What Became of Us

The white mage was in a trance-like state, watching his hands glow from the energies they emitted. He was waiting for something to happen, trying to see what this new epitome of power could mean. He felt as though apart of him would not grow unless…

“Unless…” He muttered, having repeated the same word for hours now, occasionally staring out at a distant Ishgard some five hundred yalms off, a chasm of untold height gaping beyond the plateau of Coerthas. The Steel Vigil – an old battleground, an old chapel, a war he never knew – was at his back, as well as some wandering Aevis. The winged creatures practically radiating Levin power paid Garflex the Conjurer no mind, his steady equilibrium warding their attention away.

Not that he was without defense.

“Unless…” He said it again, pleading, calling out to a being or force that simply would not respond. His heart would sink, and then rise again when the glow returned to his hands.

Something flashed in his mind, a memory of a memory. There was a smile upon welcoming lips, a handshake, a battlefield, a blinding light, and then… silence.

This, too, was a repeated effort to gain insight. Alone and wandering every edge of Eorzea had been taxing. All manner of chore for her citizens, all manner of heroism for her politicians, and all manner of woe for himself – he was done with it all.

“Unless…” he said once more.

Unless he could find what had called him to that place. A place so secluded, so quiet save for the powdery snows sweeping against his brows. The warmth he felt radiating from within stayed the cold’s embracing chill, but it would not do so for long.

His fingers closed into a fist, trembling. “Unless…”

The Conjurer was on the brink of tears when that same fist’s light was very abruptly gone.

He felt a presence unfamiliar, the first in years. In short order, he turned, the cloak on his shoulders sweeping about in the stagnant air. Wordlessly, unthinkingly, and keenly he drew his staff, preparing himself for the unwieldy Aevis that dared disrupt him.

Only, it wasn’t an Aevis.

It was a mi’qote, dressed for the ever-winter that was Coerthas. Garflex could make out the red, worn leather greaves and tabi of a monk along the sleeves of a thick mantle and cape. Even with a weapon drawn toward him, the cat-like grin never left the one all would later learn to call Rha’qa Panipahrn.

“Didn’t think I’d have company in a place like this,” said the monk, his ears twitching in playful annoyance. He clasped his palms behind his head and started approaching the Conjurer’s side.

Garflex advanced a step, silently warring for the territory at the edge of the silent plateau.

And yet, the monk continued to saunter right next to him, blind to the challenge.

At no point did the white mage think to attack either. There was a calmness to the mi’qote, a place of peace about his every action. No concern, no conflict, no particular direction. All at once, Garflex could feel a kinship to the monk that he never felt for anyone. Comradery was born in a mere moment, though neither party would ever make mention of it.

Woodenly, and with a returned gaze to Ishgard, Garflex put his staff away.

Rha’qa squatted down, the toes of his tabi calmly, dangerously grazing the open air at the edge of the mountaintop. Both lalafell and mi’qote were silent. Where Garflex brooded, the monk lightly smirked and tilted his head, staring at the exact same place as his counterpart.

The air continued to grow thick with wondrous tension. Odd, because it was a tension that they both seemed to want.

Before either knew it, a bard had showed up, standing with a hand on his hip and staring at the snow-shrouded Ishgard with no particular emotion in his eyes. The bow at his back was far from hidden under a hump of cloths harnessed along his shoulders. He wore a pair of black bifocals, which seemed ill-fitting for the winter, but oddly suited to the uncaring persona he emitted.

Rha’qa spared the newcomer a nod.

Garflex glanced in his direction, but gave no indication of concern. It was as if the appearance of Rha’qa had assuaged his inward disdain to company. He also noted that he was no longer muttering “unless” regardless of how many minutes turned to hours.

Xillian Sovereign, the mi’qote of many faces, sighed. “Ye boys come here often?”

The monk shrugged. “Funny. Never been here before, but I came here like I had a reason, ya?”

After a moment’s quiet, Garflex realized the two of them were waiting on him to speak on the situation. He awkwardly coughed, then looked at his palm, trying to see if it would glow, that he may show it to them and lay out his reasons for standing in the same place for more than six hours. When nothing came, he closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m not sure if I can leave this place. I feel like something would just call me back.”

“Same,” replied the bard. “Guessin’ we wait ‘n see what’ll come of waitin’.”

Solemn winds began to turn awry, and the more unkind conditions of Coerthas made themselves known. Even so, the three remained still as marble statues, giving no thought to outcome, and yet waiting for something to come of their wait.

