HereComesTheSnow

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

Well, it wasn't like he made that joke without expecting retribution from somebody.

Rudolf rubbed at the point of impact with an undertone grunt, before murmuring something that rhymed to the general tune of "he certainly wasn't this strict about it." as he and Skael's native son and daughter were ushered inside in short order, the great oak door locking away the cold and the rest of the Kirins behind them. They were escorted to a plush enough lounge, warmly lit and adorned with dark furnishing— one that would make for a cozy study or sitting room, in less uncertain circumstances.¹

Despite the admonishment from outside, the young man studiously continued to play along with the familiarity of address the staff afforded him, gratefully accepting a steaming cup of tea and plucking a buttery cake from the accompanying platter. Popping the pastry into his maw, he glanced around the room as they began to sit and wait, sinking into their respective cushions.

"... How's the back holding up, Eliane?" he asked after a time, lolling his head over to give the pink-haired fusilier a once-over. It had seemed that the injury had really taken the wind out of her sails, even now that she was on the mend— while the hike over to the Breien estate hadn't prompted any obvious issues, she did still seem somewhat muted in her bearing from before—

Though, in fairness, the concern Galahad was voicing out front she likely more than shared— with Solitude having gone totally silent even to its' own intelligence apparatus, and saboteurs like Loki already so well-embedded within as to catch them out in a random township like that...

Her thoughts, most likely, lied with her family more than anything else that could be dragging them off-course like this.

He heard the knob turn, and gently tossed an extra cushion that had been lying at his side over to where she sat, before plucking his teacup from the table and plastering a languid slouch over his bearing, reclining into his seat with a propped up elbow and a smile.

"Halvor. Hi, I brought friends over. Didn't freeze." He raised his cup in greeting, before taking a sip. "You look stressed, have some tea. It's peaflower. They say it's good for nerves— and blue, too."

---

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• _{1. The temperature difference from the outside notwithstanding, it's easy to see how someone who uses 'reading' and 'painting' to stave off a biological urge to get back on psychoactive chemicals that got them through their employment days would favor this sort of atmosphere in their home.}

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage¹

"You think he'll be upset if I go help Goug stable the birds?" Rudolf offered, tongue drifting closer and closer towards cheek. His eyes followed Esben up towards the entrance, but his feet still hung a little back— in part having made sure he was paying attention once the Viscount had been confirmed to be in one of those previously mentioned bouts of melancholia again, but just as much...

He watched and waited, speaking again when he saw the SEED blithely grab hold of the door liked he owned the place. 'Unwelcoming' would be put to the test, then— good thing he'd hung away, if the man were wroth. He'd noticed a change in the demeanors of the guards, though, once he'd been properly identified. They were acting pointedly familiar. For all the stress that ruse was doubtlessly causing Breien, his men were as committed to it as he.

And if there was anything both of them that had been urged to take this four hour detour knew he Rudolf a knack for, it was playing along. He grinned toothily, folding his arms as he gazed past his tallest compatriot and into the foyer.

"I mean, after five years of a mercurial northerner ward in his hair, I'm sure he's been enjoying my time away. He even planted new flowers. I think. Might want to milk every second he can out of it."

---

---

• _{1. It's been a week of dropping the facade and just admitting he was disowned, and already his smartass gene is working on overdrive. One imagines his family has few friends in their corner of the old country. But it's great, I'm all for needlessly needling people, as you might have put together.}

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

"We're of like mind in that, believe me." a grumble floated in from two paces ahead, as the supposed chief benefactor of this four-hour diversion slipped the signet ring hanging from a cord 'round his neck back under his scarf and collar. Emblazoned with the small engraving of a dragon betwixt gnarled roots, the blued steel was a pointedly rare sight¹— but it seemed to be ample failsafe for proving his identity, after being five years and change missing. "He was pretty coy with the specifics, beyond my needing to show up."

The warrior's gear, burns, and scars had earned him a thoroughly skeptical eyeballing. If Rudolf had followed up on any one of those impulses he'd had in his exile to throw that old gift from his mother away, this might not have gone so smoothly— their only ticket in would have been Esben, who seemed to be no great trouble to verify. Maybe his word might've then been enough for the angry stray cat he had in tow.

He glanced over his shoulder, towards two actually angry actual cats, meeting the eyes of the elder for a moment— the younger too busy shooting Galahad a stink eye, as one arm stubbornly hung limp at her side. Izayoi was bristly as ever, but with the knowledge of the situation at hand in the big picture well on the forefront of all their minds, he couldn't blame her. To tell the truth, feeling each hour drag on by as they peeled off-course had started to wear on him, too.

He huffed, a cloud of mist blooming before him, before facing front once more as the gates began to open for them.

"Ostensibly, the story is that I'm supposed to be quietly warding with the Viscount given my weak constitution— And showing up after four or five years will 'prove' that I didn't run off and die while he was nominally responsible for my wellbeing. He's been stressed to high heaven about reporting me missing— It's a poor look to lose your sickly charge, I imagine. So, if all goes well, we'd at least have this estate as a potential redoubt, should things get really hairy further into the country. You know, the way they have in the past two. Beyond that..."

He grimaced as he stepped forward, the first into the grounds proper. Much like the frost-dusted winter kales and turnips scattered along the surrounding farmlands, not far away from the stony approach were earthware pots capped with white— pale, hardy primroses stubbornly peeking through the chill in spots of pale yellow and lavender.²

His timbre dropped, confusion and suspicion mounting.

"'Some things for both of us'. I have no idea what it could be. Any guesses?"

He nudged the one-day Baron with an elbow, both his arms back in working order.

"Something materially worthwhile, to keep her off our backs?"

---

---

• _{1. TL Note: He was scared Galahad would recognize it. It comes from the Midgar side of the family— the more recently-Midgar side of the family. Fun fact, his other two shithead brothers have their own versions of this thing. It's a minor miracle he kept it around. Probably a lot of unresolved issues there.}
• _{2. Imagine how good a florist you could have been, if only you'd stuck to the plan. You'd know everything about those dainty flowers, and never come close to being able to say you fought a Behemoth enough to earn a trophy on the kill. Or say that you overcame the defenses of Leviathan with Ga with Gungnir. Aren't you glad, young man, that I've put you on an exciting path instead? Giving you the violence you yearn for? Look, you're a warrior in a garden, and for once the phrase actually applies to the subject in a clear one-to-one. Just remember to thank me some time.}

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage and Esben Mathiassen

---

You know, looking at it.

"You think wedging it out'd work?"

What? No. I was gonna say I’m not sure why you were so worried. The \Comet notwithstanding, it’s kind of just if Adrammelech was a Taurus, or a Leo, and not a Capricorn. They’re about as big as eachother, I’d say. One lanky, one brawny. Hm. Maybe something like a… Leo sun and a Taurus rising. If we go get some tea I can channel my inner witch girl, and we could figure this out. Or that yerba you tried in Drana Asnaeu.

