Archive of Our Own ^beta

~*~

Meteion doesn’t dream.

Dreams are for people who sleep. Meteion isn’t a person, though her friends don’t like it when she says that. And she doesn’t sleep-- she closes her eyes and lets her mind wander until eventually, she can feel the world waking up again.

When the sun-- the real sun, not the blazing pall of light that lies permanently seared into the memory of this world-- comes peeking through the shutters into their apartment in the Pendants, Meteion stirs. She glances up from where she’s roosting on the arm of the couch, hugging her knees to her chest, a blanket curled around her shoulders.

Meteion stands and stretches, her arms above her head, before falling sideways onto the couch with a giggling thump. When she opens her eyes, her blue feathers tinting green with mirth, her roommates loom above her, bemused smiles on their faces.

“Good morning,” Ryne says with a smile.

“Good morning!” Meteion chirps.

Meteion raises her arms, insistent. Ryne pulls her up off the couch and into a hug, before handing her over to Gaia. She’s so light-- hollow bones, you know-- but somehow, Meteion being bundled in Gaia’s strong arms seems more fitting than her being tangled in Ryne’s gangly frame.

“Hey, little birdie,” Gaia grins. She hefts Meteion in her arms and presses a kiss to her forehead, before unceremoniously dropping her back on the couch. “Ready for some breakfast?”

“Yes!” Meteion grins up at her, a mirror to her own.

Ryne’s already in the kitchen, fussing about the cupboards. They’re having waffles-- or they would be, if they could just find the waffle iron. It had been a gift from the Fae, of all people, which in hindsight should have been an ill omen. With how often it seemed to disappear from their shelves at untimely moments, it certainly shared its creators’ fickleness and whimsy.

Eventually, Ryne settles for plan B-- oatmeal, tried and true. She sets two bowls down at their little table, set flush against the wall and ringed with three hand-painted wooden chairs. Black, white, and blue.

Meteion hops onto her chair with both feet, before crouching down and hugging her knees to her chest. Gaia had once asked her why she doesn’t sit in chairs “like a normal person”. Meteion had cheerfully said that she wasn’t a person, and then Gaia got really quiet after that.

“No,” Ryne had said back then, a hand on Gaia’s shoulder. “She’s one of a kind.”

That was also not true, Meteion wanted to point out, but then Ryne and Gaia had both smiled at her so gently and so warmly that she forgot what she was going to say.

“Do you like it?” Meteion asks, peering at Ryne’s bowl with those bright, wide eyes. “Is it your favorite?”

Across the table, Gaia snorts around her spoon. Ryne doubts that oatmeal is anyone’s favorite.

“It’s not,” Ryne admits. “But I do like it.”

“Then I like it, too!” Meteion chirps, beaming, and Ryne’s heart just about melts.

“It’s a little bland,” Gaia says, bluntly.

Ryne huffs, indignant that Gaia would call her oatmeal bland even as she’s pouring the last of their maple syrup into it. She huffs again when she sees what Gaia’s snuck out of the cupboard and kept hidden quite literally up her voluminous sleeves.

“Look what I’ve got~” Gaia sings, playful, dodging Ryne’s chiding swat.

“Is that the last of yesterday’s batch?” Ryne cries, dismayed.

“Ah ah ah!” Gaia grins, propping the coffee biscuit between her lips. She mumbles something around the cookie in her teeth, something that sounds dangerously like “if you want it, you’ll have to take it”.

Ryne scrapes her chair back. She stands up, looks Gaia in the eyes, and then leans forward and bites the biscuit in half.

The almost-kiss sends a flush of pink across Gaia’s pale cheeks. For a moment they stand, staring, the air crackling between them-- at least until they both sink back into their chairs, giggling, hands over their mouths as they get crumbs everywhere.

Meteion watches them, bright-eyed and beaming, with a sweetness in her heart even sweeter than maple syrup or chocolate chips, the tips of her feathers turning rosy and pink as the dawn.

~*~

Meteion is a mirror.

Thankfully, she mirrors emotions, not thoughts, or else the Cabinet of Curiosity would be a terrible place for her to learn her letters. She sits at one of the reading tables with a quill and ink and meticulously practices her handwriting. Vrandtic script isn’t too dissimilar from what she’d seen in Eorzea, but they’re both bewilderingly different from the language of the Ancients.

Emotion, she felt, was the only language she would truly know.

But Ryne asked her to try, so she tries. And with Moren looming over her shoulder with a new hand-penned workbook every week, it’s easier than she expects.

