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"And you are certain you know how to use this, yes?" Erenville asks again, tilting his head towards the machinist. There's a brief pause as all four members of the group regard the 'this' in question.

"It doesn't look that bad!" Dacien says, patting the front of the air-wheeler. "Unlike most the ones Estinien knocked out the sky, at least. Getting it back to Solution Nine so it stops littering the place should be fairly easy."

"How well it works isn't what I am concerned about. Do you actually know how to pilot it?"

Dacien shrugs, eyes turning back towards the distant dome haunting the horizon of Shaaloani. "It's the same principles as a Garlond two-wheeler. It won't be hard to figure out."

"It'll be like riding a dragon," Estinien helpfully offers up from the pile of fallen soldiers he's collected.

"Exactly!" Dacien says. "Easy."

This seems to satisfy both Elezen, both turning their heads away, and very quietly Erenville can feel his blood pressure rising.

"He does know what he's doing," Yasir says quietly, fingertips briefly resting just at Erenville's elbow. "He's worked on airships over in Gridania before, and done all sorts of jobs for the Ironworks and Skysteel crews. They're the two who first used manacutters when they were being developed."

"It's basic principles," Dacien says, ear twitching as he looks back over at the pair. "On the ground, all I need to do is figure out how to start it forward and how to make it stop. If I get it airborne? Great. For that I'd only really need to work out altitude controls, the same start-stop mechanisms, and how best to compensate for the wind so I don't get flipped."

"And turning?"

"The front's all fixed in place, so shifting weight. Same as chocobos in flight."

"Or dragons," Estinien adds again.

"Or dragons, if they're willing to put up with you. Or maybe a capybara? Does that help?"

"The capybara were so cute," Yasir sighs. "Cuter when you weren't hunched over them like a chocobo over an egg."

"I did not look like that."

"Did he?" Estinien raises an eyebrow.

"He did!"

"You were significantly taller than them," Erenville nods. "You seemed to be doing a lot with your knees and elbows."

"A whole lot of nothing elegant," Yasir agrees. "You looked like you were terrified you would crush them."

The duskwight doesn't pout, but his shoulders stiffening and the way his ears flick back against his head give him away all the same. Estinien snorts and smiles at the sight, and Erenville finds the corner of his own mouth twitching. One of the most powerful people on the planet, brought low by two sentences from his friend.

"At least the rroneek will be nice to me when we're getting ready to ship the rest of this stuff back north."

"Well, you know what they say!" Yasir says, suddenly grinning, and Erenville finds his attention suddenly very firmly fixed on their expression.

"Save a rronneek, ride the handler?" the dragoon pipes up.

"Maybe you should spare the handler and just ride a god again instead-"

Yasir freezes, eyes wide as they process what they just said. Estinien has gone from one eyebrow raised to both, slowly looking over at Dacien. Erenville looks as well, and finds he has to take it back - he wasn't stiff before. This is what that word actually means. The man is practically a statue now, hardly breathing, hand frozen mid-air in his notetaking. His eyes are wider than Yasirs and his face is in the middle of flushing brighter than he's ever seen him, the colour spilling across his cheeks and overflowing up his ears.

Erenville's mouth moves without making any sound before he slowly regains control over his mouth.

"...A god?"

The machinist squeaks and springs back to life. Where he and the air-wheeler had stood is suddenly an empty spot, the engine roaring as he flees all questions. That answers that, Erenville wonders for a moment, before his mind refocuses.

Two sets of eyes immediately swing to look at Yasir.

"Again?" Estinien asks, slowly looking between them and the fleeing champion. "He actually-?"

Erenville watches the viera take off running in the opposite direction, arm reaching out after them as they go, and decides in his heart of hearts that there are some things he's better off not thinking about.

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He swears his feet never used to itch for the horizon like they do these days.

When Dacien first went to Gridania, he'd gone in search of work - in search of money more than anything else, truth be told. He'd dreamt of being able to get by and make a living. It hadn't been anything grand or heroic. But then they'd sent him on to Limsa and Ul'dah, and from there to Mor Dhona and Coerthas, and then...