“Okay, man. Whatever.”

Rudolf rolled his eyes with a huff, and killed the conversation between undertone and inner monologue as he heard footsteps drawing up along the rime behind him. Lighter and more careful than the average villager’s that would stop by and curiously observe the dangerous-seeming man ponder over how he would try and overcome the fantastically tough keratin and bone of one of nature’s most fearsome killing machines from a safe distance, the cadence of the stride was familiar enough that guessing at the who was basically an afterthought.

”Patience isn't always your strong suit, is it?” came yet another familiar cadence to match the stride that was coming up. ”Arm still in a sling, a corpse big enough it would take most of that village to move it, and yet you're already out here like you're scared it’ll get up and walk away on you.”

“Give me some credit,” Rudolf retorted, his right hand holding his rondel aloft as he lazily rolled out his unbound shoulder. “It’s my bad arm that’s off-duty— and the village is gonna want the pile of blight attached to this very valuable skeleton gone before long. It’s not every day I can claim a Behemoth’s horn; this is as good as any scale on Galahad’s sash, you know.”

At least Esben's ribbing him was good-natured, rather than just getting on his case for straining himself when he hadn't yet healed. In recognizing this, Rudolf’s responses leaned towards glib, away from defensive.

”Funny how we keep ending up like this, though...at least we didn't get the worst of it this time. If I had to fight broken ribs while trying to saw a horn off of this thing I'd probably have said no.”

“Well, to be fair,” Rudolf grunted, sinking into a low squat in front of the beast’s snout and staring into the sunken black pits of its’ skull— the eyes having long given up the ghost to the Blight. The blade in his hand ran rivulets of ink down its spine for a moment, before he seemed to hold off on putting blackflame to the inside of the skull and cleaning it out, thinking better of the idea. “If you were in ribs jail again, I wouldn’t have asked. Really, I’d be fine just bouncing ideas off you.”

Instead, he held the steel outstretched, towards the top end of the roughly Chisato-sized skull, making contact with the black ivory of the leftmost horn and feeling the resistance.

“You’re right, though. We get to be the tough ones this time. How do the others look? I imagine your two employees have been hard at work keeping tabs on them all— Miina and Eliane, they were the worst off by far. How’re they?”

”Alive,” came the laconic reply. ”Miina seems to be down an arm, though. Hopefully it isn't permanent; if she's crippled, that'll be yet another thing to keep an eye out for, no matter how much she might not want it.” He reached out towards the horn as well, frowning at it. A knife didn't seem enough to get through it, and he didn't feel like just trying to bash it off.

”That’s… Yeah, we should.”

The tightness around Rudolf’s eyes said it all— that and the scarring. For all the mechanics of aethereal manipulation as it came to naturalborn mages were still above him, he’d already had his brushes with permanent changes coming by way of asking for more magic than the body was meant to handle. He’d been lucky that most of them were mercifully cosmetic—

But even now, he was accounting for a slight tingle at the tips of his fingers, even minding the knife. For her to lose use of an entire arm? Forget battlefield efficacy. Simply living would now be so much more a pain.

”Should we see about borrowing a saw? Surely the healer or the butcher would have one to get through this.”

”Only if they won’t miss it,” Rudolf huffed, electing to illustrate things by pulling the edge along the side of the horn— revealing a line so faint even keen eyes would need to squint for it. “Behemoths are robust enough to ward away old dragons from their territory— Their horns are little different in that regard. Easily strong enough to wreck steel before steel wrecks it if we just try sawing away.”

He glanced around, noting the many places where their struggle and the fallout of the Comet left their marks.

“I doubt we want to take their lumber saws from them either, considering. Hmm. Maybe… You have any wedges on hand? Pitons, maybe?”

”Not on hand, no.” Treating it like splitting stone might work, at least, although he had no clue how the horn might try to fracture. ”Lumber saw would be too soft, anyway. I was thinking take a bone saw to it, section it off from the skull, then we can take the entire horn somewhere else to break it down. Maybe they have a way we could grind it down here?”

“Maybe a millstone.” Rudolf dully joked. “Since I’m thinking of quarries already, you particularly remember how this region makes its money to begin with? A dominant trade’ll get us at least a broad directionality of what we might be able to use. Granted,” he breathed, tapping his knife in sequence down the horn’s length once, twice— measuring workable sections, no doubt. The beast had been massive; the full length of either curved spear on its crown eclipsed the swords Rudolf wore on his hip. To hilt any manner of dagger, you would hardly need it whole.

But, as getting ahold of a Behemoth corpse had proven for the nth time, contingencies. It could always go wrong, somehow.

“If our luck runs dry, I’m willing to donate camp time and whetstones on my own to it. No skin off my back. I came in expecting some measure of lugging workable material around for a while in any case— I’m hardly the artisan this stuff deserves.”

”Mmm.” Esben was hardly the sort to really know what kind of artisan the corpse of a Behemoth would take to make anything useful. He was just hopeful that the bone itself would be softer than the horn. ”I'm sure the rest of the Sagramori might laugh at that one, ja? Rudolf, part of a team that slayed a Behemoth, so stumped on how to deal with it that he has to drag the horns along behind him.”

“No. There are people that know the right way to wring the strength out of felled beasts into the knives. It’s steeped in process and tradition. It’s an entire craft, and it’s theirs—I have not made it mine.” he spoke with cutting finality. ”The clansmen and laetii alike would sooner laugh at me for having the temerity to waste a good kill if I got ahead of myself and made something shoddy.”

Maybe Galahad might have more ideas than he did, but the dragoon wasn't there to help, and it wasn't a joke to suggest that the two of them standing there really had come out of it better than the rest for once. ”As far as I'm aware, this is mostly farmland—for what little grows and what little of a growing season they have. There might be a quarry or a mine nearby, but I'm not sure. Want to stop and talk to the butcher first, or start asking around for anything bigger?”

The younger man thought on it, glancing up to the sun. He’d already wasted a good few minutes bickering.

“…Butcher. Let’s go for it. They can probably tell us if we’re barking up the wrong tree or not.”

”Let's go look for one, then—and let me do most of the cutting if it works. We don't need you setting your arm back another few days, if Alex is going to be on us the whole time we're down here in Skael. I'm going to need someone that can hold her down when we finally catch her.”

Rudolf snorted. “Hold her down? I’m not marriage material like that.”

Such a joker. But thankfully, his only real protest was waving his right arm around a bit, before pumping it forward and back— evidently confident he could handle a bone saw.

Rather than dignify that terrible joke with a response, Esben furrowed his brow down at the skull.

”Do you think we could sever the connective tissue, at least? If we can drag the skull behind us it'll be less back-and-forth.”

