Chapter Text
Aether roared through her like a river tearing free of its banks. Hypshay felt herself sink—down and down—through cold layers of nothing, the world narrowing to a single bright thread. For a breathless instant she couldn’t tell whether she was falling through the Rift or being borne upon the tide to the Sea of Stars.
She didn’t know how long had passed before a fissure of light split the dark and everything flashed to white.
Hypshay coughed and tried to open her eyes—but the body wasn’t hers to command. Its owner coughed as well, scrabbled for fabric, and yanked a hood over a world too bright to endure until the eyes beneath obeyed.
She was in Raha’s body again.
He drew one breath. Then another. A third—long and uneven.
Almost hesitantly, he opened his eyes and pushed himself upright against the floor of the Tower—on the ground level, no less. He certainly hadn’t discovered the Ocular yet.
She followed as he looked around, then seized his staff and edged toward the door.
It swung open on a sky of brilliant glare—stained with the sickly hue both of them would later learn too well: the First.
Blinding radiance poured down, a vault of white-gold that pinched his pupils to points. The land beyond lay bleached and lovely in its ruin—Lakeland’s purple trees rolling for leagues, grasses pale as ground bone, the river a ribbon of mirrored quicksilver.
He ventured from the Dossal Gate, cloak pulled tight for shade. The surrounding ground—what would someday become the Crystarium’s heart—was only a dense wood, scorched by the Tower’s arrival.
Hypshay could almost taste the feeling she’d known when thrust into another world—what Raha must have felt now: wary, uncertain.
He moved carefully, casting a ward about himself as he stepped beneath the boughs, scanning for any sign of life. But the Flood had kept its promise; aside from a few lucky survivors, almost nothing remained. She felt his heart beating erratically in his chest—nerves jangling at the isolation. He circled the Tower rather than straying far—a choice she herself would have made in unknown terrain.
He was nearly through a full circuit of the Tower’s base when his ears twitched—movement in the grass. He turned at once, staff raised.
Two pairs of eyes stared back.
Two Hyurs, perhaps in their thirties, clutching rustic swords—or pretending to. The first, taller and broader, took a trembling step closer. Fear lived in his eyes, but he swallowed and forced the words out:
“...Esne ex Turri?” (Are you from the Tower?)
Raha let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and lowered his staff, sliding it back over his shoulder. He raised both hands as he approached.
“...I don’t know your language,” he tried, palms open. The two Hyurs exchanged a wary glance, clearly confused. “But I mean you no harm.” Keeping their gaze, he angled his body away from them and pointed deliberately toward the Tower. “I only just arrived—moments ago. Is this—”
He stopped himself. The past sounded wrong. Another world sounded worse—and none of it would be understood anyway.
The Hyurs remained uncertain, but they could see he wasn’t hostile. The shorter one looked from Raha to the Tower, then slowly lowered his sword and said something quick to the taller man. Just as the taller Hyur began to reply—or gesture—an awful, squealing shriek cut through the trees.
Both men flinched. Raha frowned.
They drew a steadying breath. The shorter Hyur glanced at Raha and made a gesture whose meaning needed no common tongue.
Run.
A sin eater. Hypshay realized as she inhaled with him. A big one, judging by the sound.
Raha, of course, had no way of knowing that yet. The two Hyurs bolted, sprinting away from the shriek, and Raha followed almost instinctively, murmuring an incantation that reshaped his staff into shield and sword.
Their speed, however, was no match for a thing that hunted on the wing.
The clap of pinions swept closer, closer, as the three of them ran. It felt like a lifetime—likely only minutes—before the eater overtook them. The taller man cursed as the beating wings thundered just behind; instead of fleeing farther, Raha stopped dead and raised his shield.
He sucked in a sharp breath at the sight. The eater wore the body of a beautiful woman, wings vast as a carrion bird’s. It fell from the white like a broken hymn: a woman’s silhouette sketched in gold, wings like cathedral glass smashing the air, a face that began as human loveliness and then—horribly, inevitably—unfolded into a mouth wide enough to swallow a man whole. Its eyes were coins of pale, counterfeit mercy. Its claws were iron aching for blood.
Anyone seeing such monstrosity for the first time would be stunned.
So was Raha.
It wasn’t until the sin eater loosed another squeal that he reacted—drawing a sharp breath and snapping his shield up just in time to meet the iron claws scything for his face. His sword flashed a heartbeat later, angling for the talons—only to rebound, jarring his arm.
At this point in his life he was still green. Barely three years awake from the Calamity; hardly incapable, but far closer to the Archon she had first met than to the Exarch she would come to know. And yet, in every age he was G’raha Tia—reckless threaded through his bones. So when he charged rather than falling back to regroup, Hypshay wasn’t surprised in the least.
