothing in Dalmasca stayed clean for long. Oh, people tried. The common folk had brooms and dust-catchers and rugs. The Empire cursed it daily and invented bigger and better machines to sweep it away for them. But Rabanastre was the Jewel of the Desert, and the sand got everywhere. Pavo had been clean when he went to bed, but when he woke there was grit on his face and in his eyes, even caught in the fur of his ears. Kalju scoffed at him, shook his head, and said, “Clean up.”

Clean, not wash, because water was precious. Water was expensive. There wasn’t enough of it to waste on getting truly clean every day. He scrubbed his skin with a dry towel and his teeth with salt. He combed his hair and—more carefully—his ears. He dressed quickly, mourning the feeling of fresh air on his bare skin. They went out.

Their target was slumming it in one of the poorer neighborhoods, where sand crept under doors and through windows. He was sweating under his armor, gluing more sand to his skin, and it was disgusting. He knew better than to complain. Kalju didn’t like when he complained, unless it was about the Empire. Nothing else was important enough to waste breath on.

There was an inn. Well, there was something that, in better years, might have been an inn. Now it was a greasy hole in the wall with whores loitering in corners and a bartender who was as drunk as the lowlifes he served. The Garlean supply officer was on what looked like his fourth beer when Kalju sauntered up. Pavo watched from the doorway, a simple spell rendering him invisible. He might not have bothered. Male Viera or not—pretty male Viera, everyone always called him pretty—he was a known quantity here. Kalju had been bringing him to places like this for years. Nobody gave him a second glance.

Unsteady footsteps. A dark alley.

The flash of steel.

Blood pooling at his feet, hot and sticky, mingling with the dust.

Kalju laid a hand on his shoulder. The weight of it anchored him to the earth, to this moment. “Good job,” he said simply.

That was all. He’d struck the blow, removed one more blot of Imperial filth from the streets, and all he got was Good job.

He said nothing.

There was still dust in his eyes. That must be why they were stinging.

He woke in the village of Fallen Stars, on his own sleeping mat, with the rain drumming on the roof. Everything smelled like rich, wet earth and damp leaves; a deep breath filled his lungs with hot, moist air. For a moment he could still feel that hand on his shoulder, could still hear Kalju’s deep voice. (He’d been happy then. He remembered that now. He’d thought it was all he was good for.)

But there was no dust here.

He took another breath, squeezing his eyes shut. There was no reason for them to burn.

Chapter Text

“What. Th’ fuck.”

“Omega,” Cid said flatly.

Gantsetseg and half the Ironworks had assembled at the Peering Stones, the closest thing to a staging point for their assault on the Yawn. That pit in the ground, seething with aether, had been creepy enough.

And then she’d looked up and spotted the perfectly circular hole blasted through what had once been a mountain.

As one, they all turned to stare at Nero, who showed rare good sense in taking a step back. “You cannot possibly be blaming me for this—”

“You woke it up!” Cid snapped.

“Given the alternative—”

At any other time, Gan would have been cheering on the fight and probably placing bets. (Currently, it was even odds whether the two of them would kill each other or get caught fucking in a supply closet first. If Garlean flirting was anything like Bayaqud flirting...well, it was still a toss-up.) At the moment, though, she barely noticed when Cid grabbed Nero’s collar to more effectively shout in his face. She was still staring at the mountain.

Omega had done that.

And they were going to fight it.

Her blood practically fizzed under her skin; restless, she bounced from foot to foot. It had lain dormant in Azys Lla for thousands of years. It had fought Shinryu to a standstill. It had blown a hole through a fucking mountain.

She barely noticed Alan and Wedge edging away from her until Alan asked, “Ah. Miss Gantsetseg?”

The cold air felt weird as it hit her bared fangs. Belatedly, she realized she was grinning like a fool. “We’re gonna shoot that thing in th’ face.”

Alan blinked. For a moment, she thought she’d turned him off; once she’d left the Steppes, she’d noticed that some folks got weird about violence, no matter how justified it was. She’d grown up stealing sheep, so she’d never seen why anyone’d go over all faint at a little stabbing. Sometimes, you just needed to make sure people knew you weren’t to be fucked with. (Rita got it. That was why Rita was so cool. Q’yala got it too, but ever since Gan had started working with the Ironworks...well, Q’yala wasn’t so cool anymore.)