“That…” Rudolf murmured, bringing the bone of the dagger to his chin thoughtfully. “Might not be a bad idea. Once we clean it out, and all.”

A puff of air leaked through his nose, ushering in a small tightening of the brow.

“I doubt Izayoi’s going to care terribly much about it, but given it was her technique that struck the final blow and the lion’s share of the damage… she does have the right to first claimancy. Be easier to take the stuff I want to her and say ‘Mom please’ than drag her out to all this.”

He sheathed the knife and stepped over to the side, reaching for a heftier blade.

”If you think so. She doesn't seem the type to take souvenirs like this.”

“That’s why I said it the way I did.”

As Rudolf reached for a heavier blade, he put his hands on any point of the beast's skull he could get a firm grip—and where the Blighted flesh had already sloughed off completely without residue. ”Right through the atlas joint, ja? Just say the word and I'll maneuver this so that you've got a good angle.”

“Yeah, open it up for me.”

Esben obliged, grunting as he pulled on the skull to break the neck up and open. Chisato-sized it was, and probably twice as heavy; add on the fact that he had to bend it down into the ground to open up the joint that was their target, and it was likely to take all the remaining energy he really felt like expending for the rest of the day.

With grisly intent, one of the Wings unfurled from the hip of the burned swordsman, drawing high as his good arm measured for the gap, already visualizing strength and weight carrying through that single edge. Forged quite well for chopping like this— but, while he still had another blade on his mind…

“A shame I’ve dragged my feet on breaking that curse,” he noted, slowly bringing the sword down onto the stretched joint, refining the imminent hew. “Were I more industrious, I surely could have gotten ahold of a diamond and crushed it by now— remind me,”

He glanced over, living more in curiosity than dissatisfaction.

“Your family’s on the coast, right? Have I picked your brain about black pearls yet? Feel like I might’ve. I know oysters are due to bloom in a couple weeks from asking around here, at least.”

”This, while I'm holding this thing in place for you?” Esben grumbled. ”They're rare, but not impossible to find. As best as I know it's basically luck of the draw, but I'm sure pearldivers might know more. Are you hoping to buy or just pull your own? We might need to start you on some breath exercises now if that's the case.”

”I’m hoping to get ahold of it however I need to,” he replied evenly. “I know things went poorly with Siren, but I’m confident in holding my breath when I’m not wrapped up in a mesmer and maelstrom. It’d be nice to buy it, though. Good change of pace, not having to worry about ‘luck of the draw’— that’d be bad news for me. Anyway, speaking of ‘holding your breath’:”

A flash behind the eyes, and a sudden, violent change in bearing.

The hoarfrost beneath their feet cracked, as the muscles of Rudolf’s arm, back, and core fired at once, a stiff exhale passing through his teeth as he sent a comet of his own through the path his blade had drawn, brutally strong even with his other arm pointedly out of commission. The sword bit deep. Having time to measure oneself like this was always such a luxury.

“I won’t make you do it much longer. I think a couple more and we’ve got ourselves a head.”

”I am not holding my breath!”

“You were a little. It’s fine! It’s good to brace your core when you’re in an isometric hold. I meant the figure of speech, anyway.” Rudolf breezily elaborated, rolling the wrist of his sword arm over to clear the blood as he raised it again.

”Fitte,” Esben muttered darkly, putting a foot on the snout of the skull to help hold the angle for Rudolf to keep hacking through the ligament attaching spine to skull. ”Pearl diving is no normal holding your breath, anyways, or did you regularly make a habit of diving as deep as a tower is tall and then scrambling along the lakebed while training with the Sagramori? Because that's what pearl divers do, in the open ocean, and our waters are frigid. Drownings when divers try to resurface just because the pressure makes them faint are a depressingly regular occurrence among those without diving helmets.”

“We have a couple of pretty deep lakes. Behemoths trying to hit each other with Comet to thank for ‘em, if you believe old hearsay.” Another steel-lined bolt from the heavens rang out, a thick and wet snap resounding as connective tissue gave way. Rudolf waved with the sword in Esben’s direction now, basically signaling relent. They were far enough through that the rest wouldn’t be half so obstinate. “How tall a tower we mean?”

For whatever it was worth, he was trying to remember just how deep he had last managed, dive training for Naga and Water Trolls.

”One hundred feet and more. And that's only the depth, that's not counting actually hunting for the oysters and mussels.” He let go of the head, although he kept pressing down with his foot to keep it from settling back entirely. He glanced over the joint critically, before turning his sight back to the rest of the skull. ”Mmm, maybe the jaw too...”

It would be less to drag, at least, although he had no clue how difficult those joints would be to get through.

“Alright, not quite.” Rudolf shrugged. A hundred feet of water overhead certainly didn’t sound like his idea of a good time, even if he was mildly convinced his tolerances had been forced higher thanks in no small part to things like the carcass they were mangling.

He was pretty sure a few fathoms was about it, on his end. No more than ten. Bringing the final pass of his sword through, he crouched low, pressing his knuckles against the masseter and looking back up with a frown. One of the densest, hardest knots of contractile tissue on anything he’d ever encountered, putting it lightly— even at two days dead. A Behemoth’s jaws were like a massive vise— producing crushing force that would put its teeth through the spine of nearly anything that walked the earth.

“I think it’d take a while.”

Esben nodded, swallowing the sigh that threatened to come out at that thought. ”Let's get dragging, then. Butcher first? Then you can check in with Izayoi while I do my rounds on the rest?”

“Lead the way.”

Sheathing the sword, Rudolf’s free and able hand reached into the maw of the felled beast, finding purchase around the front of the snout and pulling. It took a good bit of work to break into motion, but soon enough he managed a trudge.

After a couple yards of dragging, manageable as it was, Esben turned back to Rudolf, looking over the curling horn he'd found a grip on.

”...Ropes and a Chocobo?”

“Go get Sven, fuck it.”

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

Black dust slipped through his fingers, shards of spent onyx caught in the wakewinds of the shattered star, the breaking of the heat dome they'd forged. By the skin of their teeth, they'd pulled this one out of the bag— taking them right up to their limits. Every last resource, every last gambit, every last desperate solution conjured in the moments where reality had pointed out the holes between them all. He watched it filter out into the rising night, leaving only the void in his grasp.

And so, the last, most ill-conceived vestige of "Rudolf, guy from Sagramore" leaves us. The mask is no more. How you feel, champ? Like a new man?

