Chapter Text
The teleportation terminals in Syrcus Tower don't remember your touch, still and silent after-well, after however long it's been since the expedition. The Crystal Exarch might know, but he also might want to know why you ask, and that's none of his business.
You walked the rings once, anyway. You can do it again.
It is more peaceful than your first trip, bereft of dragons, clones, and the chatter of two-dozen bored adventurers. Your footsteps refract and reflect off the vaulted ceilings, providing percussion to the endless hum of technology; the terminals sing as you return them to life, a near-silent anthem only audible in the absence of battle.
Nothing much has changed, aside from the emptiness. The crystals glow and the white-gold pillars glitter in their light, untarnished and smooth as the day they were made. In the Gathering, the floor is scarred with the remnants of Scylla's wrath: Blast crackles in delight over a particularly large scorch mark, gleefully acting out his part in the monster's demise.
That grandstanding minstrel may have done his best to distort the course of events, but Khloe's tales and Noah's pearls have etched the truth of it into your mind. You remember strategies and orders hollered over the chaos, Ausbord and Hahavit holding Scylla's attention as veins of ice twisted around your doublet and chained you to the ground-
(At the time, she was awful. With the power you hold now - after besting Seiryu and Omega, the High Seraph and Lakeland's Lightwarden - would you be able to defeat her alone?)
It doesn't matter. You are stronger than what you were, but you are not strong enough for what's coming. That's why you're here, after all.
Last time, you stopped for a lunch break below the Braid. Two of the others were trained as culinarians: they packed an obscene amount of fish soup for the trip, the canisters fitted with fire crystals for warmth.
The bream was meaty La Noscean fare, infused with the sharp tang of tomato and onion and paired with thick slices of fluffy Lominsan cornbread. You remember watching the flow of the turquoise aether patterns as you ate, leaning back against a smooth stone obelisk as your fellows argued and gossipped and shoved each other into the water.
(It was safe, clear and cold and free of aquatic guardians, but you probably should have checked that before Aki had to rescue her blunderbuss from the depths.)
In this journey, empty of conflict, you climb all the way to the site of Glasya's doom before settling down for lunch, the afternoon sun painting lines of light that scatter through the dust-filled air. The salad from Hanji-Fae is just close enough to home to put you off - made with vinegar over olive oil and a bizarre, acidic breed of tomato - but the juice is excellent, if strangely sweet for something made from a vegetable.
On the First, carrots are purple. This should not be what bothers you, but it is.
The jump pads are still active, ringed in gold and aglow with an emerald sheen, and the outer platforms offer a better view of what is still to come. If you strain your eyes, you can just about see the Upper Ring, stone-built in its opulence, beyond the translucent crystal of the Golden Sacristy.
In the marrow of your right arm, Ravana's blades ring out of their sheathes. In your throat, Susano laughs, bloodlust as electric as an oncoming storm. Unfortunately for them, the opponents that once lay above are naught but dust and memory.
The trials of war are evident in the Final Curtain. The once-beautiful centre is ruined from Amon's last attack, even down to the warped stone beneath; the outer carpet, once stitched in crimson and gold, is scorched and torn asunder. The north railing is shattered entirely, where Poki's Hallowed Ground couldn't halt the kinetic force of the impact, and you already passed the crater she left in the stairs upon landing.
It is the north railing now, instead of north-east. You brought a compass to check. In Mor Dhona, where it was built, the Crystal Tower faced towards the north-west; when it was moved to Lakeland, it rotated one-eighth counterclockwise.
You wonder if it would irritate Xande, when you reach the summit. You are early - the flames of dusk have not yet overtaken the sky - but you can tell that the sun no longer sinks behind his throne, instead casting dappled shadows through the mass of crystal to its right.
The final terminal activates easily, awakening from its slumber with a brief flare of blue. The sound is muted, here, where there is no machinery, the only light coming from the open skies above.
(It is a point in the Exarch's favour that he didn't take the throne for himself. There are many who would.)
The crystal panels are pristine, the gold inlay mirror-bright, the pools of water clear as glass. Even where meteors fell and earthquakes rattled the ground, there are no scars or marks to prove your recollection true.
Well, save one. Blast finds it first, hissing with glee as he calls your attention over to the hole in the back of the throne. Where once a glittering gemstone sat, larger than your fist and embedded in a circle of gold, there is a crater scratched by plier and knife. You'd worked together to pry it out, fuelled by spite and a victory high, and commissioned a goldsmith to set it in a plaque with the whole alliance's names inscribed.
Alys took it, after a brief debate over the best location, and hung it on the Seventh Heaven's walls. It was a source of pride for everyone involved, adventurers one and all; visible proof of their achievements, a symbol to be remembered by. If the research team did something similar, you never found out.
