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Another monotonous day in the endless expanse of the Aetherial Sea. The crystalline currents drift past in their eternal dance, neither forward nor backward, just perpetual motion without destination. The years have become a blur since Hythlodaeus and Venat departed from my side.
Time has no meaning in this void. No sun rises or sets here, no seasons turn. Only the gentle pulse of aether marks any rhythm at all, and even that grows tedious after millennia.
I once harboured the futile hope that they would linger with me in this liminal space between death and rebirth. But who could deny Hythlodaeus his chance at life? He who languished in eternal shadow for millennia, trapped in darkness while the world moved on without him. The memory of his confinement still sends ice through my incorporeal form—that crushing weight of isolation, that suffocating absence of light.
As for Venat, that once revered Azem, her weariness hung about her like a shroud. The weight of aeons pressed upon her ethereal shoulders. When Hythlodaeus extended the invitation to accompany him into the cycle of rebirth, she accepted with scarcely a heartbeat’s hesitation.
How could she resist? She had no more reason to linger here in this suspended existence. We’ve all resigned ourselves to the grim fate of our Star. The golden days of Amaurot are dust, the convocation dissolved, our people scattered to oblivion. The world we knew will never return, and the allure of new life—fresh start, clean slate—proves irresistible to those who’ve carried such burdens.
They knew I would not be swayed. Not yet. Something holds me here, some unfinished thread.
The time had come for their departure. The crystalline chamber where souls prepare for sundering gleams with otherworldly light, its walls pulsing with the heartbeat of the Star itself.
Sundering was the path ahead—that violent splitting of the soul into fourteen fragments, scattered across reflections of our world. A daunting step, this voluntary dissolution of self, yet neither of them showed the slightest reluctance.
As their souls underwent the harrowing process, I stood witness. The aether around them began to fracture like glass under pressure, hairline cracks spreading through their essence. Their forms grew translucent, then prismatic, as if viewed through a shattered mirror. Yet their faces glowed with irrepressible smiles, even as they came apart at the seams.
That expression—pure joy at the prospect of freedom, of new beginnings—struck something deep within me. I found myself smiling in return, a tacit acknowledgment. My time would come. We would be reunited in some distant future, in forms we couldn’t yet imagine.
With a sigh that ripples through the aether around me, I clutch my convocation crystal close, feeling its cool weight against what passes for my chest in this formless realm. The crystal pulses with remembered warmth—memories of youth in Amaurot’s gleaming streets, of debates in the convocation chamber, of laughter shared over wine. Countless lives led in sorrow after our paradise fell. All of it will dissolve into oblivion when I, too, embrace the path of a sundered man.
Regrets? I harbour none. Each choice I made was deliberate, calculated, guided by convictions I still deem just. The Rejoining was necessary. The sacrifices were weighed and measured. Yet I must linger a while longer, though not for any desire to persist in this state.
I await the arrival of my obstinate friend.
I’m well-acquainted with waiting—fourteen thousand years of it have made me something of an expert. And what are a few mere years in the face of her fleeting mortality? Her life burns bright and brief, a candle flame against the darkness. I would find amusement in seeing the surprise on her face upon discovering me still here, still waiting after all this time.
The day has at last arrived. Above, in the world of the living, Eorzea drowns in sorrow. Black banners hang from every settlement. Mourners line the streets. But for me, watching from the boundary between life and death, it’s a moment of both relief and expectation. Their champion, their Warrior of Light, lies on her deathbed, fingers clutching at the rapidly unraveling threads of life.
The bedroom is simple—too simple for one who saved the world countless times. Rough-hewn wooden beams support a thatched roof. A single window lets in the dying light of day. Her companions surround her, faces wet with tears they try to hide.
Unseen, I lean against her bedroom wall, my ethereal form casting no shadow, disturbing no dust motes in the fading sunlight. I wait with unapologetic eagerness for her descent into the underworld. There, finally, our paths will cross once more without the burden of opposing roles.
Hours stretch like pulled taffy, each one a test of patience even for one who’s waited millennia. Her breathing grows shallower. The grip on her sword hand loosens. At last, the moment comes—that final exhale, that last loosening of mortal bonds.