Moren’s mood bleeds into her own. He keeps her steady, focused. He’s patient, so she’s patient. He’s diligent, so she’s diligent. He’s kind, so she’s kind.

At least until three comets of emotion come crashing into the Cabinet like meteors.

“Meteion! Meteion!” A trio of voices cry out as they barge into the Cabinet. Arkil and Eirwel come running, playfully shoving each other out of the way in their haste, Riqi-Tio trailing at their heels.

Moren whistles sharply, and the boys come skidding to a halt before him. Riqi-Tio bumps into them from behind, and they step aside to make room for her between them. Their arms snake around each other’s shoulders, thick as thieves, grinning sheepishly in the face of their next scolding.

The tips of Meteion’s feathers flick red in a flash of anger that almost immediately dulls to a chiding orange.

“Please don’t run in here,” Moren says, as stern as the sweet bookworm can muster. “Please don’t shout. And please don’t interrupt Meteion during her studies! That’s three for three-- I ought to drag you out of here by your ears.”

Eirwel and Riqi-Tio gasp in dismay, reflexively clutching their ears in sympathy pains. Arkil, a hume whose ears weren’t nearly so vulnerable as his elven or mystel compatriots, quickly apologizes on their behalf.

“We’re sorry, Mister Moren,” Arkil says, glancing at Meteion. “We just get excited, is all.”

“I understand, but Meteion’s in the middle of a lesson right now,” Moren says patiently. “You can play with her when she’s done.”

“Aww, don’t call it ‘playing’,” Eirwel protests. He strikes a valiant pose, puffing out his chest. “We’re training . To be Warriors of Light!”

“Yeah!” Arkil and Riqi-Tio cheer.

“Ryne’s going to have quite the colorful entourage, someday,” Moren mutters to himself. He clears his throat. “Yes, well. Again, Meteion is studying, so I shall thank you to wait… until…”

It doesn’t take an empath, or an entelechy, to feel the disappointment that washes over the room. Moren finds himself assaulted on four sides by watery, pleading eyes and keening, pitch-perfect whines of dismay.

He’s surrounded. Outnumbered and outgunned.

Moren hangs his head and sighs in defeat.

“...I suppose I shall see you tomorrow , then?”

The kids cheer-- and Moren winces at them being so loud in a library. Meteion trills in delight, slaps her workbook shut before the ink’s even dry, and bounds off her chair. The kids spill out onto the Crystarium courtyards, past bemused amarokeeps and Clan Nutsy hunters, and the air soon rings with the cries of laughter and the sharp cracks of wooden training swords.

Joy fills the air, and in response, Meteion’s feathers take on a green hue. Strangely fitting, for the fantasy she’s been drawn into.

“Begone!” Meteion snarls, throwing her hands forward.

The magicked wind that issues from her palms is little more than a spring breeze, but Arkil and Eirwel still throw themselves backwards in their best stage dives, rolling across the grass. Meteion swoops in and wraps Riqi-Tio in a hug, before whisking her away.

“Riqi!” The boys cry in unison.

Meteion pulls Riqi-Tio up onto a ledge, but the boys look past them, their imaginations running free.

“She’s taking her to her lair!” Arkil announces gravely.

“We can save her!” Eirwel declares, before glancing around at unseen foes and readying his training sword. “But first, we have to fight our way up this mountain…!”

Meteion and Riqi-Tio watch from their ledge as Arkil and Eirwel valiantly fight their way through the Evil Bird Queen’s army of demons. Riqi-Tio grins, leaning against Meteion’s shoulder.

“...You know, it’s nice to finally know a girl,” Riqi-Tio muses, while before them, the boys fight back-to-back against an imaginary horde. “Up until now, all my friends were boys.”

“Oh, I’m not a girl!” Meteion says helpfully.

Riqi-Tio tilts her head, puzzled. “Huh? But you’re so pretty. What are you, then?”

“I’m me!” Meteion chirps.

Riqi-Tio giggles. “‘I’m me’, she says…”

The boys catch Riqi-Tio’s eyes across the way, each of them with a nod and a cocksure grin. Riqi-Tio glances away with a huff, pink dusting her cheeks.

“Well, I’m glad you’re you, and that you’re here with us, Meteion,” Riqi-Tio murmurs. “You know, a nice even number. Instead of Arkil and Eirwel both just showing off for me.”

“That sounds really heteronormative.”

