HereComesTheSnow

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Sagramore

Hn.

"Grew up well enough", huh?

Rudolf's nostrils puffed as he rubbed at the ear the redheaded goliath a seat down had flicked, but he said no more after his questions received their answer, popping the cube of potato into his mouth and chewing the whole thing over. Give the others their space to ask what they need, once the big picture concerns were as addressed as they ever would be. The roast vegetable was wonderfully-seasoned, a light coating of spices cutting through the rich butter that dressed it, but the words tasted too bitter on his tongue.

I know a few people here who would hardly agree, if they were around to say it.

His eyes rolled over to the empty seat, now void of that giant cousin of his, bid for a long ride north in what was basically the blink of an eye. With him, Wulfric had carried out the last of Rudolf's chance to offer his team a palatable alternative, a trade up by basically every measure—

Impulses he'd already warned some of them about, and even had questioned in response. He had every reason to be confident, by all rights, that he was just living in his own head when it came to the subject— hardly any ill will had come his way in recent weeks. Galahad, who knew the full¹ story now, had even rescinded basically all their prior tensions. He'd even bridged the gap, found some measure of common ground, in offering support.

Even so.

That man had felt like an escape hatch. Somebody who, if it all went to hell, Rudolf could have pointed at and said : "If you're not happy with me, just bring this guy along in my place. He's everything I am, but better, and he doesn't make mistakes."²

That had been half his courage... and he'd let it slip. It fit, in a way.

Wouldn't be you if there was an easy out, now would it?

He shoveled more food into his mouth, gathering what he had left of his ideas, now each a piled of shards at the feet of the crisis at hand. It was true. He'd have to do it the hard way, with the Kirins all stuck with him, and him stuck with however it changed the way they considered the strange young man they kept on board. Skael was shaping up to be a real shitshow, so, if he had to set a deadline...

With some effort, he brought his eyes up to share a mildly befuddled glance with Esben, as the earl took his leave. After learning that his family had been keeping up a charade to a rhyming tune with "the illness that had nearly killed him in infancy resurged" after his exile, the story developing into Rudolf being sent to a colder, crisper, and more isolated part of the world wasn't as big a shock as it could have been, per se. Cadmon did mention, deep in the text of their communications, that he had been working on a new arrangement. Knowing that much, the track was easy enough to follow to a point.

But for all the apparent familiarity the tall Skaeller held for the Viscount... he was just as lost as to what the man could have possibly "had" in store for either of them.

They both returned to their food, Esben following his countrywoman's input, but both silently agreeing that they'd just have to find out when they got there. For the rest, he did as he was bid, quietly shoveling down the tastes of...

"Home", he supposed.

————

The next day saw them set out in earnest early into the morning, with a short farewell at the castle gates to mark the Warriors' return to proper deployment. It had taken some fussing over the issue internally, but in the end Rudolf's childhood chocobo, Argo, had remained stabled in Castle Demet rather than joining the fresh flock at Goug's reins. It had been good to see him the day before, if only for a little while— but a warbird like him was hardly suited for ferrying freight, and he'd be an extra hungry mouth as they made tracks toward sparse frostlands³.

Close to noon, he saw the all-too-familiar pillar of stone crest the horizon in the distance— and felt an all-too-familiar pit sink, deep in the bottom of his stomach. Their timeline having sped up like this, their course south had now been charted to cut straight through the one place he had hoped to avoid entirely—

"I'll take the lead through this stretch. We'll want to get through the ruins as quick as we can, and I've spent more time in there than anyone reasonably should."

Lunaris. Not the Lunaris that was the clan Demet's seat of power, the city of the western reaches of Edren that offered lifesaving respite for many a traveller or trader— Old Lunaris. The ruins of the protoculture. An ancient, ancient Empire, so long-dead it barely survived in stone, story, and a select few traditions, however mangled they'd been by time⁴. He shouldered his way to the front, setting pace for a forced march. His tone sharpened and tensed, but any dissent that may have came fell on deaf ears— as far as he was concerned, he held the same authority as back in the days of playing armed escort to intrepid archaeologists.

Sagramori employment that seemed a lifetime ago, ever since the appearance of blightbeasts had upended every job board from here to the southern tip of solitude in a sellsword's line of work.

He carried that tense silence at the front, as the sun crept towards its midday zenith and the ruins gradually approached into the foreground. As the looming, moss-riddled stonework began to graduate into "surroundings", his eyes flicked to and fro, noting positions of the buildings, all dilapidated brick and column and fragmented terrace, of shadows, of the many branching passages that wound between the heavy stone walls. Nothing out of place, near as he could tell, but nonetheless...

"This is treacherous ground," he warned. "No matter what, the group sticks together while we pass through. Nobody breaks line of sight, nobody takes detours. It's more labrynthine than it looks from out where we are. Believe me. No good comes from chancing the depths."

He breathed in thickly. On his tongue, he tasted a nostalgic sweetness; on his nose, the inescapable, musty notes of old brickwork, low-hanging fog, creeping moss, and settled dust. The aura of abandoned earth permeated this place... and to his growing attunement to the aethereal, thanks to the second voice within him, a palpable, uneasy edge to that atmosphere. Heavy and foreboding it was, like the eyes of a large animal with a lot of sharp teeth upon him, or a stormcloud appearing over the horizon at sea.

"A proud people once lived here, so long ago that their empire had died out by the time 'Edren' was a concept, let alone a kingdom. Stricken by some great calamity— their disappearance swift, sudden, and total. In this city, at least... it could be said that it was wiped out in the span of a night, near as any archaeologist that's been here is able to tell."

He looked over his shoulder, as if to verify the positions and presence of everyone he had left the castle with that morning. "The truth, as it is whenever said civilization is helmed by such a city full of sorcerer-kings, astrologers, alchemists, and other such... boundary-pushing types, is no doubt messier."

His eyes seemed to pierce. In the shadows between his skin and his armor, obstinately donned for "until they were through the ruins", an almost mirthful bubble coiled, unknowable to any but Rudolf and his passenger. Old, fond memories, for one— a world-shattering event for another, a mistake that was likely never unmade.

"So if there's anything we all know about messy, sudden tragedies, it's that they leave behind ghosts. Old ghosts, that want nothing more than to lure you into what's left of their dominion— If you listen to anything I say today, let it be this: Heed no voice calling you anywhere but through. If you can't see who said it, don't you dare listen. Consider anything you hear that you can't place a lie. There are things down there that will absolutely twist you to their own ends if you're lucky, and if you aren't, you'll just outright disappear. They'll prey upon your base desires, upon your fears, upon your most painful and precious memories alike— all to get just a pound of your flesh." His words escaped him almost as a bitter growl, once you stripped away the unwavering command they carried.

He turned back to face the front, eyes falling to rest upon the central pillar, a singular column of verdigris that appeared to claw and rend the sky, cast as a talon in its slight lean. If one squinted at the wide field it sat within, they might believe a mighty ziggurat to have once surrounded the spire of aged bronze. They would be right to.⁵

Hell. He had practically given the game away, just in saying all that that way. May as well get right into the shit while it was the topic at hand...

"... I don't say any of this lightly. I haven't quite been forthright as I needed to be with you all." he began, neither stopping his march nor meeting the eyes of the others. "I know a lot of you have pieced this together, and I'm late in addressing it, but—"⁶

Belay that. We feel that. We should not feel that. Company we shouldn't have, right in front of us. Do NOT invoke the pact.

Feeling the raw, palpable spike of twisted aether, like a bee trapped inside the base of his skull, Rudolf cut his admission brutally short, holding a hand up and bringing their procession grinding to a halt behind him. His coppery eyes went wide and alert, as his other hand flew down to draw one of the curved blades at his hip. This was what the aethereally-attuned sensed whenever he invoked the blackflame. More than even a borrowed awareness from his hanger-on, Rudolf's instincts told him this, as the tall, evil scythe split the pooling shadows in front of him. It was a sensation that he would never have forgotten, only growing in strength as the tall, tenebrous jester revealed his full form and launched into a one-act of his own volition———

The same as when he had accepted his contract. there was no mistaking what they were in the presence of.⁷

Ferdiad. Really? It couldn't have been anyone else? It had to be this kitschy jester that's breaking the rules and manifesting? What next, do I finally get to see Danube's toes?

"Everyone into the daylight!" Rudolf bellowed, swiping his steel through the nearest wave of the sprouting, grasping arms, mind racing as he began to reverse-engineer a plan of action. "Even if he can follow us there, he'll be weaker in the midday sun than if we stray towards the gloom! He's attuned to primordial darkness— he'd love nothing more than to drag us into a lightless abyss below!"

You said his name before he did. You know this guy?

Regrettably. the demon within seemed to growl, the shadows below black steel coiling in distaste. More important than that, I know he shouldn't be anywhere close to being able to manage corporeal form.

"Miina!" Rudolf called, drawing his second blade as he flipped the visor of his new greathelm down, his voice more "metered" than truly "muffled". "Prep a Dispel! Treat him like Isolde treated us!"

Not my point, but worth a try— I wasn't kidding a second ago. If he's walking around, your precious Himstus, Imir, or Danube should be walking around. Let alone me. And last I checked, we don't have any pretty river maidens with dainty feet running around with dominion over our fates, now do we? Don't answer that, this is a function of rhetoric. I know there are creeks that run down this way and that you're lonely—

With a more forceful growl than usual⁸, the armored swordsman swung again, racing through what options he had yet to call for. "Your act is a few millennia out of date, clown!" he snarled, venom flickering on his tongue. "You'd rather let a tough crowd like us go until you've got new material— trust me!"

I'm all for provocations, but don't get off-message. Whatever's allowing him this concrete form, your world is going to be significantly better off by having Ferdiad dead, not by convincing him to 'beat it'. I want to make that clear.

---

---

• _{1. Full-ish.}
• _{2. You're quieter. That's something. Less egotistical, too.}
• _{3. There's a lot more due emphasis to be put on "hungry", here. Judging from my host's reaction, he had no idea his Chocobo could have ever grown to terrorbird size like this— as if it doesn't make sense that him being the former scion of cavalrymen would naturally mean whatever dinosaur he inherited, provided ample nutrition, would make all "smallness" relative.}
• _{4. You know what the strangest one is? Sword dowries. That's extant exactly where you think it is these days, but they got it from right here. It was Lunarian Princesses that kicked the tradition off.}
• _{5. Massive, megalithic, majestic it was. The superlatives and alliteration, both my favorite literary tools, don't do the real thing justice. The crown jewel of our nation, the envy of the whole world, and a feat of architecture we thought would last a thousand years. To be fair, maybe it did. Down in the depths of the ruins, where things get nice and, subterranean, keeping track of years goes out the window past the first fourteen or so.}
• _{6. Hold on, hold on, what the fuck is that? "Raising terror level"? Why?}
• _{7. Far and away, even with the necessary admission that we're both demons, this is the most distaste I've ever felt for anything said in relation to me for the past century. And I've been privy to every impulse you've had that said "characterize our deal like you were misled in some way", too. But this I won't laugh off. Fuck you. Do not lump me in with this stupid prick.}
• _{8. Well, that stung, didn't it? Here's hoping that we do a little better than "sting" when the small red cat tries to recreate that time some compromised asset broad lit most of my essence on fire without even really noticing.}

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

"Very cold, Miina."

So that was why he'd felt a familiar chill enter the room at the back of his neck, while he was too busy fuming over his barely-laid plans being scuttled— and in what felt like an instant, his protestations, his burgeoning courage, everything he had been trying to build to beneath the surface had ample cause to be quietly set aside for... some point later. What he had been hoping to say had to come soon, before the Kirins crossed the border if nothing else. If he entered Skael with those words still locked beneath his chest... well, now more than ever, he doubted he'd ever dredge them up.¹ Be it due to a faltering resolve, or this brand new crisis that the familiar blonde had brought to the table. He swirled the wine in his glass, a Crandori Red that for all the world tasted of spiced cherries and blood as it warmed the back of his throat in a long, calming pull.