And then he started to smile, cold and strange, and she remembered he’d actually been a Garlean officer. “I look forward to watching you do exactly that.”

So they braved the Yawn together, and it was as terrible and glorious as she’d imagined.

And even better, there were spoils to tally up afterwards. Omega might be made up of technological illusions, but the things it spawned were real enough. And what could be lifted and carried could be used. When she returned to the surface, it was with a broken device in her arms—something like a glass-fronted cube on a stand, which the Garleans said reminded them of their tele-viewing machines—and hundreds of ideas buzzing around her brain. Best of all, Nero had stayed behind in their little forward base platform, so there was no one to annoy her into attempted murder.

Now, if she could use the glass pane as a focusing mechanism and retrofit its weird summoning powers…

“What are you making?”

That was Alan, from a safe distance. She didn’t look up. “Mini summoning cube. Don’t tell Rita, she’ll lose her shite at the idea I might be tryin’ to automate her job.”

He made an odd, choked noise, probably in horror. She added, “I don’t think I can, she uses weird-arse Allagan magic, but wouldn’t it be useful t’ have a pocket behemoth?”

Alan was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Garlean magitek can do something similar with ceruleum. I wouldn’t object to giving them a taste of their own medicine.”

“Excellent. Pull up a,”—she paused, remembering most Eorzeans liked chairs—“patch o’ ground, and let’s have a look.”

They didn’t manage to make a pocket behemoth. They did manage to make a truly fantastic explosion, though.

Chapter Text

She had been tracking her quarry for days, noting his patrol schedules and favorite haunts, and this time—this time, she wasn’t alone. She would never be wholly alone again. There was comfort in that.

She’d chosen her target carefully. Wailer Alaimbert had served Gridania and his own coinpurse for ten years, taking out his petty frustrations on lone travelers. Keepers or Duskwights traveling alone or in small groups were his favorite victims; who would ever believe them over the word of a Wood Wailer? They were probably criminals anyway, went common city wisdom, and therefore they deserved whatever happened to them. And if one or two of them died from their wounds...well. That only brought down the surplus population. They weren’t worth caring about.

But they were. And a grieving widower had made the trek southwest of Quarrymill to seek aid. To seek vengeance.

He’d found Rrisya of the Otombe.

And for the first time, he’d found her clan.

Not the living members, of course. Rrisya lived alone with her coeurl. But the night before had been a new moon, and Rrisya had been...occupied.

(Antelope blood on her brow. The smoke of sacred herbs. Her mother and grandmother and aunts all chanting around her. Feeling cold, then hot, then cold again. Smoke curling against the roof of her mouth. Voices that had not spoken in generations whispering her name.)

That had been a week ago. She’d gotten…not used to it, not yet, but more comfortable. They would come when called, her grandmother promised; until then, there was nothing to suggest they were there.

Not until she was nearly on top of her quarry, perfectly camouflaged in the tree canopy, and a presence slid into her mind. It didn’t speak. It didn’t push her hands to move, her jaws to open. It didn’t demand blood. Unlike the spirit that had haunted her for years, it didn’t fill her with a craving for slaughter.

It just waited. Like a good hunter of the Otombe should.

Alaimbert was humming. He didn’t look up. They never did.

She thought of the man who had clasped her hands, tears bright in his eyes as he described what had happened to his husband—no, not “what had happened,” what Alaimbert had done—and followed. The trees cast darker shadows now.

Give me strength, she thought. Mothers of my mothers, give me strength.

The presence didn’t speak in words, but it didn’t need to. She felt it, seeing in her mind’s eye an ancient Keeper woman as strong and gnarled as a swamp mangrove, arms and legs protected by gator-hide armor. The paint on her face, under her hawk mask, was red as blood. Red as Rrisya’s own.

The fur on her ears bristled, her tail puffing out like a brush. Her many-times great-grandmother had hunted these woods for decades, slaying much more dangerous prey than one drunk Wailer. Boar, gators, goobbues. Red-black mist coiled around the haft of Rrisya’s spear. Like her ancestor, she wouldn’t need a second blow. And there were so, so many ways to dispose of a body out here.

Alaimbert stumbled over a rock.

She struck.

Chapter Text

“You mentioned a grimoire?”

