She shouldn't be able to be here.

She flies through Breakneck Pass, where she first relayed the news to Captain Phila, and all she can remember is the agony that ate at her insides and left her naught but a pathetic, weeping mess, a child begging to go home. But she doesn't feel much of anything, and that honestly frightens her. All she can remember is how she wanted everything to end, to stop, to leave her in a sea of white where nothing happened again and she could sleep forever.

Looking down, she still isn't convinced that isn't what she wants.

She flies through the skies atop Aurora, whose steady flight comforts her in its reliability. Her steed doesn't cause much of a fuss in general, which tends to lull Cordelia into a point where flight is habit. Habits sustain her at this point. She's a creature of habit.

It's been two years and forty-three days since Grima was slaid and nothing has changed with her.

Aurora approaches the peak above the pass she's sat on more times in the time between then and now that she can count. If she needs to kill a day, she spends it here (she kills a lot of days), though she can't help but find it sacreligious to find it a place for boredom with all the blood she can still sense deep within the ground, a part of the pass.

She takes another look at the peak, and there's a speck there. As she get closer, Aurora speeds up with a whinny. Before she can make out what- or who- it is, she hears it scream for her.

"Hey! Cordie!"

Oh, Gods. Another person.

On the peak Cordelia always sits on, there's an old ally waiting for her, dressed in the same chainmail and scale outfit with thigh-high boots that she met her in. A thousand years doesn't change tradition immediately, Cordelia reckons. The ally waves her down, leaping through the air, green hair smacking the back of her neck every time. Cordelia's eyes widen, and she so desperately wants to flee, fly away, but instead takes pity on her and guides Aurora to land next to her.

(Besides, she can turn into a dragon and is possibly the most stubborn person Cordelia's ever met. She wouldn't get far.)

Nowi cheers as Cordelia leaves her steed and sits down. Cordelia looks to her side, where Nowi is hugging her, and politely embraces her back.

"What a surprise," Cordelia says, looking off the cliff and not at her. It is nice to see the manakete, after so long. Nowi was not someone she spent every moment aware of, but she was always there when Cordelia expected. Often smiling, often unmovable, always nakedly emotional. Even though the last time they saw each other were on bad terms (moreso on Nowi's part), she was one of the few Shepherds Cordelia honestly noticed.

She forces a smile, but she's out of practice. Aurora lies next to her on the far right end, tucking her muzzle in to her own chest and sleeping within a moment. Nowi is none the wiser, collapsing next to her, legs bouncing off of the side of the cliff. Cordelia winces, but the manakete sets her dragonstone on her lap, as if to reassure her. (It seems more like a warning.)

The two look off of the edge of the cliff. Cordelia makes sure to look out towards the rest of the kingdom, not at the scene before her, so she doesn't worry Nowi. Her legs around her knees (she never hangs them off the cliff) she notices Nowi looking below her, vocalizing her awe.

"So what have you been up to?" she asks Cordelia innocently.

Cordelia doesn't have an answer that satisfies herself, much less a friend. Her eyes are closed, and she interlaces her fingers together. She feels Nowi's eyes inspecting her, waiting for an answer, kicking her feet against the ledge.

"Cordie?"

Startled out of a haze, Cordelia apologizes, to her friend's noncommittal shrug and blissful smile. Cordelia still doesn't have a concrete answer, so she goes with the first one she thinks of. "Um, I've been doing work with the rest of the knights."

"That's cool!" Nowi responds with wide eyes and a grin. Cordelia muses sadly that she's sincere. As the only Pegasus Knight in the kingdom of Ylisse, she is frequently called upon to protect the nation, and she answers each call. She's sent with the other knights, on horseback, but she never trains with them. She always feels like a visitor to her own unit.

Then: "So you actually got the Pegasus Knights back together?"