“’Adloquium; the magicked barrier passed from the scholars of old, thought forgotten under the stone of Amdapor, advanced by the heirs and heiresses of Allag…’” the approaching scholar looked up from his reading, then adjusted his glasses, which seemed notably devoid of winter’s fog in spite of the increasing snows. “I… uhm.”

Shane was always strange when it came to social decorum, but in the case at hand, he tilted his head in curiosity at the three men standing some seven yalms ahead of him. The normally hostile Aevis wandering back and forth in the area paid them little heed, a notion that would have normally shaken the tall and lean Elezen. He was so lost in his reading, however, he had not realized that the native creatures of northern Coerthas weren’t making a single attempt on him either.

Though compelled to put words to the phenomenon, he felt his tongue swell with ineptitude – and he was a scholar, a proverbial keeper of words.

Shane walked to the edge of the plateau between Rha’qa and Garflex, his habitual readings a thing of the past in the face of Ishgard, slowly becoming ever more densely veiled in snow.

“I… I think I know this place,” he said, closing his codex and linking a gold loop at the base of its spine to a chain on his belt. In the same motion, he stroked his chin, contemplating. “I feel like I should know more though.”

“Kinda in the same boat, ya?” said the mi’qote monk.

Garflex eyed the gem-studded book at Shane’s hip with unbidden curiosity, but remained quiet at his side. The discomfort lasted less than a moment. More than anything, the same kind of kinship felt from the other two adventurers radiated from this one. Loathe to admit it, he was becoming more at home with the area.

And yet, unable to leave his spot.

Shane’s white robes and black hair billowed in the quickening winds. Thus far, he was the only one who hadn’t brought a cloak for the cold, but he seemed oddly accustomed to it or, at the very least, highly unaware of it.

Shane Farlander was a man so lost in the world of his thoughts that the mortal realm seemed a distant, impertinent touch against spirited flesh.

Ever more, the four strangers waited.

The stubby legs of a lalafell treaded the crunch of heightening snow. Her grimoire was at her hip, a stark antithesis to Shane’s. Hers was the way of dark necessity; dealings with creatures that had no place in the province of mankind. When gazing upon her countenance, there was a palpable discomfort, as if whatever compelled the previous four adventurers was compelling her as well, much to her dismay. Where the men were loftily following an instinct of their own volition, Lulu seemed every bit against her own will.

And yet, as she took note of those who preceded her, the summoner’s heart softened. Beyond her admittance, she found that they were among an approachable few in her life, which said much considering she had few friends, and even fewer allies she deigned to share her presence with.

“Are you all waiting for something?” She asked after them, taking a spot beside Xillian. Absently, she pulled the shoulders of her coat up, shielding errant winds nipping at her lightly flushed cheeks and ruddy hair.

“Not sure what we been waitin’ for, but we’re waitin’ for it nonetheless.” Xillian peaked down at her, briefly meeting her gaze, and then continued looking out at Ishgard.

Lulu had to squint her eyes to see it, but there was no mistaking the looming visage that was an age-old city, once besieged by dragons, oddly softened by the surrounding darkness. Talkative, and usually full of life at whatever excited or disgusted her, she was lured to silence by the calming appeal of the other four men.

A fellow lalafell who averted his eyes the moment she looked to him; a stalky elezen who had a thumb and index finger on his chin, eyes searching for something he would never find; a squatting mi’qote who found some kind of latent joy in everything that crossed his vision; and then a bard, whose expression seemed ever unreadable.

She never felt comfortable with anyone or anything in her life.

These men were different, she decided. Not exactly comforting, but different.

Minutes later, another lalafell emerged from the misty snows, a shield at his back, sword on his belt, and a duffle bag carried in one hand over his shoulder. The clank of his platinum armor could be heard even as the winds further increased their light assail on the arrived adventurers. He didn’t pause as the some of the others had done, but rather continued to approach as though born to whatever fate had brought him.

Urumi knew only courage, and consistently sought conquest over whatever fears that Eorzea had in store for him. People had the least to do with fear in his eyes.

The paladin did not come alone, however.

Along the trek passed the Steel Vigil, he had come across a lalafell who was more silent than anyone he had ever met. The aether in this lalafell was practically tangible, and for that reason alone, the two walked alongside one another without words. Equals, most would say.

To others, they would be called destined.

Because Limgas was a black mage, and learned his craft through similar experiences as the rest. Adventuring alone and without the aid of speech was something he readily accepted as a price for being unable to remember how he had lost it. His searches had done much the same as they had done to his future comrades: led him here, to a group of like-minded individuals.