It was a safer topic than I’m sorry about Zelenia or Calyx is a right cunt, isn’t he, and moreover it made Sphene light up with a passion that...well, reminded Rita a little bit of herself, when she’d just started at Mealvaan’s Gate. That same love for magic, for expanding the confines of her mind.

Sphene shifted her coffee aside. The tables at the Backrooms were long and low and perfect to spread notes on, which was unfortunately what people were doing now that this new foe had revealed himself; Shale’s data tablets and Gulool Ja’s electrope puzzles had colonized most of the one they were sitting at, and there was barely enough space for their drinks. Sphene set down a slim, leatherbound tome and slid it across to her. “This is the one I used when I was young.”

Normally, Rita would never open another spellcaster’s grimoire, mostly because they were very often spelled to prevent exactly that and she didn’t want to be turned into a sheep again. But Sphene had offered, so she flipped through it. The pages were yellowed, but not crumbling at her touch, and the margins were covered in tiny sketches: spirals, plants, birds, a palace. She paused over them. “Very nice! Did you draw all this?”

Sphene blushed. “Oh...yes.”

“You and Alphy would get on. He’s an artist too.”

“They’re just little sketches!” she huffed. “And I’m terribly out of practice.”

Four hundred years out of practice, Rita didn’t say. “Well, I can’t help you with art,”—she’d always preferred gemcutting to sketching—“but how much do you remember of your spellcraft?” The arrays inscribed on the pages were pretty well-formed, if a little simple. Still, that meant there was room for improvement.

Sphene dropped her gaze, fidgeting with her cuticles. “...Not much,” she muttered. “Theory, mostly. A few spells. Could you...that is…”

Rita waited. When the end of the sentence wasn’t forthcoming, she prompted, “Yes?”

Sphene shrank into herself, and once again Rita was reminded—painfully—of herself when she’d been just starting out. Before she’d even gotten to Limsa Lominsa, when she’d hopped off the chocobo cart from Drybone and stumbled into the Hourglass and given her name as Ritanelle for the first time. But Sphene was carved of stronger stuff than shed been at that age, and lifted her head to meet Rita’s eyes. “If it’s not too much trouble, perhaps we could compare notes?”

She’d never been a teacher before. Well, that wasn’t true. She’d given a guest lecture once at the Arcanist’s Guild and it had almost started a fistfight when she’d brought up aetheric layering over arcane constructs to produce nonstandard effects. She decided it didn’t count, and grinned across the table at Sphene. “I’d love to. I hope you’re good at math. And that you don’t mind...eh...goop.”

By the look on Sphene’s face, she wasn’t sure if she did mind goop, but she nodded anyway. “I was studying medical texts before.”

“...Ah.” She couldn’t help a wince. “Afraid I’ve never been a good healer.”

Sphene took a breath, and her eyes hardened. “That’s fine. I want to fight.”

And so you came to me. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Across the salt sea, she was an avatar of destruction. The godslayer. The champion of Eorzea. But when she’d landed in Tural, she’d been just another traveler. The people knew Wuk Lamat and Koana. They didn’t know her, or what she’d done. Sphene had only ever seen her fight once, and frankly with Avery at her back she hadn’t needed to try very hard. It shouldn’t have been that impressive.

And yet, Sphene wanted her to help her sharpen her skills. Rita decided to roll with it.

“Grand! So you’ll be fine when your enemies start hacking their lungs up.”

“...I doubt Calyx has any,” Sphene said dryly.

“We’ll find some. And you can do other things, too.” She paused, flipping through Sphene’s grimoire again. It was certainly possible that the people of Alexandria had turned the magic of the South Sea Isles into something she wouldn’t recognize in a thousand years, but the basic principles of arcanima were unchanging. Aether was aether and math was math.

Finally, something caught her eye. “Oh, I know this one! We call it Ruin where I’m from.”

“Oh, we call it Devastation!”

“Eh, same thing. Now, if you wanted to really ruin your enemy’s day, what you’d do is...”

Chapter Text

“The moon.”

“Aye.”

“The moon in the fucking sky?”

“Yep.”

“Bloody hells.”

“That’s what I said. Want t’ come see?”

“Want to—of course I want to see it!”

“I’ll get you clearance.”