Cordelia freezes in place, hands clasped together tight enough to stop circulation to her legs. She shakes her head, but her body shakes with it. Nowi gasps, and places her hand on one of Cordelia's. Ylisse's last pegasus knight doesn't move, but at least she's not shaking anymore. "I'm sorry," Nowi shouts. "I'm really really really sorry! I…" She looks at the sky, begging Naga for help.

"It's okay," Cordelia responds. It's not. "You didn't know. It's okay." It's not okay, because now Cordelia remembers. She'll always remember. She still remembers their screams. She still remembers the sound of Phila crashing against the ground.

She strokes Aurora's fur, but she feels more like she may accidentally rip it out.

She wants to forget. So: "I'm going with Sully's group. She's whipping them into shape." Cordelia smiles, strangely comforted by the memory of Sully's brusque, foulmouthed orders. She is so unlike Phila, but Phila didn't allow herself to stray off of her path. Nothing could shake her. Sully could scream into the void and make it sound like she's singing. Both are excellent captains for exact opposite reasons.

"Sully's so cool," Nowi responds reverently. "I'm so glad for her! I…" She looks away, but the blush on her face and ill-tempered scowl shows how horrid she is at hiding her emotions. "I actually didn't know that she was the captain now."

Cordelia takes in a sharp breath, thinking of the transition for a brief moment before she very decidedly doesn't. "What have you been up to since I last saw you?" Then, she realizes her faux pas, remembers where she last saw Nowi. "Uh, I mean-"

Nowi's smile grows sad, but it wears the understanding of her years. "It's okay," she breathes. "Uhm, I've been traveling a lot. That…" She thinks, and Cordelia watches her, because she's so easy to read. Nowi puts her hands up. "I mean, it's probably a boring answer but... that's what Nowi's been doing with herself lately. Tada."

Cordelia smiles reassuringly. "No, I'm actually interested," she promises. "What's the best place you've traveled to?"

Nowi sits up, almost standing, pressing up on the peak. Grinning, she says "Oh my god, like, I don't know if I can pick just one." Before Cordelia can tell her it's alright (and it's not like she's lacking for time) Nowi seems to have picked one in an instant. "Uhm, so I actually flew over the sea in Valm and got to an island like just off of Chon'sin." Then, hands up: "Manaketes can fly for a really long time." Cordelia chuckles, hand flat on the ground near her. "Oh, and then I got to the island and then I thought that I was in Chon'sin, but it was like, untamed. Like a forest with all sorts of trees and rocky beaches and even a waterfall!"

Cordelia smiles, because Nowi's genuinely happy and she wants to harness that. "No one lived there," Nowi continues "but there were all sorts of nice animals. Horses, cougars, even some wyverns. Like, they all treated me like I was theirs, you know?" She settles down, smiling at nothing, like she's still there. "I was a dragon a lot that day," she muses wistfully.

"That's so nice," Cordelia responds. "I'm so glad."

"Yeah." Suddenly, she's getting shy, not looking at anything except down. "I wonder if they remember me." A second, then: "I was the only dragon there."

"I'm sure they do," Cordelia responds. She imagines being there, amongst the animals. She wonders if they would eat her, see her as unfamiliar, treat her like just another boring, easily dispatchable human. The type of person Nowi isn't, with or without dragonstone.

The two women are quiet again. Cordelia looks across, and Nowi looks down. Cordelia knows what down looks like- a massive cliff to a ridge below that could barely house a small army without everyone being too close for comfort (if she couldn't fly). She knows what down looks like because she couldn't keep her eyes from it for months, and now- especially with a friend nearby- she makes sure never to look down. (She also makes sure Aurora is never near the edge, keeping her pegasus safer than herself.)

She can't see the end of the drop past the ridge. Maybe it's all a sea of white down there.

"Hey," Nowi breathes, as if she's ashamed to talk. She turns towards Cordelia, and after a second, Cordelia meets her gaze.

"So Donny said this is where you all were before you met me."

Cordelia takes in a sharp breath, but also notices the way that Nowi talks about Donnel, as if she's ashamed that it affects her cheer. Like he's not the first, and won't be the last, but it may take a few decades before she can say his name before it stops cutting her throat.

