Chapter Text
[the Crystarium, near the Amaro Launch/Postmoogle, overlooking the Crystalline Mean]
The late morning sun shines down on Lakeland. The blue crystal all around the Crystarium sparkles in the sunlight. Down at the Crystalline Mean, the busy bustle of early morning shifts has started to settle ever so slightly. Crowds walk, crafters exchange schedules for the day, engines and furnaces are being fired up.
The Warrior of Light has been watching it going on for a while. They lean forwards, their arms crossed on the railings and seem rather relaxed overall.
From the Amaro Launch, someone calls their name and they straighten up and turn around to face the newcomer.
RYNE
“There you are!”
Ryne is beaming at them. They nod at her in greeting.
WARRIOR OF LIGHT
“So, what was it that you needed me for? It has to be rather urgent for you to send a guard to find me….”
Ryne shakes her head quickly. She seems almost a little embarrassed at the notion of being desperate.
RYNE
“What? No, not urgent at all. In truth, all I need is possibly your help….”
WARRIOR OF LIGHT
“Oh, is that all? Of course you can have that.”
Ryne purses her lips. Her previous embarrassment is replaced with a pout that seeps into her voice.
RYNE
“Now hold on—I haven’t even told you what it is yet. You ought to hear me out before you swear your allegiance to a cause you don’t know about.”
WARRIOR OF LIGHT
“Well, I suppose you’ve got a point. What’s up, then?”
The Warrior of Light is grinning, and Ryne seems a little stumped for a moment.
She shakes that confusion off and exhales loudly.
RYNE
“Ahem.
After you defeated Emet-Selch, I sensed a strange concentration of light somewhere far to the south.
Much further south than I have ever sensed anything. So far in fact that it lies within the Empty—the lands that were once swallowed by the Flood.”
She crosses her arms and closes her eyes.
RYNE
“I can’t tell what it is, but I have to find out. For all we know, it might even be another Lightwarden!”
Her hands curl into fists as she opens her eyes again.
Ryne’s intensity appears almost at odds with the calm and peaceful backdrop of the Crystarium.
RYNE
“Thancred even went as far as taking me into the Empty for a short while, to no avail. No theorising with Urianger has yielded anything but vague theories.
Whatever it may be, I don’t intend to stand by and let it fester out there. I’ll…
Oh.”
Ryne raises a hand to rub the back of her neck. Nearly all tension is gone in an instant.
The Warrior of Light raises an eyebrow at her, and she lets out a small laugh.
RYNE
“Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Neither theories nor small trips have done much, so the three of us intend on travelling out there to see if we can find whatever’s causing this.
The thing is, you’re the only person who can defeat a Lightwarden without becoming one yourself. We were reluctant to ask for your help, considering everything that you’ve been through… but the chance of this being a Lightwarden or something akin to a Lightwarden is rather high.
We don’t want to jump to conclusions, of course, but at the same time it would be a good idea to have you there.
So, will you come with us?”
The Warrior of Light doesn’t reply immediately.
They instead turn their head slightly to look down at the Crystalline Mean again, their expression surprisingly stiff while they think.
Ryne wrings her hands nervously for a moment, but immediately bolts back upright when the Warrior of Light turns their head back to look at her again.
WARRIOR OF LIGHT
“Of course I’ll come with you. But wouldn’t it be wiser to let sleeping dogs lie if they don’t threaten anyone?”
RYNE
“Technically speaking, yes. But if we choose to ignore it, shouldn’t we at least know what we’re ignoring? And there’s no harm in looking, is there?”
The Warrior of Light nods. They seem rather satisfied with the answer.
They give Ryne a small smile.
WARRIOR OF LIGHT
“Fair point.”
Ryne clasps her hands together.
RYNE
“Thank you.
Thancred and Urianger were setting things up and should have everything ready by now. They should be at the Derrick in Amh Araeng.
I’ll meet you there!”
[the Derrick, Amh Araeng]
It’s past noon now. The desert sun sparkles on the seemingly endless wall of frozen light. Small cracks along the top rim of said wall show that beyond it lies naught but endless light-bleached wasteland.