I return to the Aetherial Sea, my determination rekindled like a forge brought back to life. The landscape here shifts—no longer the empty expanse but a flowing river of souls, each current carrying the newly dead toward their destination. There is much to chastise her for, her tardiness in particular. Even by mortal standards, she kept me waiting. Could dying truly have been so arduous, considering her daily dalliances with danger? How many times had she stood at death’s door only to dance away at the last moment?
But more than reproach, I long for conversation. Simple words exchanged without the weight of the world between us.
In the boundless aether, I discover her at last—adrift and unmoored in the spiritual current. Her soul-form floats gently, translucent and shimmering, as if caught in a dream she’s not yet realised has ended. Her eyes are closed, her expression peaceful for perhaps the first time since she took up her burden.
I call out her name—the one she wore in this life, then others from ages past. Only silence greets me. Desperation, an emotion I thought long burned away, seizes me as I try again and again. I invoke all the names by which I have known her through the ages: Hero, Azem, the titles and pet names accumulated across centuries.
She cannot hear me.
I quicken my pace, ethereal feet finding purchase on nothing as I close the distance. But an unyielding current of surging aether rises between us—a wall of pure spiritual force, crackling with power that defies my attempts to breach. The river divides here, one path for the sundered, another for those who remain whole. On the other side, she stands with her back to me, suspended in that timeless moment before the aetherial sea embraces her fully and sends her back to the wheel of reincarnation.
Realisation strikes with the force of a physical blow.
To traverse this ethereal river, to reach her side, I must be sundered. I stand here alone, singular and whole, barred from crossing, while the multitude of soul shards stream past me toward the other shore like moths drawn to distant flame. The bitter irony doesn’t escape me—I who orchestrated the Rejoining, who sought to make all souls whole again, must now fragment myself to reach the one person who matters.
Chagrined at the oversight born of my eagerness, I release a sigh that seems to echo through eternity. Then I plunge into the deepest abyss of the underworld, descending through layers of reality until I find myself at the core of Etheirys itself.
Here, aether pulsates with unbridled potency, raw creation given form. The walls throb like a living heart, veins of pure energy threading through crystallised matter. The crystal of Hydaelyn looms before me—that monument to Venat’s will, orchestrator of what I still consider the most heinous crime against my people. It stands stark and unyielding, neither welcoming nor forbidding, simply waiting as it has waited since the first sundering.
Here, in this chamber where fate itself was rewritten, I must forsake the lives I’ve known, the histories I’ve borne witness to, the weight of fourteen thousand years. In a gesture that signifies my final acceptance of defeat—or perhaps victory of a different kind—I spread my arms wide, surrendering myself to the inexorable will of the star.
The sensation arrives unexpectedly gentle, like sinking into warm water. My soul begins to divide, hairline fractures spreading through my essence. Each split creates a new facet, a new possibility. The ancient power I once wielded, the might that could reshape reality itself, diminishes with each fissure that forms. Where once stood Emet-Selch, Architect of the Convocation, soon will be fourteen fragments, each carrying only a whisper of what was.
I can’t suppress a scoff even as I come apart. This process I fought against for so long, this division I sought to reverse—now I embrace it willingly. But if this is the decree of the star I cherish, and the sole means to reunite with those dear to me, then I shall accept even this indignity.
I return to the river where I last glimpsed her, but now I’m accompanied by the disparate fragments of my own soul. They hover around me like attendant spirits, each a perfect reflection viewed through a different lens. We call to her in unison, fourteen voices raised as one.
This time, she turns.
Her eyes ignite with the brilliance of a newborn sun, that familiar gold that has haunted me across ages. Her smile radiates warmth that reaches even my fragmenting essence, thawing ice I didn’t realise had formed around what remains of my heart. Recognition dawns on her features—not the wary recognition of enemies who know each other too well, but something deeper, older.
My heart—or what passes for it in this space between spaces—swells with an affection I thought cauterised by time. I press forward, eager to join her, to speak words held back by pride and circumstance.
But the fragments of my soul begin their inexorable drift apart. Each piece pulls in a different direction, drawn by invisible threads toward different shards of the Source. I feel myself being yanked upward while simultaneously pulled in thirteen other directions. The fragments scatter like seeds on cosmic wind, and dread festers within me as I realise what’s happening.
