Chapter Text
Five
Disbanding the Crystal Braves - The first devastation - Battle against Bismarck, close calls - Return from Azys Lla
“…You will be pleased to know that the 3rd Unit Braves abandoned Revenant's Toll when they learned of Captain Ilberd's defeat. The only blue uniforms to be seen there now are those worn by soldiers loyal to you, Master Alphinaud.” Yugiri answered.
They’re stood in Ul’dah’s Merchant Strip, the shinobi having appeared before them not long after the two boys departed Hustings. Johnny’s arm unwound itself from around Alphinaud’s shoulder, and the elezen exchanged a glance with him before turning to Yugiri.
“...To me? I see. I am grateful to hear that at least some of our members were true to their oaths. Ere we return to Ishgard, I must go to the Rising Stones and thank these stalwarts for their service. It shall be my final act as Crystal Brave commander.” Alphinaud looked again to Johnny and smiled lightly, hopefully. “Will you join me, Johnny? You were there at the company's inception─ ‘tis only fitting that you be present at its end. And…”
Alphinaud’s eyes lowered for a moment. His voice softened. “... I would appreciate the support.”
Johnny just grinned and nodded for him and the shinobi to follow. “I got you, big man.” Yugiri made a strange face, and so did the elezen, though one was certainly colored with more amusement than the other. The three headed for Ul’dah’s primary aetheryte.
“I haven’t a clue why you’ve been calling me that.” Alphinaud chirped, leather boots clicking against sandstone.
Johnny lightly nudged into him. “When you’ve been feeling low? To raise you back up.” He peered over. “It’s not working?”
“‘Tis strange.” The elezen merely commented, keeping his eyes on the bustling streets ahead. The three paused to weave and slot themselves between two clouds of shoppers.
“Okay. What about…—”
“I believe ‘Alph’, as you’ve been calling me, is more than sufficient,” he interrupted, shooting the other boy a fond smile. Johnny almost tripped, but carried on. Caught in his smile, he returned it and his tail began… well, there was no other way to describe it. Wagging.
“Alphie,” Johnny laughed, before leaning in and hip-checking him. Now someone actually stumbled, the boy in blue, and Johnny only laughed harder.
They entered the Rising Stones to great relief and familiar faces, some Johnny had names for and some he didn’t, despite the recognition.
“C-Commander!? You're alive!” An elezen woman exclaimed.
“An' Johnny, too! I knew ye'd scrape through!” and there was Riol, that sharp-edged bastard! The miqo’te beamed back at him as he followed beside Alphinaud.
“My splendid Crystal Braves. I have wronged you. All of you. My promises of glory and salvation have brought you naught but blood and betrayal…” The scholar began, as if rehearsed, and perhaps it had been, inside his own head.
Riol scoffed and waved the boy off. “Bah, ye'll not hear us complainin'. 'Twas a sight messier than expected, aye, but we was still fightin' for the freedom of all─ just like we swore. Ain't that right, mates?”
And all Braves assembled belted out a hearty “Aye!!”
“You humble me. I am truly blessed to have such steadfast comrades. It is with the most profound regret, then, that I must─”
“That's enough o' that, Commander! We know what ye've a mind to say, an' we ain't havin' none of it.” Riol looked to his comrades, eyes shining. “We've talked it over, see, an' we're all agreed: ye can take our uniforms, an' strip us of our ranks─ but we won't be no less of a company.”
“But the Crystal Braves—” Alphinaud tried to start.
The elezen woman, looking down at him and speaking softly, continued. “The Crystal Braves may be finished, but the ideals upon which the company was founded live on. They bind us to each other─ and to you.”
“Commander. ...Alphinaud.” Riol corrected. “Our minds are made up, so ye may as well get used to it. Let us help the Scions. Let us help you find Minfilia an' the others.” The rogue pleaded.
“My friends... A-After all that has happened... I know not what to say... “ Johnny heard the creaking of leather and knew then that Alphinaud’s fingers formed into fists. The boy turned away and a shaky breath left him. When Alphinaud rose his head, his blues glimmered wet.