He grunted, as the first of the pebbles bounced off his helmet, and shifted the greatsword in his good arm overhead to shelter beneath as he stalked forward, towards the nearest of his compatriots— the two Mystrel, both completely overtaxed by the torrent of aether they'd tried to manage, and in Izayoi's case, the clash with Behemoth. But Miina had the worst of it, writhing in barely-controlled pain, as if struck by lightning, punctuated by breathless howling. While the specifics eluded Rudolf, he could parse that the mental feedback from trying to enact one's will upon so many sources of aether, each with its' own specific aspect...¹

He stood above the both of them, one arm finally allowed to hang limp, liquid fire coursing through it. Compared to that, his injuries were hardly anything to bellyache over. He could do nothing for whatever ravages aetheric rebound were enacting upon the two of them, but until the shower of stone abated... the least he could do was this.

For everything else? What was done was done. And it had gotten them out the other side.²

At least Goug wasn't keeping him waiting long.

---

Two days later, and the conclusion was inescapable— for all the Kirins' burns, breaks, and scrapes, Rudolf had gotten off light. A torn tendon or two in his arm, elbow a little out of joint, a few broken digits, and that was it. Whether he wanted to attribute it to his new armor or his physical resilience was hard to say— thus, splitting the difference was probably most accurate³— but there was one data point that needed nothing by way of speculation.

Two days and the Eos-aided ministrations of the local doctor later, and Rudolf was hale enough to mill about again, his surviving equipment in hand and his left arm at rest in a sling, while the triceps finished the steady process of reconnecting to tendon and bone. He spent the morning asking after where he might source a black pearl, finally following up on Isolde's cursebreaking advice. Eventually, he received his answer from the fishmonger: in the coming weeks, diving season was to begin, and a plethora of pearls from the warmer bays and coves that shaped the southlands' coastline would reach market. A spot of luck, for once— But he wouldn't hold his breath quite yet for finding a good deal, where life might have him get ahold of one the old-fashioned way.

Fitting that sentiment, by midday, the scar-laden swordsman could be found at the southern gate of what was left of town, looking over the carcass of the Behemoth with a thoughtful frown. Rot and blight had taken much of the mighty animal's flesh, true, but the skeletons of these things was made of far sterner stuff— and for all he had dispensed with his Sagramori facade since coming here, the time he'd spent among the hot-blooded swordsmen had still left an indelible mark upon him.

It was little consequence, waving away flies and managing the disposal of blighted flesh— they had felled a full-grown Behemoth. And even one half of either those jet-black horns, long and cruel as moonless night, would make for too proud a dagger when next he had the chance. It would be a thousand years in Himstus's crucible before he let this one slip from his grasp.

---

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• _{1. Lightning wasn't a bad way to put it. The way aether and will interact between Mages, Materia, and Anima Mundi, what Miina was forced to try and wrangle into a unified channel for Izayoi was basically like volunteering to hold four branching thimbles of copper wire aloft in a storm, so you can pass current into a lake. Using your mind as a conduit like that is "very fun", the same way having an entire senate of people yelling at you is "very fun". You know, when you need to care about what they're saying. It's a good thing you had me handle your Gravity materia— if she'd mistakenly tried to add undirected free energy with a fifth flavor on it to the cauldron, the cauldron would have flowkirkenuinely (as the youth say) boiled over, all over you guys's stove.}
• _{2. Cope. Not seethe, I'll hand it to you, but it's cope. You can't answer my question.}
• _{3. I'm taking credit for it. Me and my cozy armor. Facts are malleable, but my agendas never waver.}

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

Oh, hell. They were a step too slow.

The faint wisps of rosy cloud overhead, filaments of ice and little more, sublimated as the creeping purple of night was washed away by the furious blaze of a second sun, brought forth by the dying gasps of their titanic foe. Even through the cold of the early night air, even through the steel that hid the awestruck horror writ large across his features, Rudolf's skin seemed to burn beneath the wave of heat descending from overhead—fiercest, naturally, around the eyes.¹ Through his visor, casting his gaze up revealed naught but a field of heat and light. An apocalypse. The thousand scars upon the earth, said to be the source of each new lake in southern Edren— the ace in the hole for any Behemoth that judged themselves wroth: Comet.

Comet was falling upon them, and they had but seconds to act. Rudolf's mind raced, even as he dimly felt the winds whip into a spiral around them, beckoned by Izayoi's blade— slowly. Too slowly. Her gambit was obvious enough— shatter the stone as it fell, and pray pebbles falling upon you were more manageable than a boulder. As good an idea as any under the circumstances, but her labored breathing told the tale— even one of her hidden hews couldn't possibly be mustered at full strength. Not without help. Not without more time. They needed more, and in a hurry!

He planted the cursed sword into the earth, barely coaxing the frozen soil apart enough for it to stand and watch. Useless. Useless! Just thinking about it made him want to scream— having felt the one time its shell seemed to lift and allow it to strike true, he would almost wager that godsent edge against even this falling calamity. But he had grown no closer to breaking it, even after all this time— the damn thing was little more than a leaden weight. The Crane Wings, too, were of no help— fine for dispatching problems of flesh and bone up to a point, but he had mastered no part of them so mighty as to not snap in two the moment he brought them to bear against the wrath of the heavens.

What, then. Svalinn? Could the shield hold, or had he been too liberal with his employment of the profaned flames already?

A snarl on his lips, he held a hand aloft, as if his palm could bear the impact for this little village, before a cold voice clicked a tongue that may well have been his own. A bit callow, it implied, thinking it could ever be so straightforward at this point in his life.

It's a moot point anyway, the explanation came quick, as if each concept had been said ahead of time and was being stamped upon his mind like moving type.² The rebound would be liable to kill us if it shatters. If it holds, the surrounding landscape still won't be so lucky as the eight meters you might save.

The demon was right— Even to guarantee the safety of the Warriors, he couldn't necessarily muster the same for the militia. And then, maybe a mile or two a way if they were lucky in this terrain, the civilians, the birds, and Goug. They'd be likely clear of the crater itself, but the heat? The light? The wall of force, a hundred of Dhinas's hammers, sweeping in one long thunderclap across the ice? There was no chance.

He couldn't rely on a shield. He didn't have one big enough, even if it could block the sun. No weapons, no shield, not even the strongest of the dark magic his pact granted him. What was left that he could do? Even his materia was spent, with one torn apart at the seams for all the power it could muster, and the other inert... until...

The winds' velocity redoubled as Miina lent her innate talent to the vortex, desperately trying to bring it up to speed, to turn their dervish into a proper maelstrom. They began to howl. The others who still could were moving about. If he couldn't do anything about it, he had to at least stack the deck for those who could. It was the only way, right? This was the best course of action he had available. Right?

Couple things. First, remember where we are for a moment. The place they make these things by the bushel. Second, since I've already touched essences with it³, I'm not gonna need those extra seconds to figure out your favorite magic bean the way I did with Shield, either, so if that's what's stopping you—

The dull purple of the spent orb seemed to shine in his hands, as if basking in the fire that fell upon the township. He hadn't realized he had grabbed it from the pouch, but instead glanced to the shock of blond a little off to the side, astride his chocobo with journal in hand.