Desperately, I stretch an arm toward her, watching her attempt pursuit. She swims against the current of souls, fighting the river’s flow, but we both know it’s futile. The laws that govern this place are older than memory, immutable as gravity.
Then I perceive the truth with crystal clarity.
My sundered souls are ascending to the upper realm, drawn to be reborn in mortal forms. With them goes my consciousness, fracturing into fourteen separate streams of thought. Frustration gnaws at me as my fists clench. I lingered in the aetherial sea for so long that I’ve overstayed my welcome, become too deeply rooted in death to resist life’s call. The tug to depart grows irresistible, a tide that no will can stand against. There’s not even a proper moment to bid farewell before the lives we’ve known are consigned to oblivion, erased like words written in sand.
All that’s left to me is one final glance. My hand still extended, reaching across impossible distance. Her eyes brimming with a yearning that lances through all fragments of me simultaneously. I offer her a smile—gentle, reassuring, a feeble attempt to soothe her evident sorrow. I etch her face into my memory with the desperate precision of one who knows forgetting is inevitable. The exact shade of her soul’s light. The way she holds herself even in this formless space. Her form is the last thing I behold before my world dissolves into blinding whiteness.
Rousing from a most agreeable repose, I find that lunchtime has fled and the Studium calls with its tedious summons to afternoon lectures. The bells toll in their tower, bronze voices carrying across the pristine white stones of the academy grounds. However, the winds conspire to lull me back to sleep, achieving that rare perfection of neither warmth nor chill, carrying the salt-scent of the sea and the perfume of flowering vines.
I emit a sigh that stirs the leaves above me, shifting only enough to cast a disdainful eye upon the hurrying crowd of students. They scurry like ants, clutching their books and scrolls, terrified of tardiness, slaves to the tyranny of schedules.
There I lay, reclined upon the well-worn wooden bench that has become my unofficial residence, spine pressed against slats polished smooth by generations of idle students. Defiant to the mundane summons of routine.
What, pray tell, is the point of it all?
Each day’s procession unfolds in wearying sameness. Morning lectures on aether theory I could recite in my sleep. Afternoon practicals that insult the intelligence. Evening studies that drone on about discoveries I feel I’ve always known. And through it all, a nagging vacancy pervades my very being, a hollowness beneath my ribs that no amount of knowledge can fill. Its essence ever escapes definition, dancing just beyond the reach of understanding.
So I relinquish myself once again to the comforting embrace of slumber, letting the world fade to irrelevance.
The day marks a significant milestone—the culmination of our studies, what they call graduation with such pomp and circumstance. The ceremony itself was tedious beyond measure: speeches about bright futures and the responsibility of knowledge, as if any of it matters in the grand scheme.
Afterwards, I find myself at the Gold Saucer, that monument to garish excess rising from the Thanalan desert like a fever dream. Lights flash in every colour imaginable, music pounds from every corner, and the crowds surge with desperate enthusiasm for manufactured joy. I’m keen on selecting the finest Chocobo to frivolously gamble away my Gil—at least the birds are honest about their nature, running in circles for the amusement of others.
Hythlodaeus, ever the lover of games that require actual thought, has ensconced himself at the Triple Triad tables. His purple hair catches the rotating lights as he scrutinises his cards with an intensity better reserved for world-ending catastrophes. Our first outing since leaving Sharlayan has surely made us stand out—our formal academy robes among the carnival atmosphere, perhaps even naively conspicuous. Yet I pay it no mind, braced for the typical banality the rest of the day is bound to present.
Drowsiness encroaches despite the cacophony, and in its embrace, that insistent void within my chest resurfaces with vengeance. Despite the affection of family who write letters I rarely answer, despite the camaraderie of friends who tolerate my acidic temperament, despite a life that seems whole to any outside observer—the elusive absence persists. What is it that I lack? What piece of my existence has gone missing, leaving this shaped absence?
Leaning contemplatively against a wall papered in gaudy gold leaf, something catches my attention. A glint of light that doesn’t match the casino’s artificial gleam. Concealed beneath a bench where someone might have dropped it lies a crystal, imbued with an amber hue that seems to pulse with inner fire. An inexplicable familiarity draws me to it, as if I’ve held it a thousand times before. As my fingers close around it, feeling its polished texture warm against my palm, a connection forges—electric, immediate, undeniable.