No. Best not to lie to himself: He doesn't know when he began to think of the horizon as a promise, but that's what it is now. The promise of something new, somewhere different. New faces and new cultures. The ability to come back to somewhere he's already been before and see it all again with fresh eyes.

And yet no matter how far he goes, no matter how much he loves a place - it comes back. The impulse to move on. The desire for a change of scenery. The hunger.

He's watched dawn bloom out from under his feet in the Sea of Clouds, and the moon rise gently over Doma. He's navigated his way through the winding paths of Dravania using nothing but stars to point him to his path.

And this love is his. He doesn't care what the last Azem would have to say about it, or what Emet-Selch might've chosen to read into it if he ever did. He isn't the product of a soul who died thousands of years ago. He's more than the personality and inclinations it might have. He can't let himself be shackled by that idea.

The horizon calls, and he will be the one to choose if he answers its call or not.

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There are some things that he and the Scions never talk about. Maybe it would be easier if they did - if one of them would say something about how close he had been to setting off for the Tempest alone. If he could find a way to crack a joke about his condition without it immediately turning sour in the air.

(Dacien had tried once with G'raha, once. Talking about how the Thirteenth had started to twist Nero until he "turned purple", hoping the miq'ote would see the resemblance with what the Light had been doing to him, and the response had been - well. Suffice to say, he never tried again.)

The Tempest, for all the Light has blighted it and the wreckages around Eulmore have filled its waters, still has its own charms.

Some days he simply stands at her shoreline, letting the waves lap over his feet as he holds his shoes up and out the way. The gentle waves are cool and soothing to his nerves, his toes sinking into the wet sand as he lets it do as it will. On other days he wades in until he's knee deep, or waist deep, or the water is brushing up against his shoulders or his neck and he simply lets it tug him back and forth as it will and tries to relax into the push-pull invitation it offers.

And sometimes he skips the shoreline entirely and simply dips himself into the lifestream instead, tumbling out into the ghost of Amarout that still lingers in her depths. The shades still continue their whispered conversations, looking skyward to a danger that will never come again, and time and time again he winds his way through their midst to try and soak in everything he can. It's not quite an obligation, but it feels neither like a chore nor a favour either. Remembering these people, this place, all these things that mattered so much - he's not sure what keeps pulling him back. There's something about this too that soothes him, sometimes.

"Do you remember how strange it was to go there and find I'd been set up as a resident? Did he have a bedroom picked out for me somewhere, just in case it started to take a while and he wanted to take another nap?" he wants to ask, and he wants to hear Thancred laugh about it or for Y'shtola to make a wry joke about what sort of amenities Emet-Selch might've had in mind. He wants Alisaie to ask him what he'd been thinking to leave them all behind, for Alphinald to try and coax him into saying something or anything and he knows they won't.

Estinien wasn't there and never asks. Then again, he probably doesn't need to. Of everyone, he probably understands the best what it feels like to drown in the raging storm of aether not your own. To feel compelled to carry the fragmented legacy knitted into the scars left over.

(Perhaps that is why none of them ask. Some things are rude to pry into.)

In the city under the sea, he pulls out paper and sets to the task of trying to record anything of use again. Any little detail he can make out. The images are getting closer and closer. He should've thought to ask Alphinald to draw what he could. He could still go ask him. He should ask him, or for lessons on how to make the stub of charcoal move more like how he needs it to in his hand-

It snaps in his fingers. He sighs, closing his eyes and leaning back against a pillar. Nothing for it, it would seem. He'll try again another time.

Malms overhead, the sea storms and rages. Secluded away here in the dream of a paradise that never quite was, his heart settles into the calm eye of its own raging emotions and waits for the worst of it to pass.

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Emmanellain has to admit, the Scions are terribly clever people. It's hard for him not to be just a little jealous of the company his dear adoptive brother keeps, being scholars and heroes and world-savers and so on and so forth. They all seem so terribly composed and in control, no matter how bad a situation turns.

(Or they're Tataru, who is a venerable force of nature that Halone herself would be proud of when it comes to brokering trade deals and conducting business. Tataru is, in his opinion, more than deserving of a category all her own.)