The view is stunning, when you turn around from inspecting the hole, the lofty vantage point spreading Norvrandt beneath your feet. Seeing down to the Crystarium would involve getting uncomfortably close to the edge, but the rest of Lakeland is in sight: a sea of vibrant violet leaves, stretching for miles around.
(Forests to the east, mountains to the north, deserts to the south and an island to the west. Maybe Mor Dhona was this lush, before the wars began.)
In all directions, the distant curtains of Light mark the boundaries of the hard-won afternoon. Even this far up, they stretch impossibly higher, blanketing all the world aside from this small shard of it in rippling sheets of unnatural radiance. It will be a daunting task, to tear through them all, and it reminds you of your intent.
The crystal of the platform's center is comfortable against your crossed legs; the days have been bright since the Lightwarden fell, full of a warmth infinitely more pleasant than the glacial force of Philia's presence.
(The shift from artificial Light to a proper sun damaged some of the Crystarium's wires, unable to take the sudden upswing in Syrcus Tower's energy generation. While the locals basked in the renewed brilliance of the stars overhead, you spent the second night in a hundred years fiddling with power cables as an absurdly energetic Katliss hollered instructions up to your perch in the Hortorium's rafters.)
(You won Lakeland this miracle through your own strength of arms, but its people fought and worked and bled to see the night fall at last. They deserved a chance to revel in it, before the realities of life reasserted themselves.)
The heat becomes distant as you turn inwards to inspect your own aether, the rites of introspection as familiar as breathing at this point in your career. Your three egi are comfortable in their niches, the shining threads of their devotion curling up towards your mind; Demi-Bahamut's ballad rumbles low along your spine, marginally calmer in a world where there are no such things as dragons and god-monsters and Allagan islands watched over by grieving immortals.
You know that there are other stains, weaker and quieter than those brought to the fore by trances and Austerities - Sophia's flawless balance, Lakshmi's gentle bosom, Tsukuyomi weeping silver blood from the wound in your right eye - that could be leveraged for the extra power you require.
You know how to identify the primal essences entwined with your aether. You have practiced it for years, now, observing it on a regular basis to maintain an understanding of its condition; the brickwork of your soul is adorned with a riot of brilliant colours, overlapping and shifting as they jostle for space on your tiny, limited form.
That is to say, it was.
The change is minor, but striking, and not a little terrifying, especially in its unexpected nature. It bodes ill for your future prospects on this star, especially in how rapidly it has spread and the impossible subtlety with which it acts.
If your soul is a wall of stone, worked smooth and grand by the trials of your life, and the stains of primal power are vibrant murals upon it, then the Light is a fountain of terebinth carelessly splattered over the paint. A frozen patina of white seeps into every aspect of you, slowly burning away at the impurities in its path; a hurried search reveals that there is no piece left untouched by Philia's dying breath, like spore-filled bread that poisons the lungs yet masquerades as something safe to eat.
If there is one thing in your favour, it is that the sheer number of primals whose deaths have touched you lends your actual summons a degree of separation from the damage. The rate of corrosion thus far is marginal: though the wash of radiance makes it harder to reach for the lesser essences, it isn't a barrier that will inhibit your actual combat ability.
(At least, not yet. And if this is the havoc that one can wreak after less than a week, what will be left of you when all five act in concert?)
You will have to face the issue eventually, but it can be set aside for now: you must focus, and accomplish what you came here to do. Shinryu was already unstable, his blind fury warped and perverted, and his astral aspecting has caused him to decay faster than the rest; Thordan and Alexander are as far out of the question as Shiva, weighted down with so much baggage that even the thought of calling on them is abhorrent.
The summon you have in mind is not quite as personal, but still a heavier stain than the likes of Odin or Zurvan. You could have chosen one of them, or another besides: there is no want for options, and the strength of the original primal isn't particularly relevant with regard to the workings of trances.
Yet when it comes to a fight for life itself, a battle to revive a star wracked by ruin? The best choice is obvious, and you have his permission besides.
Amh Araeng might be a better location for the ritual, but the dry sand of the desert is an umbral manifestation and the inverse of what you truly need. So you have come here, to Syrcus Tower, stretching up to pierce the sun: designed to convert solar rays into energy, infused with enough raw aether after a millennium of existence to power the Crystarium a thousand times over.
The heavens flare with the dazzling fire of dusk, streaks of saffron slicing through puffy pink clouds as you spread wide the amber wings furled within your upper back. They are the culminated prayers of the forsaken, channelled towards he with the will to call upon the Twelve and ensure the star's rebirth; each feather is a single wish among infinity, raindrops moving in concert to carve a river through mountains. Your mind comes alight with a million flames of hope, a brilliant primal formed from Eorzea's fear and desperation, and the searing weight of it all threatens to burn you dry.