The creature shrieked—offended, almost—and vaulted skyward. Catching the scent of the two other souls not far off, it tucked its wings and plunged. Raha cursed, body coiling, and sprinted toward the Hyur pair even as he murmured an incantation. The instant the eater stooped, a ward blossomed over the men. They stood frozen, horror melting into stunned relief as the barrier held. The taller one, panting, managed a hoarse, “Magus,” before their faces turned to fear again: the eater had twisted in fury and fixed on Raha once more.
He dispelled shield and sword, lifted his staff, and—practically taunting—let out a piercing whistle before bolting the other way, flinging a globe of fire over his shoulder. Hypshay was instantly worried for him, but then relaxed as she noticed the direction that he was running towards—the Tower.
The sin eater took the bait, mindless without a Warden, and gave chase. Raha vaulted roots and deadfall with surprising agility, drawing it straight for the Tower’s base. Just shy of the plinth, the creature overhauled him. Its claws tore a furrow through his cloak; a rake caught his back and drove a gasp from him, but he ran on until he reached the foundation stones. There he spat another incantation—and his blood seeped into the soil around the Tower.
Allagan royal blood spilled into the soil, and Syrcus Tower’s defenses woke almost at once. Arrows of light snapped from apertures along the base as Raha ducked low. Slots irised open around the plinth; a dozen Allagan ballistae—sleek, vitreous engines older than empires—pivoted on silent rings. The sin eater’s shriek broke into a ragged keen as bolts of hard light stitched its wings mid-beat. Feathers of false gold vaporized. It pinwheeled, slammed into a scorched trunk, and fell in a shudder of fractured radiance.
He stayed braced a heartbeat longer than necessary—lungs empty, ears pinned—then let out a torn laugh.
Pain found him when the adrenaline ebbed. His cloak hung in ribbons; heat burned between his shoulder blades where claws had found flesh. He crouched by the eater—close enough to see the warped grace of its mask, the almost-human cheekbones beneath that lacquer of Light—and winced as his back flared. He hissed through his teeth and forced himself upright. Still, he lingered over the corpse, the scar along his back throbbing, before dragging his gaze away—while she, within him, cursed and urged him to heal. Now. Immediately.
As if summoned by that will, the grass rustled. Raha turned, guarded—then relaxed as the two Hyurs from before emerged. Their swords now hung at their belts. One pointed at Raha’s back and spoke quickly, gesturing toward his satchel.
Raha offered them both a warm smile, turned to present his back, and sank to the ground, lifting his cloak.
They set to work at once, almost deftly. Clearly practiced in treating such wounds, they rinsed the gouges with a potion, smoothed a salve across the torn flesh, and sealed the worst with a simple healing cantrip. Fortunately, the injuries were less dire than they looked, and they finished quickly.
Raha dipped his head in thanks. They returned his smile, then pointed from the Tower to him inquiringly. He held their gaze a moment, then nodded—gesturing to the Tower, then to himself.
Their eyes brightened. They glanced from the fallen sin eater back to him, exchanged a look, and one of them made a clear, welcoming motion.
An invitation, unmistakable.
“Well,” Raha murmured with a small nod, “I suppose I should learn when—and where—I am.”
The three of them wound their way deeper into the woods, the Hyurs keeping Raha in the middle while they watched the treeline. After roughly a bell, their pace eased as a makeshift settlement came into view—if it could be called that at all. A handful of torn tents. A scant bonfire ringed with spotted timber. The two men entered first, calling out, and leaf-shadows shivered as three Viera dropped from the branches like knives. Spears dipped toward Raha on instinct, then lifted when the Hyurs raised both hands and rattled off a quick explanation.
Refugees trickled from the tents—several children among them—rushing to meet the returning men. It was a small camp, and the people wore hunger plainly in their faces. By Hypshay’s count, there were no more than forty souls here, perhaps fewer—thinned by the nearby sin eaters, no doubt.
The terrain had changed too much for her to place it against the future Crystarium, but judging by their walk, it could not be far from where the city’s border would someday lie—likely within its future bounds. Most likely they had fled their village under eater attack and had been wandering ever since.
The refugees soon gathered around Raha, eyeing the hooded newcomer. For a moment he stood awkwardly in their midst while the two Hyurs spoke—whatever they said pleased the crowd, for the mood softened. A child even crept up behind him and tugged lightly at his staff; he dipped his head with a quiet chuckle. Hypshay caught a glimpse of the child then—a young Elezen girl who stirred a vague recognition she could not immediately place.
The murmuring faltered as the tent flap parted. An elder Hrothgar woman emerged, muzzle fur gone steel-grey, one great paw resting on the forearm of a younger Au Ra woman. Hypshay felt Raha’s body straighten, tail giving a single lash—he knew at once this elder would decide the tenor of what followed.
