Chapter Text
Amaurot has availed her nothing. For many hours has she wandered the city seeking any who would speak to her about the sole crystal she carries, or about the rest of the Convocation at all, but the shades, by now half-faded and harder to understand, have no answers for her. She is loathe to ask the Scions what else they might know of the Ascians' history for fear of being hounded into revealing why she's asking, and her contacts in Othard and Ilsabard have other things to worry about.
It's the Crystarium for her for tonight, then, and she'll return to the Source first thing in the morning; it's not particularly late and she has plenty of time to make it back to Revenant's Toll before dinner if she wanted, but in some ways this place feels more welcoming, more like home, than the world-shard of her birth ever was, and she does not wish to leave it behind so quickly. The First is remarkably free of the judgements that have followed her since her childhood: she is not wholly Viera, and her face is strong enough to serve as proof of her Garlean ancestry. In Dalmasca, she had been regarded with the pity reserved for those born to unwilling trysts with the invading officers--at least until her mother had informed people, quite sharply and enunciated by a few taps of her saw, that the fling had been entirely consensual on both sides, and the two had parted by circumstance rather than any heroic rescues.
Then they only looked at her with scorn.
She had made a place for herself regardless, taking up one of her mother's finely-crafted bows and turning to a combination of hunting and courier work. So many joined the resistance efforts in search of glory that they were always in need of more hands willing to do the less glamorous work, and every day she'd spent hidden and alone, or undercover, was a day she didn't have to deal with others' dismissals of her and her work. Even after travelling to Eorzea to determine how they'd beaten back the Empire, not once but twice, she was not free of it, and the Eorzeans, less familiar with Viera, had added new insults to her lexicon of unwanted names.
Not here, though--here, necessity has driven people together, and beastman is a word long forgotten in Norvrandt, where it does not do to insult those who tomorrow might save your life. Unwilling to give up on her search just yet, she makes her way to the Cabinet of Curiosity. Moren is as full of warm smiles, the sheer joy of knowledge, and Chessamile's slightly-minty energizing tea as ever and she cannot resist pulling him into an embrace, if only to watch him blush due to the effects of her height on such a maneuver.
But he has no more answers for her than do the fading Amaurotines. What he offers in its place is a thread of hope: he knows further tomes are locked within the Tower itself, full of knowledge the Exarch had deemed too dangerous if it were to fall into the hands of the Crystarium's enemies. There is less worry about that these days, and the Cabinet intends to look over the books to determine which are safe to move to the public collection, but none can yet bear to enter into that blue spire.
Even Lyna is unwilling to accompany her, and so she climbs the innumerable stairs alone. Halfway up, she pauses; memories of the last trip flood back to her, and of how it ended. G'raha Tia is alive, he is safe, but faced with that silent blue statue, there is no way to convince her mind of that truth, and she resolves to avoid it. She shouldn't need those upper floors anyways; the Exarch's private library is off of the Ocular, and while it's still a good way further up the tower than where she is, it's nowhere near the spire.
She keeps climbing.
She regrets her choice in clothes--her shoes are sturdy and support her feet well, but her gown is tight-laced and full-skirted, a gift from Leveva on demonstrating her skill at reading the stars. She has hardly taken it off of late; it seems fitting, somehow, in light of recent revelations, and she idly wonders if the astrologians, Sharlayan or Ishgardian, might know more about the constellations of the Ancients.
The door to the Ocular groans more loudly, feels heavier in her hands than she remembers, no doubt the result of recent disuse. In the center of the room, she stops: more memories, this time accompanied by Urianger's words, only now the Scions are gone as well. This place feels empty and hollow without them. The sound of her own breath echoes through the stone chamber--as does something else, and she startles. Behind her, the soft pattering of footsteps ceases.
Frjota Ulvloppe is not alone in the Ocular.