“...thank you.”
Alphinaud sniffled. “Pray excuse me... I had thought my tears spent,” he muttered, and reached for the hankerchief Johnny offered him. “Oh, my thanks…”
The crowd of former Braves had dispersed to little pockets around the room and the two boys had relocated to the doors before the solar.
He dabbed at his eyes daintily, and a sigh escaped the elezen. “My grandfather used to say that one could measure a man by the constancy of his comrades... Mayhap I am the exception which proves the rule.”
Johnny opened his mouth and Alphinaud continued, holding a hand aloft. “Nay, do not protest. I know that I am not worthy of their loyalty, Johnny…
...But as Thaliak is my witness, I shall do everything in my power to earn it.”
The boy in red made a face. Alphinaud mirrored it.
“...Have I erred?”
“I was just gonna ask what that means. ‘exception that proves the rule.’”
His face lightened, “I see! It’s no wonder you haven’t heard it before, Johnny. ‘Tis an idiom of ancient Allag.” and when Johnny stared blankly, Alphinaud wet his lip and continued after a pause. “Oh dear. An idiom is… well, a group of words or a phrase whose meaning can’t be derived from its individual parts.”
Johnny’s brow merely furrowed deeply. Alphinaud was stammering now.
“I—It…. I, well… you see… Ah! Take ‘to kick the bucket’ for example. Nothing in that phrase indicates that its meaning is ‘to pass on’.
Now he rose his brows. “... so you’re telling me it’s supposed to not make any sense.”
Alphinaud frowned. “Well. To the uninformed, yes.” and Johnny mirrored him.
“Call me chronically uninformed, then.” At Alphinaud's look of surprise, he stared. “What?”
“It’s just… forgive how this sounds, but that’s the longest word I’ve heard you pronounce correctly.”
“What. Chronically?”
“Yes.”
“I learned it from you, smart guy.”
II
Johnny stowed his gauntlets as Charibert remained knelt, panting and heaving. The heat, blistering, had reached its boiling point and with the fire dead at last began to come down.
He slowly stepped over to the edge of the platform and retrieved his singed jacket. Quick steps, light against the concrete, made their way to him. A delicate hand is laid upon his forearm. Johnny turned, and Alphinaud is close to him, with Haurchefant not far behind.
“You are unharmed?” The younger elezen asked. Haurchefant clapped Johnny on the back and swung into his field of view, beaming.
“What a show you were, flipping and spinning across the field of battle! Excellently done, Johnny.”
Johnny returned the grin with a touch of weariness and slapped his jacket against his thighs, shaking out the ash.
“Fall back!” A man’s voice cried out. Charibert turned back, and with great strain rose to standing. He walked back through the great archway.
The three went to pursue but as a massive shadow crossed over them they came to a screeching stop and heads whipped to the sky. An airship. It descended and passed out of sight behind the spire.
Johnny exploded through the double doors leading to the spire dock and he’s shortly followed by Haurchefant and Alphinaud. Moments later, announced by the clinking of armor, Estinien with Lucia and a limping Aymeric arrived at the back. Johnny’s ears twitched and he briefly peered behind. Aymeric looked… rough, but coherent, and one of many weights is vanished from his shoulders at the sight. The Lord Commander made to move, and those assembled shuffled to let him pass.
He swallowed, catching his breath. “Father! Please!” and Johnny’s ears twitch again.
“For a mercy, we were not too late,” Estinien rumbled, leaning down slightly to address Johnny and Alphinaud. Johnny’s eyes were on Aymeric, transfixed.
“Why must you do this, father?!” Aymeric cried, and Johnny felt the ground give way. It felt hot. Far hotter than it should’ve been, and his ears twitch and he feels like something massive is about to crash down upon him but his eyes dart up and there’s nothing but lavender sky, his heart is pounding, something is coming, and
‘dad! dad, where are you?! DAD!’
“Nidhogg is fallen! There is no need for further deception! Now is the time to renounce the lies which led us down this path— to start anew!”