Riqi-Tio stares at her, baffled. “Wh… What?”

“Ryne taught me that word!” Meteion preens. “And Alisaie taught her. It means ‘boring’.”

There’s a cry above them. The girls look up, to see Arkil crying out as Eirwel turns to face him, sword in hand.

“Get… back…” Eirwel growls, raising his sword. “I won’t let you take Riqi from me!”

“Oh no!” Arkil cries in faux-dismay. “He’s been tempered ! But I can’t fight my best friend!”

Arkil darts aside Eirwel’s sword swipe, racing across the grass up to Meteion and Riqi-Tio on their ledge.

“I will save you! I’ll save you both !” Arkil cries.

Arkil leaps through the air, sword raised. He lands on the ledge, strikes a heroic pose, and then gently bops Meteion on the head with his wooden sword.

Meteion shrieks in agony, spins around and then falls in the grass.

Eirwel staggers around as if in a trance, before clutching his head.

“Huh…?” He looks up. “I’m free. I’ve been freed!”

“My heroes!” Riqi-Tio coos. She pounces on Arkil and Eirwel in turn, wrapping them both in a hug that leaves them both dazed and staring at their shoes. Riqi-Tio rolls her eyes before kneeling by Meteion’s prone form.

“Look!” Riqi-Tio calls, her voice jolting the boys out of their stupor. “She’s beautiful… she was never a monster at all! It was a curse that turned her into a beast!”

“Can you heal her, Riqi?” Arkil urges.

“Of course I can! I have just the thing!” Riqi-Tio beams, pulling a flask from her hip. She gently cradles Meteion’s head in her arms, and brings the potion to her lips.

Meteion coughs and spits Riqi-Tio’s homemade concoction all over them both. She laughs, coughing and sputtering even as Riqi-Tio stammers out apologies.

“What the hells did you put in there, Riqi?!” Eirwel teases, breaking character.

“Wow, language,” Arkil chides.

“I’m sorry!” Riqi-Tio cries, dismayed. “It was… you know… potion practice…”

Meteion wants to explain that it’s okay. It didn’t taste that bad, she just can’t drink it because she doesn’t have a digestive system. But between her choking laughter and her, well, actual choking, she just can’t get the words out.

So she pulls Riqi-Tio into a hug. She presses her forehead to hers, presses the feeling of ‘I’m fine, it’s okay’ into Riqi-Tio’s head, and immediately, Riqi-Tio smiles in relief. Meteion reaches out and pulls the boys down into an impromptu group hug.

The four of them lay there together, grinning and giggling like fools under the brilliant sun, Meteion’s feathers tinged green as summer grass.

~*~

Meteion loves the outdoors.

For someone who could see the world painted in a canvas of emotion, rare was the place that could still take her breath away. And yet, the flower fields of the Kingdom of Rainbows were certainly up to the task.

“I don’t know why we’re having a picnic out on the lawn when the Bookman’s Shelves is right there,” Gaia says, blithely but not unkindly, while Meteion chirps and trills in the distance and chases butterflies through the grass.

“Why not? It’s a beautiful day,” Ryne smiles. “Meteion doesn’t like being cooped up inside. It’s not good for you, either. Come on, enjoy the weather! Smell the flowers! Breathe it all in.”

Gaia fondly rolls her eyes and indulges her, joining Ryne in breathing deep of Il Mheg’s shimmering air. Ryne lets out a satisfied sigh. Gaia promptly sneezes.

“Isn’t it great?” Ryne grins.

“It sure smells like pollen!” Gaia laughs.

Ryne huffs and swats at Gaia’s arm. “Alright, alright. I’m sure Urianger still left some of his old tinctures lying around. I’ll go take a look.”

Gaia takes her hand for just a moment, and gives her a squeeze before she goes. As Ryne leaves to go rummaging in Urianger’s old cabin, Meteion returns from her frolicking and tumbles into the grass beside Gaia in a flurry of flower petals. Gaia sneezes again.

“Hi!” Meteion chirps, beaming up from the grass and greeting Gaia as if they’d only just this moment happened to meet.

“Hey, little birdie,” Gaia smiles.

“Where’s Ryne?” Meteion asks with a tilt of her head.

“Going to war against my allergies,” Gaia sniffles. “Don’t worry. She’ll be back soon.”

Meteion nods, satisfied. She sits up, mirroring Gaia’s posture as a matter of habit. When Gaia catches her staring, Meteion breaks into a smile. Gaia can’t help but smile back.