It still hurts her to think about too, but… not as much.

Cordelia humors her. (There's enough grief to go around for one day.) "It was," she says. "It was… really something." Something horrible, something wretched, something that broke her in a way that she still hasn't recovered from.

Nowi stretches, feigning nonchalance. "Yeah, like, it was just before everything got bad, right?"

Cordelia tenses. She shakes again when she tries to shake her head. Nowi's eyes can be felt on her cheek, the gaze pointing at her in amazement. Cordelia clutches a fist, and Nowi gasps. "It wasn't before things got bad," she responds, tone muted to the point of lifelessness. "Things were already bad."

"Oh," Nowi squeaks. She doesn't say anything else, but Cordelia can tell she's thinking. Nowi is the most emotionally obvious person out of everyone she's ever met. (Cordelia can still remember how much Nowi cried.) Then, Nowi gasps, and clutches the patient hand Cordelia left out towards her.

"Oh my Gods, like, did you lose someone?"

Screaming. The way that Aurora could not speed away fast enough to keep her from hearing it. Screaming. She's not sure whose. Screaming. Her heart hasn't stopped screaming. Silence. That's all she ever gave in response to anyone asking about that chapter in her life. If she never spoke about it, then she would not hear the screams again. (She can't forget what they sounded like.)

"Don't," is all she says, because she doesn't know what she should say after.

"But…" Nowi responds, utterly mystified. She crosses her arms, and turns away from Cordelia. Her brow furrowing is almost audible. Cordelia watches her, trying to resume normal breathing. Nowi turns back to her and says "There's something you're not telling me."

"There is?" Cordelia responds. It's more of a challenge than she intends.

"Yeah!" Nowi responds with utmost naivete. "Like, I lost someone in the war too, you know? So you can-"

"I lost everything!"

The reply is more of a shout than she intends, but her blood is so hot she could bake from the inside-out. Nowi gasps at how her voice is so raw, her breath is so ragged, that the declaration was covered in glass shards. "I'm sorry, Cordie! I didn't know-"

Cordelia walks to Aurora forcefully, past the desperate gaze of the manakete. "That's right. You don't know." She whistles, and her steed wakes up.

"No, no, no!" Nowi shouts, tears in her voice. "Don't go!"

Cordelia climbs on the saddle and looks at her. Nowi's face always contorts into a ugly, empathetic mess when she cries. Like she's sorry she hurt anyone else with her sorrows.

"Take care, Nowi."

Aurora comes to and carries her rider away while Nowi screams "wait!" Cordelia doesn't wait up.

She works her hardest not to feel anything as she leaves, but memories pound against the walls of her head, demanding quarter. She's about a mile away from the peak above Breakneck Pass when a spectacular flash turns the the storm clouds surrounding her white for a moment. She thinks a moment, then she gasps, and groans as loudly as possible.

"Why?" she shouts at no particular source. Aurora whinnies, disturbed, and Cordelia has to whisper apologies, but she can't stop looking behind her. She notices on the horizon a dragon twice as big as Aurora, and twice as fast. Cordelia groans, and swerves towards the empty canyon she cannot see the bottom of.

"Wait!" the dragon cries, voice distorted.

Like hell I will, Cordelia decides. She prompts Aurora to go faster, but Nowi keeps time with her. Cordelia screams, throwing Aurora's reigns in the air. She zips faster with a whinny. Still, it takes nothing for Nowi to catch up with her.

"Stop that," Nowi says, breathless. "You're never gonna be faster than me!"

Cordelia knows that, but the desire to escape is consuming her mind. But she can't escape Nowi. She can't keep running. She can't run forever.

With a cry, she directs Aurora downwards, where she dives. Nowi screams, horrified, and dives down as well. Cordelia notices her on her tail, yet never overtaking her, and she yells back "Stop following me!"

"No!"