There, the elders and veterans of Little Ala Mhigo, who did not escape their homeland's ruin only for Rhalgr to leave them to this. There, the doomed lighthouse keepers atop Pharos Sirius, watching Llymlaen's tides warp and roil under the pull of the falling moon. There, the helpless knights of Ishgard, forbidden from interfering yet beseeching Halone to fight where they cannot.
The soldiers of Carteneau are broken in their despair, the conflict abandoned in favour of flight; the innocents they fight to protect are trapped by terror and impotence, screaming out for the impossible salvation they cling to when all else is lost to blue and blood.
You are alone above the world, flooded by Phoenix's memory of the apocalypse, and Y'mhitra cannot save you this time.
(This isn't quite true, though you don't know it yet. There is silence at the platform's edge, shifting jackboots and clenched gauntlets muffled by aetherial weightlessness. Later, their owner will tell you how you curled over and into yourself, the very air distorting from the force of the raw heat you emitted. How your frame shook and your eyes dripped molten red, shattered sobs filling the quiet in the absence of anyone capable of providing even the most basic form of aid.)
Crystal rips itself from the earth and swallows Camp Revenant's Toll whole, its denizens either fled or consumed by the fury of the earth; blazing meteors herald the fall of Dalamud's scattered shards, Gridanians fleeing deep into Stillglade Fane in search of safety from the wrath of a millennia of agony at the hands of those long dead and forgotten-
But outside, leading the prayers before the Skyserpent's Egg, are Lyse and Papalymo.
Their feather-wishes are blinding in their radiance, an entire rippling rainbow formed from their faith in Eorzea's future. Lyse-then-Yda, a year into the grief and deception, the illusory Archon mark a heavy brand upon her throat. Her sister's Gut Wrenchers hang useless at her hips as she kneels before Nophica and Rhalgr alike, hoping against hope that she is enough, that she can play a dead woman's part and not doom the star in her absence.
And Papalymo, dear lost Papalymo, memorising his teacher's every move because someone should know just what he gave for this. He will echo this sacrifice, one day, facing down a different god in a different place with the same broken staff and the same magic shining bright in his chest - but right now, he is alive, Aurifex clenched tight between his gauntlets as he begs the Matron to help Louisoix deliver them.
Thancred in the Sacrarium, ignoring the screams and the riots outside; Y'shtola in the Anchor Yard, one eye open to watch the oncoming tsunami. Phoenix's core of downy warmth is crafted from aether and belief, fuelled by those who loved and trusted the man that he once was.
The Circle of Knowing think of their leader as they pray, wise and strong and determined to save the world. They call, and the firebird answers, lustrous flames exploding into life and bringing forth a realm reborn.
In the present, your mind calms, four bright wishes anchoring you to reality. Amber wings fold softly around your heart, battered and scarred by those you have lost, and you think, oh.
Princess Salina gave her blood to Desch, who was so devoted as to ensure that her empire's legacy lived down through the generations. Archon Louisoix may have stood alone under the shadow of Bahamut, but he won because of those who believed that he could do so. You are here, in Salina's displaced tower with Louisoix's final power, because your bonds with your friends lost to slumber compelled you to follow their souls across dimensions.
In the end, despite everything, it comes down to love. It always has.
(It always will.)
You open your eyes to the last of the dusk, gleaming slices of the sun scattered through the crystal that surrounds you. In place of a single melody, Phoenix sings in chorus; a thousand voices give life to a million points of light, converging in a blazing fountain that catches you up in a wellspring of Eorzea's will to live , to find joy and better the world, despite all the tribulations set against her.
Firebird Trance is an inferno licking along your shoulders and warming you down to your bones, distorting the formal geometries of Ruin III and Outburst into crackling orange conflagrations to match the strongest of Blast's arsenal. Your vision suffuses with umber trails of aether, an arcane symphony conducted through your grimoire with more ease and speed than you could have ever thought possible.
Xande's throne room is scarred by more than a stolen trophy, now. Your first hesitant Brand of Purgatory - charged by an initial burst of fire into the air, a blinding pillar of amber surely visible against the encroaching dark - whirls you off your feet in a surge of raw strength, slashing a blackened arc of ash and melted crystal across the eastern edge of the platform.
Ardbert squawks a complaint as he dodges out of invisibility, deeply affronted despite being literally impossible to harm; Blast flares up and crackles with infernal glee, not even slightly bothered when he fails to replicate the damage; a smile ignites in your upper back, nestled into feathered dreams of a kinder tomorrow.
You will need to speak with the twins in the morning, before setting out with Cerigg to hunt down a walking corpse. You discussed the possibility of summoning Phoenix years ago, after laying Louisoix's ghost to rest, but Alisaie put down Adelphoi and Alphinaud turned towards the healing arts: they may have forgotten, in the interim, and you would rather not treat them to an unwelcome surprise.
But that is a problem for later. For now, night has fallen over Lakeland, and the stars have begun to dance.