Without conscious thought, I choose to keep it.
In the years following that curious find, Venat—who has become something between mentor and mother—fashioned it into a necklace. She worked the silver herself, creating an elaborate setting that somehow makes the crystal appear to float against my chest. Since that choice to possess it, my existence has twisted along more favourable paths, as if the crystal serves as a compass pointing toward true north.
The void within me remains, its nature still inscrutable as a cipher in a dead language, but now it is tempered by a hope that defies my comprehension. Sometimes, holding the crystal, I swear I feel an answering pulse, like a heartbeat that isn’t mine.
Moreover, my nights have become haunted by visions of another existence, echoes of dreams more vivid than waking life. I find myself in relentless pursuit of someone through landscapes that shouldn’t exist—cities of impossible architecture, seas that burn like flame, skies with too many moons. A presence whose features escape my memory upon waking, yet whose absence weighs upon me like a physical ache. I wake with their name on my lips, but the syllables dissolve before I can grasp them.
Today marks my maiden voyage to the East, a journey that’s taken three years of political manoeuvring to arrange. My comrades accompany me to Limsa Lominsa’s harbour, their excitement palpable enough to taste, overshadowing my own carefully contained anticipation.
The morning sun transforms the harbour into a canvas of gold and azure. Ships bob at their moorings like sleeping beasts, their masts a forest of possibilities. The smell of tar and brine mingles with fresh bread from the dockside bakeries.
Venat exudes joy at my appointment as the youngest Sharlayan ambassador, her ancient eyes bright with something that might be pride. She presses a small fortune in Gil into my hands “for emergencies,” though we both know I’ll likely spend it on rare tomes. Hythlodaeus, ever the epicurean, entrusts me with the sacred task of procuring a variety of Othardian delicacies—he’s written a list three pages long, annotated with preferred vendors and optimal storage methods. Though my visage remains carefully impassive, I cannot fully suppress the thrill that stirs within, a sensation like lightning contained in a bottle.
Upon my nighttime arrival in Kugane, the city reveals itself like a courtesan dropping her veils. Paper lanterns bloom along every street, their warm light painting the air gold and crimson. I am led through the Ijin District by a guide who chatters nervously about local customs I’ve already memorised.
The very fabric of the city speaks in a language I somehow understand without learning. The architecture—all swooping rooflines and delicate wood lacework—creates a symphony of form. The fusion of hues where tradition meets modernity: ancient temples beside gleaming towers of steel and glass. The dance of lights reflected in the bay waters turns the whole city into a double vision, one real, one mirror, both equally entrancing.
I find myself ensnared by the spectacle, my head oscillating like a child’s, eager to absorb every detail. This is what was missing from Sharlayan’s sterile perfection—life that doesn’t apologise for its messiness, beauty that serves no purpose but to exist.
As I traverse the vicinity of Rakusui Gardens in search of my accommodation, I am momentarily arrested by an unspoken wonderment. The striking oriental red bridge presents itself as an anomaly—vermillion lacquer gleaming under moonlight, its arch reflected in the pond below to form a perfect circle. A paradoxical harmony that both contrasts and complements its surroundings: the severe geometry against organic curves of landscaped hills, the boldness of colour against subtle shadows.
Accustomed as I am to the artistry of Sharlayan—or rather, the deliberate absence thereof in favour of “pure function”—I find myself unable to suppress a spellbound gape.
Drawn by some invisible thread toward an enormous tree situated behind the reflective pond, I discover a tranquil space tucked away from the garden’s main paths. Void of other visitors at this late hour, perfectly poised for contemplation. Here, in this secluded nook, the garden unfurls its beauty without pretence. Moss-covered stones create natural seats. The whisper of bamboo provides nature’s music. The great tree’s roots have split the paving stones, and no one has bothered to repair them—imperfection elevated to art.
I land on the ground with a subdued thump, vertebrae aligning against the tree’s ancient trunk. The bark is rough through my robes, grounding, real in a way that my life rarely feels.
Then suddenly a branch descends upon my head with enough force to sting.