"At least as cold as Osprey was warm, and that's before the wind. They say Skael's sharpest knives lie not in the hands of its warriors, but instead pass between drifts, pines, glaciers, cutting men unlucky enough to get caught in the gust to the bone."

His copper-coated eyes flicked between the Earl at the head of the table and the interloping spymaster, unable to fully keep the wary, brusque grimace out of their depths in spite of a growingly dismissive affectation, the type that he always wore when playing along with "knowing nothing of what he just heard". For many, the task would be easy on the latter front she mentioned, save her two subordinates. that'd be all well and good and expected.

But, in a twist of fate, Rudolf's case was... a little more complicated.

He cleared his throat.

"I doubt a SEED Director would embellish details like that if one were around, but I remember hearing a lot about Skael in my youth from when my 'Aunt Kayla' came by to visit when I was, what? Eight? I'm bound to get certain bits about the place turned around."

Given the circumstances, mentioning the old assumed identity off-handedly was just about all Rudolf could do to satisfy his urge to grill her about deceiving him back when he was still just a snot-nosed kid²— though hindsight was hardly kind to him, now that he had its benefits. A mysterious woman from the south that he'd only met once, and then primarily existed in their household as fuel for what were basically spooky stories to keep him and his brothers in line; to anybody that would ever stop and think about it once they'd grown up a little more, obviously "Aunt Kayla" was a questionable identity at best.

But they all had bigger fish to fry, now. His indignation and surprise wouldn't just be unbecoming, they'd be downright obstructive.³

They were bound to have their fill of obstructions before they knew it.

He speared a roast potato with a fork, eyeing her, trying to make a mental note of all the questions he had burning at the back of his head that weren't immediately helpful before filtering out the ones that were. Why she knew Cadmon and his father. How long she had been at this habit of dropping in that none of the servants seemed particularly ruffled by her sudden ingress from the boundaries. So on.

He let the breezy indulgence in the bit fall from his face.

"... Speaking of Wind, then: Would we be correct to presume that because Solitude is our only mode of access to the temple, there's no necessary way you're able to tell if the Crystal is compromised as well? Beyond the presumable chaos it would throw the elements into, despoiling of the land, and so on— no direct observation, just praying we don't see those consequential symptoms?"

---

---

• _{1. Nothing ever happens.}
• _{2. Do I even need to say it, audience?}
• _{3. Hypocritical as well. Moreso, even— Director Lambert here was telling a child a white lie so as to not reveal to him any of the grisly details of her true profession, to keep both of their lives out of danger— whereas my charming and rock-brained host is just having a fight with dear old Dad, and stealing valor from a warrior-shaman culture he's only spent half a decade LARPing as.}

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

Silent until now at his end of the table, Rudolf stiffened. His plate was largely untouched—his thoughts awash over something else besides food. He’d been content to listen for now, as though biding time— but with the flash of worry that crossed his face, it seemed he’d heard something that threw a spanner in those reluctant works.

It wasn’t Izayoi’s surly disdain for the farce she expected that had prompted that shot of current through his spine— the Earl was hardly stranger to a callous guest expecting him to be something he wasn’t, and Izayoi had a surly disdain for anything that wasn’t in some way related to shredding her enemy or to her lost family. Being made to speak with a nobleman of Edren, regardless of how either of them had sworn up and down as to his lack of involvement with the invasion… it would always leave her frosty at best.

His eyes, fighting not to go too wide, flew across the table, finding Miina’s for a moment and clearly blindsided—- not by Izayoi, but by the Earl himself.

A night? They were already partaking in supper. That wasn’t time at all. Not nearly enough— he’d not intended to have them all overstay their welcome here, but still!

His teeth ground beneath tight lips.

Not more than a week was his thinking. Even two or three days layover would have been fine— ample time to really scour the archives with her, as he’d promised in the depths of Brightlam’s sickbeds. Really dig into research, at least— the events that transpired during the fitting of his newly blackened armor serving to inform their direction, not being a relative waste of the afternoon. But a single evening? They’d be lucky to even compile a reading list.

Really, of all the ways to be made to pay dividends on the luck he’d burned, this was troubling. A truncated timetable would force him to nix so much of what he had been looking to get done while here. Let alone any of the others, who lacked the familiarity with this place and its’ people that he was privilege to, even after all that had been cleft from him alongside his name. A night was what you took to get used to a new locale— not to take advantage of the myriad resources that featured in a turbulent, disgraced former beneficiary’s sales pitch.

And what was more…

”Why in the war god’s blazes does that ’you’ sound like it means me…” he murmured in undertone, before swearing under his breath as his gaze flicked over to Galahad, a long way away and in no position to help. He couldn’t interrupt the Knight-Dragoon, interjecting here would just get in the way of the exchange of information.

That was now the last boon they might have had left to glean from this shortened visit. Everything else on Rudolf’s personal list, at least, would be choked out by the tightness of their schedule. Now it was just this comparing of notes, the afternoon Rudolf had spent upon his armor, and maybe an escort further south from Wulfric. Whatever answers he sought to unravel from the cloud of obscurity…

They basically needed to come here and now, or await the party’s return to Edren at the earliest. A real bind for anyone that had been expecting more room to orient themselves.

A real bind for him, who had been waiting for a moment that felt right.

For the present moment, he had to continue holding his concerns to a private, half-frustrated hiss beneath his breath.

“Only tonight to work with?”

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

"I'm surprised you aren't just dumping the chore on me. Has distance made the heart grow fonder?"¹ an acidic, wry drawl finally cut in, the scarred burn victim having found the object of his ire. There was, of course, an undercurrent of familiarity that seemed to neuter potential worries of faux pas, at least in this setting— most of the present staff either keeping busy or rolling their eyes. If the exchange just moments ago between father and son weren't already illustrative... "Or is it just sentimental old man brain taking over?"

"I'll get to you soon enough, 'Rodolfo'. You're staying exactly where I always put you, you're not my chief concern."

Rudolf seemed to accept his lodging without overmuch issue, but folded his arms at being brushed off. Evidently, part of him had been counting on trading a few more barbs than this— after the escalation of the entire fiasco in Drana Asnaeu, he'd not been kidding about expecting one or five earfuls right out the gate.

"And for the record, you ought to know the minds of northern barbarians pretty damned well."

The Earl scoffed, needing no elaboration as to what his erstwhile squire was getting at. "Your father isn't so much a northern barbarian as he is an outright force of malice. To let them claim him would be disingenuous. An insult to both."²

"I'm not hearing reasons not to. Not when they're coming from you. Barbarians are full of malice, they maliciously clamor at the gates of the civilized, screaming for death and blood. And you love insulting both."

"Enough. Keep prattling and I will dump chores on you, boy."

Rudolf bit his tongue, properly disincentivized from continuing to prattle.

---

---

• _{1. You little turd, let other people talk. The butler was right, you are impatient.}
• _{2. The more I hear about this guy, the more I like him. Surely he and I coulda talked shop back then, if it weren't for that white mage flying off the handle over his shoulder.}

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Sagramore

Rudolf, despite the familiar faces and scenery that surrounded him, sat quiet, a stink-eye for the ages contorting his youthful visage the way only a suspicious younger sibling could.

With the matter of Team Unicorn settled, their time across the final leg of the overland journey had proven briefer than Rudolf had remembered— probably a combination of the brisk pace Wulfric and his party had set their chocobos to, and the fact that it was journey the younger Edrenian hadn't made since he was a boy. Riding at a familiar hard pace meant a lot more distance, likely, when the world between Caerdaran and the Castle Demet wasn't quite so big.

"Young master."

He sighed, pausing his glare through the back of Wulfric's head to curl it up towards Balder, the household's butler, looming over him with a glass full of golden liquid in hand, plucked from a platter in his far arm. The steely composure had yet to leave his face, forever placid and proper. "Your apple juice, sir. Terribly sorry about the mix-up earlier."

Rudolf eyed it warily, gingerly accepting the drink with a grunt and a sniff. No nose of alcohol this time, just crisp sweetness. He took a sip to taste, before slowly imbibing— disaster had struck moments before.

"I made sure to fetch your favorite. Had you given me ample time, I might have warned you. Earl Demet had thought it would be nice to welcome you back here with a pour from his personal reserve. The barrel is nearly as old as you are."

He had, of course, immediately drained the first drink handed to him, no deeper in color than this one, and nearly choked when it was whisky hitting the back of his throat instead. "For twenty years, that was damned pale." he grunted over the lip of the glass, returning his scowl back to Wulfric's gleefully talking head. The heir of the household was currently too busy regaling a put-upon looking Galahad with some tall tale to catch the suspicious look— but Rudolf couldn't help but notice the boisterous guffaw that had just so happened to erupt from him, in time with the stricken lad's sputtering through the alcohol. He was in on it. He had to be, Rudi was sure.¹

"Indeed. Surprisingly light for nineteen years." the manservant concurred, idly correcting both ages that were tied to their talk. "But it aged beautifully nonetheless. So much that he's kept it all to himself until now— pray tell, would you have me go inform him you disliked it, sir?"

"No, no. It's..." He sighed through the nose as he set the juice down, rubbing at his half-scarred temples. "It's fine. I'd have it again, even. And no 'sir'. I'm divested of my family, remember? Just a guy from Sagramore, these days. We're basically on the same level."

A raised brow from the older man. "Then maybe if you behave yourself for once, Rudolf. I'll be attending to the other guests."

"Hey—"

"Good to see you again, kid."

There was a strangled groan as Rudolf's three-way collision of protests crashed into one another within the depths of his throat, as the salt-and-pepper haired man took his leave, gliding away to the other Kirins with his platter in hand. Asshole. Asshole! That prim propriety, the same one Rudolf had summoned from memory at the docks when they first landed in Drana Asnaeu, it cloaked an asshole! He knew Rudolf was gonna fall for that prank, too, he was sure of it! He and Cadmon and Wulfric had probably put their heads together to plot to mess with him!

And it didn't stop there, he realized, sinking back into the cushion and trying to let the alcohol relax him just a little before another familiar voice sounded off, her own two gil in hand.

"Oh, excellent, you didn't spill this one. Now, Rudy. What happened to you, did you go playing inside a furnace while you were away?"

Lydia, one of the maids, had evidently been close enough to overhear his mention of lowered social standing and seen fit to drive it all the way to the hilt as she swiftly retrieved an emptied plate, the teacake that had sat upon it having been swiftly devoured. Her smarm could practically fill the room on its's own—

"And his clothes are in tatters. You run straight through bramble on your way down, Rudy?"

Marguerite, now, from across the table.

"Bit depressing picture looking at you, Rudy. Haven't been this much a downer around your friends have you? Feel like I'll get bad luck if I get too close."

Robert, a footman, keeping his distance from the swelling air of disquiet. Seriously, did they coordinate this?²

"surely you jokers have better things to do." he stewed, grinding each word out through his teeth, before pulling up in the seat with a huff. "For that matter, what's the Earl attending to that's keeping Wulf from just kicking his door open and saying 'Hey Dad, I've brought the runt and his friends, you can yell at him now' the way he normally would?" he asked, pointedly wearing the affectation of a dimwitted brute while the dimwitted brute continued to bug the Knight Dragoon.³

They shared a glance, before looking to their least-indisposed boss. Balder looked up from cleaning his glasses with a handkerchief, his circuit of the Kirins momentarily settled before Esben. A consummate professional, it didn't take him long to feel their eyes all falling to him.

"As it always is, my boy. He's poring over writing in his study. A lot of communication to keep up with these days. I'm sure you remember that a party of eight is rather large to cram in there— rest assured, the Earl will be out shortly enough. Patience is a virtue, Rudy, you used to have more of it."

At that, he folded his arms and ground his teeth, biding his time until one of the two people that surely signed off on this particular welcoming stance could answer for their crimes of making him the butt of the joke. At least the edge of the ride had been taken off by the mishap, so... silver linings.