“And tear down the very pillars of our society— our history, our values— everything we have built over a thousand years?” The Archbishop sighs. “A fool to the last.”
“My friend,” a pause. “Johnny?” The boy shook his head and blinked, he turned towards the voice— Haurchefant. He looked poised to run. Okay. They were running. Johnny mirrored him, mind still catching up, and they broke out into a sprint down the stone walkway. Whatever that was, it couldn’t matter now. He had to focus. Even if he could still..
‘where’s my dad?!’
The young Warrior either didn’t notice the blue flash in his peripheral, or was so bent on reaching the airship that he paid it no mind.
“JOHNNY!”
A hard shove sent him into the ground and Johnny rolled, shoulder hitting concrete, neck bending painfully. A bright light, brilliant blue overcame his vision and as he got himself onto his elbows…
Stood over him was Haurchefant, dark silhouette against the light, shield held aloft and shuddering violently against a gargantuan spear of pure aether.
One heartbeat. Two.
CRACK.
The shield didn’t hold. Blue pierced through his middle and at once the man went limp, blood splattering from his mouth. Johnny screamed. He leapt from the concrete, knees and palms bloody and scrabbled over as the elezen fell.
He doesn’t notice when Alphinaud appears, kneeling beside him and desperately channeling aether into their friend. There’s a shadow, and armor clinked, and distantly Johnny would recognize that as the limping Aymeric watching them in a somber, horrified silence or maybe he could’ve said something but the blood is rushing through Johnny’s ears far too loudly.
“It’s no good… The wound is too deep,” Alphinaud muttered, voice shaking. “It refuses to mend…”
He stopped, pulling his hand back and gently shaking his head. Leather creaked as his slender fingers met his palm and squeezed. Aymeric brought Haurchefant into his arms, and his eyes opened blearily, looking, looking for…
Johnny.
“You… you are unharmed? Fo—Forgive me, I could not bear the thought of… of…”
Haurchefaunt lifted his hand. Johnny latched onto it, feeling a wave of hysterics pass over him. Why did Alphinaud stop, he just needed more time, just needed more time, just…
“Oh, do not look at me so.” Haurchefant’s lips turned up wearily, stained with red. “A smile better suits a hero.”
Johnny stared, horrified, then he squeezed his eyes shut and when they opened again, he forced his mouth to move, the corners of his lips to twist, and his eyes were so wide with adrenaline he must’ve looked out of his mind. It was a smile entirely unnatural to him. Blood spurted from Haurchefaunt’s lips in something of a laugh at the sight, and somehow his smile grew all the more beautiful.
His hand fell from his. Johnny’s staring hard, hard into Haurchefant as if he’s truly dead the moment he blinks, the moment he takes his eyes off of him, the moment this glimmer of time ends. Johnny’s breathing is loud and shuddering as hot, fat tears streamed down his cheeks. His eyes are red. They sting horribly. He needs to blink.
Haurchefant is dead.
A cry erupts from him and the teen crumpled in on himself, shoulders hunching, and Johnny’s frame is wracked with sobs. For one minute he wasn’t the Warrior of Light, nor a Scion, but was Johnny Whatever, a runaway boy who’d just lost the closest thing he had to an older brother. And he wailed.
It was a harrowing display that he wouldn’t have been able to manage had he been a few summers older, had a bit more of life behind himself. It was the sobbing, the snotty sniffling of a child’s first devastation.
And for that one minute, Aymeric watched him, a heavy, heavy sorrow weighing his features not just for their dear friend but for what unfolded before him, as he saw the boy he knew the Warrior truly was be rent asunder.
He stood outside his door, knuckles hovering just above the hardwood. It was a horrible hour and blood was all over his mind and he couldn’t sleep, and Johnny now debated making that Alphinaud’s problem.
How selfish. What, you can’t catch any winks, so you rob the next guy of them? Shithead. Just go deal with it like an adult.
Johnny lowered his hand and was just turning to leave when creak. The door opened, and a dark figure just his height paused at the threshold. He heard a gasp, then a sigh.