They're almost level with Breakneck Pass. They're falling.

"What do you want?"

Nowi doesn't respond at first. They're about to break through the clouds. Anything could be down there. Then: "Just don't!"

Cordelia doesn't respond.

"Just don't do this!" she begs. "Please!"

"What do you want?!"

"I don't know!"

The three of them break through.

Inside the canyon are patches of ground with no grass or trees on it. A river runs through it. It's hundreds of feet away, but it's so clear all Cordelia can see is the gap in the ground, an occasional ripple on the surface. It's beautiful. No, it's enrapturing. It's whole.

Wouldn't this be a nice place to fall…

"Don't!"

She doesn't notice that she's lifted a foot onto the saddle until Nowi is flying next to her on the right side, nearest the river, wing over Aurora's tail, daring Cordelia to try and fall now. Cordelia can barely make out her face- dragon form is her only method of hiding her emotions- but her eyes are wide and she can't close her mouth.

"Heel."

Aurora slowly drops speed, a good fifty feet above the canyon floor. Ever the daredevil, Nowi ducks down further, close enough to kiss the ground, before she curves and flies parallel to it. She eventually landing before Aurora does, who softly touches the ground like she had never left. It's Cordelia who stumbles off of the pegasus, falling onto her hands and knees, catching her breath. She can faintly feel a flash again, and small footsteps that signify the return of Nowi.

"Cordie!"

She feels Nowi tackle her in a hug across her back, cheek on her shoulder blades, tears on her neck. Instinctively, Cordelia tells her "I'm fine, I just… had a moment. I'm fine."

Nowi keeps crying, hands splayed across Cordelia's sides. "You're not fine," she sobs. "You're not."

Cordelia wants to say something, to reassure her, to make it all go away so no one ever asks her again, no one ever talks to her again, but she keeps saying "you're not, you're not fine" like a broken trance, and it's so overwhelming that she can't deny it any longer.

She's not fine.

She always thinks of them, never of an individual person save Captain Phila. It's always one individual entity that she recalls hazing her, mockingly calling her a genius, Little Lady Genius, then standing back in awe as she proved their cajoling right- she was a genius. She wasn't ugly, she wasn't knobbish, she wasn't an awkward pegasus girl who thought she could fight. She was a stalwart fighter, a prodigy, the youngest but still the toughest of them all. Eventually, Captain Phila regarded her not with pity, but respect, and the other women treated her not only as their equal, but their future.

That's what Cordelia tells Nowi.

It gets to the point where she sobs out every word. Nowi wraps her arms around her, trying to suck in her tears as she soothingly whispers "Cordie…" but Cordie doesn't stop crying. She can't get their screams out of her head. She can't stop feeling like she's falling. She can't stop feeling like she's there, even as she's crying in her lost friend's arms, begging for relief. She's immature, base, the only thoughts in her head being the sound of screaming and her pleading for it all to stop.

Nowi keeps holding her, letting her cry, and Cordelia can feel her tears burst out onto her skin, unplanned and unwanted. Nowi keeps saying "I'm so sorry," throat raw, and Cordelia can only sob, because Gods damn, it has hurt for three years, but never like this.

Eventually, Cordelia manages her tears, at least to the point where she can gasp to Nowi "Why did you care so much?"

"You're my friend," is the response.

Cordelia cries harder, and hugs Nowi tighter, because now she realizes that when she dies, Nowi will have lost another person she cares about. Strangely, Nowi says nothing. She even seems to understand. Cordelia apologizes, and Nowi kisses the top of her head, not with the reckless abandon Ylisse's last pegasus knight expected, but with the faith to soothe the beast of grief that has escaped Cordelia.

Eventually, it works.

The two sit by the river. Nowi dips her legs in, boots and all, while Cordelia can't even fathom putting her feet in, whether or not they were dressed. Aurora is behind them, again able to find comfort on rock enough to sleep. The two women don't touch each other, but Cordelia can't help but feel strange, departed, knowing that Nowi's skin no longer embraces hers.