”I did tell you that you had good instincts, after all.”

A pulse of aether, as the purple glow ringed itself with a stark blaze of black, furious ink burning towards the stone's core. Rudolf focused his will upward, into catching, into pushing away and back into the falling star, as if bearing and deadening its weight wholesale. In hasted time, the purple-black sparks danced high above once more, even as the steam began to leak through the twin slits of his visor as heat burned at the ground below—

Then there's no time to waste. The only time any of us have... is what I buy, here and now!

And as one, they coalesced beneath the epicenter of the blaze, and the comet seemed to hang in the air, like so many of its smaller preludes. If this would hold, for even one crucial second, there was a chance that they could arrest its momentum or shatter it wholesale— and at least take this down from a calamity to a disaster!

---

---

• _{1. Your fault, not mine.}
• _{2. Think of it kind of like I have no unnecessary downtime that would be filled by breathing, or cadence modulation, or some other corporeal stuff of that nature. You're getting me in soundbytes. And? You're getting them quick. It's like an orchestra. Only I'm every instrument.}
• _{3. No homo. We didn't make eye contact, he and I— but I'm still going to miss him. He's been here from the start, taken part in every battle with us. For my vessel, it's good to think of it as a replaceable, compressed aether tool. Millions in circulation like it. But for me— A compressed aether friend, a warm, comforting presence just a little close to the sacrum. Only he and I have been on this ride the whole way through, pinch hit for this idiot time after time. Go now, warrior. Go into the great welcoming Dark. I'll take it from here.}

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

His teeth grit, as hot metal rods of pain jammed their way through his body and he tumbled, end over end, through the frost. He had felt the now-defiled steel groan within the mighty beast's grip, as it had ripped him free of its back before he could wrench his body around for another desperate cleave to the vertebrae— but if it was proof of concept he wanted for the pursuit of proper armoring, he now had it in spades.

For all the uncomfortable noise, the plating held up, without warping out of shape or crumpling in on him.¹ With a Behemoth's claws and crushing grip conducting the test, there were far too few guarantees in the world of that much. It was ample testament to the quality he'd ended up sourcing. However...

Wrenching himself to his feet, Rudolf felt his left arm spasm, the joint of his elbow all liquid flame even as a few fingers stubbornly clung to his dagger, coated a bright, angry red that had painted streaks across the rime. He'd ripped a part of the Behemoth free with him, evidently, when it had ripped the intrepid warrior off its back in turn— but the titanic force that it had mustered to protect itself was, as you would expect, a horrid idea to contest.²

He drew a breath. Not the worst he'd fought through— ribs were certainly sore, and the interstitial muscles unhappy with their attempted pulverizing, to put it mildly—

A sabaton broke the ground, as he suppressed a pained scream and launched himself forward, as the shower of meteors descended from parts unknown. Weaving between those that came close and letting the smaller ones bounce off the bulk of his greatsword, he clicked his tongue— had only he not burned down Shield to dust, he could have cast it over the militia, sparing them, Miina, Elly, and Esben all the onslaught. Nor could he muster Svalinn— so failing all that...

A scattering of purple sparks, notably weaker than those that had piled up the blighted dead on the eastern front, danced around the bulk of the meteor storm's mass, causing them to slow in midair, almost hanging as if suspended in honey for a brief moment before the world resumed itself. Were the puprle orb at its full capacity, he surely could have caught the whole thing and pelted the Behemoth with it in reprisal, but this was as much aether as the stone had left to give for the day³. A hurried stopgap by any measure, but one that would hopefully make a crucial difference—

—And buy him time to properly interpose himself.

He skidded to a halt in front of the Skaeller's lines, took a rickety breath, and charged, throwing a globule of black flame ahead of him towards the maw of the beast as it roared to herald the rising moon.

---

---

• _{1. Editor's Note: Don't make a habit of this. I really don't care for feeling my vacation house do that.}
• _{2. You're not gonna be happy when the adrenaline wears off. Best you don't completely take stock of how that arm is doing while you're still willing to put power through that busted tendon. Oops. And the broken fingers. Oops.}
• _{3. So, because my essence is so spread out like this and I've so greedily intertwined myself with my vessel's will, corpus, and equipment, I actually can nudge that battery's switch from off to on if he asks me nicely enough. I can't break the thing down the way we tore all the potential energy out of Shield without him to give it direction and focus on maintaining the activation while I go in and deconstruct, so that's why you see a tiny stream where a river used to run— to put it in idiot terms, I can't cheat unless he offers to cover for me. If I'm doing remote work, I work with what I'm given only.}

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

His blood stopped and went cold.

Rudolf had been kept well busy by the task of stemming the tide of Blightbeasts to the east, his whirling greatsword the space-denying anvil to Izayoi's lightning quick hammer. His insistence on those countless late nights spent training, moving, hammering weight and momentum into his frame were paying hefty dividends here; were he less used to the weight of the blackened plates that cloaked him he would tire far too early, were he less diligent in maneuvering the blade, always so impotent with only the curse laid atop its nimble steel, he would have doubtless left gaps a corrupted beast could slip through.

But everything clicked. All elements fired in concerto, each swing carried power into the next, and he was able to keep up with his own output, free to focus on holding his ground where before he may have needed to scurry away, for fear of his hide being punched through. The eastern flank was swiftly piling with carcasses as he forged that insurmountable wall of steel and flame, shoving the final wave back enough for Izayoi to give chase. Her katana flashed through the dying daylight, the fangs of a wolf at the heels of an elk. Inescapably familiar. The shape of so many engagements that featured his family name, come to think of it.¹

Starting off at a trot after her once the last remnants of those that had stayed at his side were cut down, Rudolf only noticed something was awry when he saw Izayoi veer off hard to the left without warning— shouting for Miina. Eliane had been downed? Was that not the report of her gunblade—

And then, the roar hit his bones, and his eyes went wide within the shadows of his greathelm.

Thundering footsteps, smashing into the frozen earth.

His breath caught in his throat, and despite the warming cloak gifted by his master, he felt a chill deeper than winter inside his gut.

A back lined with long, black, and evil spines, jutting out from a mane of coarse wire around the shoulders and running all the way to the tail, each one as sharp and deadly as the fangs, the claws, the horns atop its' brow.

Beneath the clamor of the battle, the maille by his joints jangled, ever so slightly. His knife shifted out of time, swaying when it needed stilling— Tremors. He knew of this beast, of what it did to the unworthy, of its high status among all the monsters the cruel world had forged to test man. And that knowledge filled him with tremors, quaking fear, even with all he had experienced. It brought him to a halt— task and duty driving him forward, but raw, wise instinct pulling him back.