Like-minded, at least, in the sense that they had absolutely no idea why they were all showing up.

“Is… are there more?” Asked Garflex to no one in particular.

The newly arrived paladin put his short sword into the snow and leaned on it for casual support. Stony, unfeeling eyes touched upon the ever-disappearing mien of Ishgard, and he felt a pang of sorrow for a reasons he could not comprehend. He looked over to Garflex. “I know I’m supposed to be here. In fact, right as I stood in this very place, a wholeness has come to mind that I cannot explain.”

“No, no...” said Lulu in her mousey and endearing voice. “Someone is missing. You can’t be whole yet. We can’t be whole yet.”

Limgas nodded, rubbing his hands together nervously and squinting his eyes.

Shane was silent as ever, closing his eyes and waiting, still stroking his chin, still a mind closed off from his surroundings.

Waiting for what he knew would be the last moments of his former life. “He’s here.”

Somehow, Garflex felt that those words were meant just for him, as it seemed that only he heard them. Shane had projected his voice in a way that made it speak only to him and him alone. In the breadth of a half-second, the two were connected and suddenly cut off from one another.

“I think you all mean me,” said a thick, winsome voice.

All at once, the group looked to Sean Shyan, the final addition, a red-streaked warrior with a literal axe to grind. He had just been taking the cowl off when they spared eyes for him. That smile was one of uneasy friendliness – a man who knew kindness, but was rarely spared any. Though the only hyur of the eight, such unfamiliarity was lost on him. Far worse had come across a man so scarred by battle, so ever-prepared to make war upon his enemies.

“Do you all know each other?” Asked Sean, slinging his axe over his shoulder with a stroke of his arm.

At once, everyone started looking at one another. Even Shane was broken out of his ceaseless mind torrent to finally come to.

“You’re Shane. You’re Shane Farlander!” Xillian said across the line of standing adventurers, oddly excited by the realization.

Garflex approached the newly arrived warrior, pointing. “You’re Sean. I know it.”

At first Sean recoiled, then grinned, something triggered in his mental state. “And you’re Garflex. No last name, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s me! I’m Garflex, and…” the white mage turned, looking at a random member of the party. A fellow lalafell was the first to come into view. “… you’re Limgas. You’re a black mage, and you can’t really talk. Like, at all.”

The black mage squinted his eyes – a gesture that seemed strangely joyous on him – and nodded hurriedly with recognition.

Urumi smiled, still retaining composure. “The mi’qote here is Rha’qa, and the lalafell with the ominous grimoire is named Lulu Luna.”

Once that proclamation was made, all at once, every eye looked at the bard in unison. “Xillian!”

He scratched his head with a light chuckle, flushing a bit.

“That’s right,” pointed Garflex. “I hate your guts.”

Silence then. Odd, and very much still welcome.

And then, everyone burst into collective laughter that lasted moments on end.

Shane fell to his back, even in the wet snow, overcome with relief. The rush of unending thought had ended, and he was without worry for the time being. The puzzle pieces he could no longer put together had not been assembled, but spread to the far reaches of his mind, no longer a burden in his addled mind.

No one seemed concerned with him, and rightly so. There was a smile on every lip, a place for every individual, and a finality in the coming together of allies.

But an adventurer’s work is never done.

The wonder of elation ended faster than it had set in.

“We have work to do, it seems,” Urumi claimed, adjusting the duffle bag on his shoulder.

Shane sat up and looked to his allies. “That we do.”

Lulu quirked an eyebrow, tinting her expression with vexation, but saying her words with known appreciation. “I was content to stand out here in the cold with you poor sods and freeze my bits off.”

Rha’qa stood up straight, dusting off the collected snow along his knees and elbows. “Cold as balls out here. If work’s to be done, count me in, long as it’s warm, ya?”

Shane began to stand. “I think where we’re headed, we’ll be given more heat than we’re used to.”

Sean clasped a hand on the scholar’s shoulder. “Speak for yourself.”

Limgas tugged on Shane’s robes, grinning madly.

“Limgas is right everyone. We’d better get moving.” The elezen drew the book from his waist, and went to fingering through pages both magical and otherwise. “

Slowly, one by one, each adventurer moved to follow him south, seemingly of one mind. Within the span of minutes, everyone remembered each other. They were united under a banner of their own making, collectively understanding future motives without any discussion. It was like picking up a conversation precisely where they had all left off.

Only Xillian remained to look at Ishgard for a final few seconds, watching as the snowstorm shrouded it completely from view.

“Y’just gotta believe, I guess,” he said to no one in particular.