But perhaps that's why he is the one who Dacien had sought out to eat with as part of the Ilsebard Contingent.

Oh, don't get him wrong, the old boy is certainly a cut above the rest! There's a reason he's looked to with such respect as the Warrior of Light. Every Ishgardian who had been there had known the stories of how he approached that final battle with Nidhogg with calm, even steps. The Ala Mhigans had had their own stories to share as well, speaking at length of how he had clashed repeatedly with the Garlean prince before eventually cutting him down, of the Primals he had put an end to to assure their safety. He was fearless, they say. Everyone there knew of him and his prowess in battle, eager to a man to gossip and swap tales with those who may not have heard of this fight or that.

But his brother had always preferred to take a seat next to him or Stephanivien. Oh, he'd sat with the Scions and shared meals with them plenty of times, but once he had noticed he had kept track of it: When he sat with the Scions, it was because one of them had called him over or invited him to join them. Of his own volition? Uninterrupted? Time after time, Dacien had gone looking for the two Ishgardians instead.

(A spot of careful eavesdropping had told him very quickly that he had had nothing to worry about in regards to the eldest Haillenarte - not that he had ever thought there was something he needed to watch for. But he can hardly afford to be careless in regards to his brother, now can he? Not a second time.)

And, well, far be it for him to speculate on it, but...It cannot be helped, he supposes. He has some guesses he can make. Perhaps Dacien had simply worried for him in the same manner that Emmanellain worried for him in return. Mayhaps he had just simply been more joyful company to spend time with in the biting chill of Garlemald than his terribly clever and witty scholars! A rather useful skill it had been too, once the air began to shift and blasphemies took to the skies.

But if he had to place a bet, he would say that it's more likely because it was Emmanellain who had seen him shortly after his arrival in Ishgard, and Stephanivien who had made a machinist out of him in a matter of the weeks following. Of the group in the contingent, the only members of the Scions who had seen him in the days after the operation on the Vault were Estinien and Alphinald.

And neither of them had been there in the aftermath of that terrible incident at the first peace conference, when Artoriel had called for a chirurgeon to help them work out what exactly the duskwight had been dosed with.

Of all the people who had been there at Camp Broken Glass, Emmanellain was one of the few people who had seen Dacien at his lowest points: Betrayed and lost. Grieving. Sick and helpless.

(Haurcherfant had called him hope incarnate to their father. What does it mean if hope itself has clung to you and wept into your shoulder, or clutched onto you with clammy hands for comfort?)

So yes. He isn't afraid to admit he's jealous, or that he wishes he were a little more like them. Who wouldn't feel the same? The former Scions stand with confidence, one and all. They don't have anything to fear for their futures, or ornery pirates to try and deal with on the regular. They get to stand with his brother as he does what he does best. They get to see him shine.

But be that as it may, it wasn't them that Dacien had trusted to sit with him as he ate, just in case something happened to his food or drink again. It wasn't them who he had stayed with when his hands had trembled in the dark of the night for reasons unrelated to the cold. He was the one who was allowed to see glimpses of the man hidden behind the mantle when he wasn't in a position to be anything less than the Warrior of Light, Champion of Eorzea. Not them. Him.

His brother isn't always the most vocal of men, nor the most expressive at times, but Emmanellain can understand him as clear as a bell.

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"I have to admit," he says quietly, "Of all the things I've done, this is certainly one of the things I'm proudest of."

"I imagine you mean something more than just this specific pair of boots?" G'raha asks, tilting his head slightly as he says it.

It's another bright day in Tuliyollal, the sun beating down on them with relentless cheer and warming the air itself with ease. With the middle of the day had come a tactical decision on both their parts to retreat back to the shade of Dacien's cabin with the hope that the gentle breeze rolling in off the ocean might cool them a little. For G'raha, this has been a prime chance to catch up with some correspondence he needs to see to.

"The pattern for making it, yes," Dacien says, focusing intently as he presses a stamp into the leather he's currently working on. "It's one I adapted for use whilst I was in Ishgard, you see. What started as a simple commission ended up a little bit more complex than that. I ended up creating a few of them, actually."