“...I’m sorry. I usually let Ryne do the talking,” Gaia says, sheepish.

“It’s okay!” Meteion chirps. “I like what Ryne likes! And she likes you a whole lot.”

“Is that so?” Gaia chuckles, bemused. She leans in, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Hey. Do you want to hear a secret? I like Ryne, too.”

Meteion gasps, as if this is some great revelation. “I like Ryne, too!”

“ I like Ryne most ,” Gaia grins, playfully bopping a finger against Meteion’s nose. “You can sense my emotions right? Feel my heart, and I’ll prove it.”

Meteion concentrates, her aura jumping beyond her skin and mingling with Gaia’s, slipping past the cool, collected exterior and lapping at the waves beneath. Meteion’s feathers shiver and change color, little flecks of yellow and pink appearing amidst her usual blue.

“You’re happy… but also scared?” Meteion tilts her head, puzzled. “What is this feeling?”

“That’s how you feel when you’re around someone you like a whole lot,” Gaia explains, a wistful softness in her eyes. “Right on the edge between excited and worried. Happy to have it. Scared to lose it. Wondering if it’s too good to be true, even though you’ve practically lived together for almost a year now. That little flutter, like there are butterflies in your stomach.”

“Huh?”

“You’ve never heard of that?”

“Butterflies?” Meteion wonders.

Gaia points to a bright blue morpho just across the way. “You know. Those.”

“Oh, Petaloudai!” Meteion beams. She nods, matter-of-fact. “I would never have those in my stomach. I don’t have one! Hermes didn’t give me a digestive system.”

“I knew you didn’t eat, but… hmm…” Gaia wonders. “...how do you, uhhh… live?”

“Strictly speaking, I don’t!” Meteion chirps, untroubled. “I’m powered by dynamis. So, as long as someone out there wants me to exist, I will. Even if it’s just me.”

Gaia takes a shaky breath. She glances away, a telltale glint in her eyes.

“...I like your boots!” Meteion announces, apropos of nothing.

Gaia dabs a few surreptitious tears away on her sleeve.

“You do, huh?” Gaia smiles. “Tell you what, next time we go shopping, I’ll get you a set of your own.”

“But I can’t,” Meteion pouts. “My talons…”

Meteion wiggles her toes to demonstrate. Her talons glint in the light, the one jagged edge on this girl who otherwise radiates softness and light. Almost like Ryne and her knives.

Gaia purses her lips, thoughtful. She raises a hand to her chin, before a glint of silver around her wrist catches her eye. A silver bangle from Eulmore-- not really her style, admittedly, but maybe…

“Hey,” Gaia urges. “Give me your foot?”

Meteion blinks, before doing as she’s told. A moment later, she springs to her feet in delight, marveling at the new silver bangle around her ankle.

“Oh!” Meteion gasps. She runs around in a little circle, watching how the light catches her new anklet, how it chimes like a bell as she goes. “Oh!!” she squeals, her feathers flashing green.

“Next time we go shopping, maybe we can pick out something like that,” Gaia smiles.

Meteion chirps and trills and dives into Gaia’s arms. Her enthusiasm lifts her off the ground and she buries her face in Gaia’s neck, the older girl easily hefting her in her arms.

Ryne bursts out of the Bookman’s Shelves, tincture in hand.

“I’m so sorry to keep you. Feo Ul manifested to lecture me for having a picnic in their domain, on the very shore of their castle, without inviting them. Then I asked them if they knew anything about our missing waffle iron, and then they said ‘do ye think the Fae folk would care overmuch about anything made of that accursed metal? If ye want someone to blame, blame the beavers!’ It was a whole thing…”

Meteion comes running, smiling like the sun itself.

“Ryne, Ryne, look! Gaia gave me a ‘boot’!”

Ryne giggles, admiring Meteion’s new anklet.

“It’s a very pretty boot. We’ll have to get you one to match the next time we go shopping,” Ryne smiles, a fond hand in Meteion’s hair. “I’m glad you’re getting along with Gaia. I really like her, you know.”

“I like her, too!” Meteion beams.

Ryne glances around, as if wary of being overheard. She ducks down, a hand cupped over her mouth.

“... I like her most .” Ryne grins, playful. “Don’t tell her, though. It’s a secret.”

Gaia sneezes loudly behind them.

“...Sorry. I guess my ears were burning,” she says with a smirk. “Tell me that tincture works.”

