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Beautiful.
The thought came unbidden as the Crystal Exarch nearly dropped his staff in surprise. He could hardly believe the image displayed on his scrying mirror — at long last, his summoning spell was a success. His heart raced in disbelief as he watched her — Irie Sagahl — take stock of her surroundings in Lakeland.
G’raha Tia nearly whooped in glee as the Exarch tore through the Ocular, teleporting to the Dossal Gate and ignoring the ache in his old joints as he took off at a sprint. He didn't care if the guard nearby called out to him in alarm, for he'd return soon.
He just needed to get to her first.
The age that crept into his bones felt erased for the excitement coursing through his veins. He may pay for this exertion later but, for now, he needed to assuage the concern and fear he had seen in her eyes. Most urgently.
Striking.
Seeing her, amidst the trees of Lakeland that had never failed to remind him of her eyes, had done something. He’d not been listless these many decades, for he'd charted his course for this very moment, but it was as if something snapped into place in his gut.
Her green hair was shorter now, though still tied up in a ponytail and mostly out of her face. The dark rings around her eyes felt abyssal in contrast to the Light surrounding them, and he feared that the bags under them were his fault.
The guilt passed, for the moment, because he'd done it.
She was here. She was alive. She was here. She was alive. She was here. She was alive. She was here—
Curious.
Though she'd been upset initially, demanding to see her friends, he could tell in the small scrunching of her brow that she was taking in the sights. It felt juvenile to feel proud, as she looked around in awe at the city that he had helped build and protect, even if he hadn't necessarily wanted to in the beginning.
He'd been more than happy to provide a safe haven for the people of this world, but they'd hardly been his priority at the start. Preparing for this moment, for her, had been his priority, and he hoped that she could feel it in the very air around them.
That she was welcomed. That she would be cared for. That she would be kept safe.
Powerful.
Something about the way her magicks manifested differed here thanks to the amount of Light, but she was just as powerful as he remembered.
Still, though, he would not grow complacent. He barely slept now for many reasons, though chiefly for the way her barren gravesite haunted his nightmares — the thought of her body burned on a pyre something he could barely consider without tasting ash. He remembered finding her journals, and the way a despair so heart-wrenching rose within him as he translated the Xaellic.
She'd started to lose hope in the end.
When he'd known her, she'd referred to the Scions as mostly colleagues rather than close friends. At some point, however, those feelings had changed — but then, the Black Rose ripped through Eorzea and took them away from her, one by one.
(He convinced himself it was pure coincidence that he happened to summon each of the Scions in the order they lost contact with Irie, for he could not afford to stop and despair over the alternative.)
She'd thought of him, sleeping away in the Crystal Tower, and despaired at the world that he would wake up to. She worried over the children of Doma, who kept such high spirits even as they lost ground against Garlemald. After each loss of her friends, she fretted over whether they were making the right decisions.
She'd do her best to protect his, and everyone's, future, even if it was the last thing she did.
And he was the only one in the universe who knew what she'd tried and failed to do before she died.
He would do anything to ensure that future did not come to pass.
Spark
If she thought it odd the way that he asked after her, protected her, nearly doted on her, she didn't show it.
Something had changed for her since he'd last known her. It was a silly thing to think, too, for of course so much had changed — but where before there was a sparkle of moonlight in her gaze, now it was dim.
He did not believe that this was only due to being on the First, or being separated from her friends, or being afraid of what was to come. No, this was something else — something had stripped away her sense of self, and now he found himself with two goals.
One, the same as it had been for decades. The second, now, to find ways to return that sparkle.
Even as he dropped to his knees before her in reverence, the Lightwarden of Holminster now only a part of history, he felt her regard him with a tiredness he'd never witnessed before. Perhaps he'd been too blinded before, too single-minded in his quest, when he'd checked in on her activities on the Source.
She was still the Warrior of Light, blessed as one of Hydaelyn's Champions, but she was also a woman with hopes and dreams and wishes, and anger and sadness and despair.
While despite his best efforts he could do nothing against those, he hoped she would soon understand that she no longer acted alone.
Light
As Lightwarden after Lightwarden fell, their time together grew shorter and shorter.
And yet, even though her limbal rings glowed a bright white and her hair had lightened, he saw a sparkle in her eyes that he'd never thought he would see again.
Their journey thus far had been difficult, and soon they would enter the final act, but he was glad to have played a part in restoring her joy.
The Crystal Exarch would miss her, he would miss them all, but his life was a small price to pay to thwart the ascians' plans, to prevent utter tragedy from coming to pass.
…Even if the smallest and most selfish curl of regret, of wanting more time, coursed through G'raha Tia with every step up the mountain he took.
The crystal veins around his heart burned as he took in the Light, stole that which had caused so much harm. He shut his eyes against Irie's confusion, against her anger and fear and the Scions' exclamations, and he thought of Lyna. He thought of her parents, of all the men, women, and children he had cared for over a century, of the stalwart warmth around bitter and solemn campsitres, and bid them all goodbye.
Thank you.
He reopened his eyes.
Warmth
It was over.
Despite his plans, he was still alive.
And so was she.
Irie looked at him with so much warmth and concern that it nearly overwhelmed him to the point of collapse — who was he, of all people, to deserve such care? Such emotion?
Over her head, he saw the rest of them looking at him with expressions of varying degrees, though all colored by relief. He met Urianger's golden gaze and he smiled, a small nod of approval.
The tears sprung to his eyes unbidden, and he was quick to turn away and rub them before they would think less of him.
(They never would, but he didn't know that yet.)
Together, they'd brought back the night, and she had pulled him back from his fate. She had released him from the shackles of his own making.
She had saved him when it was ever his intention to save her, protect her.
She brought him in for a hug, murmured good morning against his neck, and at her touch, he felt warm for the first time since he'd merged with the Crystal Tower.