Chapter Text
Darkness seeps in the cracks. It warms the corners and graces the forgotten places, offering a comfort that sparks of late summer nights, of warm beds and warmer embraces. Moonless midnight; depths of the oceans; her mother’s hair. And her mother’s mother, and hers, and on and on.
She’s been here before. This time it’s a comfort, a place of familiarity, and – most importantly – a place to stop. In this deep, inky blackness there are no expectations or judgements, no voices demanding assistance or guidance, no lost soldiers or simple mysteries or monotonous errands. It’s a sliver of quiet – of peace.
Oz doesn’t come by too many of those.
She settles in the blackness, feeling the weight of her limbs. The pain is gone, mercifully, though she is well-aware this is a temporary reprieve. This is a delay, not a remedy.
Later. Later. For now she drifts in this space between life and – whatever. Whatever might follow. Death is too absolute a word, too final, and she knows better than most that the body’s end is not a story’s conclusion.
“Here again?”
Her long ears twitch. “I am trying to sleep.”
“And? You’re doing a piss-poor job of it, much like everything else. The world’s coming to an end, girl!”
“An end?” She opens her eyes. A faintly-glowing Viera glares at her, her green eyes far too large for her thin face. Everything about the woman is too something: too pale, too thin, too stretched. Hair too flat; cheekbones too high; nails too sharp. Otherworldly is the kindest word to describe her, and Oz has heard far worse.
The glowing Viera leans forward. “Yes, an end. As always. As ever. You waste your potential lazing in this space, squandering your gifts – your birthright –”
“I’d say I’m doing just fine, Mother.”
“Don’t call me Mother!” Widomina Keres snarls and raises one hand; her nails grow longer and sharper as her cheeks hollow out; her eyes bulge; her hair takes on an electric life of its own –
“No – !” As Oz lifts her arm something shifts – the air, the aether – and without control or conscious choice the power within her explodes outwards. Widomina vanishes, scattering into green mist as white drowns black, and then Oz is up, awake, swinging her legs out of bed as she blinks at her unexpected surroundings.
The Pendants…?
Pain lances through her head as she attempts to stand. She tumbles to the floor with a noise that is half-cry, half-gurgle, and where there was once darkness there is now nothing but light – Light, pure and devastating and eating away at her insides. She’s etched with it, laced within her veins, and she fights hard against the acrid burning in her throat.
Lightwarden. Vauthry. Mt. Gulg. The Exarch – G’raha, G’raha, of course it was G’raha! And –
Emet-Selch. Emet-fucking-Selch.
“I’ll kill him.” It’s what she tries to say, but the Light spills over and she blows a Light-bubble on “kill”. Terrible. Worse than that bug she’d eaten in Amh Araeng. She gags on it, spits it on the floor, shudders as the pain finally begins to lessen. “I’ll – kill –”
“Oz.”
She looks up.
The dead look back.
Ardbert looks uncomfortable, dwarfed as he is by the women on either side of him. While he glows white, the two other souls have the faint green glimmer Oz has always associated with her ghosts, her companions by way of that bloody birthright her mother is so very fond of, but their expressions are not the comfort she’d hoped they’d be. While Ysayle’s fury is understandable, Moenbryda’s look of deep concern worries Oz most.
For a moment she imagines herself as they must see her. Prostrated on her belly, legs tangled in her blankets, shivering from pain and weakness and that terrible taste. The features that read as harsh and unforgiving on her mother are softer on her: the angular nose isn’t so prominent; the chin is stubborn, rather than pointed; her cheeks are simply narrow. Her mint-green eyes are her mother’s in colour if not in shape, while her raven hair is twice as long as her ears are tall.
Witchy, her brother had called her, and that was before she’d started painting her eyelids black. She doesn’t want to know how tangled her hair is or where her makeup might have shifted to; whatever the reality, she is a far way from healthy.
Oz wipes the Light from her lips. “How long?”
“Days,” Ardbert says. “You’ve been unconscious since they brought you down from Mount Gulg.”
“The Scions?”
“Looking for a cure.” His tone says enough: their search has been fruitless, and he isn’t expecting better. “Can you stand?”