A powerful frame, easily the size of a house or more, knocking lesser blightbeasts aside like children discarded toys. Muscle rippled from beneath its fur, each limb a redwood trunk, strong enough that even mighty dragons scarcely ventured down from their mountain perches to challenge it. Its baleful gaze was the last sight of so, so many warriors, all stronger than the tiny man that had first answered king Leonhart's call to arms by half at least. A scourge of the earth. The King of the Badlands. A name only uttered in hushed tones, the type that reverberated inside Rudolf's greathelm before being torn apart by the wind.

"Behemoth..."²

It was true.

He wanted to run.

Even when he had foolishly believed he would be living out his days as an auxiliary hireling, he would never have dared join one of these hunts. That way courted death, more than any other the swordsman village ventured. The mightiest among them, the elites of the clan— it was them alone, and never an assured return. Hunting parties of two or three were considered the minimum safety net when word of one becoming a problem made its' way through their gates.

The same village that didn't blink twice, for comparison, at sending its' initiates out alone to stalk and kill tigers as a coming-of-age ritual. That attributed their blazing red hair to the Himstian tradition of mantling their crowns with the blood of strong beasts. That he had watched, a dozen separate times, tell men younger than he little more than "Have fun!", when they said they wanted to run to the North and join the war— to taste the Ospreyans' famed swordplay for themselves.

It was like asking himself to face down Leviathan or Ultima, all over again. Even knowing he had, seeing a Blighted version of a beast that he had so long know he wouldn't dream of taking on...

Damn it all. He really, really would have loved to be able to run right now.

"We need to charge! The Behemoth must die before it and the horde overwhelm the militia!" Came the bellow of the Limbtaker, furiously rallying everyone she could in the face of this horrifying monstrosity— and she was, of course, right on money.

His legs began to move once more, breaking the rime beneath as he maintained his original course, looping around to hit the southern fron from the side. He had no "Elites" to pass the buck to in the here and now— whatever his thoughts said, the whole reason they were in this mess to begin with was because they, the Warriors of Light, were the only elites available. It was either them... or these militiamen, who had proven no hope against foes much more mundane.

He grit his teeth as he stormed into the fray. Each stride that carried him closer seemed to double the thing's bulk in his vision. Each roar shook his bones deeper, deeper, until he was sure even that shadowy demon that settled aside his soul felt the Behemoth's power and fury³. No mistaking it— he was just as terrified as they were, as the smallfolk that had been fleeing their homes to begin with were. If he had to take this thing down, where did he even start?

At the precipice of the Blightbeasts' mass, already past the strewn bodies of those knocked aside by the Behemoth, he gathered the strength in his legs. The open wounds were out of the picture— seething with blight as they were, he didn't dare plunge a blade into them for fear of suffering the same fate as Arton, wherever he was. To say nothing of how they seemed to be doing nothing to sap the Behemoth's strength.

There was one answer to that question— he'd asked it dozens of times about as many things— that had always stuck with him. An old, old memory.

"Nah, that's just what you do when you're scared of someone you're fighting. I know Otto puts the fear of Etro into me..."

"Before it decides to bend the aether and drop a Comet on our heads!" he bellowed, before springing forth in a mighty leap, sailing in from the Behemoth's flank. With those wounds off-limits, he had to forge his own path through the thick, leathery hide and deal real, appreciable damage. And with the Behemoth's size, that was no easy task. "We have to leave it no room for reprisal!"

Imre's head lolled back over to face Rudolf, a wolfish grin plastered over his features, dagger-sharp even at eleven.

"...so I try and hit him as hard as I can right out the gate, before he gets the chance."

Obsidian sparks flashed again as he drove the bone-hilted dagger deep, with gnawing, burning weight behind it, to try and find purchase in the thick sinew of it's back, just past the joint of the shoulder. The sturdy construction of the rondel was designed for exactly this, in addition to punching through the armor of men— against massive beasts, it served as a vital grappling point, like a whaler's harpoon.⁴

His greatsword blazed black in turn, painting a disk of inky flame as he tried to use whatever leverage his first strike could muster to bring it straight down through the mane, and into the scourge's thick neck. If he could sever the spinal cord in one go, there was no way it'd be able to fight back at all— let alone turn its Naturalborn Magic against them.

---

---

• _{1. Probably why Esben figured it was what you were going for to begin with, rather than contenting yourself with a static defense meatgrinder.}
• _{2. Oh, see, like that.}
• _{3. I get what we're going for here, but the resonance through the steel of his armor is already enough. Sidenote, I've taken the liberty of abrading away the minor scuffs this thing collects through travel and in the so-far inconsistent moments where it actually has come between an infected wolf's teeth and my host's skin— I believe in looking fashionable. It makes you fight better. And your enemies see a good polish and fight worse, because they think not looking fucked up means your armor's never seen use. A lot of reasons to keep doing what I'm doing, all for the low price of sometimes having a few cinders fly off.}
• _{4. Just don't lose this one like the lance. You'll be in a real funk if you have to go through this whole country without your comfort knife.}

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

"Thanks, Goug. Stay safe, Goug.”

Freshly-set rime crunched beneath Rudolf's sabatons as he set off after Izayoi in short order, a blur of black and red against the pale, sinking cold of what might have been the golden hour, a few dozen leagues north. While it was a welcome change of pace that Kayliss's word was reliable enough to see them ushered through the border without undue hassle, he didn't have it in himself to be terribly surprised that their good fortune was limited to just this one stroke— his personal situation notwithstanding, they just never seemed to stray too far from trouble for very long. The nature of the beast, one could reason.

His eyes cast themselves onto the field, past the fleeing townsfolk and into the waves of blightbeasts ahead. The local militia had done a good enough job in staving the assault off that the noncombatants seemed to have gotten good distance between themselves and danger, but sure enough, his soldier's eye could see the seams beginning to fray in their ranks. They were spread too thin, even with most of the enemy ingress funneled down to the eastern and southern gates, and their discipline was wavering. One or two more surges would be all it took for them to melt to a rout. He could see it, he realized— He could see where he would tug at those threads to let them unravel. If he kept them split between these two fronts, they'd shake themselves apart as their attention kept needing to oscillate, their stress mounting against the harrowing numbers.

"I see the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree."

He slammed the visor of his greathelm down and drew the bone-hilted knife from his belt, clicking his tongue as he slashed through the throat of a stray corrupted elk that had slipped through the gaps. Drawing up to the melee proper, only a few dozen strides away, he twisted his trunk to look over his shoulder and hollered, catching the eyes of the two natives most pointedly.

"The two of us can hold the eastern gateway! Eliane, Esben, can you rally the bulk of them south!? They'll listen to you a lot sooner than us!"