"Ah, I think I remember this now. The Caraodecis brand line, yes?"

"The very same." He says, sitting back and gesturing at his work. "You see, the one who commissioned me wanted to be able to provide good quality goods to anyone looking to buy, not just the wealthy. Boots were some of the first things I made her sample designs for. They sold so well she ended up able to run her own workshops and employ more craftsmen to keep up with it all. Now even those in the Brume can have something decent to wear and keep them safe."

"And then she hung your name above the door, if the stories hold true."

"That she did."

'A fine thing to be proud of,' G'raha doesn't say. The recognition might go a long way for his friend, but that clearly isn't the part that matters the most to the duskwight.

"Ah, the stamp you just imparted on it. Would that be-?"

"Oh! Oh, that's just my maker-stamp. Nothing critical to the overall quality."

"I'm not sure I'm familiar with the practice," G'raha admits, "Though I daresay I might be able to guess it's purpose.

"Most people aren't. It's something I picked up as a goldsmith rather than from Geva, truth be told. It's a small stamp or set of marks so the guild could keep track of who was filling which commission and make sure they're paid appropriately. If I made something that was considered particularly exceptional and was praised by its recipient, they've got a way of telling others which artisan was responsible. On the other hand, if someone goes around saying they've got, oh, a handful of bracelets that I apparently crafted for them for sale but none of them have my stamp? If you know what to look for, it can help you dodge a scam."

"May I ask who these ones are for?"

"Estinien. If I have anything the right length leftover once I'm done with the boots, I'll just make some spare armour straps out of them, or perhaps another hair tie-"

G'raha blinks slowly, sitting back and letting the craftsman's chatter wash over him. It's not often he gets to see Dacien at work like this, and he finds it to be an aspect of his friend he wishes to get to know more. To see him speak firmly on the importance of wasting as little as possible of the materials in front of him, to put such consideration into how each remaining portion could be used...

'Truly, my friend,' he muses, 'Only someone like you could end multiple wars but consider the availability of better shoes to be one of your greatest feats.'

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The Unlost World was....Interesting.

He can already hear a whisper of Fray's voice in his mind accusing him of lying to himself once again.

It's not a lie: It had been an interesting place. A beautiful daydream, where the unspoken words could finally be confessed and final meetings and decades-delayed catchups could be had. Each zone had been rich with colour and all sorts of things to delight. Their group had done their best to be polite and respectful, memorising all they could of the people who were only too joyful to receive them.

And every moment there, he could not shake from his mind the dead lost in the attack on Tuliyollal.

It had been beautiful: It had been repulsive. It offended everything he was taught about the cycle of life and death whilst trying desperately to uphold some of the very same ideals he held mostly dearly. A moving tribute to the death that slowly crushed the living into a fine paste. A ghost of Alexandrea that paid no mention or heed to Solution Nine.

What's the point of trying to preserve the dead if you don't let anyone remember them?

At least Emet-Selch had been trying to get to a point where the Amaroutians would be alive again once he was done with his slaughter. The system dressed up in the guide of Sphene and its benevolent murderspree would've destroyed the Source and therefore every reflection with it, condemning her and hers to simply starve regardless at the end.

Perhaps that's what offends him most. Living Memory was a beautiful dream, but at the end of the day? It was nothing more than a dream of a better time that simply hadn't existed.

(Myste had looked at him with wide, open eyes and begged to know why they had to suffer the hurt of loss whilst ignoring the dead birds scattered at his own feet. Sphene had looked to Wuk Lamat and asked her if she would become a citizen. She had been at that same attack on the city. He remembers the look on her face too.)

Eventually, the memories cannot matter more than the actual world around you.

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There are many things that Alisaie has endured quietly to ease the burden on those around her. She knows this in the same way she knows that Alphinald has done the same in regards to what he's seen at Gatetown. One day, when the First is safe - when they are safe - perhaps she will tell her twin more of what it meant to stand vigil over those seeing out their last days. They will see that day. She's determined to make sure of it.

She doesn't know how to start putting the events that happened at the top of Mt. Gulg into words. One day she will. Until then, she pulls on everything she learnt from the Inn at Journey's Head instead.