Meteion watches as Ryne fondly rolls her eyes and strolls up to fuss over Gaia, Gaia swatting at her and chiding her that she’s not a child, she can take her own medicine. Their emotions bleed into the air around them, as vibrant and radiant as the shining, sculpted wings of the castle at Lhye Ghiah, permanently shimmering with Fae magicks.

Their joy is her joy. Their love is her love. And like a dragonfly, or a hummingbird, flitting through the flowers of the Kingdom of Rainbows, the tips of Meteion’s feathers glint pink and green.

~*~

Meteion tries to help. She really does.

Ryne and Gaia are teenagers and, by all rights, beholden to none save themselves and perhaps each other. But as Norvrandt’s just-shy-of-celebrity Oracles of Light and Darkness, they’ve taken it upon themselves to oversee the recovery of the star. Some of their responsibilities are dignified, like attending formal balls in Eulmore and weathering the attention of captains of industry and their (ahem) enterprising sons. Some are little more than glorified bodyguard duty.

But as tedious a task as culling the populations of local Light-frenzied beasts is, they grit their teeth and take to it nonetheless. To protect the people, they say. To revitalize the economy.

Meteion tries to do her part.

“Look! Look!” Meteion beams, holding a basket filled to bursting with gods-knew-what. “I made a friend here in the market. He taught me about ‘culture’ and ‘the economy’ and ‘cracking the coinpurse’. He gave me all this! And for only one coin!”

“I hope that wasn’t the piece of Nightworld silver Chai-Nuzz gave her last month,” Ryne murmurs, aside.

“That’s what he gets for giving a kid coin for a nameday gift,” Gaia confers.

Ryne turns back to Meteion’s bright, expectant smile. She can’t help but smile back. Meteion’s joy is contagious, almost magically so.

“Well, I’m glad you made a friend,” Ryne begins, patient. “And you did a good job supporting local businesses! But, um… did you tell him that you don’t have a digestive system?”

“People keep telling me it’s ‘weird’ when I say that,” Meteion pouts. She glances at her basket of foodstuffs, her wings drooping in dismay. “...Will they have to go to waste…?”

“Of course not!” Ryne coos, taking Meteion’s shoulders with a squeeze. “Gaia and I will help you eat it all. We’ll have a real feast! Right, Gaia…?”

Gaia blinks at her. “Uh-- yeah! You had perfect timing, too. I’m so hungry I could eat an aurochs. What do you have for us?”

Meteion beams, proudly holding out her basket. “Today’s special! Cactus bread and the Souq-er Spicy Lizard Skewers!”

Ryne inspects a skewer with a sniff, and recoils as if it might grow fangs and bite her. Beside her, Gaia’s reaction is comically subdued.

“...Oh,” Gaia mutters. “They definitely smell Souq-er spicy.”

“Well, then…” Ryne says warily, sliding a whole crispy and dangerously dark-crusted lizard off its skewer and into a piece of distressingly moist cactus flatbread. “...Um. After you, then?”

“Oh, no. Ladies first,” Gaia demurs.

“Oh, please. I insist.”

“Alright, alright,” Gaia huffs. “Together, then.”

They take a deep breath, settling their nerves. Their eyes meet for a breathless moment. They’ve endured Ascian plots, for gods’ sake. Compared to that, what was a taste of local cuisine?

“You two are something else,” Beq Lugg says some time later, as they affectionately ruffle Meteion’s hair and shoot a stern look at Ryne and Gaia sitting at a table nursing smoothies, both of them still red-faced and giggling like schoolgirls caught out after curfew.

“Um… thanks for the drinks, Beq Lugg,” Ryne murmurs, sheepish. “They’re delicious.”

“They’re aetherically-charged and fortified to help the patients here fight malnutrition, but no, by all means, use them to cool your tongues,” Beq Lugg drawls with weary fondness.

Gaia playfully argues that the girls have also made a contribution towards the Inn at Journey’s Head’s patient nutrition: a basket brimming with foodstuffs, oh-so-generously donated and paid for by their newest partner in crime.

The conversation turns towards the ongoing treatment of patients recovering from Light corruption and other things that fly even over Meteion’s bewinged head. Her mind wanders, and then her legs follow, carrying her out of the shade and shelter of the Inn and into Amh Araeng’s blazing sunshine.

Currents of dynamis, like streaks of watercolor dripping across a canvas, lead her to a number of dirt mounds marked by stones. She pauses, sniffing at the air. Tasting the memories.