Besides the watchtower stand Thancred, Ryne and Urianger, the former leaning against a skyslipper with his arms crossed.
Ryne waves to the Warrior of Light, and Urianger raises a hand in greeting.
THANCRED
“Sorry to drag you all the way out here.”
Thancred rolls his eyes and grins.
THANCRED
“I have a feeling you’ll miss this place when you see where we’re going next, though.”
Ryne moves a little to push Thancred slightly. He uncrosses his arms and raises them, muttering out an apology while Ryne harrumphs.
RYNE
“He’s being overly dramatic. It’s really not that bad.”
THANCRED
“It’s a touch… empty.”
Urianger snorts.
RYNE
“… I hope the desert creatures didn’t give you too much trouble on the way here.”
Thancred squints at the Warrior of Light and then shrugs.
THANCRED
“I doubt they posed any sort of challenge to them.
Would that I could say the same with confidence about whatever fiend may be waiting for us out there.”
Urianger shakes his head.
URIANGER
“Thou art presuming that our opponent indeed is one that can be challenged at all. There remaineth a chance ‘tis not the case.”
THANCRED
“True, true. Even if the light that Ryne sensed turns out to be nothing of consequence, the Empty is hardly the most welcoming of places.
Still, if it is a creature of some sort… we had best watch our backs. Anything that could survive out there is not to be trifled with.”
The Warrior of Light raises an eyebrow. Ryne fidgets slightly, clearly thinking of a way to apologise for getting them into this situation in the first place.
Urianger puts a hand on her head and pats her gently before turning back to look at the Warrior of Light.
URIANGER
“Thou needst not worry—nary an opponent can stand ‘gainst our merry party of four.
However, it should be reiterated that the light-blasted wasteland poseth as severe a threat as any foe we might face.”
Urianger closes his eyes and nods.
URIANGER
“’Tis comforting to know we are in agreement that this phenomenon doth warrant investigation.”
Thancred nods, and Ryne gives a cheerful affirmation.
The Warrior of Light simply snorts.
WARRIOR OF LIGHT
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t agree.
But, if you permit me the question, how are we going to find whatever it is that Ryne sensed?
Every tale I’ve ever heard of the Empty revolved around… well, its emptiness.”
URIANGER
“Ah—we doth lack a more precise means of navigation. Therefore we must needs rely on Ryne’s innate abilities to guide us.”
Urianger looks at Ryne, who nods with a suddenly serious expression. She’s trying to be reassuring that she’s got this—it earns her a chuckle from Urianger.
URIANGER
“I doth not doubt her abilities in the slightest.
‘Twould be more productive to worry about the nature of the light. I hath formed several hypotheses regarding that very topic, but speculation is a poor substitute for firsthand observation.
Of course, it would be remiss of us to assume—”
Thancred shakes his head almost furiously.
Ryne clears her throat to cut Urianger off before he can talk much more.
RYNE
“There’ll be plenty of time for us to talk about it on the way!
Is the skyslipper ready, Thancred?”
Thancred finally pushes himself off the skyslipper and stretches. Then he slaps a hand against the skyslipper’s hood.
THANCRED
“Ready to take us wherever we need to go, aye. Back again too, maybe, if we ask it nicely.”
It earns him a round of small laughs.
THANCRED
“More seriously, though, we’ve got contingency plans in case anything overly aether-related turns out impossible.”
The Warrior of Light tilts their head with a confused hum.
URIANGER
“Though the light hath been expunged from Norvrandt, the ambient aether of the Empty is still corrupted. Dangerously so, in fact.
The Flood of Light devastated everything in its crushing wake. The soil, the air, the water, all rendered incapable of supporting life.
‘Tis due to this imbalance that the Empty remaineth utterly uninhabitable, even a century thereafter.”
Thancred nods, his grim expression even grimmer now that he turns to look at the wall of light that encases the fallen city.