“Have I said you’re my favorite sister?”

“I’m your only sister, you arse.”

And so it was that Tiber Gallius, Scion of the Seventh Dawn, traveled across malms of snow and the ruins of what had once been his city, crossed through the twisted halls of the Tower of Babil (very carefully; it hadn’t been structurally sound before he and the rest of the Ilsabard Contingent had gone through it) and stepped onto the teleporter that would take him to the skies.

The cold hit him first. It wasn’t as bad as Garlemald—there was no wind—but it still sliced into his exposed skin, making his face ache. And the air was painfully dry; he sniffed and hoped it wouldn’t give him a nosebleed. The last thing he wanted was to meet the Loporrits with blood all down his face.

Especially because, amidst the stark white rock and black shadows of the moon, there was a station full of them not a dozen yalms away. It wasn’t much—a brightly painted platform adorned with neon lights and, for some reason, carrots—but the Loporrits fueling up three truck transports with aether positively glowed with pride and good cheer. He felt himself smiling just to witness it.

One of them spotted him and bounced on their feet, waving frantically. “Hello! Hi! Over here! Are you going to Sinus Ardorum?”

He blinked, decided that it had probably been meant to evoke a gulf or hollow rather than the pocket of a robe or the inside of someone’s skull, and nodded. “I am. My sister Portia works there.”

The Loporrit beamed. “We know Portia! She’s great. Come on, hop in!” Then they turned away, yelling, “Racingway! We’ve got a passenger!”

Racingway did not instill confidence, but Tiber hadn’t gotten far in life by being a coward. He settled down in the bed of the truck, holding tightly to the grab bars installed on the side. The roar of engines and the slicing, sand-laden wind made it impossible to speak, but above all the noise he discovered that Racingway had installed a radio. (A loud one. Gantsetseg had clearly been involved at some point; come to think of it, he had passed her at Laterum clutching armloads of neon tubes and giggling, and had decided not to ask.) The thumping bass was strangely soothing, and his eyes started to drift shut.

And then Racingway stopped. “We’re here!”

Tiber brushed himself off, stood up in the truck bed, and stared.

Sinus Ardorum was a fortress. A ring of outbuildings—hangars, living quarters, false gods knew what those pylons were for—surrounded polished black roads and rings of defensive walls. In the center, the base itself had been built up in a huge, smooth dome that looked like it could survive an eighth Calamity. And there were so many people. Loporrits, yes, but also Hyurs and Miqo’te and—yes, he checked—a goodly number of his fellow Garleans as well. All of them bore the slightly harried look of people with a great deal to do and not a lot of time to do it in.

“...It’s beautiful,” he murmured.

Everyone he saw was clean, well-fed, happy. They had safe, warm places to sleep. They had magitek and plumbing and computation systems that worked. If there was a paradise, it looked something like this.

And of course there was Portia, rushing to meet him with a yell of, “Hey, Tibs! What do you think?”

He grinned so hard his face hurt. “It’s great! Show me around?”

She did. But even while he made appropriately impressed noises at the starship and the mechs and the accommodations, a sharp and nasty thought sunk its teeth into his mind.

If the moon could be built up like this, what was stopping them from doing the same for Garlemald?

He knew what. It was his countrymens’ damnable pride. Accept aid from the Loporrits? No, they’d rather freeze to death in the snow. And there would be no help coming from Eorzea, not after what the Empire had done to so much of the world. Only Vrtra had extended a helping hand, and Tiber supposed mortal conflicts would seem petty to a great wyrm. If Garlemald was going to rebuild—if it was going to attain these heights—its people would need to learn to work with others, instead of lording over them.

Well, then. The moon would be a good start.

Chapter Text

The good part about making regular landfall in Radz-at-Han was that it was a bustling, cosmopolitan city where he could reliably stock up, have necessary repairs made, and enjoy himself until he set off again. The bad part…

“Oh, so my only grandson remembers we exist! Anargul, your son is back!”

“Jaiyu! Every time I see you, you’re taller!”

“Oh, did you hear what Cousin Nanda found in the ruins of Orbonne—”

Objectively, his maternal family was fine. Their home served as both living space and storefront for Rashid Spicery, run theoretically by his grandpa and actually by his mother. Aunts and uncles and cousins, both Hyur and Au Ra, drifted in and out so frequently that the front door was almost never closed. Anargul bihn Rashid might have had her decade abroad end in an acrimonious divorce, but nobody seemed inclined to judge the sole product of that marriage. They actually thought his job (the legal part) was cool and fun.