The Hrothgar matriarch studied him, and Raha swallowed. She bowed—an almost universal sign of thanks—and he returned the gesture. Then she pointed toward the Tower and back to him, a question clear in her eyes:
You are from the Tower?
Raha drew a steadying breath, gestured to the Tower and back to himself, and nodded firmly. The elder inclined her head, turned to the two Hyurs, and listened as they recounted events once more—one of them indicating the torn cloak at Raha’s back, no doubt mentioning the wounds. She heard them out without blinking, then patted the Au Ra’s forearm. The younger woman slipped away and returned with a wrapped bundle and a narrow, cracked-leather book.
He hesitated, then accepted the items and opened the small bundle—dried meat, of all things. Precious beyond measure for people in such straits; a gift scraped from scarcity.
He thumbed through the little tome and found it a primer—pictures of man and woman, flower and sky, each with its word beneath. He rewrapped the meat and pressed it gently back into the Au Ra’s hands with a small, apologetic smile, then tucked the book into his cloak as if it were spun gold.
The elder watched, said nothing at first, then inclined her head and murmured,
“Tenebrae te protegant.” (May the Darkness protect you.)
Through her Echo, Hypshay understood every word; Raha would not—but kindness needed no translation. The elder made a courteous gesture toward their tent—an invitation to stay if he wished—then coughed and, with the Au Ra’s support, withdrew. The onlookers answered with warm nods before drifting back to their tasks. Only the Vieras lingered, eyes measuring him a moment longer before they, too, returned to their posts—ever wary.
Though Hypshay had no body of her own here, she felt his shiver as night’s gradual chill crept in. The First had no true day-and-night cycle, but seasons still left their mark. Children drifted to the cook-pit by instinct, hands extended to the meager flame. The fire licked damp wood and complained; the smoke smelled of sap and patience.
The two Hyurs came next, smiling and beckoning. They led him to a low tent tidied in a hurry—blankets shaken, a tumble of clothes shoved into a corner, a small hoard of food set upon a woven mat with ceremonial care. A place to sleep, offered with quiet dignity.
Raha nodded his gratitude, glanced from the tent to the two men, and then—after a brief hesitation—pointed toward the Tower. They exchanged a look but did not try to stop him as he took his leave.
Hypshay, moving with him, blinked at his sudden pace as he cut back through the trees.
He went straight to the Tower’s storage, carefully packing several dried buns into his satchel, then down to the artifacts chamber to fetch a device the Ironworks had devised after the Eighth Calamity—an internal combustion heater that burned wood cleanly, doubling as a stove. Years of refinement had wrung miracle from simplicity: a single stick that might have lasted mere minutes now warmed for half a bell, teasing every scrap of worth from scarce fuel.
With a murmured spell he lifted the machine, bore it from the Tower, and started back toward the camp.
Hypshay’s heart swelled.
No matter the world, no matter the time…he was still the man who would give anything he had to those in need.
When he finally returned to the settlement, the first to meet him were the Viera sentries. They dropped from the branches like shadows, eyeing him with cool suspicion as the machine drifted beside him in midair.
Raha set the device down at the camp’s edge. One Viera halted him with a raised hand, circling the contraption, studying it, then flicking her gaze back to him—wordless inquiry writ plain.
He lifted both hands in a careful, placating gesture as faces began to gather from the tents. He stooped for fallen branches, fed them into the device, and sparked a modest flame. With a firm press of its switch, the machine hummed to life, swallowing fuel and exhaling heat—blessed warmth in the cold, pallid winter of the First.
Refugees drew close as the fire pulsed—though the sky itself glared like day. Heat simmered up, and soon the whole camp clustered around the steady engine. The watchful Viera eased their grips, settling back against a nearby trunk. Raha offered the children a gentle smile, then went to fetch more wood, severing thicker limbs with his summoned blade.
He was hefting a cut log to his shoulder when small fingers tugged at his robe.
Raha looked down. The Elezen child from before stood there, cheeks flushed with cold and pride, clutching three switches and a crooked branch like trophies.
“Ah—” His mouth opened, instinctive praise colliding with the language barrier. He tried a smile and a foolish thumbs-up, then winced at himself for not knowing whether it was rude here. He softened the gesture, turning his hands palms-up—the safest form of thanks. “Good. Very good.”
The girl’s grin flashed quick as a swallow. Hitching her bundle like a soldier presenting arms, she tapped her chest with one finger.
“Chessamile,” she whispered.
As if a lantern were lit behind her eyes, Hypshay recognized the name—the little one who would grow into the gentle elder who tended her more times than she could count, fierce guardian of every wounded soul sent her way.
“Chessamile,” Raha echoed softly, nodding to the girl.