---

---

• _{1. So, the story here is evidently that Wulfric had already gotten the kid to try some booze while drinking with friends when they were both much younger— only for thirteen-year-old Rudolf to immediately down the whole thing once he'd been handed it and thus be instantly tanked. All subsequent "tries" that night were just surreptitiously poured apple juice, and this story had gotten around the Castle by the time Rudolf had been sent off home. He thought the first glass was apple juice, and that the butler was just doing a cheeky callback.}
• _{2. No, you just gave them an opening. Familiar guest or not, servants love openings. And maybe their Lord told them he wouldn't stop them if they messed with you, but primarily, servants love openings. Fold it into your porter bit.}
• _{3. Little note here. I love, genuinely, that this is still how guys imitate eachother. Puff up the chest, hunch the shoulders, drop your verbal IQ into the negatives. It's so universal.}

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Sagramore

It was with an almost put-upon, resigning grimace that the scarred young man caught the look the skyscraper redhead¹ sent his way, meeting the slow nod with a small shake of the head. The "Wulfric, please" beneath it didn't bear saying— it would only serve to rile him up further, behind the eyes². To say nothing of what this Skaellish fop might take it as—

Unfortunately, as it didn't bear saying, that meant that the Earl's firstborn had already caught and understood too many of Rudolf's unvoiced overtures in life to not widen his wolfish, fang-baring grin further at the sight of it, over the incensed foreigner's shoulder. By the time he was leaning in to whisper a bored-out-of-his-mind tourney mainstay's idea of sweet nothings, Rudolf barely bothered to hide a sigh sagging out through his shoulders.

Well. For as nice and uneventful as the journey south from Drana Asnaeu had been, he'd known it could hardly last much longer than dropping anchor and disembarking in Caerdaran. There was no good wind that ever blew into that port, he'd had that drilled into his head for years— and it seemed that adage still held today. He may as well have just counted himself lucky that he'd not gone and forgotten what the people of the West were like. Izayoi and Chisato had drawn a few looks, but they were just as easily exotic curiosities from afar as they were Former Enemies— and at no point was the older of them even close to recognized.

Take your wins where you get them.³ He stepped forward.

Mentally, he'd been preparing for the Warriors to be due for a long hike following his lead, more or less— He hadn't believed any word he'd sent would have made its way down to their soon-to-be hosts in time for Wulfric to lead an advance party this far north to collect them all, that was for damn certain. He'd been too busy licking his wounds to really think about shuttling an update along before the waning hours of their time onshore. He hardly found it objectionable to catch up with the big lug, it had been a whole season since they'd seen eachother last... But how'd he been tipped off?

"To interject for a moment, I'd gladly heed the advice of my betters, as you say, on this one. The Demet family are infamously hot-tempered, and it's poor form to test boundaries around the liege lords of wherever you're vacationing," he began in a drawl, walking into the crossfire to stand at the head of the Kirins, all but drawing up alongside the tall, brash redhead, his eyes flitting between them and "Chèrle d'Artoé". He avoided the urge to look too pointedly at Eliane. "Especially if they've made the effort to play nice, and greet us at their doorstep instead of letting the roads wear us all down first. It's a rare honor, being received so far from Lunaris by Wulfric Demet, Viscount of Crandor and Heir to the Demet Marches—"

He blinked, before his gaze slid lazily away from Le Comte and a good few inches up, towards the tall man across from him.

"... Sorry, habits. Were you planning on introducing yourself to us, at least? I assume Chuckles here doesn't have the full picture if he's this bent out of shape so far from home. He's going red in the face yelling at everyone on the road."

The only way out was through.⁴

---

---

• _{1. An eye searing red at that. These upstarts apparently claim some very, very old blood from the swordsman village. Looking at them, it doesn't take a terribly giant mind to deduce where the idea came from.}
• _{2. Tell a child "no" and see what the first thing he wants to do is. You can see this playing out daily with my host.}
• _{3. Hi. We've crossed back under the maximal operational capacity for white mages in my area. Did everyone miss me?}
• _{4. "Chuckles" for "Chèrle" shot right from the hip like that is going to ruffle every feather on this guy's cap. I see a gunblade on him. The armor doesn't look too bad, but the harness Rudolf's having their Moogle cart around is still better. I just wish he'd done the wordplay consciously. It kills me to watch all the wrong neurons fire on some of these.}

Falling Skies

LTJG ROY KILMER, CALLSIGN "COMMIE"

---

As ever, Kilmer's eyes were drawn upward, his black-feathered shrike all but melting into the long shadows of the ruined Gelcastre skyline. While he was admittedly on the better-equipped side of the equation for the mission's demands compared to some of the others (Rhino going without saying, obviously) by way of spindly frame and excess of maneuverability, in conjunction with the dark paintjob...

Foot patrol ahead. Nothing up top. Majority of the air cover must be prodding the Helldogs. he noted, double-checking to confirmed a dimmed visor at the front of his optics. No sense in letting one's eyes give away their intent, went the traditional kernel of wisdom— to noting of concealed position. Part of why he had stayed towards the rear of their formation, close by Rhino, in the first place— While the Shrike cut a slim figure and he could play ball with anything thrown his way, Roy was mature enough to know the score.

He, purely as a pilot, wasn't as well-suited to stealth operations as his chariot might have been. It was a matter of temperament, at the end of the day— He had too much of a showman in his heart. Like he'd intuited during the briefing, in his eyes Sabine and Leah were a better match for picking off walkers like this unseen, if it came to it. They had the tools and mindset that made them better specialists— he could be professional as anybody. He was right now, even, not to get it twisted. But they all knew the shit he liked to spend training hours doing. For all the two ladies jawed at one another, to the point where some days it felt like operational suicide to put them in the same unit?

In this respect, they both would have his number. They were built for this part.

Really, if he could draw this up in his head, they'd have some magically secure and unmolested comm line between the lot of them, and he and Rhino could park much, much further out beneath some cammy nets. For the big lug, a comfy position to fire for effect with his 170. For Commie, it'd be a point where he could more clearly monitor the night sky, and spear through any flyboys that thought they might feel like checking in on the power plant.

But wishful thoughts didn't win wars in the real world, so tough break. Gingerly within the curtain of the leaning low-income housing terraces, the Shrike reached for its beam saber, and began measuring the gap between its position on the road and the intersection those bobbing headlamps were staring down. If the team were unlucky, he could be on them in a moment. If the team were really unlucky, he could screen for CAS while it all went hot.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Sagramore

"Congratulations to both of you." Rudolf had said quietly, chewing around one of Elly's many gifted brownies as the Kirins sat at assembly a week after their climactic showdown with Reisa. He had arrived alongside Neve, the both of them having come from the same direction, but taken his seat a little afterward on account of the new luggage he had in tow— a spare harness of the plate armor used by Brightlam's Justiciars, roughly congruent with his frame and safely stowed on Goug's cart until it could be properly fitted.

They had exchanged small talk on the way there, mainly dominated by her inquiring as to his injuries. On that front, he was visibly on the mend, walking and talking without much issue if any, thanks to Miina and the White Mages' concerted efforts. His burns were beginning to scar over properly, at this point— but it seemed that the lingering, primordial flame that had done the damage in the first place left them more stubborn than normal. His face had escaped the worst of it, with just a little discoloration and rougher texture around his left eye and the brow above... but all over his arms and torso, he had made sure to keep his skin relatively wrapped up. It would still be an angry red, and he could feel the slow-going recovery still sapping some of his strength. The tremoring he'd noticed on the river still faintly buzzed at his fingertips, too. But in holistic terms, his body's toughness was back to taking its share of workload.

Throughout her questions, there was a sense of nervous anticipation— when her announcement was made, Rudolf found himself relatively unsurprised. Ever since she had first been recalled by the Grovemasters upon their first forays into the jungle nation, Rudolf had been of the understanding that her ascension had been in the works for a long time already. This, mainly, was just confirmation of what they'd suspected.

A small smile passed her way. He was happy for her, in spite of that. For the brief time they'd known eachother, he had witnessed the gentle heart the White Mage had— she would make a good caretaker for the still-healing garden she'd inherited. Eve, on the other hand, couldn't help but shock him— he was sure that she would feel the progression of his dark passenger's influence and entanglement within his aether. And that it would lead to another round of very pointed, tense questioning... But her time under Cid's gaze had clearly mellowed her a great deal.

He almost didn't want to leave, despite how harsh their time here had been, on that topic. A few days of having his thoughts to himself for a change was one thing, but nearly a full week of outright radio silence was almost more restful than sleep itself.

He swallowed the cube of chocolatey flavor. If only.

"No prizes for guessing who put it forward," he began, leaning inward. "I think it's our best bet for making tracks to the southlands relatively unaccosted. We can follow the western coastline by land or by sea both— in either instance, once we cross the border into Edren we'll be fairly well insulated from potential saboteurs. We'd have the bulk of the continent between us and all of Valheim's known footholds, there'll be ample places to camp between river deltas, coves, sandbars, bluffs, so on and so forth. As we hit the lowlands, we won't have trouble sourcing supplies— plenty of wild game in the forests, plenty of farming towns once we decide to push inland..."

Here, he glanced, quite pointedly, at Chisato and Izayoi in particular. It didn't take a genius to deduce that they'd skip touching Edreni soil altogether if they could help it.

"... Along with a population that's relatively untouched by the war. I don't think the people of the western marches are very likely to recognize we've the Limbtaker in tow, or even really give Ospreyan refugees overmuch grief. As well, the Earl Demet will know we're passing through, and likely arrange escort through the southerly portions of his territory until we hit the border. He'll no doubt want to host us for a few days, as well."

He folded his arms, studying the wood grain of the table, not quite finding it within himself to look forward to any of this now that it was in the immediate future.

"For those that didn't put two and two together when Valon yelled my full birth name every chance he got: I warded and squired under Earl Cadmon during the war. Our families have been friendly for generations now— so he's going to want to give me a hiding or three for the contents of the missives I've been sending back. He's likely heard whatever word of the Siege has proliferated south, and regarding us he's been in the loop as recently as Cascona Landing." the young man gave a sigh, "But the rest of you ought to be treated quite graciously as guests, and I'm sure the Archives he curates will be useful to a few of us. For the rest, he's a shrewd, wise man. I consider comparing notes with him as much a resource as any of his holdings or the ruins they lie atop."

He met the group's gazes one by one.

"That's my vote in brief."

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Sagramore and Esben Mathiassen

---

Three days after the invasion...

---

Out on the water, some three days after the conclusion of the Siege of Brightlam, the long and lazy hours of noontime and thereabouts began to creep back into life below the canopy, the pillars of overhead sun breaking through a patchwork of newly punched holes to warm the healing city, and its gentle riverways below. Already, a thousand disparate points of scaffolding dotted the leaves and branches of its sprawl, abuzz with hardworking reconstruction efforts; already, many of the watercraft the Kirins had once seen from high above, potential obstacles for infiltration or traffic for escorted entry, had once again cast off, eager to return some sort of normalcy to life beneath the green, and now so much more blue.

A hiss, as a hand mottled with angry scarlet liberated a bottle of the local pilsner of its’ with the back of his trusty knife.

One such boat, in these slow and much-needed days of recovery, was captained and crewed by a new duo of sailors to the waters. Ones that, as they were beginning to remind themselves, were not so much “Kirins” anymore— It was “Warriors of Light”, now. The redder one wasn’t sure how he felt about it, given the legacy that moniker held, nor his own internal state of affairs. As for his dutiful captain…

“We’re alive,” Rudolf observed, setting the bottle down after a hearty swig and reaching into the icebox for a second. Bright and crisp with notes of citrus, Greenwood’s Gold was pretty refreshing fare, as far as cheap, local brew went—

His hand lingered a bit longer than it needed to, as it closed around the second bottle, drinking in the ice. More refreshing still was the cool upon his ravaged skin. Even in the face of the Brightlam White Mages’ once-overs (swamped in work as they were) and poor Miina’s best efforts, he was tattooed with a blaze all over his top half, still a little raw, still working on scarring.