Something soft. Something warm. Something to come home to after a long day. Colleagues gathered around the campfire after the patients have been put to bed. A fiddle. A tambourine. A bottle of wine filling as many mismatched cups as it can. A toast to-- what else? To life. Dimmed yet defiant. To life, and to the wretched world that hasn’t killed them yet.

“Did you know her?”

Meteion looks up. A boy stands beside her, a hand over his heart in prayer. An Au Ra boy-- or was it Drahn? --with white hair and haunted eyes. Meteion can feel the shadow of his grief falling over her, a weight on her chest, a knot in her throat.

“Are you like me?” The boy asks, each word slow, deliberate. “...It’s hard to talk. Still.”

He nods to the cairn before them. Takes a shuddering breath.

“She saved me,” he says, somber. “She died for me. No… she turned for me. And I just watched.”

The boy clenches his fist. Meteion clenches hers, instinctive. A mirror. Always a mirror.

“I couldn’t move,” the boy muses, shadows flicking over his eyes. “I couldn’t speak. I just watched. Even when I wanted to scream. I couldn’t. I couldn’t… do anything.”

His pain is her pain. His grief is her grief. When he clenches his jaw and the words don’t come, so, too, does Meteion stand frozen, trapped in her own skin.

And yet part of her bridges the gap. An invisible lifeline of dynamis crossing the distance, connecting them. Connecting the world.

You survived , Meteion sends, wordless, soundless, across the rift. That’s not nothing.

The boy looks up. There are tears in his eyes, but he’s smiling in the end. And Meteion, her feathers tinged violet with sorrow yet cut through with flecks of gold, smiles back.

~*~

Meteion cares. Even when it hurts.

Another day, another escort duty. No matter how much Lyna reminds Ryne and Gaia that they’re under no obligation to fill their schedules with charity work, Ryne always insists. It gives them purpose. Meaning.

Most of the time, it just means tolerating a few hours’ of insistent fan chatter while riding with a trade caravan. If the Oracle of Light in the vanguard isn’t enough to turn away most would-be robbers, then the Oracle of Darkness and her warhammer, looming in her shadow, certainly is. And with a new generation of would-be Warriors of Light defending the trails, the odds of trouble on the road are a hundred to one.

Today is the one.

She sees it coming. A remnant of painful days. Pale and gleaming in the sunset, hollow eyes and plaster skin. A heart in turmoil. A mind destroyed.

“Meteion!”

Ryne’s voice cuts through her thoughts. Meteion blasts the sin eater back with a gust of magicked wind, turning and fleeing into the trees. A stone-fingered grip closes like a vice around her ankle and she shrieks, yanked down into the scrub.

Ivory claws flash like lightning. There’s a whistling crack--

And then Ryne is standing above her, like a she-wolf and her cub. Her knives are gone, lost somewhere in the mud and the muck at their feet, but still she stands her ground, a shield of pure light shining on her arm. Ryne grits her teeth, instinctively reaching out, a sword of light forming in her outstretched hand.

The sin eater’s claws crunch through Ryne’s translucent shield and bite into her arm. Ryne cries out in pain, her aetherial weapons flickering, half-formed.

“Ryne!” Meteion shrieks.

“I’m okay, sweetie!” Ryne gasps, forcing a smile.

Meteion looks up. The sin eater rears back, ivory talons flashing down. She reaches out her hand--

Meteion makes a fist.

The sin eater stops in its tracks. It staggers as if in a trance, as colorless and empty as Meteion herself once was. In another life, on the very edge of the world.

Gaia bellows a war cry and throws her hands forward. Raw, unformed darkness leaps from her palms and obliterates the dazed sin eater in a tidal wave of inky black smoke.

Ryne sinks to her knees, grimacing, clutching her arm to her chest. Gaia comes running, urgent, attentive. Despite everything, Ryne meets Meteion’s eyes, awed… and aghast.

“What did you do?”

Meteion looks at her own hand in wonder. She has an instinctive command over wind. Never formally taught, just whatever she’d absorbed by staying dutifully at Hermes’ side.

But that… that was all her.

“...I…” Meteion murmurs, stricken. “...I broke its heart.”

Meteion’s pinions flick between anxious yellow and a dark, guilty blue. Gaia puts a hand on her head, smooths her hair against her scalp, and gathers both her and Ryne into her arms.

“...Come on,” Gaia says, and the resolve in her voice sends a glimmer of gold across Meteion’s wings. “Slitherbough isn’t too far ahead.”