She can't even remember a time before then.

Nowi doesn't face her, letting her recover. It's Cordelia who teases her hand to her side, flat on the stony plateau. Nowi notices it, then gingerly places hers on top.

"It's okay," Cordelia assures her.

Nowi takes it in hers, her breath felt through Cordelia's hand.

"Are you gonna be okay?" she breathes.

Cordelia thinks for a second. She hasn't been okay for so, so long. Then: "Not yet."

Nowi exhales sharply, but does not whine. "Okay," she says. The two are still, then she admits "I didn't know that was…" She lowers her voice, like their propensity to hurt rises and lowers with her volume. "That was what happened to them. Just that they were gone."

Cordelia nods. It still presses on her chest when she does.

"Chrom said you liked to spend the day here a lot, but, like, he didn't say why, you know?"

Cordelia sucks in her breath. Gods, was I that obvious? She bows her head, gasps for a different reason. "I wasn't supposed to say that," she responds. "He's gonna be so mad. Uhm… don't tell him, okay?"

Cordelia shakes her head, but her smile reassures her friend. "Then… can you tell me why you wanted to find me?"

Nowi looks at the sky. "It's a long story, but like… after I got done traveling, I wanted to visit all my friends," she starts, each word only weighing half of what they should. "And Chrom pointed me here towards you. And the name sounded familiar before I realized…" She looks down again, like the river will tell her the answers. "That this was the place Donny told me about. The you place."

Cordelia takes a sharp breath, squeezing her hand. "It's okay," Nowi insists. "I mean… it's not totally okay. You know, I'm not totally okay. But… I think I cried most of it off already."

Woodenly, Cordelia nods, not quite grasping the idea of grieving when things happen (even though Nowi cried on her shoulder enough to help her visualize that when it happened). "Still, if you ever need anyone to talk to, I'm here."

Nowi smiles. "But yeah, that's I guess why I wanted to stay. Just in case this reminded you of something. And when it did… I just…" She clears her throat. "That can crush you, you know? And I didn't want you to be crushed." Cordelia doesn't have a response for her, because she isn't far enough to say she won't be crushed, and Nowi doesn't take broken promises well. "Cause, like… when you said you lost everything…"

Oh.

"I'm sorry, Nowi," Cordelia says. They inch closer together. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad. It just… felt that way, I guess."

Nowi nods. "Yeah, no it makes sense. And like…" She stops, doubtful. Then: "Every time you lose someone, you feel that way, you know? I just… I know that they saved you because they knew that you were their future, right? That's what you were kind of getting at."

That may have been what Cordelia said- she doesn't remember- but she nods.

"You still can totally be that." Nowi is breathless. Her voice is using all the power it has but it's barely enough to convey the magic of possibility. "You're strong, you're talented, you're amazing at fighting, you've got a big heart, you're kind, you're respectful, you're beautiful, you're coordinated, you got amazing fashion sense…" Cordelia realizes that this is slowly becoming more than about her as a knight. "And I may still need to plan to visit the rest of my friends," she admits. Cordelia laughs, red in the face. This is definitely not just about that. "So… like, whatever happens, just… when you're ready to move on, just know that you totally can, alright?"

Cordelia clears the inch of space between the two of them. Her face doesn't get any less red. Nowi rests her head on Cordelia's shoulder and looks up at her with a smile.

"I'll just have to stay here until you can."

Moving on doesn't seem easy.

(Gods help the person who decides to harm her.)

Cordelia looks below her. Nowi is at peace. She's more mature and knowing than Cordelia ever knew her for. Their eyes meet. Nowi will be happier when Cordie is.

Nowi teases an arm around Cordelia's back, and she hugs her intensely in response. Their foreheads press together, and Nowi laughs, but just a little.

Maybe there was a reason they never forgot each other.

Moving on won't be easy, but more than ever, Ylisse's only pegasus knight decides that it seems possible.