The numbing, soothing cold was a respite from how simple existence stung, even if he was tough enough to grin and bear it, mostly. But by that same token— he could walk, he could talk, he could drink. They had made it through that long, impossibly long night. That was worth a token of celebration, even if it was just a lazy day and a lazy chat behind some bait and tackle.

“Salute.” Another hiss, and an open bottle was handed to the tall blond SEED opposite him, bringing them crawling to a stop from the stern. “Viva soldati.”

”Skål.”

As the small punt came to a stop, Esben sat back down and took a sip of the beer that was passed to him. ”Barely alive, it feels like, but that’s better than the alternative.” The younger man certainly looked worse for wear, at least, but he had no real clue just how extensive Rudolf’s injuries were. His own—

The little boat drifted a little further. Esben had no real desire to put the pole down to the riverbed and try to really stop them from moving at all. Getting them out on the water was annoyance enough with how uncomfortable simple things like lifting his arms and breathing were.

”Look at us: One walking burn and one giant bruise. Nice to see they finally got around to the nose, at least.”

A wry quirk of the brow saw the walking burn, plenty bruised in his own right, lean back with a shrug. “To be perfectly fair, I’d forgotten about it too. Wasn’t until Neve pointed it out to me after Famfrit that I remembered I needed to forgive you. I’ll figure since you’re having just as fun a time breathing as me, we can call it a wash.”

Seemed an age and a half ago, by now. Even before the Ruby Weapon had pushed the lot of them to the brink— perhaps even beyond— he and Esben had already come to a mutual, unspoken understanding that they were both likely to outright collapse, once everything stopped falling apart in ways that forced their party to power on through. They could hardly be roused for love nor money the two days following. In Rudolf’s case, this was the first day back to moving around without need of external support past a few yards.

“On that point,” he chuffed, taking another swig as he traded knife for baited rod, casting the line far into an open patch of the drink. While they’d not exactly stopped, a rare fish on this of all rivers would begrudge a drifting spot of wood. It’d do as good as any. With the small tremors in his grip, most of anything he’d catch today would be an unlikely stroke of luck— Ithar cutting him a break, maybe, for services rendered. “How are Selene and Eos holding up? Haven’t seen either of your little employees since Ultima.”

Esben cast his line as well, baited hook sailing gracefully through the air before disappearing into the water. At the very least, from what he’d seen before they made it down to the river proper—there were enough crumbs dropping from all the workers’ lunches and snacks that the fish and birds seemed to be having a good time, so hopefully one of them would get something with some actual bait.

Whether it would be anything worth taking back to Izayoi would be a different matter, of course. He almost winced just at the thought of the samurai, alongside all the pain through his chest and back. ”I haven’t been up to even trying to call them in, honestly,” he replied sourly. No doubt having the pair around would make his and Rudolf’s healing go by quite a bit faster, with the white mages and their own diminutive red unable to devote enough energy to get them back to shape quickly. ”I doubt they’ll be very happy with me for it.”

He’d certainly thought about it multiple times. But actually trying, after just how draining that entire day had been, and with he-didn’t-even-know-how-many ribs cracked or worse after getting slammed down by Reisa’s Ruby Weapon...

”Well. At least we’re one problem down. Just in time for three or more to crop up.” He stared out at where his hook had sunk beneath the river surface, falling silent for a moment. The peaceful sounds of running water, wildlife, and the distant shouting of workers filled the space before he broke the lull again: ”How do you think it all turned out, at least? Obviously it didn’t go well, but...” He looked at Rudolf expectantly.

Tell him how you really feel, a helpful suggestion floated by.

“We’re alive,” Rudolf reiterated, pointedly diplomatic.

Esben looked back over the water.

”I think I’m really coming to hate this place.”

Something resembling a wistful smile passed over Rudolf’s scarring visage, peering out over the edge of their port side to check how that eye of his was doing, before letting his gaze drift high, back towards the verdant city and boughs that hung above. He had hoped it to have been an artifact of the adrenaline that was rushing through him, a thousand yards and change up. That the blackflame coursing through his veins was drowning out color, sound, sense— but this many days on, he had to contend with the simple truth.

Brightlam had dimmed for his eyes. The brilliant greens, the dazzling palettes of flower and streaking songbird, the crystalline water beneath that had all quietly stunned him as they’d first been rowed up this river… All had been muted, now. Maybe not by much. Hardly greyscale. Still vivid compared to what he could render with his trusty charcoal.

But there was an inescapable, nigh-explosive edge to the luster that had been taken off, compared to the vista before. More than just disillusionment could explain.

“I wish I could like it more.” he admitted, staring up towards the pockets of warm blue that had been forced open. “My mother was probably more fond of her study here than any point in her life before the family. I’m sure she still glows when she talks about walking beneath the curtain, sharing her bread with flocks of birds, feeling the Divine so close at hand.”

A beat.

“Meanwhile, I was a fugitive for a little bit. And got an explosion to the face when I went check on one of their granaries..”

”Fugitives. Treated like some sort of advance invasion party ourselves at the start—not necessarily without reason, but still. Five people lost and we’ve gained one in return. And—” he cut off suddenly, coughing painfully. He’d breathed in a little too hard, apparently, thinking of just how frustrating Drana Asnaeu had been.

”It’s barely been more than three weeks. I hate it here.” He shook his head with obvious disgust at the entire series of events. ”How many times did we almost die just to keep this place afloat?”

“Well, in my case… Taking the most stringent definition, at least two.” Rudolf offered after a moment’s thought, sensing he needed to cut in before the man worked himself into another coughing fit. Having broken ribs before, and a still raw network of airways to deal with right now, he could relate. Frustration never got any better when one wrong breath felt like being stabbed.

Hell, the aforementioned explosion might have left him with a few if he’d not reacted in time. But on that very point…

He watched the tremors at the end of his rod.

“Ruby Weapon, obviously, and the other was Leviathan. Going from two hastes to no hastes in less than a second wasn’t great for the heart. Eos saved my life there.”

I’m sure I could have managed something, given the shit we’ve been pulling lately.

“Twice in three weeks,” he echoed, taking a longer pull from the bottle this time. “And that’s if we only count where I was actively dying and got interrupted. I’m sure you could name a few more; under a more reasonable metric.”

He certainly could, although he didn’t particularly care to. ”Were you still conscious at all after Reisa slammed me down there? Other than Izayoi facilitating Reisa’s landfall, I haven’t really heard much of what went on with the rest.”

“I was fading out by then. Covering the Dame-Commander’s landing was about the last I had.”

His brow furrowed, knotting pale but tanning skin with more of the fiery red, swirling around his left orbital socket. That bit, mercifully, had dulled and numbed sooner than the rest. He searched the memory, like sifting through a pile of sand.

“I sent you in. Broke her fall, told her to go win. Bloodstream hurts for a while. Then… an impact, and snapping. That must have been you. After that, Eve is yelling, Neve is yelling, I hear her name, the platform speeds up.” he recounted, rolling his wrist and spinning the beer within the bottle into a little whirlpool. The swirling was apt. “They say we can’t catch up. Around then’s when I figure out she went overboard with Reisa. I manage to get my gravity materia to Galahad, but after that I’m pretty much done.”

He chuckled ruefully, as something made a point to fish up a particular detail.

“I, uh, I think I bellyached a little about her going and dying not even a month after I killed what chance I had to sell the ‘normal swordsman’ bit saving her ass once already. But after that, my brain basically gave out.”

”Ja. I heard some of the yelling, at least, even if I couldn't really recognize it in the moment. It seems...” He trailed off again, still staring out over the water. ”Mmm. Maybe I've been slacking a bit. Understandable, after how that first day went off of Bikke's ship, but still.”

His brow furrowed, though whether at his own thoughts or his line went unanswered until he jerked on the rod, trying to pull in a fish that he felt tugging at it...only to eventually pull up an empty line and an un-baited hook.

”Rævhål,” he muttered reproachfully at it. ”I'm better with netting anyways. Usually. Our travelling company notwithstanding.”

“Seems what?”

Netting and their travelling company? What, like catching Izayoi when she went over the side like that?

He didn’t get it. He chose to latch onto the thought with potential, instead.

”Seems like our social web is loose enough to fly a sparrow through.”

“Ah.”

A naked grimace. He had no reason to pretend like he didn’t intuit the meaning right away— if anything, the point had been driven home for the both of them like a lobotomy spike through the eye socket, as their numbers had fallen away from them by pairs across the span of this hellish…

Week and half? His brow furrowed. Between the mounting stress, the trekking through thick, nigh unnavigable jungle, and the sweltering heat, for a while there the days had begun to blend together. It must have been at least ten, but if he trusted his gut his gut said sixty, which was absolutely wrong.

Sixty days ago, Rodolfo Laetus Pertinax would have gone white as a sheet if you had asked him to spend three seconds beneath the gaze of the Wild Dance. Now, even if they mutually considered the matter settled in Cascona Landing, they had saved each other’s lives— maybe multiple times, even.

And yet, outside of those small moments where he’d invited her to speak of her home, of Isshin, Suzume, and cooking… he still wasn’t sure how much he really knew her. Or maybe it was that she didn’t care to know him back.

There was still a distance. That same discussion, after it had soured upon the mention of her clandestine agents so close to home… It certainly reinforced the many parts of her, still the Ranbu, still an old ghost of the war far away, within his mind. Just moments after he’d been given thanks.

To say nothing of the hare that had dropped into their lap, in the wake all the friendly faces (and draconic pit bull) that they’d lost. With her, he didn’t think he’d ever heard more than two words back, even keeping it all strictly, insistently professional.

“It’s almost like we’re nearly unchanged from Atsu, when we were all making introductions, huh?” he mused, beginning to ease the line back in hopes of trying another spot, where he’d seen some unfortunate half-eaten sandwich splash. “Like we still barely let the walls down.”

Esben nodded. ”Galahad and Izayoi have their rivalry, however far beneath the surface it is. You and I, obviously, seem to make an obvious subset of the group. Éliane is...Éliane, for all that entails. I’m sure I can work on Chisato and Miina a bit, but it does seem like this group isn’t great at simply caring for each other. I don’t imagine it would do any good to anybody’s morale if any of us were to actually die in battle, but I don’t hear any of us calling out at the others much if anything bad should happen.”

A wry twist of the mouth.

”Present company excluded, of course. I hope you don’t decide to leave me like Eve did, I’ll be very sad if something else bad happens to me and nobody even says anything.”

“We’re all just means to the same end.” Rudolf nodded, plucking his bobber from the water, and grimacing as the hook found a way to dig into his fingertip. Freeing himself was simple enough, but the expression stayed even as he resolutely cast out deep, and fished for another beer.

“I’ve considered it dozens of times.” he realized that admitting this was perhaps unwise, but it seemed a drop in the river, as it were, after everything they’d suffered through. “Even now, the thought of holding out until Wulf greets us wherever he’ll want to at the northern border of his lands, then begging him to tag me out crosses my mind. Get somebody who’d be so much less overwhelmed by the job in here.”

This bottle, he didn’t grace with his blade, instead wrenching the cap open with his teeth. A long, stiff swig followed, buying him a little silence to sit with his admission.

“But I haven’t run yet. If I was going to, it probably would have been after I sought out Galahad, the night before the Trial.” he chuckled as the memory bubbled to the surface, almost disbelieving where he had let himself go a week after summoning all that nerve. “I had to keep myself talking so my nerves couldn’t run me off. It got to the point where he outright asked me if I was telling him to make me leave. He might have been right, for all we know.”

But, again, he’d not taken one of those nights to disappear away into since.

“I’ll be here until the wheels fall off.”

Esben tilted his head curiously to the side.

”Are you asking me to tell you if you should leave...?”

