Chapter Text
I've been reconciling my notes for the past several nights now. Everything before that fateful trip to Shaaloani was left here in our room at the For’ard Cabins, and now I have to figure out how everything comes together.
Thirty years, all condensed within a few minutes.
Raha and the girls gave me a full account of everything I've missed. The attack on Tuliyollal, Zoraal Ja killing Gulool Ja Ja, building a war train to crash into Vanguard, everything.
I'm still coming to terms with it myself. Just this morning I woke up expecting to see that ruined hovel, with Otis on standby and Azurite across the room. Instead I saw my cabin in Tuliyollal, in a comfortable bed beside the man and woman I love. Everything is back to normal - or at least, that's what I tell myself.
I don't know what's normal for me anymore.
At the very least, I have the two best people in the world on hand to help in my reacclimation: Minfilia and Raha went a century on the First, after all. And besides, if there's any normal I want to embrace, t’would be one I can share with them.
T'is strange. I have lived as the renegade for far longer than as the Indigo Storm, and known the friends I made under the dome far longer than those I made outside, yet I feel as though I am where I need to be - where I want to be. I spent so, so long yearning to see Raha and Minfilia again, it feels like I'm living in a dream now. They said the same thing all those years ago, after I finally confessed my feelings to Raha, and after the two of us saved Minfilia and confessed to her in turn.
Zoraal Ja is dead. The queen is gone. The cloud is shut down. This is a victory.
With it, so many people I once knew are gone too. We met them in Living Memory; Cahciua, Nakesh'ya, even Otis, albeit a past version of his memories who never knew me. I told him through tears about all he had missed: the way he saved my life and nursed me through my weakest moments; the incredible repasts; the days of training we shared; and of Gulool Ja, the prince we watched over whenever life became too much. It must have been strange for a rugged thing like me to tell him all about the life we lived together that he never remembered, yet when he pulled me into his arms I knew he understood; that in another life we were the closest of friends, and that through me - through us all - he would live forever in the fondest of memories.
Nakesh'ya at least remembered me. We found her in Asyle Volcane, and Cahciua and I gave everyone else a while to wander while the three of us caught up - she and I were the last two people alive who remembered Nakesh’ya, after all. Neither of us had the heart to tell her what happened to Ambrose, though she clearly understood it wasn’t a kind fate - but the fact that he was now at rest was all that mattered to her. She and Cahciua spoke often during their time on the cloud, so she already knew about Nostalgia and Wayakkwe, but hearing it from auntie Juksie seemed to put her heart at ease. I even had a moment to introduce her to Raha and the girls, who I’d told her so much about, before they made their descent into the volcano towards the Pyro Terminal.
As Nakesh’ya vanished before our eyes, she offered us one final smile.
Napikwe is doing well. She actually helped cut down a few rogue soldiers during Zoraal Ja’s sacking of the city - she may not have her good hand, but like hells she’d sit by and hide during that, even at her age. She’s in her sixties now - strange to think she’s not much older than me, given how little I’ve actually aged in thirty years. She says she wants to stay in Solution Nine, even now that the dome is open; she has a life there, and isn’t willing to leave it behind.
Still, though. I’m fifty-nine years old; yet people are saying I look barely past my mid thirties. I knew my lifespan would be expanded - the Bronze Drake was over a century old but looked barely fifty - but t’is passing strange to finally stop and acknowledge it. How long is my lifespan now? How many loved ones will I outlive? How much of this world shall I bear witness to before I finally catch up to everyone in the aetherial sea? A viera’s lifetime? A dragon’s lifetime?
You know what? It doesn’t matter. I’m back.