THANCRED
“Since we still don’t know how Chocobos and Amaro will fare in the Empty, we opted for a more mechanical mode of transportation.
This comes courtesy of the researchers at the Mean, who found it in the Crystal Tower and restored it to working order.”
The Warrior of Light holds back a laugh—they can imagine how that one truly went. It’s very likely the Crystal Exarch just so happened to find it.
Ryne doesn’t quite catch on. She sounds worried.
RYNE
“It’s quite safe, I promise.”
Urianger stares at the ground for a moment before speaking.
URIANGER
Safe, yes, but ‘twould be a plain lie to claim that the full effect of circumstances such as the Empty’s state on non-living machinery is known.”
The sun’s almost playful sparkling on the frozen light seems all the more sinister for a moment.
THANCRED
“That’s why we’re taking every possible precaution. Between the aetherometres I’ve packed and Ryne’s unique abilities, we should be able to detect and measure any fluctuations in our alignments.
That should also make fixing the skyslipper easier in case something goes horrendously wrong—I doubt it will, but better safe than sorry.
According to the Crystarium scouts, a few days out there won’t affect us to any noticeable degree, and the skyslipper should be similarly unaffected.
But any longer than that, and we risk things breaking or us becoming Sin Eaters….”
Ryne crosses her arms.
RYNE
“If things break, the person in charge said he’ll have parts delivered from the Crystarium.
He seemed quite eager to see what we bring back from the Empty, even though I told him we’re not hunting for treasure.”
WARRIOR OF LIGHT
“Ah, yes. The ‘hungry for adventure, but forced to stay behind as technical support’ guy. Where have I heard that one before….”
Thancred and Urianger laugh a little, but Ryne naturally doesn’t seem to get it. Perhaps it’s better that she won’t ever meet Cid and the rest of the Ironworks—yet at the same time it makes the Warrior of Light’s heart drop for a split second.
Ryne doesn’t catch their shift in expression, and she shakes off her confusion with a smile.
RYNE
“I’ll introduce you if we have a chance to stop by Mord Souq at some point.”
WARRIOR OF LIGHT
“Sounds like a plan.”
Ryne beams at them.
RYNE
“It’s a deal! I’m sure he’d love meeting you, too.”
She looks at Thancred and the skyslipper and then nods to herself.
RYNE
“Anyway, I think that covers everything. Are we all ready to leave?”
The group collectively nods and gets ready to depart.
[the Empty]
WARRIOR OF LIGHT
“With a name like ‘the Empty’, I wasn’t expecting much in the way of pleasant scenery, but this is downright depressing.”
The skyslipper is cruising through a light-bleached wasteland.
There is nothing but an endless stretch of white, dead sand that changes elevations on occasion. The dunes lie completely undisturbed—a century of naught, not even the winds themselves, ever coming into contact with it.
The afternoon sky is spotless and bright blue.
The only dot of colour for miles is the group inside the skyslipper.
The Warrior of Light leans out a little to see where they had come from. The wall of light is long gone, replaced by the blue skies and white wasteland and nothing else.
URIANGER
“To look upon the lands swallowed by the Floor with thine own eyes… ‘tis a chilling sight indeed.
Approximately nine-tenths of this world are as this. A slate all but wiped clean….”
Thancred’s hands tighten around the steering wheel.
His voice is almost quiet enough for everyone to miss what he says.
THANCRED
“Were it not for the Warriors of Darkness and Minfilia….”
He exhales shakily and relaxes his grip a little.
THANCRED
“Ryne, are you sure we’re heading in the right direction?”
Ryne narrows her eyes and shields them with one of her hands for a moment.
She doesn’t need to focus like that, but it is meant as a reassuring gesture more than one that helps her find their goal.
RYNE
“Yes, I’m certain.
There’s no telling how far away it is, though.”
Thancred nods and leans backwards in his seat a little.
THANCRED
“Nothing for it but to keep going, then.
You two back there may as well take a nap. I have a feeling we’ve got a good few malms ahead of us.”