Rudolf remained silent for a moment, trying to figure out where this went sideways.

…He’d already pulled this trick with Elly and it went over well, so…

He mirrored the tilt of the head.

“How’d you get that out of that anecdote?”

No. Didn’t like how it felt to reply verbally in conjunction, at least not with that tone.

He shook his head, returning to neutrally straight posture.

“Look. Nevermind. At the bare minimum, I need to see you guys all to Lunaris, anyway— What did you mean by that, anyway? Surely it’s not just her and me. What about Elly?”

Esben straightened as well, smiling slightly for the first time since they’d met up that morning. ”Maybe it’s just this team’s general communicative difficulties,” he mused to himself for a moment. ”And that applies to her as well. Plus, I wouldn’t be surprised if she thinks that if she has to worry so immediately and outwardly, or start trying to drag anyone out of harm’s way, that she’ll assume we’re as good as dead as it is.”

He’s laughing at you, by the way.

He remained silent, still with the inscrutable half-smile that left it unclear if he was just joking or if that was his complete, honest assessment. ”Of course, I wasn’t conscious at the end of things this time. If I was, I’m sure she’d have been happily ordering me not to move or something similar. Like out in the desert.”

“Shrug,” Rudolf said, out loud, stubbornly trying to keep his rod settled as he felt the idea of being laughed at lodge in his brain. “If I look back, I really only think I’ve ever heard Neve and Robin react much. Both when I went overboard, that one time,”

A glance up towards the city overhead, and a dismissive wave of one hand vaguely towards the south.

“I guess it puts me in the same boat, seeing as they’re both at greener pastures.”

”I’m sure she’ll start trying to boss you around the next time she sees you get hurt,” Esben supplied helpfully. ”At least, I think Éliane likes you enough to do that.”

“She did listen when I told her to go win, even if breaking her fall knocked me out.” the younger man agreed, tongue firmly in his cheek. “And to think all it took was asking for a crash course in firearm safety while looking like Izayoi had just chewed me up and spit me out.”

It occurred to him that he was sat across one of two people on this end of the continent he could reasonably expect to see the grand irony there, an avowed follower of the Sagramori walk of life admitting he might have good reason to learn how to use a gun.

“Goes back to your earlier point, though. Even that’s ’the mission’, just one step removed.”

”Indeed. It’s better than not staying focused at all, at least—if that were the case then I’m sure we’d be down further. Imagine the state we’d be in if Izayoi figured it was more important to remain with Hien and sent us off without her aid?” A frightening prospect, at least by his estimation.

“She did,” Rudolf reminded. “Hien overruled her. I remember how angry she was with him for it.”

His line twitched again. He pulled it once to the side, this time feeling the immediate resistance that meant he’d actually hooked...something, before he continued to speak as he reeled it in. ”Ja, but we both know that if her heart was fully set on it she probably wouldn’t have let him overrule her on that topic. Instead, she still travels with us, and mothers us—in her own way. She even came to check in on me just a couple of days ago.”

“Really?” Rudolf asked, murky skepticism coloring the ends of the word. “I mean, I guess she’s usually feeding us. But the ‘maternal’ figure, as far as I’ve been able to tell… she’s still back in Atsu. Even when I ask for tutelage or advice, I still only meet the Wild Dance. Another soldier, one far beyond me.”

He frowned, chewing on the thought a little. Izayoi again, huh… She was hard to wrap his head around, these days, no matter the angle of his approach. Maybe not so much where she stood on him as the inverse, but all the same— It nearly defied expression, so many warring perspectives on her he now carried. No clearer now than when he'd considered her a few minutes ago, certainly.

He’d sold out completely on ensuring that she wouldn’t be mourned twice, for the sake of those who still loved her. He’d needed to stay his own hand almost by force, after learning how thoroughly his own story had nearly intertwined with hers in the war he had missed. He demanded she enlighten him on fighting techniques he couldn’t wrap his head around so they could better fight their impossible war; he’d also tried to give her space to reminisce about the one point in her life where she got to lay down the sword, and simply know peace.

No one feeling had died in him, to acquiesce to the others. They all lived still. It was a mess.

“… Maybe with Reisa gone, things are different. She can let that side of her out more now, or something. I can’t deny it’s there, just that it has room for us. Kind of like walking by someone else’s camp on the road, seeing the flame from afar rather than sitting beside it.” he ventured, after some time nursing the silence.

Esben let his line out a little bit, before he managed to get it tangled on a submerged branch he could see just poking up out of the water, loath to lose an actual catch so easily. ”Besides all that, I think it would do everybody a world of good if our concern for each other was beyond the mission alone. It’s been...Mmm...”

I need someone to actually tell me how long I’ve been resting. Assuming the longest...if it’s been four days since that battle, then it’s twenty-four since entering Drana Asnaeu. That would mean...the fifth night after we met in Atsu and joined the Kirins was when we broke Hien out. Six days more to the temple in the desert, five days on the trip back, two to rest, storm the mansion that night, on the water the second day after that, attacked the fifth day at sea, landfall the second day after that...That all comes out to...

He pursed his lips, letting the fish tire itself out a little bit.

”Fifty days we’ve been a part of this team, fifty-one since we met them. Nearly two months. Perhaps I’m hoping for too much, too soon, on that front. My own ragged sense of morale after the last couple weeks making me wish for better...but there’s plenty of stories from those that have fought in war coming together far sooner, even if they’d never met before finding themselves stuck together. I like to think there’s some truth in that.”

“There is.” Rudolf declared, with a sense of assuredness that far outweighed any wartime experience he was personally lacking. “For conscription, at least. Maybe it’s the volunteer nature of everything we do… Maybe it’s the war that already cut half this team apart, five years before it was made. But you’re not wrong. It’s out there.”

Esben nodded silently as he finished pulling the fish in, frowning at the small creature hanging off his hook. ”Ah, of course, they say this is all you get with no haill...” He glanced back up towards the city proper, shaking his head. ”Too late for that, though, and I don’t even know where I’d find it.”

“Least you got something. Dead line here.”

An exchange that would become incredibly humorous, fifty more days and a thousand miles south of here. Look forward to Skael!

“Two months…” Rudolf echoed, not convinced any change in bait from the nightcrawlers the fishmongers had recommended at pier would meaningfully change his luck. His gaze also turned high, charting nighttime stars in his mind’s eye, looking back through memory. “Sounds so short, but feels so long…”

Far off, on one of the shores, the snorting of a family of boars stopping for a drink could just barely be heard.

He blinked. A thought.

“I should learn birthdays. Seven of us, statistically we ought to hit one soon, if not already.”

Esben nodded. It was as good an idea as any. He let the small fish go, baiting his hook once more and casting it out again. ”Also, while I’m thinking of the others, I think I have a specific question for you, given that I didn’t have a chance to ask before we all split up...”

Rudolf paused his thoughts on what that spice blend for a proper boar and bear birthday burger should be, and turned to look at the SEED, curious.

“Really. What is it?”

”Your comment before we split up. And before that, on the beach.” Obviously that went well before Rudolf’s other comment, but he wasn’t aware of everything the rest of the Kirins got up to. ”What have the two of you been talking about...?”

“Which one was this?”

He’d mentioned a few people in that talk on the beach, hadn’t he? He frowned, tilting his head again. No doubt the Rudolf from back then would have judged burning himself half to death wholly against the spirit of the conversation he’d selfishly demanded of Esben…

Esben stared blankly across the punt.

…

Seriously, how does this head tilting crap work?! Every time I think I’m getting somewhere!

“I talked about a few people on the beach and I only talked about you breaking my nose without warning in Brightlam. Who would I talk to without you knowing in both those— Eos? I was messing with her when I said that, she didn’t actually say I had to tell you she helped.”

Esben’s head slowly tilted as his stare remained fixed on Rudolf’s own pupils. They were more mottled again, he noticed. The copper of the iris had deepened away from the gold that was there fifty days prior, too.

”Surely you’re messing with me.” Any such observations were secondary to the incredulity with which he spoke. ”We literally just mentioned her.”

“Oh. Éliane.”

Genuine. Not one bit of that facetious after all. Incredible stuff from our plucky hero. Where would we be without his insight?

“Nothing more than the guns and… a couple passing comments about coffee back and forth. She’d get on great with my Dad, I guess— she thinks her road brews are just as good as anything going.”

He shrugged.

“I think they’re great for what they are. But that’s it. We’ve talked maybe twice.”

Esben continued to stare. ”Right.” He did not sound particularly convinced. ”Strange thoughts after such minimal conversation.”

Rudolf’s turn to stare.

“I find it hard to believe the background information about every aspect of my family you so gleefully lord over me neglected to mention his taste for a cup of joe. What part of him and the girl you needed to feed a chocolate-covered bean to keep moving getting along is strange?”

He’d seen it.

Misdirection again. He’s trying to practice on me. Esben’s eyes narrowed, but he remained silent.

“…You can go ask her yourself. That night filled my head with so much ballistics calculations and technical jargon that I swear I draw perspective differently now.” the young Edreni groused, returning his gaze to the—

SNAP

…Line.

“Gods damn it.” he growled, filling his mouth with another swig before he said something nobody sane would in Brightlam.

”You really don’t remember what all you were saying to me, do you?” The snapped line went without comment as Rudolf rapidly returned to his bottle to contain his outburst. ”Sometimes I can’t figure if you’re the least or the most confusing part of the group.”

“I’d remind you our plans literally blew up in my face between then and now, among other things.” Rudolf muttered churlishly, setting his bottle down and reaching for the tacklebox. “I’m dead certain I’m the most confused— and Miina’s not even here on Hien or Leonhart’s dispatch, she just walked in on us.”

Esben felt a tug on his line, and pulled it in again, only to come up with...

An old glove, with a hole in one of the fingers.

And a new one right at the cuff.

”Need a hand?” he joked, as Rudolf was busy tying a new hook on, before he noticed something drip out of the glove. He held it further out over the water and shook it on the line, where some sort of unidentifiable sludge sloughed off the inner surface of the glove and sank back into the water. ”...”

He squinted at it. He thought for certain he’d seen something off-white flop out with whatever else had dropped into the water.

Rudolf glanced up, having more trouble adjusting to his hands working with fine detail than he’d hoped. If they didn’t calm down, it wouldn’t just be his fishing, which he was always a little bad at, that would suffer— but his two favored arts of sketch and swordplay as well. The thought almost made him want to cry. If we lay it on a little thick, in the lowlander tradition.

He caught sight of the gloves, and Esben’s stony face after delivering the single oldest pun in the book.

He looked at him.

“What are you, my Mom? Does this place just do that to people’s senses of humor?” he ribbed, before obliviously casting out in the direction of the older man’s line, evidently reasoning that Something was more interesting than Nothing.

He knew that particular point of conversation went nowhere fun if Esben picked up on it, though— so he decided he’d practice his misdirection. There was something he’d been wondering regarding the previous subject of debate, anyway.

“Alright, you get an Eliane question, I get an Eliane question: It was pretty obvious once the formation involved ‘full ahead, ramming speed on Reisa’ what you guys were doing when you stepped away, but how’d that all go beforehand?”

”So you do remember!”

“No!” Rudolf reiterated, voice rising in exasperation. “No I don’t! I told you what she and I talked about and you said that wasn’t it! I understood she was the subject!”

Esben frowned. ”Right, well, anyways...” He cast the line out again, after shaking it further to get the glove to just tear itself off and hooking another worm. ”How far beforehand? Do you want to hear what happened on the bridge or when we set off for it?”

He thought about it for a moment, satisfied with his success. It was honestly similar to how he’d planned to fight Galahad if it came to it early on— leaving clear openings to narrow down potential lines of attack.

“… I guess just everything I missed. You saw when Izayoi called a switch in on Valon, right? He had all my attention after that, I think you guys were on your way up then.”

”I looked at Reisa and the thing she was piloting, and Elly agreed that we needed something bigger to hit her with. So I told her to aim for the windows and I flew the skimmer straight into the bridge. They weren’t prepared for it, so we gained control almost immediately without any real resistance.”