The shutters of Dacien's room have been closed, but outside the Light still rages overhead. Inside, her friend is laid out on top of the bed, his torso propped up so he's halfway to sitting up and hands folded gently on top of his lap. It's been a week: Only in the last two days has he begun opening his eyes as though waking up; He has yet to respond to any of their attempts to reach him wherever it is his mind has gone. Feo Ul whispers to them that he's still there, simply taking his time, but it still hurts as much as it comforts her to know it.

So she plays her part: She teaches her friends and family how to coax an unresponsive body into swallowing down small portions. She sketches out a timetable for them to follow, a pattern of little-but-often that Dacien's system will be able to handle. When she has the time and they have everything she can offer, she sets back out to Amh Araeng is search of anything they might know that might ease his burden just a little.

(She steps into the room whilst Urianger is there once, his eyes wet with unshed tears, and she immediately turns on her heel and leaves. There's nothing she wants to say to him for his part in all of this. Not now.)

It took two weeks for their friend to awaken, and the first thing he did was set himself to the task of throwing himself into the ocean. She wants to believe he was simply trying to rescue the Exarch. The other option is unthinkable after all the things she's seen him face down.

Even after his success at the bottom of the Tempest, her schedule holds true.

It bothers him. She knows it bothers him. He hadn't been a massive eater before compared to some of them, but the sudden drop to what must seem like morsel-sized portions clearly chafes. His ability to feel hunger or exhaustion haven't come back to him yet. Avoiding mirrors seems to help with his eyes and his hair, but that his own stomach is seemingly intent on betraying him...

"It reminds me of our time in Ishgard together," Alphinald says once to him, a few days into adopting the same schedule in an act of solidarity she could hug him for. "Eating what we can when we get the chance."

"Far less arguing this time," Dacien nods along. "Less firewood for you."

"I'm positive I can find some for you later if you want."

She tells herself it will get better in time. It has to. With the Light bled out of him, he's already looking better. The rest of his recovery should naturally follow now that that infernal aether isn't constantly poisoning him.

She clings to the hope. There isn't space in her for even a morsel of doubt.

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Ten and a half years after the last calamity had churned the continent and beyond into chaos, he finally has a home of his own again. It's a small little cottage in the southeastern wing of Empyreum, with one level above the ground and a basement dug down into the steady grey stone below. Five years of earnings, pooled with what Possum and Yasir had saved themselves, and a little bit of luck. But it's theirs. He couldn't love it more.

It's one thing to indulge the desire to go out into the world and meet people, but having somewhere that's solidly and decisively his to return to is a balm to his soul in a way he hadn't realised he had needed. Oh, the Rising Stones is equipped with anything he might need, but it was never home. Not really. Not for him. Now, no matter how far he roams, he will always have a place to come back to once he's done.

The morning sun finally peaks out from behind Abalathia's Spine, and as it rises he kneels down in the shelter of the small garden plot and closes his eyes. He takes a breath, holding it for five, releasing it over the span of seven.

Above him, the sky. Below him, stone. The air is frosty and sharp against his lungs as he slowly draws in the next breath; Not as cold as it is in Garlemald, but thicker with aetheric ice. It has a flavour of its own that lingers on the back of his tongue as he slowly exhales. With each breath he settles slowly into his morning meditation.

He is no Hearer, of course. Even with this practice of opening himself up to the aether around him and emptying himself of thoughts beyond this moment, he will never be able to tune into his environment in the same way his mentors do. He holds the thought and releases it: He does not need to be like them. This is something he already knows. The Elementals chose to bestow his jobstone on him knowing full well he was no Padjal. He does not need to be any more than he already is.

A wisp of a breeze toys with his hair. Around him, sheltered gently by stone walls and sturdy hedgerows, the tentative garden he and his friends have begun continues to grow and slowly thrive.

He is safe here in a way he has not been for so very long. He has his home, and his family, and his friends. No matter what comes next, he has something stable to return back to. Pillars he can lean on, carefully built and cultivated over the years.

He holds the thought, releases it, and breathes.