It was just that they also worried about him, which was downright weird. All “Jaiyu, your scales are so dry,” and “Jaiyu, your hair is all split ends,” and “Jaiyu! What happened to your trousers?” (“I have a cat,” wasn’t a helpful answer, because it prompted questions about the cat, which led to clarification that really he was the cat’s stepdad, which led to demands to meet the actual dad, and anyway now he had to somehow break the news to Zeiran that his family wanted to meet him.)

Scales could be moisturized and trousers could be mended, but the hair apparently required intervention. Which is how he found himself sat sideways on a kitchen chair, his mother hovering behind him with scissors. “Mum,” he offered, “you don’t really have to do this.”

“Nonsense,” she huffed. “You’re my son, and my hands still work. It’s even easier now that you’re so tall!”

He squeezed his eyes shut and drew in a deep breath. Something in his throat ached. I really thought you’d left me when you left my dad. I never was a smart kid. But if he brought that up she’d probably start crying, and then he’d start crying, and then this nice moment would be ruined, so instead he muttered, “...Fine. Hey, don’t cut it too short?”

She prodded him hard in the shoulder. “I’ll cut it as short as I have to to get rid of all these split ends.” Over the snip of the scissors, she demanded, “What’ve you been doing to it?”

“It’s the wind!” He had to raise his voice; like most folk who were half Au Ra, his mother was nearly deaf, and the background noise was doing her enchanted horn cuffs no favors.

She snorted like a backfiring engine. “Wear a hat!”

“I do,” he grumbled. “This is with the hat.”

There was a moment’s pause, and then she giggled. “Sorry, you got that from my side of the family.”

It was true. He took strongly after his mother; the only things he’d gotten from Malaguld blood had been a purple tongue and dark stripes on his pale scales. As he’d grown to manhood, he’d always sort of wondered if that had been a factor in the divorce. But it didn’t matter now; he and his mother were both well rid of the Steppes, if you asked him.

So he sat in the Rashid Spicery kitchen, bathed in sunlight, and grinned.

Chapter Text

Portia Brewster’s used to wearing a hat.

Or a bandanna. A helm. A pair of goggles. A fancy circlet, if nothing else. She arranges her bangs to cover her forehead. It’s just safer that way, now that she walks among Eorzeans who see all her people as the enemy. As long as she keeps her third eye covered and doesn’t flaunt her strength, she’s safe. (For once, it’s good to be short. If they think of pureblood Garleans at all, they imagine tall, imposing figures. Portia is five and a half fulms in her stocking feet, and blends easily into crowds.)

And this works—mostly—until Rhalgr’s Reach is attacked. Until Macchia remembers she’s not just a friendly pet but a canis pugnax, and Portia is shot protecting her and the rest of her friends, and first the infirmary and then all the Ala Mhigan Resistance knows they have a former enemy in their midst. For a time, she thinks this will be the end of her.

She thinks wrong. It seems that fighting in their defense buys a lot of good will, even if she still couldn’t bring herself to pick up a weapon. (She could have. She’s been trained. There were swords apenty scattered around her. But she’d briefly remembered her black armor, crusted with blood and ash, and grabbed a wrench instead.) She may be a Garlean, but she’s their Garlean. They’ll keep her safe. She knows this. Hells, some of them even buy her weapons and armor.

Even if she still keeps her hat on most days. She tells herself it’s for the sun; she’s always been pale, built for the far northern tundra, and Rhalgr’s Reach is murder on her skin. Maybe she’s vain about it.

She lies.

“We have a job for you,” says the Ala Mhigan Resistance one day, and she says yes. Spying has never been her forte, but a job is a job and she has rent to pay. (It’s just gossip, isn’t it? She didn’t grow up in her family’s hair salon for nothing.)

It’s not until she’s crossing into Garlemald that it hits her. She’s a spy in the pay of the Empire’s enemies. She should be as terrified as she was the first time she crept past Camp Bluefog, practically pissing herself every time a sentry twitched. But instead…

Portia Gallius takes her hat off.