“Let's find out.” Her first attempt is embarrassing, but she manages it on the second. There’s a fleeting moment of regret that she was successful – the world sure is dizzy when she’s on her feet – but she stays upright. Mostly. “Now to –” She breaks off as Ardbert moves to the window.
“You have to see it.”
“It?” Dread weighs her limbs, knots her stomach, roots her feet to the floor. He hasn’t looked this grim since their time on the Source, back when he’d been trying to kill her. The only thing that might wait outside her window that could give him that expression would be…
She pulls herself together to stride past her otherworldly company and throw open the shutters: a sky clouded over; a world awash in Light; the Lightwardens returned. But the Lightwardens haven’t returned, not really.
The Lightwarden is her.
“It isn’t only Lakeland,” Ardbert murmurs. He’s kinder this time: soft, like he wishes he didn’t have to say it. “All of Norvrandt sees the same view.”
She clenches her teeth as she keeps her gaze on the sky, pretending as though it isn't hard to breathe, hard to stand. Emet-Selch’s words drift across her consciousness, his offer to join him in Amaurot as she gives in to the transformation. Would she? Could she? How strong is her soul to withstand so much Light, and how long can she persevere?
And what about G’raha? He can't be dead, or he’d be visiting her with the rest.
Unless –
“The Miqo’te's alive,” Moen says, reading her alarmed look correctly. “For now.”
“Where?”
“West.”
“As the Ascian said,” Ysayle adds. “The Tempest, below the stormy seas off the coast of Kholusia.”
The Tempest. The sea has never been her favourite place – she’s Dalmascan, not Hingan – and the thought of descending into its depths makes her queasy. To track an Ascian there…
“You’re not thinking of doing this alone, are you?”
“Of course she is.” Moen moves to Oz’s side. “How exactly are you planning to make it all that way?”
“Amaro,” Oz says stupidly, knowing immediately that she’d picked the worst possible response. She holds her ground as the Roegadyn steps between her and the window; they are nearly the same height if one ignores her ears, but Oz still feels like a child about to receive a scolding. “I never said I wasn’t considering other options.”
“Find the others,” Moen says, in a tone that brooks no argument. “They want to help.”
It isn’t that she doesn’t want the Scions with her – there are no souls on this shard or elsewhere she trusts more – but this will not be an easy adventure. There is no guarantee she isn’t setting out on a one-way trip. “And if what Emet-Selch said is true? If I turn into something monstrous and am no longer capable of telling friend from foe?”
“You are racing the clock,” Ysayle agrees. “But the race itself will be easier with companions. Ryne has some small power to contain the Light, and each of the others bring their own talents. Take them with you.”
It is easier to accept than argue; every moment on her feet is a moment fought for. “Fine.” She reaches out a hand, summoning her staff to her with a thought and a twist of aether. The familiar metal rod hits her palm and she slips it into the harness on her back with only a slight shaking in her fingers. “Do you know where I might find them?”
“Scattered across Norvrandt.”
“Searching,” Moen adds. “Urianger is here, of course, but he’s in his books.”
Oz turns to catch Ardbert’s eye. “Then I’ll take a walk until they return.” His nod is almost imperceptible before he vanishes, leaving her with her pair of ghosts. She looks between them both and manages a crooked smile. "Thanks for coming all this way. Really."
"You know I won't have you dying," Moen says, resting her hands on her hips. "Not to the Light, at any rate! Imagine trying to explain all of this to the folks back home."
"She's trying to say be careful," Ysayle sighs, giving the Roegadyn a weary look. "We'll keep an eye out as best we can."
"Thank you." Oz uses a twist of aether, a mere spark, to reach out her hands and rest them on each woman's shoulder. While ghosts are formless, soundless, powerless creatures, her gift allows her the chance to cross the divide. To touch, should she allow it. She directs her attention to Moen. "I'll make sure Urianger comes home."
"Damn right you will!"
Oz grins, and waits for them both to disappear before dropping the act; she falls to her knees, crumpling into a ball under the window. She can feel the Light in her skin, running through her veins, tracing the paths from fingers to arms and down, down to her toes, and then back up! Up to her face, her mouth, her eyes. She dare not cry lest Light roll down her cheeks.