“Twelve above— Johnny, I thought— …what is it? Is aught amiss?” Something in his voice was wrong. Off. There was a rasp to it, and a facade that Johnny could immediately recognize in him.
The boy just stood there. “... can’t really sleep, y’know,” he explained. “Again.”
There’s a pause, and then the door opened fully and Alphinaud stepped back to let him into his room. Johnny’s eyes widened— he thought, perhaps, they’d return to their window, but…
He dipped inside, and Alphinaud padded over to a nearly-dead candle by his bedside and lit it. He turned back around and nearly jumped out of his skin.
Johnny looked ghoulish. Hair disheveled, red eyes, dark circles beneath them… and all confidence, life was gone from his shoulders, his back, he hung there like drying laundry.
“Alph?”
“...’tis nothing!” He hurriedly soothed. He closed the door behind him.
“Don’t you have to ‘go’ or something? I assumed you…”
“Hm? …oh! No, I was merely… I had the thought to… ahem.”
Johnny’s gaze drifted from the other boy to his bed, where several books were laid out and open. He laughed weakly. “That’s… some intense studying there…” Alphinaud followed his gaze, then his shoulders slouched.
“...I believe you’ve caught me.” Johnny just stared blankly at him. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t sleep either.”
The boys both stood in the candlelight for a moment in time, harsh winds howling against the windowpane. The house felt so terribly large and cold.
Johnny turned away and lowered his head. “I can’t stop thinking about it,” he started, quiet. “I can't believe he’s… Over me. Me. I could’ve—” his voice rose, “I could’ve taken it. I’m the Warrior of Light, I could’ve—”
“Taken what? Johnny, you’ve lost the blessing of Light!” Alphinaud’s eyes glittered in the candlelight and he stepped closer. “Do you honestly mean to say that it wouldn’t have harmed you?”
Johnny stared at the wall. He grit his teeth painfully, grinding them. There was a silence again, and Alphinaud was blind in the dim light to what was happening until he heard it. A sniffle.
“Johnny— oh…” Alphinaud whispered. He fretted. “I did not mean to— oh, please don’t cry, I—”
“S’not you,” he croaked, “s’not you. I just—” and then it caught him, the sorrow, the grief, and a horrible whine left him as he cascaded into sobs and Alphinaud’s hands rushed to his shoulders.
He was so tense. He felt like a spring about to snap beneath his hands. The miqo’te quaked and his hands balled into fists and Alphinaud realized he was trying to hold it all in. He ushered Johnny towards his bed and the boy smushed his face against the sheets and shuddered. One of Alphinaud’s hands found his back.
‘i dont know what to say…’ he thought. ‘what can i possibly do to take this away from him? is it even possible?’
The crying, shockingly, soon subsided and Johnny turned his head, cheek against his blankets. Another sniffle. “This is stupid. I’m sorry.”
“Nay, my friend,” Alphinaud whispered, “No tear shed is ever ‘stupid’, as you said.”
There’s several beats of silence, and then Alphinaud asks him if he’d like to sit, and the two boys both climbed up onto the bed and sat crossed-legged on the sheets. Johnny’s finger traced patterns on the quilt. Occasionally he still sniffled.
“I must admit… I’ve thought similarly,” Alphinaud began, wearily. His voice was low, and lacking its usual curiosity and polite warmth. “I know in my heart that I did all that I could for him but, traitorously, my mind still tells me that… that if I had just tried harder, been faster, or… had done something different that I could have saved him.”
Johnny is quiet. “...what did you say, then? When you were…”
There's another pause. “The wound wouldn't close,” The scholar murmured. Dead grass eyes rose to meet blue.
“I don’t think anyone could’ve saved him,” Johnny rumbled, and with a deep exhale the other boy nodded.
“That is what I keep telling myself. But these things are…”
“a bitch.” Johnny finished for him. Alphinaud’s mouth closed with a click.
“...mayhap not the verbiage I would've used. …but accurate.”