“Aaaaah.” came the sound of comprehension. “That makes sense. I was wondering how you’d gotten to the controls so quickly; I didn’t get smashed through the hull like Galahad, but when the ship came apart around us it all looked like pretty tough navigating internally. More than I’d have expected.”

His eyes narrowed for a moment.

Valheim. Unfamiliar weapons of war. Dame-Commander.

“Any idea if she’s had any luck piecing the big guy back together? I saw it basically explode when you guys landed.”

Esben shrugged as he watched the water’s surface. ”I’m not sure. I know she’s been by—at least, I don’t think anybody else would’ve left me madeleines for when I woke up—but I’ve been out every time she might have been by.” He fell silent for a moment, before sighing. ”I hope she hasn’t snuck off with the pistols I picked up on the ship...”

A snort, before the boy made a very concerted effort to still himself, and the line ahead of him. It was an admirable attempt, so focused that his commiseration all but leaked out of the side of his mouth, barely more than murmured.

“Well, we can share blame if something happens. I did just feed her a bunch of gunblades and ammunition myself last night. Everything from Loki’s retinue I could carry.”

What was the other one’s name? Had he caught it?

… No. Not by the time his hearing had come back, at least. Just that he was some kind of familiar-user.

”I would hope that keeps her entertained enough not to mess with mine, but the odds are equally good that she just decides to clean them for me if she did take them.” Just as Rudolf didn’t intend to continue on about his mother, Esben didn’t have any real desire to entertain the thought of the Skaeller traitor that had shown herself a few nights ago.

He would at least take as much of a break from thinking about any of that as he could, before they set off again; after that point, he could already tell there’d be no escaping the thought of her.

He started to reel in his line to try and cast it at a better spot, only for it to catch on something new. Undoubtedly not a fish, if his last pull was anything to go by, but with it caught like it was, there was no choice but to pull it in. The rod drooped slightly as it lifted...

A boot out of the water. One that undoubtedly had the remains of a foot inside of it.

”Did Costa del Sol and Brightlam seem to have a significant murder problem when you were trying to ferret stuff out?”

“Presumably,” Rudolf huffed, raising a brow. “I’d wager no less of one than any of the other big cities of the world. Galahad, Robin, and I all got held up after taking a few wrong turns, and in my rounds as a dirty, beat-up urchin I crossed paths with no shortage of debt collectors, vagrant drunkards, thieves, pickpockets, any sort of urchin you could name.” he rattled off the list almost dully.

In spite of his cowardly nature, earning most of his gil as a sword for hire offered a certain dispassionate eye for the rest of the typical “rougher crowd”— one he had trouble believing a young nobleman could replicate. Not the one he’d been.

And yet, he was barely ten feet away from another of those “young noblemen”, as it happened— And Esben could match any amount of not worrying he needed to. Funny how they’d both done that to themselves.

“Bramble of a city. Lots of thorns where the light doesn’t reach, and lots of people living under the oversight of the Church like nobody else on the continent. With so many shadows to hide in from such a bright light… You’re a SEED, you know how the story goes.”

”Somewhat—back in Skael we generally try to at least keep tabs on any of the major criminals. Who’s in charge of who and all that. They’ve forged working relationships with some of them, although that opens up an entire other can of worms when we’re all working to try and mitigate any harm and someone that shouldn’t be in the know on any of that happens into the knowledge. They’re at least always having to look over their own shoulders as often as anybody here would.”

He unhooked the boot, dropping it back in the water and casting his line on the opposite side. As often as all of us are going to have to as well, it seems like. Not a thought to bother the more excitable of the party with, present company included, but one he had all the same.

Not that they could escape it for long, but there’d certainly be a better way to bring it up than to just throw it out in the air like that—

”Still, good connections are a strength in any place like that, no matter who you’re actually working for. Having people that you can trust beyond them seeming to have the same goals as you. Leaving it at the level of ‘we both want the same money and power so it’s convenient to work together’ is asking to get stabbed in the back, and just leaving it open for someone else to force their way in without you really being aware. Just look at the Grovemasters—nothing tying them together but the job itself. From what I saw, Zacharias and Isolde had some suspicions after Alambert started to act a little different, but nothing enough for them to really go on.”

—So tie it back to current events, let Rudolf draw his own connections from there, let alone any of the others; if they all could come to the same conclusion, that should make it less worrisome for any of them, and more likely that they could all agree on the same plan of action without having to argue and browbeat each other until something could finally get done. ”And Isolde almost entirely fell for it before long, too. Suspicion alone only goes so far in the face of being told what you want to hear.”

That drew a wry quirk of the mouth from the erstwhile Shilage. He couldn’t help still being sore about how the entire affair with Isolde had gone awry— even in the efforts to both brush off that he had fallen for being told what he wanted to hear, and to recognize the necessity of her assassination when it came… It all still left a sour taste in his mouth. Closure didn’t always bring you catharsis, it seemed.

But it was the hand life had dealt. No matter how one felt about it.

He scoffed, meeting Esben with a crooked grin and a drawling tone. “So that’s what the notebook’s for. Here I was thinking we might just be special, but it’s just good Skaellish bookkeeping. Lucky us, we've got new cause to use it, eh?”

Something tightened around the corners of his eyes, even as he chuckled at the irony of the whole thing. When he settled, he let his gaze slip back out to the water, as if studying the mirrored world painted on the surface, every now and again twisted and stretched by ripples from far off.

“No, it’s…” a sigh. “It’s silly to say it now, but that did scare me, when we all first met. For a bit there, it seemed like you were the only person that was concerned about making friends with everybody. I didn’t trust it all that much.”

The laughter returned, this time at absurdity. With the timing he was about to relay, he had no other choice. What else could you do? Another swig emptied the bottle he’d been nursing.

“It’s so stupid it turned out this way: Get this. The literal morning, before we got ambushed by Izayoi’s zombie master, I told myself ‘Alright Rudolf, tonight when we’re changing the watch shifts over, we gotta grab Galahad and point out Esben being the only one making inroads with everybody. The guy’s a spy, he’s serving Skael’s interests first, we need to make sure he doesn’t build a power block in here where he’s the only person everyone will talk to.’ I had a whole check and balance system brewing in my head, get us three Edreni on the same page at least,”

His arm reared back, before casting the empty bottle in a high amplitude arc across the water, landing ten seconds later with an unceremonious sploosh. The ripples stormed over the reflections anew, redoubling their distortion. More and more chaos entered the system. He shook his head in disdain, bloodstained hair wagging in the damp riverway atmosphere.

“And then look what happened. Forget making everybody friends and countering you, just yesterday I had Miina getting on my case about the blackflame. All downstream of that day. Stupid.”

Esben was silent for a moment, before giving a small shrug. ”I did tell you that you had good instincts, after all. It’s when you get to thinking too much you start making the mistakes that you get so bothered over.”

“Wasn’t thinking that much when I pressed the funny button to keep Izayoi alive.” Rudolf countered, mostly in jest. They’d had this conversation before in broader terms, there wasn’t much need to relitigate the intentionality debate. “And you can admit the confluence of events there makes for funny timing. It’s fine. I’m past pretending it’s not a little funny. Even if I’m still not sure where Galahad and I are at.”

Reeling in his line and finding nothing once again, the burned man shrugged and sent it sailing in the same direction with a grunt and a low whistle.

“I guess it begs the question though, a little.”

A coppery eye glanced over. Something snagged his hook.

“With respect to how quickly our previous two field trips both ran off the beaten path— Are we ready for Skael? As a party? Even I only picked up hearsay and tall tales by errant men at arms before meeting you and Éliane. But from what I’m gathering since… It doesn’t sound like we’re terribly cut out for the environment down there.”

Climate being the least concerning interpretation of which.

Esben snorted. ”I don’t think we were terribly cut out for that witch we ran into in the Edreni backcountry, but that turned out well enough,” he replied dismissively.

“We lost a good half a day to her bullshit.” Rudolf growled bitterly. “Which hand is the witch’s hand”, if he heard it in the wild, would surely cause his blood pressure to spike even now.

”Unless things have changed significantly in the last two months, we shouldn’t have such significant difficulties as we did here or in Osprey. I think it’s already suspected that Loki is compromised, even if they aren’t outright aware she’s a traitor—so we don’t have as much to worry about there. It’ll be my and Elly’s home turf, and we’re both in good standing, and the country isn’t currently occupied. Any complications will be quite a bit different, at least.”

“Hnh.” Rudolf grunted, in that way that few men could ever sound sufficiently convinced doing. “So for once the best course of action will be to follow the natives’ leads, then. That’s a nice change of pace, at least.”

”I’m sure it’ll be repeated when we go back to Leonhart.”

A shift in the air between them, the angry tension typically reserved for drawn steel.

“The witch? She should hope not. We should tell Eliane to dome her like she tried Valon.”

”I meant following the natives’ lead. I’m sure you and Galahad will do fine.”

“Oh. Yeah, Galahad’s his cousin. Should do fine. That was more what I meant— handling ourselves in Grovemaster or Port Authority stuff like here.” Rudolf echoed, yanking on his pole to reveal the line had snagged… “...Y’know, it was a little surprising he didn’t know much about the Earth Crystal despite being close family, if anythin— Are you fffffucking kidding me.”

… the bottle was once again in his hands, as he finished reeling in. The hook, by some miracle, had wedged itself nearly halfway down the neck.

He was almost convinced he could hear Ithar laughing at him.

Esben stared flatly at the bottle that Rudolf now held, before smirking.

”Well, cheers to Drana Asnaeu too, I guess.”

A snapping of twine, as the bottle rocketed forth from the boat once more, speed redoubled. A hissing and a snap, as another was wrenched open to fill the void it left.

A messy, oddly-resonant clinking of glass on glass, as defiant, mercurial laughter followed. Never a dull moment in this green hellhole. Maybe that was why it grew on people.

“Salve Drana!”

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina Malina

&

Rudolf Sagramore

---

Two days later...

---

Miina’s recovery had been more or less immediate, at least by comparison to what anyone else was expecting: a good night’s sleep, staying well away from any white mages, and focusing it on herself. She wasn’t about to bleed out in battle and the miscellaneous bruises, cuts, scrapes, and other forms of exertion more magical than physical were things that she wanted to address personally.

It could be called meditative, if the mystrel had ever heard of the word before, taking the long route of focusing the aetherial energies exactly where they needed to go and addressing every complaint individually…

She just knew that it was a good way to avoid any permanent marks, coaxing everything slowly and specifically back to how it should be – and, if need be, burning away anything that had started to heal wrong. A shame, really, that she didn’t have the time or familiarity with anyone else’s body to heal it to the same degree.

Well, if she liked them enough to offer it.

On the second day, the red mage was back to her usual level of activity: slipping around Brightlam to find what hadn’t been used, consumed, or destroyed by the victory and immediate aftermath.

And now it was time for her to get some answers, while Rudolf was pinned in place to ask questions.

Slipping in was easy enough, the dedicated healers had done what they could and now it was just a matter of rest (and they weren’t that attentive, either). It was a pretty roomy bed, more than enough room for one half-dressed girl to sit herself cross-legged on the end, bottle in hand, and study the superficial damage.

She would get to the magical examination in a minute. If he didn’t wake up.

“Not who I expected at my bedside...”

Preternaturally quick, as though he’d either been roused by the unfamiliar weight at the foot of the cushion or forewarned, the swordsman had cracked one coppery eye open and broken the silence.

Barely, at that. His voice was raw and weak, closer to a rasp than the usual neutral, careful, but clear tone he always spoke up with before. Looking at him, it wasn’t hard to guess why. He was clearly a mess.