Amazingly, he almost found himself wishing for harsher conditions— if the landscape or rooftops had heavy enough snowfall to leave them with large drifts, they could likely have shored up some quick and dirty canalization by way of their magic on hand— chiefly, his gravity materia could have played a fair role in bringing those mounds of snow and ice down into the pathways the Skaeller Militia were trying to keep filled with something sharp.

Even if it wouldn't have cut things off, it would have helped to funnel those numbers down into something the pikemen at the eastern road could manage much more readily. If only.

His free hand reached into a pouch, and palmed the lone materia within. In lieu of using heavy snow as a barrier, he'd have to resort to an old standby—

The nearest blightbeasts to the eastern pikemen's lines stopped dead, as a field of purple sparks danced around their newly-leaden feet, suddenly themselves cutting off those surging behind them— and leaving them easy pickings for Izayoi. Rudolf stalked forward, drawing alongside the militiamen in this brief reprieve.

"My friend and I can handle this flank— There's a Commander of the Household Guard just behind us. Please follow her instructions."

In time with his clipped, hard-edged command, he drew the cursed blade from his back, all six feet of it— with that moment bought and new direction given, all that was left to do now was take up as much of this space as possible until the bests broke themselves against the wall. Few tools served this better than greatswords of this ilk, with their wide arcs of destruction— and in needing to bring this thing up to that standard...

He stepped forth—

Up and at 'em.¹

And here I was thinking you'd save up a little, after our big come-to-Etro moment. But don't let me stop you, gift birds don't get looked in the beak where we're from.

— And a familiar pillar of black fire wreathed his blade, as his feet dug into the frost before he leapt into a lunging, full-bodied swing, a pouncing sabertooth set to rip through as many of the corrupted beasts as it could.

---

---

• _{1. I can hear the subconscious thoughts too, you know. That part where you think you're telling me to "quit brooding" is convincing me I should let the next cardiac arrest, major organ failure, or whole tendon separation ride— beat whatever shame you've been convinced to lose back into you.}

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

&

Ranbu no Izayoi

---

Later that night at camp, Rudolf thought to wash himself clean. The grime of the road was no stranger to him, nor was it to any of them by now— but after the expulsion of the truth from his tightly-guarded heart and the quiet dinner that had followed, the young swordsman was all but spent.

He had idly gnawed on his flatbread and stared long into the flame, letting the Kirins and camp mill about around his hollow, slumped frame. Errant wind had painted his brow, long sticky with drying sweat, a dingy gray— smoke from the fire, the same that stung the edges of his eyes.

But stare he did, mind empty, letting the dancing orange and cream and scarlet lick away his thoughts, chasing them cores of blue and streaks of rust. Like a mesmer. He seemed drawn to these moments, he realized— drawn to flame. Drawn to staring, when he had nothing else in him, to let it quell his mind from a tempestuous rapid to a placid lake.

But all the same, eventually he roused, jolting back to awareness as if he had fallen into a snooze. With a sigh, Rudolf shook off the torpor and rose, letting his feet carry him through the quieted camp and towards a stream a few dozen yards away, one of the many uncharted soft-watered brooks that weaved across Edren’s verdant lowlands, no different here than so many they’d crossed after making landfall.

Perhaps Danube in some way favored this stretch of land, long ago when she walked among mortals. Who could say? Perhaps an old king of the land had pledged good fealty.

But by rights, there was one gift she had bestowed on men, regardless of if she gave it in personal charity or simple boon of domain— the gift of washing oneself anew. To clear the old grime, to lay bare one’s true complexion, to remove that which had stained you impure.

Yes. He needed a damn wash, at least to take the ash off his face, to get the smoke clear from his eyes. The rest of him, he might deal with once they were closer to Skael, closer to a bath, closer to not needing travel at all speed. He would rather take true rest than go through with the trouble.

But his face, at least.

He knelt down at the bank, casting a hand into the cool mirror for a moment—

And pausing, as a splash sounded from downstream. Turning his head, there was no trouble spotting its source:

—Another splash, as Izayoi worked to clear dinner’s remains from her pot and pan.

His forehead throbbed, the ghost of the scabbard’s thumping upon it. Grimacing, he wiped at the spot, the water gracing his brow and ringing around a small bruise.

Ridiculous the way these things worked. It had hardly hurt the minute she’d done it, to the point where he’d believed it too light a touch for any punitive measure— but now, long after the fact, that simple bonk lingered as well as any cut, like the ringing of bells hours past, still trapped in cathedral stone.

Izayoi grumbled to herself as she worked to scrub a particularly stubborn scrap of burnt food out of the bottom of the cookpot, the effort not helping her usual mood. After several more moments of concerted effort, she managed to wipe it clean and rinsed the pot out in the stream. With that finally done, she hefted both pot and pan up to bring back towards camp to store.

Rudolf simply happened to be in the way of her return to camp. She approached, paused, and frowned as she saw him rub his forehead.

”Oh, stop being ridiculous. ‘Twas hardly a tap. You were being bludgeoned with Thunder spells not two weeks ago and moping less. But I could give you another bruise if you'd care to.” She huffed, raising the frying pan she was carrying in a threatening manner.

”I’m washing my face,” Rudolf countered, obstinately splashing more water across his brow and wiping through, scrubbing at the cheekbones and for a moment feeling the feather-light line across his cheek left by Valon’s spear. “I’ve spent mothercrystal knows how long staring at the fire, this is the first time I felt it there. That’s all. My eyes sting more than my forehead.”

He shook his wrist, slinging away excess water and sending a dozen rings to bloom across the surface. A glance up towards the moon gave him an idea of where its position had changed since he’d gone silent— and then he turned his gaze towards her, rather than study it. “A couple hours” was close enough, at the end of a hard day.

”Any other time before now, I may have taken you up on your offer. But for tonight, I think I’ll just be glad I got a lighter touch than I would have bargained for. I don’t care to push my luck with punitive measures.”

Much. he silently amended.Tonight.

He shuffled his frame to the side, to allow her passage if she deigned to take it with her point well made.

“I expect soon enough the Thunder will be hitting me again anyway, now that you know how I’ve been keeping up.”

Izayoi quirked an eyebrow at Rudolf’s retort, mentally noting that he wouldn’t have had that much cheek not even a month ago. He was improving, at least. So long as this latest bout of honesty didn’t send him into too much of a funk. Best to nip that in the bud.

”I should hope that spate of honesty would have helped your mood, rather than leave you more pensive. Outside of Chisato, everyone else recognizes that your situation is only a danger to yourself. And she will get over the matter sooner or later.”

She moved to stride past Rudolf, only stopping to poke him in the forehead at the exact spot she’d rapped him with her scabbard earlier.

”Am I understood? No more getting inside your own head. What’s done is done, and you’ll have to live with the consequences afterward.”

”Ow.”