The other boy managed a weak laugh, and Alphinaud smiled wearily at this. They gazed at each other, both relieved at the company, and for a time they were busy speaking of the books on Alphinaud’s bed, and he even read some passages out to him; collections of Ishgardian poetry, history, and most interestingly what was, in actuality, a romance novel that when asked about he merely shut the book and pronounced it a bore.
Eventually Alphinaud yawned for the third time in as many minutes and Johnny shifted, scooting towards the edge of the bed. “I’ll let you sleep.”
He seemed surprised. “Oh— I assure you, I’m not too terribly tired. And I did enjoy—” …another yawn. Johnny gave him a lidded, knowing smirk, eyes weary.
“Yeah.” Johnny said simply. He dropped from the bed and padded for the door. “G’night, Alph.”
“...goodnight, Johnny. Pray, rest well.”
III
Bismarck disappeared. Somehow a thing of that immense size was able to disappear, to sink beneath the cloudline and drop out of existence altogether.
Johnny swallowed and swayed on his feet, looking from left to right. It’d show up again. It had to, if it wanted a piece of him.
Something hissed and popped to his right and he looked. The shield generator. Its humming wound down into a hollow silence against the rain, and the boy soon was looking away, not recognizing the significance.
It was as if it’d been waiting for that.
All Johnny sees is a great mass of calloused flesh and baleen before a great, terrible maw opened and everything went black, and hot and damp. The ground vanished beneath his feet and he’s constricted, he can’t move, he’s suffocating, and
Alphinaud screamed from the Enterprise deck and he raced for the back of the ship and this only made Cid yell out in alarm at the shriek so terrified, so primal from the poised and collected young man and he whipped his head back and
the island is gone. The chain is gone and only a few great iron links clinked against the back of the airship. A deep, reverberating groan shook the air and something massive surged beneath them, tearing through mist and cloud but it didn't appear.
Alphinaud was breathing quick and heavy. He’s on the brink of hysterics and Cid just stared ahead, numb to the feeling of the ship’s wheel beneath his hands.
The clouds explode ahead of them, and Bismarck is there again, shooting up for the heavens, and with a great roar all went a brilliant blue and the whale is gone, nothing but sparkling embers. A dark figure hung in the mist, still going up from momentum, half obscured by cloud but bearing a tail…
“Johnny?!” Alphinaud cried. The wheel creaked as it spun and spun as Cid turned it sharply and it wasn’t going to be a gentle landing but—
‘BUMP’ ‘fmmmpf’ ‘THWACK’. Johnny collided with one of the air balloons then slipped between them both and crashed onto the deck of the Enterprise, an unconscious heap.
Alphinaud nearly tripped, rushing to him. He collapsed onto the deck of the ship and immediately was ushering his aether into the other boy.
“Is he alright?! Speak to me, lad!” Cid cried from the wheel.
The elezen was furiously wiping his burning, wet face with his free hand as blue coursed between himself and Johnny and he didn’t answer. He might not have even heard.
“I’m not going to lose you,” the boy mouthed, breath shaking, “not after him. I cannot endure this again. Johnny. Johnny!” His name left him in a high, cracking whine.
“Alphinaud! Say something, damn it!”
but he could feel it. Johnny was there. Something was responding to his aether, taking it in, receiving it. The boy steadied his breathing. “He’s alive, but his condition is… is…”
He trailed off. There was something on the deck, covered in grime, next to Johnny. Something ornate, metallic, and very, very old.
The ship groaned as Cid spun the wheel again and they headed for the closest connection to the main islands. Everything shook at the inartful, rushed landing. Enterprise docked, Cid raced over and knelt beside the scholar.
“...right,” Cid exhaled, “we’re not taking the Enterprise to Ishgard. We’re getting to an aetheryte and I’m coming back with—” He turned his head. Alphinaud looked up at his sudden pause.
There on the grass, approaching from a dark, malevolent mist was the Archbishop of Ishgard and a figure in black, adorned in artful, angular shapes and, notably, a mask as red as blood. An ascian. At once Alphinaud leapt to his feet and he brandished his grimoire, standing over Johnny’s motionless body furiously.