They regroup under the serene shadows of the Night’s Blessed. Healers quickly usher Ryne away, and Gaia, preoccupied and unthinking, follows soon after, leaving Meteion to linger in the village square, lost in herself.

“Will you sit, little one?”

Runar is as gentle and as kind as they come. It’s not as if he’s a stranger anymore. Yet Meteion still flinches at his voice, still feels the urge to hold Ryne’s hand, to hide behind Gaia’s strong arms.

It’s instinctive, and silly, she knows. But despite everything, some part of her still has that jumpy feeling that cats eat birds.

But Runar’s smile is just so, so kind. His warmth is her warmth. So she hops up onto a log by the campfire with both feet, and crouches down until she’s hugging her knees.

“You’ve had a long journey,” Runar says quietly, stirring the pot above the fire, sprinkling in salt, herbs. “There are rooms where you can rest, if you would like.”

Meteion shakes her head.

“...I don’t sleep,” Meteion murmurs.

“Ah, right,” Runar nods. “A child goddess, as I understand it. But we mortals need our rest. As do you, do you not? We all need time to find sanctuary. Time to think. To reflect.”

Meteion considers this for a moment, her brows furrowed.

“I don’t like being inside. Or alone. Or… sad.”

“Sadness is a part of life,” Runar intones. “We cannot have a world free of sorrow, and we cannot, should not pretend that we can. To run from our sadness is to leave ourselves defenseless when, not if, it finally catches us.”

“But Ryne and Gaia are happy all the time.”

“I’m sure it might appear that way,” Runar nods, “but they have struggled much to get where they are now. They do not flee from sadness. Sadness is something they have learned to survive. Something we all must learn, in time.”

Meteion stares into the campfire, her feathers darkening. A memory flicks across the edge of her senses.

It isn’t right, is it? We shouldn’t turn away from the answer. Even if the answer is pain.

“Perhaps you don’t sleep,” Runar says, ladling piping hot stew into a wooden bowl, “but do you eat? Perhaps you could try my famous stew. I’ve offered it to Ryne’s friends before, but it seems fate conspires that they never get a taste.”

“Oh,” Meteion blinks, suddenly sheepish. “...Sorry. I don’t have a digestive system.”

Runar only pauses for a moment before chuckling to himself. “...I see. Fate is a funny one.”

“But I can feel how it tastes through how you feel about it, and everyone else who eats by this campfire,” Meteion continues. “It tastes like… shelter, and relief. Like warmth and comfort. It tastes like… home.”

Runar beams. It’s silly, he knows, but the vindication still brings a tear to his eyes.

“...Bless you, little one,” Runar bows. “May you find shelter in every shadow.”

As if on cue, a shadow falls across Meteion’s face. She looks up, to find Ryne, her arm bandaged and in a sling, and Gaia, tired but still smiling in the end. Meteion hops up off her perch and wraps them both in a hug. They stand there together, swaying, the tips of Meteion’s blackened feathers softening into midnight blue, with flecks of white and gold that shimmer like stars.

~*~

Meteion can hear the voices of the dead.

They linger, in the heart-whispers of those they leave behind. Those for whom life goes on, even when they don’t want to.

Ryne stands before a cliff of crystallized Light at Nabaath Areng. She wears a crimson cloak in the style of the Crystarium Guard, though her white blouse still peeks out from beneath gleaming silver armor. The crystalline shield on her back and sword at her hip shine in the morning sun, bright and pure compared to the remnants of the Flood looming above them, clouded and crumbling. A scab on a wound that had nearly bled the world dry, now crusted over and ready to fall.

Gaia stands where she always does-- in Ryne’s shadow, garbed in black and midnight blue. Gaia’s own shadow flickers strangely in the light, showing something on her back even when she’s carrying nothing at all. The silhouette of a hammer sometimes, or a staff, or a scythe. Sometimes even wings.

“It doesn’t feel right,” Ryne murmurs. She holds a gunblade in her hands, clumsy, unfamiliar. She glances beside her, eyes instinctively drawn to Gaia’s own. “...I mean, he’s alive. We write every month. And if the Warrior of Darkness figures out this thing with soul crystals, there’s a chance we might even see him again.”

“Sure,” Gaia says gently. “But we’re not just here for him.”

Meteion glances beside them, to the two women serving as their armed escort to their little memorial. Captain Lyna, attending personally. And Miss Cyella from the cafe, here for reasons of her own.