Retrieving it with a quizzical arch of my brows and a muttered curse about the laws of probability, I cast my gaze upward—and find myself ensnared by a pair of familiar eyes.
There, in the arboreal canopy, partially hidden among leaves and shadow, resides a woman. She’s somehow gotten herself thoroughly tangled in the branches, one leg hooked over a limb, arms wrapped around another, looking for all the world like she’d been attempting to climb higher and thought better of it halfway. Yet before I can move to extricate her—or more likely, make a sardonic comment about her predicament—she descends with a graceful leap that defies her tangled state, alighting to crouch beside me in a single fluid motion.
She brushes a triviality of dirt from her shoulder with the casual air of someone who regularly falls from trees. As her eyes meet mine properly for the first time, a recognition takes form that transcends mere visual acknowledgment, and I…
The world stops.
A feeling of déjà vu washes over me with the force of a tidal wave, casting me into a hypnotic trance. Her eyes refuse to waver from mine, conducting a meticulous examination of my countenance as if memorising every detail. I find myself staring rather ungracefully, mouth slightly agape, expecting her to recoil in discomfort at the intensity of this moment. Yet she mirrors my expression exactly—lips parting and closing, as though words are trapped behind her teeth, longing for release but lacking the proper language.
Her attention shifts to the crystal that adorns my neck, where it rests against my chest, pulsing with sudden warmth. Her hand reaches toward it, fingers trembling slightly, before faltering inches away. Instead, she explores a side pocket of her strange foreign trousers, her intentions concealed until the last moment.
Presenting her palm before my face with the solemnity of someone offering communion, she reveals a crystal that bears a striking resemblance to my own, save for its purple hue—deeper than amethyst, richer than wine, the exact shade of sunset over the Aetherial Sea.
With deliberate care, as if performing a ritual we’ve enacted a thousand times before, I unfasten the necklace and place it into her waiting hand, whilst taking her crystal into mine.
The moment our crystals exchange hands, the world explodes into sensation.
My breath halts, lungs forgetting their purpose. A sensation rushes through me as though a dam has broken, flooding me with something vast and ancient and achingly familiar. Our eyes lock in a timeless communion that transcends the physical. The garden around us fades to distant murmur—the bamboo’s whisper, the pond’s gentle lapping, the city’s distant hum—leaving only the sound of our ragged breaths and the connection that pulses between us like a living thing.
A torrent of memories from a life I have never lived surges into my consciousness with violent clarity. I see myself in robes of office I’ve never worn, standing in a city of impossible beauty that never existed in this age. I see her across a convocation chamber, arguing with passionate intensity about something vital I can’t quite grasp. I see us in quieter moments—sharing wine on a balcony overlooking a perfect sunset, her laughter at some elaborate prank I’ve orchestrated, the weight of her head against my shoulder in a moment of exhaustion.
The dreams that have haunted me since the crystal first came into my possession return with startling, painful clarity. Her face, obscured until now by the veil of sleep, is revealed in all its variations—young and old, joyful and grieving, mortal and eternal. Her name—no, her many names—echo in my mind like a symphony finally finding its key.
She is the answer to the emptiness that has gnawed at me since birth.
She is the missing piece of my existence, the absence given form.
Something akin to recognition stirs within her—I can see it in the way her pupils dilate, the way her breath catches, the way her free hand rises unconsciously to her chest. She mirrors my own revelation, finding in my gaze the discovery of something once lost and thought irretrievable. A reunion with a soul she’s carried the shape of but not the substance, the echo without the voice.
With a touch as tentative as it is charged with emotion—afraid that too much pressure might shatter this impossible moment—I reach to caress her cheek. Her skin is warm, real, present in a way that makes everything else feel like shadows. She leans into the contact with a soft sigh, eyes fluttering closed for just a moment, and within me, a spark of hope ignites that threatens to consume everything I thought I knew about myself.
Her eyes glisten with unshed tears that catch the lantern light like captured stars. Her voice, when it finally comes, quavers with the weight of recognition, speaking a name I haven’t heard in this lifetime but know belongs to me more than the one I currently wear:
“Hades…”
And I answer with the only word that matters, the name that’s been carved into my soul since before this life began:
“Hero.”