“So falls the Lord of Mists, as did all others before him.” The ascian proclaimed, languidly stepping towards the three. The eyes of the Archbishop and the lady in black both fell to the Warrior, a blond and red heap visible on the deck of the Enterprise, wind tousling his hair. She hummed.
“Alive, but by a hair, I see. What a pitiful performance that was. It appears your champion has at last found his limit, Hydaelyn. I can’t help but wonder what She expected, entrusting Her blessing with a… child.”
“Child or not, I care little.” The Archbishop stopped next to her and planted his staff into the dirt. He looked to the ascian. “He has what we seek?”
Her gaze remained steady on the body at Alphinaud’s feet. “That he does. The key to Azys Lla and the secrets of Allag.”
There was movement. Alphinaud tore his gaze away to glance down and Johnny’s fingers flexed and curled into fists. He squirmed against the floorboards and groaned. He watched a hand grope around… and the tips of his fingers brush against the ornate piece of metal he was spat out with. The elezen’s eyes widened.
He stepped to place himself entirely between Johnny and the ascian and thrust out his grimoire, face taut with determination, mouth a thin line. “I won’t let you—”
She stook her hand out, and at once Alphinaud was unable to move. Completely and utterly restricted. The book fell from his hand, and Cid shouted, “Alphinaud!” but moments later he too was frozen in place. Two tendrils of shadow had burst from the ascian’s hand and they coiled around them both and they found themselves paralyzed. Cid’s mind raced. He panicked. Was he really about to let this happen on his watch? What the hells could he do?! And even from within the vile magic, forced into stillness, the young elezen glared and grit his teeth, only taking his eyes off the ascian to glance down as Johnny moved again.
Johnny was moving. And so was the Archbishop, stepping towards him. Johnny’s fingertips gripped the key and with one great effort, his weak arm thrust forwards the metal and with a dull noise it slid across the floorboards towards the edge of the ship and it was just on the cusp of falling over into the abyss…
CLINK. The Archbishop’s staff slammed down on the massive key, and with creaking joints he boarded the ship and knelt down for the key. As he was bent down, his faded eyes met Johnny’s glistening and red-rimmed ones, underscored by dark, dark circles, and he smiled at him. Johnny’s fingernails clawed into the floorboards. A weak hand reached for his robes, to rip, to tear, and the Archbishop gingerly stepped away and out of his reach.
He didn’t turn his head. Through the corner of his vision, as he went, he caught Alphinaud’s gaze and his face was impassive. The boy didn’t blink once, eyes following him, bright and wild blue. The wind tossed his white braid about and the Archbishop lightly kicked the grimoire out of his way as he disembarked from the ship and returned to the small island.
As soon as he’d stepped back onto grass, the magic was released, and both Cid and Alphinaud fell to the ground in drained, exhausted heaps. The elezen nearly crashed right into Johnny, who let out a pathetic whine at seeing his friends tossed about like dolls. He crawled closer to the other boy.
Alphinaud groaned, his eyes screwed shut. Johnny wrapped an arm around him. He didn’t know what else he could do.
“My thanks to you, ascian— and to you as well, Warrior of Light, for saving us the effort of slaying Bismarck.” The Archbishop turned, and looked to the great blue sky, ornate metal key held aloft. “Now that the key is within our grasp, the path to the heavens shall at last be laid bare!”
Light flashed, and a great blue rune appeared in the sky above the key. The rune folded itself and then opened again, and then from its center a brilliant beam of light shined through, going on and on through the sky until it disappeared, leading to…
Azys Lla.
At that moment another airship arrived, a much smaller one appointed with white-clad knights— the Heaven’s Ward. A sickeningly familiar blond bowed to the Archbishop as he boarded.
A hand fell onto Johnny’s. He looked. Alphinaud’s eyes were open, and heavily his chest rose and fell. As the Archbishop’s airship departed, the two boys climbed to their feet then saw to Cid.