Fury slowly consumes pain.
Half of it feels rational. Emet-Selch more than deserves his share of anger, disappointment, and disgust. She’d started to trust him! To listen to him! To feel for him, damn him, and all that he lost!
Ascian.
Murderer.
Monster.
The other half of her fury is unintentional, maybe even irrational, but she has words to say to G’raha the next time they meet. Whether she is lucky enough to save him from Emet-Selch, or if she must pluck his soul from the Lifestream to yell at him should she fail, she is not happy with his plan as she understands it. To take the Light from her? To willingly die in the blackness of the rift? Alone?
Emet-Selch and G’raha Tia. Two incredibly powerful mages; two secretive old men with a penchant for wearing masks.
“No more,” she mutters, leveraging herself to her feet. She still feels as though one quick movement might shatter her, but she’s angry enough to keep moving, to drag herself west and flounder beneath the sea. To knock some heads together, to save a life –
To end one.
“Emet-Selch,” she mutters, stumbling across the room to drop a cloth on the Light ichor she’d spit on the floor. “Dead man.”
The Crystarium without its Crystal Exach is a sombre place. The day-to-day running of the city proceeds as normal, but it is quieter. Softer. Muted voices, small gestures, and a lack of laughter give the busy city the aura of a sick room: everyone is waiting with bated breath.
Oz walks among them, offering what advice and comfort she can. She knows little more than they do, and what she does know would crush hopes rather than kindle them. She is well-aware the sight of her does more than her words ever could – just as in Ishgard, and Yanxia, and Ala Mhigo.
The difference here is the lack of the dead.
As her father had explained it, Oz’s power – her birthright – has been passed down her matriline for as long as her people can remember. Her grandmothers had been village elders, wise women, and sages. They had been protected and kept secret, hidden even from the other Dalmascan villages.
They had been prisoners.
“How are you feeling?”
Oz nearly jumps out of her skin. Her wandering feet have taken her up the stairs of one of the Crystarium’s guard towers, leading her to the deserted top platform – deserted by the living, at least.
“I’m holding together.” She steps up to the platform’s edge, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Ardbert. A part of her wants to ask if this is what it felt like when the Flood first began – the stark horror and bottomless guilt – but she buries her curiosity. She knows what that kind of question would do to her, no matter the intention. “Given the circumstances, I’d say I’m not doing too poorly.”
“I like the attempt at optimism.”
“You’re coming with us,” she starts to say.
“You’ll need company,” he says at the same time. They grin, and he holds out a fist she is quick to bump her own against. “I’ve come this far, haven’t I? And now you’re going to the one place in Norvrandt I’ve never been. Of course I’m coming with you!”
“Glad to hear it.” That’s an understatement, but she can’t put into words how much this soul has come to mean to her. Like her brothers, or even Alphinaud! More than Alphinaud, really, because Ardbert knows. He’s been the Warrior of Light. “So…by amaro, or…?”
He snorts. “You’d have better luck swimming.”
“Figured.”
“But! You’ve opened Lyhe Ghiah, braved the temples of Ronka, brokered a partnership between Tomra and Eulmore, and got the trolley working! If anyone can figure out how to venture thousands of yalms beneath the waves, it has to be you.” He pauses. “Or Y’shtola.”
Oz sighs. Vengeance is a bit of a pipe dream when one’s enemy is in uncharted territory, but he is correct: the Scions really do specialise in uncharted territory.
“As for the Exarch…” Ardbert cuts himself off as they both hear the tell-tale jingle that heralds Feo Ul’s appearance. He vanishes, leaving Oz to pose her questions to the King of Il Mheg.
Ardbert finds her later in the Exarch’s Ocular. She’s just barely on her feet, still reeling from the aftereffects of her Echo vision, and she holds up a hand to forestall whatever caution he might advise.
G’raha Tia. To have come so far on hope alone…
“Emet-Selch,” she mutters once again, and it’s ice-cold rage in her veins, a crushing, glacial fury that narrows her attention to a pinprick. “Dead man.”