While the healers of Brightlam, captained by a frantic Neve, were sure to keep the lot of them stabilized in the aftermath… they had a mountain of the wounded, dying, and dead to attend to. Rudolf had quite pointedly waved them off once he’d been half-mummified in medicinal bandages, urging all who’d listen to spare their aether for those less toughened for war. He had all but collapsed afterwards— this was the first time he’d been returned to the world of the living in over a day, at least.

He rose, slowly, gingerly. The shift of his frame revealed some of what lied beneath that heavy wrap job.

Angry red scarring spiraled out from his skin, following the tracks left by the blackflame in the battle with the Weapon. It shone as though smooth, in the way skin never ought to— bruised an ugly purple at the core, the blaze had left bands of mottled red all about his upper half, most concentrated around the arms, and face. His left eye seemed to have fresh blood spilling from it at a glance, before a closer look revealed the streaks of crimson to be more of that blaze-riddled skin. There wasn’t a doubt about it— even if it had been mundane flame that had caused all this, he was due for some scarring, worse than the patchwork of meager cuts Valon had left him with. At least those had sealed.

Granted, it had been more fire that had gotten that job done.

His breath was short, labored. He hadn’t shattered a full set of ribs like Esben, in fairness, but if the inky smoke that had leaked out from his lungs during the fight were any indication, each passage of air probably stung on the inside. If he had his way, it’d be another day and a half before he spoke, to make things an even three of rest. His skin, naturally, was pale.

But despite it all, and despite the fact that he couldn’t very well run the way every other time he’d been woken up ahead of schedule had seen him want to, that burnished gold gaze held, as he let the cheesy leer of his joke fall from his face.

“Good to see you’re in one piece. Usually pretty live and let live, though. Only time you came and sought me out before was trailing Zeke.”

A brow rose, stained white over a field of red.

“Is it to that that I owe the pleasure this time? I remember we ran across that cell heading towards the crystal.”

He clearly had different guesses at the forefront, but there was a spot of hope behind the reedy words.

Miina gave a languid blink, eyes running over the lingering damage. She could even taste it now, the still-lingering bitterness of darkness and desecration. Not something that could be ascribed to Ultima, even with Valheim’s corruption, which meant it could only have come from within. That smoke, that shield…

The fire. The strange fire that must have fed back and done as much damage to Rudolf as everything else, if not more, given the scarring and his current state.

“Mmm… but Shield is white m-magic,” the redhead muttered, not yet answering and leaning perilously forwards. Definitely right.

“You aren’t a m-mage, so why do you have so much b-b-black magic?” Despite the phrasing, her tone was more curious than accusatory, “Smoke. F-Fire. Shield, somehow. It’s all… dark, b-but not corrupted, like the B-B-Blight.”

“It’s definitely black, b-but…” ears flicked, a tail swished, “More than elemental. Purer.”

She wasn’t sure how it compared to actually trying to darken an area; that was something Miina had never thought to do. Blinding people was all well and good, but it was obvious. Why do that when you could cloak yourself with white magic and disappear from view? It was much better for infiltration.

He leaned back, reflexively, as her curiosity mounted.

“Well, the Shield was a Materia. I had a materia for that one.”

Seeming uncertain, a grimace began to spread across his face. Never minding his comprehensive suite of injury, he seemed just as uncomfortable with where this was going as how. But, in fairness, she had warned him already that questions were on the way.

And he’d known damn well they were gonna be something like these. It stood to reason that as Miina’s skill and understanding in the arcane grew, over the course of their time on this quest and the growing need for improved magical capacity they would always face, that she’d eventually catch up in sensitivity to those that had sniffed out the shadow overlaid onto him before. Having encountered and habitually dissected so much magic of either school… what she lacked in specialization, she was clearly making up for in intuition and synthesis.

“... You’re correct, though. I’m not blighted the way Arton was. For a while, I was scared I might be.” He seemed to arrive at a solution in time. On the other end of the scale, throughout Drana Asnaeu any attempts to conceal the flame within had been shoved, forcefully, out the picture. Even now, his body likely brimmed with the fundamental, ancient essence that captured the little Mystrel’s attention, in a way that defied pretense. “As I’m lead to understand it, if Blight is corruption, what I carry is decomposition. Put another way, deconstruction— returning the definite to Fundamental Obscura, the Tenebrescence that came before Etro’s light gave the world form, rather than outright Essential Death.”

His uncomfortable grimace shifted, closer to a wary scowl. In a way, a metaphor for the difference being expressed— uncertainty against opposition.

“Before we go further, I need to ask you what you’re looking to know and why. If you can feel what’s going on inside my body, then you can certainly feel why Eve held a bolt of lightning to my head the last time I had this talk. Messing with it lightly is how I got to this state you see me in now.”

“C-C-Can’t you use simpler words?” Miina muttered, fingers tapping against the bottle, “I’ve n-never learned any of this. Zeke j-just taught me some spells, and I c-c-copy what I see.”

Sometimes that was easier – Izayoi explaining exactly what she had done to create a brief hurricane, or trying to work out how you could cast an actual water spell with the purest manifestation of its aether it was possible to see – but it mostly meant getting a glimpse here or there and trying to work it out in reverse. It was getting easier with practice, a much more constant awareness of aether, but…

“Sorry, I’m piecing a general shape of this together from old esoterica. I’m almost as lost as you on some of it.”

It didn’t prepare her for some weird religious description of what the difference was. She only knew that the Blight felt very wrong, like something that didn’t fit, and this… it wasn’t in the right context. It shouldn’t be here. But there was something about it that still fit into the whole. You couldn’t have creation without destruction, she couldn’t heal an injury without a trace if the flaws weren’t removed in their entirety.

“All truths conjoined… I’ve heard that somewhere…” Rudolf mumbled thoughtfully. “Nigredo… Albedo… Rubedo.” Much like her, the words came in at the very tip of the tongue, softly muttered thoughts more than statements to the other. “No Citrinitas?

… hmm, she’d just said that out loud. Thinking too much.

He scowled, missing something, but Miina was quick to get the both of them back on track.

“I c-c-can’t master magic without understanding, this is part of black m-magic, and…” more tapping, “I’m n-not that careless. I don’t use things I can’t control.”

Or steer somehow. Like large amounts of thunder in a giant water snake.

Something Rudolf apparently couldn’t do, having let everything run wild through his body. Or been overwhelmed, but the distinction didn’t matter to the end. Enough that, yes, Libra made for some interesting observations.

“H-How did the healers not m-make you explode?” Healing magic and whatever was propping up most of his body’s structure should have reacted badly. And Rudolf was not, despite carrying this, a mage of amazing finesse. Otherwise he wouldn’t have this damage to start with, as far as Miina was concerned.

“Okay, one thing at a time…” Rudolf muttered, more to steel his own mind than to hope for her to slow down. “I told them to shove off and save their white magic for people that weren’t bred for war.” he replied, his expression quirking oddly as he felt Libra pass over him in a way he never had before now. “Given how quickly Neve, Isolde, and now you’ve all figured out that there’s a shade sitting in next to my soul, I’m sure they’ve got their suspicions— but us saving the nation, plus the word of Neve and Zacharias, seem like they’re pulling some weight in my direction.”

With some effort, he propped himself up on the less-damaged elbow until he was fully seated upright. Trying to lean away as the Red Mage’s intrigue brought her closer was starting to be a pain in the neck, quite literally.

“And I had much less scaffolding holding me together on the interior all the times before now. Funny thing, actually—” reaching over, he tapped at a peak beneath the bedsheet, the crest of his knee joint. “Last time that stuff got healed over? Also you. Out in the desert, after fighting Izayoi’s mentor. Remember?”

Here they were again, a month older and practically completely different people.

“We d-d-didn’t have another healer,” Miina pointed out, finally opening the bottle she had brought along. Fruity, definitely a strong hint of plum, and still nearly buried under the scent of alcohol.

“We didn’t. And I apologized for dumping so much work on you.”

Well, at least that explained why he hadn’t exploded. It was a pretty bad lie, all things considered; better to have everyone not trust him than have been killed by an over-enthusiastic hero worshipper. Probably. Maybe. Would the fancy religious lot have burned him alive for sacrilege? The mystrel hoped they would have given chance to smuggle Rudolf out before that.

“How is t-that holding you t-t-together…?” It was black magic. Constructive purposes were anathema to it, especially something that he had described just minutes ago as deconstruction. Shielding – she could see it being repurposed to that, have the shield eat the attack back just as much. Like a pineapple. Don’t just absorb it.

Propping the inside of your body together with black magic… hm, well, if it was an entity entirely made of that, the contradiction was kind of inherent to its being. And if he had one of those in him, maybe it could put itself in there. Not a good long-term fix, Rudolf was still… well, a person. Not a black magic entity. It’d probably turn his insides to goop or cause some horrible disease.

Rudolf’s mouth opened. His jaw worked. The pause hung in the air.

“D-D-Don’t answer,” she took a swig of the drink. Hmm, the discount from being a hero of the day… nicer than what she’d normally be willing to pay for. And without having to sneak out with it, too, “I don’t think you kn-know. Like that rubingdo stuff.”

Which was another thing she wanted to know. Rubies were red, but she didn’t see how pretty rocks came into it.

“Myaaaa… c-could this shade explain some day?”

“I’m sure,” the emblazoned swordsman groaned. “It’s been hinting at half of these concepts in the back of my head ever since Leviathan— but Isolde and her Dispelja right after spooked him away from ever piping up with this many white mages around unless we’re in a life or death situation. Almost have my thoughts to myself for a change. If I were to guess, outside of whatever’s become intertwined with my own natural living aether and what’s holding me together? I’m flameless and explain-less.”

An inconvenient reality, but the one they were stuck with for a good long while. He couldn’t read Miina’s mind, and thus had no way of divining those concerns regarding burnings at the stake, but it sounded like whatever spirit had given him access to these abilities had a vested interest in neither of them dying.

He certainly couldn’t object, in most instances, even if straight answers were at a premium.

“...Lunaris.” he said, after puzzling over something for a while. “We can get answers in Lunaris. Earl Cadmon’s libraries are expansive, and the ruins are the site of a lot of archaeological digs and ongoing study. They’re some of the oldest in Edren… and where I cut the deal that made me this way. There won’t be so many of Etro’s devout around to scare his lips sealed, either, so we can curate our research with some real direction if I grill him right.”

He scoffed. That was an idea, but not one he could totally trust. As he’d just relayed, so much more casually than he had with Galahad, he’d believed he could go digging around down there and find what he wanted once already. No guarantee he’d get away with any less this go around. Not without great care.

“Much better than simple inference and word association. That’s basically all that Nigredo, Albedo, and Rubedo stuff is, when you get down to it. Guesswork. But a guess I’m holding onto, until I get a clearer picture.”

“Well, w-w-word association is all spells are”, Miina pointed out, “It’s n-n-not like the power c-comes from the word. It’s just a specific p-pattern, a specific aether manipulation, and you t-tie it to a single word. I think? It’s how I’ve d-done it.”

“Really,” he blinked, before nodding along, no doubt folding that insight away somewhere. “Then, I guess I may as well run you through the broad picture. Maybe you’d get something out of the framework that a meathead like me can’t.”

He held both hands up. His left heavily burned, bearing the brunt of the rebound from the blackened Shields. His right, save a few healing scrapes from Valon, still mostly bearing his pale skin— the bulk of his blackflame being channeled through that odd greatsword of his. He began with the left, trying to concentrate and muster some blackflame to demonstrate— but to no avail.

He sighed, and resorted to just words.

“These are old terms, belonging to the hermetic traditions of Edreni protoculture— the city-states that came before the Kingdom unified.” he began, perhaps able to credit that brief back and forth with Galahad for dredging the old studies of history back to the fore. “Alchemy, in other words. The alchemical process, to create a magnum opus. Typically a philosopher’s stone— but importantly, it’s traditionally broken into four stages. Three of which have almost direct counterparts in magic today.”

Burned hand.