Both sets of eyes were on the young Warrior.
“...that was a hard landing, lad. Are you alright?” Cid asked, and Johnny swayed a little. He staggered and wobbled to one of the Enterprise’s masts and pressed his forehead to the wood, leaning against it. For several beats of the heart, all was quiet and still.
Johnny pulled back. He reeled a fist and slammed it into the mast.
“Johnny!” Alphinaud cried.
The boy cursed loudly. “That bastard, that son of a fucking bitch! I’m gonna get him!” He roared, voice echoing through the spotless blue.
“Lad…” Cid softly tried. The young elezen rushed over and ushered Johnny’s fist into his hands.
“Your hand…” It was bleeding at the knuckles. Barely healed scars had cracked open. Johnny stared at the floorboards. Alphinaud stood up straight and stared his friend down.
“Johnny, please. Going quiet like this isn’t the comrade I know.”
He didn’t lift his head. Cid drew closer. “Alphinaud and I— if you ever need an open ear or a shoulder to lean on, you’ve got the both of us. And the rest of the Scions, too, aye.” His voice was low and gravelly, and they both watched the tension ease itself from the boy’s shoulders. But still he wouldn’t look.
Alphinaud rubbed his thumb against the back of Johnny’s hand and murmured his name. This finally drew his exhausted eyes up, and the green was dull, like dead grass, like moss at the bottom of a dried well, and the sockets looked hollow and dark.
“...you still haven’t slept, have you? Not since…”
Cid laid a large hand on Johnny’s shoulder and squeezed. Johnny finally spoke. “Patch me— patch me up. Get me to a chirurgeon or whatever, but we gotta go after them.” Alphinaud opened his mouth but he steamrolled over. “We don't have time. There’s no time to talk, to… to…”
Johnny looked to them both, to Alphinaud and then to Cid. “You know I’m right,” he eventually murmured, and the elezen lowered his head.
Accompanied by a deep sigh from Cid, the young scholar set to channeling his aether into Johnny, and the Archbishop’s airship was but a dot in the sky.
IV
“Over there!”
“Hah! Godsdammit, does he always have to cut it so bloody close?”
“Johnny!” Alphinaud beamed, rushing to the side of the ship, soaring over Azys Lla. There he was, atop a dragon of all things, hair and ruby red jacket whipping in the gales. The boy grinned back at him and flew closer, closer, as much as he could, till Midgardsormr’s wings nearly hit against the Enterprise and Johnny could practically reach out and touch the elezen. Alphinaud laughed with joy, seeing him hale and whole. And at what he did next…
“Oh, doing this now, are we?” Y’shtola sighed. Johnny had taken his hands off the reins to flex his arms at the other boy, showing off.
“What’s he doin’ now?” Cid asked from the wheel. Y’shtola turned away.
“Flirting.” She deadpanned. Cid spluttered into a laugh, and the exchange was entirely eaten by the wind to the two boys, who went on laughing and smiling, only until Johnny tried to stand up on dragonback and Alphinaud had to yell for him to stop.
But something nagged at her. Y’shtola turned her head— there was no second dragon, there was nothing else soaring through the sky with them, so she wondered…
…where was Estinien?
She looked back to Johnny, who was still smiling. He felt her gaze and caught it, and seeing her expression, as if he could read her own thoughts, his grin fell. The faces they shared were knowing, and it confirmed her fears— that something had happened. Alphinaud noticed the change and turned, looking up to the elder miqo’te.
The wind whipped at his hair, and he squinted against the gales. “Something troubles you?”
Y’shtola’s gaze dropped to him only momentarily, before sliding back to Johnny. Her mouth was a thin line. How distracted with Johnny had Alphinaud been not to notice?
“We’re missing a dragoon,” She answered, voice edging into sternness. Recognition gradually dawned in his blues, and his head whipped back to the Warrior, eyes wide.
Johnny was staring down at the saddle of Midgardsormr. His face was hidden from view, ears folded against the wind, and he squeezed the reins, powerless. The air howled, empty.