Ryne and Gaia were more than capable of defending themselves. But they had insisted, all the same.

Ryne takes a deep breath, studying her reflection in the gunblade before her.

“It is acceptable to mourn a loss,” Lyna says gently. “Even if the one you lost still lives.”

Ryne stabs the gunblade into a crack in the paving stones. She kneels down and touches her forehead to the blade’s hilt.

“For those we have lost,” Ryne whispers, reverent. Gaia and Meteion look back at her, reflected in the blade. “For those we have saved.”

Meteion shivers. There are voices on the wind, carried here by those who remain.

If you would usher in the end, then with my all shall I oppose you. As the avatar of those mortal heroes who fought, unfalteringly, in all their imperfection…

This world is not yours to end. This is our future. Our story.

With you, my mind and memories shall travel to the edges of this world and beyond. But here my body shall stand immovable… as a beacon of hope… to all who have known despair.

A world teetering on the brink of oblivion, for which you gave your everything without hesitation. Your kindness… your compassion… your love…

He chose love, and I was undone.

Voices, so many voices, that sting Meteion’s eyes and set her feathers alight in a kaleidoscope of color. And yet she bows her head, and listens, and pretends it’s just the wind. 

~*~

Meteion is home.

They eat at their little table with it’s hand-painted chairs. Takeout from the Wandering Stairs, brought back to their suite in the Pendants for a bit of privacy. In the hustle and bustle of the Crystarium, there are too many minds, too many heart-whispers bouncing around Meteion’s skull. Watching them watch each other, Meteion sits between Ryne and Gaia and lets their warmth bleed into her and fill her artificial heart to bursting.

Every night, Ryne and Gaia brush each other’s hair before bed. Routine, long before they took in Meteion as a favor for a friend. It’s a bit of softness, of closeness, of intimacy and relaxation that they look forward to every day. It’s the reason why neither of them cut their hair too short, no matter how much the other insists they can pull it off. A moment of softness to savor at the end of a rough day.

But the days have grown softer and softer with time. And now, Meteion is there to join them. Meteion climbs into Ryne’s lap while Ryne sits on Gaia’s. They’re a nesting doll of cuddles. They can’t actually do much effective hair-brushing like this, admittedly. But as Gaia once put it, Meteion has twelve thousand years of touch starvation to work through. How could either of them ever say no?

As the hour grows late and the stars come out, Meteion hops up onto her perch on the arm of the couch and lets Gaia tuck a blanket around her shoulders. Someday, Ryne tells her, they’ll move some things around so that Meteion has her own room. Until then, Meteion says, she’s happy to sing them awake at sunrise.

But tonight, with the anniversary fresh on her mind and her feathers still shifting color, Meteion asks Ryne and Gaia if she can stay with them. They look at each other, a silent question, before smiling and letting her climb in. She settles in between them, smiling like starlight and blissfully warm.

Meteion doesn’t dream. She listens. In the stillness, in that serene darkness between stars, she can hear it. She can feel them-- lands that stretch on forever. Skies one can drown in. The heartbeat of nature, silent yet strong.

And a voice. Her father’s voice, though she swears it’s just the wind.

Have you found it, Meteion? What gives life meaning?

Ryne and Gaia lean in above her. Their lips meet, feather-light.

“Oh!” Meteion chirps in excitement, her wings flapping reflexively and inadvertently swatting both Ryne and Gaia in the face. “What was that!”

Ryne giggles like the schoolgirl she is. Like the one she would have been before the recovery of this world was thrust upon her shoulders.

“...It’s a kiss,” Gaia says, when Ryne’s so smiley and flustered she can’t even talk right.

“Can I have one?” Meteion trills, hopeful.

“Sure,” Gaia smiles.

“Good night, Mimi,” Ryne coos.

“That’s me!” Meteion chirps, as Ryne and Gaia both lean in and press a kiss to her cheeks.

Radiant color fills the air. Their hearts melt into one. Their joy is her joy. Their hope is her hope. And as Meteion settles in between them, her wing-tips a kaleidoscope of color but predominantly and proudly pink, Meteion finds the answer.

In this world, so close to calamity and yet clawing itself back from the brink, this utter antithesis to the world Hermes knew. An hourglass, mirrored. A world with everything that lost everything. A world with nothing with everything to gain.

What was their reason, Meteion? What was their strength? Their hope?

Love, Meteion sings silently across the stars.

It was always love.

~*~