[a massive sand dune overlooking what may have been a river valley once, the Empty]
The Warrior of Light wakes up alone in the skyslipper. After a moment of confusion they spot that the other three are standing not too far away from them.
All three of them are staring in the same direction.
In the distance looms a massive lump of sorts, but upon closer inspection it does not bear much resemblance to the untouched dunes of aetherically drained sand. There are shapes to the thing—feathers, perhaps, covered by layers upon layers of sand.
Thancred crosses his arms.
THANCRED
“I have to say, it’s quite a touch larger than I was expecting.
It’s… sleeping, I suppose?”
Ryne shakes her head. Almost at the same time a faint tremor shakes the dead ground beneath all their feet.
RYNE
“No.
It’s waking up.”
Thancred scowls.
Urianger lowers his head in thought.
THANCRED
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
The Warrior of Light hops out of the skyslipper.
WARRIOR OF LIGHT
“Is it a Lightwarden?”
They join the others.
Ryne shakes her head again, but her expression shows more confusion than grave certainty.
RYNE
“No… no, I don’t think so.
Instead of being filled with light… it is Light.”
She knows it’s a strange statement. But she really doesn’t have any other words for it.
Thancred and the Warrior of Light seem confused by her words, but Urianger’s head snaps back up in understanding.
URIANGER
“Long have I strived to unravel the mysteries surrounding the Flood of Light, or perhaps to discover what set that terrible cataclysm in motion. Every thread led to the same conclusion. The same single point….”
Thancred mouths an “oh” in understanding as well.
THANCRED
“Single point… or single being?”
Urianger’s expression is grim. Still, he nods even as he crosses his arms to look at the distant… creature?
URIANGER
“Precisely—all mine research led to a being I could only call ‘the first Sin Eater’.
There is reason to believe that the entity we see before us is that first Sin Eater. The instigator of the Flood—the very foe Minfilia once set out to defeat.”
The silence that spreads between the group is heavy. Hers is a name that is not invoked often, and it is always heartbreaking to think about Minfilia for all of them—without exception.
Ryne doesn’t move the slightest bit. She seems almost haunted by the mention of the first Oracle of Light.
Thancred grinds his teeth for a while. He doesn’t sound the slightest bit happy when he looks back up at what possibly is the first Sin Eater.
THANCRED
“The first Sin Eater, eh.
Minfilia gave everything she had… but she never found it. All she could do in the end was stop the Flood to buy the people time enough to find their own salvation… and this abomination could undo her… no, everyone’s work.”
Norvrandt has only just begun to heal from its century of unending light.
Urianger also does not seem to enjoy that train of thought—he is, almost uncharacteristically, scowling at the massive lump of something further ahead.
After a while of staring at it, he seems to have found something to say about this situation.
URIANGER
“Aye, that possibility cannot be denied. Though it is oft said that destruction and creation are but two sides of the same coin.”
Thancred rolls his eyes. There’s clearly some sort of debate about philosophising brewing, but rather than engage in the conversation Urianger clearly wanted to strike up, Thancred shakes his head.
THANCRED
“That’s all well and good, but isn’t musing about the nature of the thing right now fairly pointless?
Don’t you think we should give our mystery adversary a name first?”
Ryne, who has been very quiet for a while by now, loudly exhales. All eyes turn to her as she raises her hands to her chest to think about what she wants to say next for a second.
Then she opens her eyes again, and her voice is surprisingly steady and clear when she speaks.
RYNE
“… Eden.”
It’s not a word the Warrior of Light has heard before—but judging from the expressions on Thancred and Urianger’s faces, they both clearly know what she means.
Urianger tilts his head.
URIANGER
“’Utopia’ in Fae? A most auspicious title indeed.”
Ryne simply continues looking at the Sin Eater that still lies unmoving in the distance.
She shudders slightly.
RYNE
“It just seems right, somehow. Here in paradise lost nothing moves and nothing changes. If there is nothing to lose, none may know loss.
The Empty is a utopia in a sense—and this is its keeper.”