His syllable of furthered complaint came in a dull monotone, comically crossing his eyes to see her fingertip off as it returned to more pressing matters. With a blink, and his little bit over, he turned away, seeming to study his reflection as the ripples in the water stretched and shaped it.

“Truthfully, that may take a while. I’ll work on it. Consequences my own, but…”

A glance back over his shoulder cast searching eyes over the mystrel’s frame, freed of a vengeful shadow so recently as it was. He continued on, almost conversational. Almost, but for the contemplation inherent to his words.

“What do you make of ‘afterward’, Izayoi? Now that Reisa is dead?”

It had been an all-consuming purpose, to the point of outranking her own life. Time and again, the Kirins had watched Izayoi stop at nothing to take the Valheimr lieutenant’s scalp, whether it meant storming straight into conflagration or diving into the void sword first.

Theirs were different situations, of course. To compare her pursuit of retribution with his furtive obscuration of truth was, in many respects, to cast apples against oranges.

But at the core of both of them was, as far as he knew, was that they were an unassailable priority.

”Where do you stand now, without that weighing on you? Pushing you?”

And neither of them were there any longer. They were drifting without those key lodestones. In Rudolf’s case, he had never really dared plan for that ‘afterward’. There was the quest, sure, but beyond that…

Izayoi had been meaning to stash the cookware back into Goug’s wagon, but stopped as Rudolf questioned her. A sigh came from her lips, unbidden. This was to be one of those conversations with the boy again. Gods damn that ingrate Istvan Shilage for not bothering to parent his son properly.

”A foolish question, considering the situation we stand in now, no? The land still stands at risk, and Valheim continues to infest my home. Slaying Reisa has only served to correct my most personal failure. Ask me once more when we’ve averted the blackhelms’ threat to the continent.”

“Oh, so it’s no different.” he noted breezily. “Heartening.”

At this point, it was on him for trying with her.

”Fine. You needn’t worry. My existential concerns haven’t stopped me from carving through their ranks when they’re in front of me yet. I lost my last chance at letting them when Wulfric rode north at first light, even if I cared to. I haven’t lost sight of the big picture just for not having things sorted out.”

He slashed through the surface of the water, scattering the image as he smeared away the last bit of grit he felt near the eyes.

”I will continue to further the cause, as I always have. Now that there’s nothing I’m trying to hide behind, I’ve all the more reason to see this through.”

He rose, as a cool breeze from the south blew across the lingering moisture on his skin, the chill sinking into his head even as it dried. A shiver passed across his person at the feeling, but he didn’t begrudge the clearing of his thoughts that came with it.

Picking up the pieces of whatever was beneath your protective shell was always your job and yours alone. No matter what Izayoi had given him as answer, it was always going to be his own legwork that made sense of what was man and what was mask. Only time would tell if he even could, and if it was even the source of the void that had come into him in the wake of his confession.

Taking a breath, the young swordsman started forward, following in Izayoi’s wake as her quick return to camp resumed.

He wouldn’t get any blood from that stone today. It was too late, they were both too set in their ways of navigating the world. This was what felt like the third or fourth time he had tried to scratch at her hard surface to no real avail, given the topic wasn’t her loved ones, but there was a small victory in there.

”My disorganized internal world aside, if your perspective ever does change and we’re both still alive to chat, I’d be curious to hear of it. I think I’ll keep you on the hook for that, since you’re offering. In the meantime…”

Drawing up alongside the samurai, he glanced to the cookware in her hands. None if it looked terribly heavy, not to trained warriors such as them, but it wouldn’t hurt…

”While you’ve got me, I may as well offer some help with whatever you’ve left to do in cleaning up. It hardly looks like much, but I could be wrong.”

”Mouthy brat. I almost prefer when you were terrified of my shadow.” Izayoi said, rolling her eyes with no real heat in her tone. She handed over a pan nonetheless.

”Take a rag and dry it out. I would prefer for the iron to not rust.” As they returned to camp, she looked back to Rudolf following after her.

”You could have washed your hands of this and conscripted that annoying buffoon of a boy in your place, indeed. And yet I remain thankful that you did not. If not for my own sanity in dealing with such, then for the sake of your own progress. As ever, you think too little of yourself.” She very carefully refrained from blaming Istvan once more, though she certainly thought the invectives within the confines of her head.

Her summation of Wulfric drew out a smirk, then a small chuckle as he swiped a spare piece of cloth and began to wipe away, checking the finish of the iron against the firelight to monitor his work.

“He’s a loud ingrate, for sure— though I daresay Galahad would have gotten fed up even sooner than you,” he quipped, tilting the pan to eye the surface as the calming rhythm of the work washed over him. Be it blades or cookware, it seemed keeping metal maintained agreed with his body and mind. ”And then you’d have a real problem on your hands.”

A playful exaggeration of reality, of course, but he’d seen that dynamic play out all through the one afternoon he’d gotten to spend somewhere close to home. He could already imagine the vein in the dragoon’s forehead beginning to swell, even as he fought to maintain a genteel, knightly composure.

Wulfric, Galahad… Otto and Imre. If he wanted to deal in hypotheticals, while they were at it, who knew how either of his brothers might have panned out in his stead.

“That’s the rub. I’ve been chasing long shadows all my life— It’s only natural that I get a little too comfortable with them after a while.” He joked, holding the pan out for her inspection. “I’ve always been mouthy, you can ask Cadmon about it; I just wanted to be sure I never gave the ‘Limbtaker’ a reason to demonstrate herself. I’ve had the privilege of separating mystrel from myth since then.”

He shrugged, closing his burnt eye and cocking his head to the side. “Not to mention: from where I stand, you’ve gotten less austere these days, too. Not by much, even compared to when we first met, but you are warming up to us. It's a good change.”

Said mystrel took the pan back, giving it a once-over before a crooked smirk crossed her face.

”More of the cheek, and the pan goes upside your head.” She jibed, starting to make her way back to the wagon to stash it. ”A word of advice: worry less of what could be and concern yourself more with what lies in front of you. Mayhaps it ought to be easier now with your truths revealed.”

His hands rose in surrender, palms out and holding no weapon, a caught miscreant.

“Hai, hai,” he intoned, mirroring her expression. “I still know when to back down, thank the Goddess.”

What was in front of him, eh? Mayhaps it would, once he washed the rest away. With any luck… well. Maybe not luck, in such short supply as it was— instead, his only refuge, the same as he had since the day he was born.

“Maybe so. If I feel adrift, by that same measure it means I am bereft a certain ball and chain, after all.”

He glanced south, towards their next set of trials, past the slowly dying light of the fire. As his words left his mouth, they were of course cloaked in a musing tone— nothing of what they spoke changed overnight, after all.

“To unfamiliar waters it is, then.”

He rose, dusting himself off. That crooked smirk had faded, but not completely left his bearing.

“Been a long day. Good night… Thank you, Izayoi.”