“The Black Mages, reviled and feared for their destructive capabilities all across the continent, tending towards fire, ice, and thunder to attack something. This is aligned with the first step of the Opus— Nigredo, sometimes called melanosis. Where the material is returned to its pure components, cooked, cleansed, and calcinized down to a uniform black matter. The prima materia, formless and full of potential to become. They beget chaos.”

The unburnt hand now, waving across.

“Then the White Mages, those that heal, purify, reinforce that which we hold holy and good and are protectors of that structure, bolstering the Mothercrystal’s creation— like with Shield, for instance. Evokes the next step, Albedo, or leucosis. The impurities are washed away; light, clarity, and form are restored. Definition begets order, structure. What is and is not is separated.”

Slowly, he brought them together, interlacing his fingers before pointedly glancing up at Miina, and the shock of red that crowned her. He recognized the clothes from the ensemble she’d had on when they went out shopping for hats, he was pretty sure.

“Finally, rarest of all, only achieved a few times per generation… The final step of the opus. Rubedo— iosis. The reddening, the sign of the work’s completion, the synthesis and integration of insight and experience— all that can be gleaned from the process, to reunite the purified, separated components of the matter, and transcend. The principle of coincidentia oppositorum is vital. Forming a unity of opposites. Fittingly, Red Mages like you wield both the black and the white… and you’re grilling me for truth. Libra, and all.”

He coughed, realizing how long he’d rambled and let his unwoken voice scratch the insides of his dry throat. His visual metaphor fell apart, for the sake of politely covering his mouth.

“Like I said, a lot of guesswork and word association behind this theory. Reference to outdated and esoteric schools of thought more than anything, maybe just because my reference points are so primordial. It’s definitely not perfect… but there are parallels, if you get it in your head to look for them.”

“S-S-Seems…” the cat took another swig of her fruit liquor, shrugging, “I d-d-don’t know. Not without that l-library. Or talking to Mr. Shade. I still d-d-don’t get why red magic is so… uncommon. Mages should b-b-be able to do both. When it’s m-materia, people don’t have that p-problem, look at Izayoi… s-same idea, j-just direct aether c-control…”

She tapped the bottle irritably. Well, Rudolf was currently an exception. If he tried to control white magic… not good.

He shrugged too, mirroring her. It was a shame he couldn’t take a swig himself— but clearing his throat told him he’d better not.

“To be fair, all mages are rare— white magic just seems so prevalent here because this is where many of them congregate, both for study and for the faith. But most of us only have our personal stocks of aether to work with.”

A wry, self-effacing twist of the expression crossed his face, as he looked off to the side for a moment.

“And many of us don’t have much of it. Or much talent, either… Honestly, just between us? I can’t even really manage her lightning redirection technique without some help from the inside…”

Anyone who looked at the sequence of events with a fair eye would note that just a week ago, Rudolf hadn’t even known the Raijingeki was possible— but, as always, the boy was rarely ever fair.

“D-Didn’t mean mages, I know th-that’s uncommon, it’s…” Miina’s eyes drifted to her free hand, thinking about what he had said. Redirecting lightning. She could direct it, if she created it – the sparks playing around her fingers were proof enough there – but taking control of something else? Maybe with a proper focus for it, otherwise she’d just fall into the counter.

She snuffed the sparks out, clenching them into just a tingle in her fist, “I mean… I d-don’t think the talent is restricted? B-Black mages aren’t that b-because they can’t touch white magic, so… or is it m-materia that’s different?”

“Materia’s supposed to be a compression of ambient aether that’s structured to produce a spell when activated.” Rudolf rattled off, mostly just getting the boilerplate sales pitch from the South out of the way. Nobody in their party could reasonably be expected to not know the basic idea behind it at this point. “How they synthesize and mass produce that stuff… I have no clue. Ditto on how that structure allows for repeated casting— I know that the fundamental aether in there holding each stone together can be freed and fed into the output, somehow. That’s why the Shields for Ultima were stronger than the time I used it for Famfrit, and why I don’t have it around now. Maybe that’s related to how it recharges, like they’re both tied to that ‘compressed ambient energy of the world’ thing?”

He almost wanted to offer her more of the old and dead language to be annoying. This would be the perfect time to throw in Anima Mundi and guess at a conflation haphazardly, but he was already playing too cavalier a game with the alchemy metaphor. That was incomplete enough already without adding more concepts that needed at least a millennium of filtering through history to arrive back in modern times.

He shook his head, warding away the rabbit hole for now.

“...Maybe it’s a philosophical difference. I’m not sure how much of it came through the word salad, but even in alchemical thought there was a lot of philosophy that crept in. It almost became just as much about the self as it was craft, that the alchemist was expected to undergo some sort of divine transformation of the soul, alongside whatever he was trying to create. That’s pretty high-concept for this, but maybe similar lines might explain it. Tendencies within people’s selves emerge in how they manipulate the world whether they’re more ordered or chaotic, destructive or protective. I dunno.”

“Huh,” Miina thought about this. Shouldn’t she be a black mage, then? Something seemed to be missing in that picture. Materia, though… everyone always said they were spells but…

Reaching around inside her shirt, the mystrel produced an unassuming looking example thoroughly bundled up by a long cord. “Wh-What about Materia th-that aren’t spells? I’ve never cast th-this… I don’t even know where m-m-my brother got it.”

… or what it did, for sure. He’d just said ‘it would help’.

When she’d produced the unfamiliar stone from somewhere close to the collar, an embarrassingly large part of Rudolf had thought about asking “oh wow is that another Shield Materia am I lucky do I get to not have to explain that I destroyed a Shield Materia to the Earl of most of western Edren because I’m lucky”, or something of a similar nature.

That hopeful look was replaced by blank puzzlement.

“They make those? That’s news to me.”

“S-S-Someone must. Zeke s-said it was… experience? S-Something like that. Doesn’t do anything, j-j-just feels… warm.”

“Experience.” he blandly repeated.

Experience.

“If spells are just associations, then… maybe there’s a way that builds them? Experience is the association between action and memory.” he offered. A total, blind shot in the dark, enough that it made the esoterism allegory earlier in their talk appear so well-structured it could survive doctorate review. He threw his hands up in quick defeat, plaintive in his lack of confidence. “I have nothing for warm. Could be ‘fond memories’, for all I know. I thought they just made pocket spells.”

“… maybe someone in S-Skael will know,” she pronounced after having a moment to think on that, sliding the materia back into its usual spot. For now… hmm, she wasn’t going to be getting any more answers today, so… Miina could just go finish her drink. And then take a nap.

Or–

“W-Want me to heal you m-more? I can probably d-do it.”

A sigh. Whether it was relief, disappointment that they’d not gotten very far, or just the same pile of exhaustion that had knocked most of them out for the full day and change thus far, it was tough to say.

“I’d appreciate it. Sorry to always do this to you, again.”

He wasn’t sure how well all that had piled up in the last three days would heal on its own. Felt like there was always something new— and with how many of their number that they’d already lost in the jungle, he doubted he was finished with his time in the line of fire. Out of everyone left, it was, incredibly, probably him that was best equipped for the thick of a melee, and all the ways being there tried to kill you.

But with any luck, “burning from the inside out” wouldn’t be one of them.

“I’ll be honest. My insides have seen better days. Probably best we clear the scaffolding first.” he mused, before inclining his head. “Please, just what you’re comfortable with.”

“I w-w-wouldn’t still b-be around if I minded healing,” Miina pointed out. It wasn’t like she had a burning reason to stick with anyone, and she was well equipped to just disappear into the night if it came to it.

She’d been planning to start with the weird black magic supports anyway; those couldn’t be healthy. But how to get rid of them? If she didn’t care about Rudolf’s survival, she would just hit him with a dispel, let the light magic do its work, and see if she could toss some heals in afterwards. No way to reasonably balance the two spells at the same time, after all.

But that was probably fatal even before considering the whole “burning from within with contradictory magics” part. So she needed something else.

If she could hijack the black magic, then manipulating it out of the way would make room for healing… very much how she’d addressed her own injuries, just on a more survival-oriented scale. That… would probably not be possible, though. It’d be like trying to hijack part of an Eidolon directly, just much weaker; she didn’t have the power for that. It could be a last resort.

So… what she needed was something that was black magic, and kind of like a dispel. If it was elemental, she could have just opposed it with the stronger element, but this was its own thing.

“Hmm…”

“What’s up?” Rudolf asked. “You healed my knee joint without too much issue in Osprey. I’ve got the same sort of stabbing feeling through my torso now as I did back then. Is it different now?”

“I w-wasn’t worried about stopping your heart or s-s-something then. Or p-paying attention, s-so I just healed through the b-b-backlash. I c-could collapse your ribs, or… hmm… I really need a b-black magic dispel, b-but that’s white magic…”

“That bad?” his brows rose. “That’s scary. I didn’t even feel much backlash then, but I know what a heart attack feels like now…”

She was the one that could ‘look’ inside, as it was— so he basically had to take her word for it. It didn’t sound too beyond the pale that what might have once been benign “just heal the sword guy” fare was suddenly beyond the pale. Not to him. Not…

Well, if he had nothing left to call up…He gave a brief grimace, gr

No. He had to trust Miina on this. He didn’t want to risk what she was saying was on the table.

“I-It’s not like a b-barrier spell, the wh-white magic wouldn’t absorb the b-black. It’d j-just… explode. M-Magically, not literally… mostly. In your ch-chest. Don’t stitch v-vital parts together with black magic unless you c-can think of how to heal with it,” Miina explained, looking down at her bottle (and hands).

It was a strange thought, that dispel was white magic. When it came down to it, her conception of what it did was very much… destroy whatever spells were lingering in the area. Destruction. Black, not white. But it was really an imposition of the normal world, reinstating what should be there…

But still targeted entirely on magic. She could work with that. Even… hm, wasn’t that similar to silence? It wasn’t her spell; she had never used it once. Barely even remembered it; it wasn’t like a wandering mystrel tended to encounter other mages. But Zeke had been a fan when he wanted her to pay attention and stop playing with whatever new magic she had learned.

Another swig of the bottle. Right, so black magic could interfere with casting, and it should therefore be able to do a dispel too, if you knew enough. Not efficiently; you didn’t have the help of working with the world to get rid of the strange aether effects. But it should be doable.

So, if she focused her efforts on destroying the structure, not restoring the world to its unmagicked state… there was a pattern there, she was sure…

Only one supporting strand was gone, but at least it didn’t have a huge magical backlash. And leaning forward with her other hand too, directing the healing… no time for things to slide back. This was going to take a while. But it seemed to be working.

“C-Can you feel that?”

He gave a brief grimace, gritting his teeth before a deep, deep breath. As he exhaled, there was a shift behind his eyes, settling himself again at steel.

“Yeah. It pulls away, so it stings for a second, but… I can tell it’s healing. It always tingles and feels kinda cold when everything knits back together— like salve.”

He gave her a thumbs up, and an almost shaky smile, right at the edge of what he’d allow of himself.

“Nice work. Seems like you figured out how to keep me from blowing up pretty quick. Lucky me.”

Ironic.

“Mmm… w-w-well, we’re going to b-be here all day, might as w-well see if you can feel the aether m-moving,” Miina offered a half shrug and moved onto the next spot. If she knew what meditation was, meditative would have been an appropriate description for the entire procedure, on her end. Except for taking breaks to take a drink.

One day wouldn’t be enough for a full recovery, but compared to how Rudolf had started…

By the time she was done, he was well on the road to recovery, in relative terms. Many parts of him still ached, and the burns on his skin needed to be left mostly untouched— but tough as he and all Sagramori, bloodline or adopted, were?

He would be on his feet by the next day. A fair silver lining, by anyone’s measure. He still would have been wise to avoid anything terribly strenuous…

But the new questions their talk had arisen, and afternoon full of concerted focus towards following aethereal flow within himself, meant he had his share of things to occupy his mind while his body licked the rest of its’ wounds. One among them, a lasting impression.

They needed to know as much as they could, before they left Lunaris and made their way to the frigid south.

All of them did.