By now, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret thinks that she should be unsurprised by the enormity of the Astrals. Titan, Ramuh, and Leviathan had all been larger than even her family's manor. That Shiva's corpse should be just as great in size as they all were should not strike her as anything odd. At the very least, she thinks it should not.
But somehow, it still does. There had been a largeness to the other Astrals that was born from more than just their physicality: they had been so alive. She had heard them speak. Seen them think. Lunafreya had witnessed their actions. The magnitude of their spirits had been larger than their bodies.
Shiva does not possess this quality in death. It is the absence of that which she finds tremendous. Before now, Lunafreya had never seen a dead god herself. In Altissia, she had lost consciousness shortly after healing Noctis's numerous wounds. So the Hydraean remains a terrible marvel in her mind. Lunafreya knows that there had been many photographs taken and published of the Glacian's corpse, but the clergy of the Oracle had declared it sacrilegious to view them.
It feels that way now.
Lunafreya hesitantly tugs off a mitt and presses her fingertips against Shiva's bare foot. Unsurprisingly, the Astral's skin is cold to the touch. She suspects that this has less to do with the environment and more to do with the nature of the Astral herself.
The foot looks largely intact. As does the rest of Shiva. Lunafreya is not astonished by any of this. It might be a corpse, but it is an Astral's corpse. It is only logical that her body would not rot in the same manner that a mortal's does. No Astral's corpse should. It does not matter that Shiva had died so many years ago. It does not matter that she had been felled by human weaponry. Shiva had been a god. As a child, Lunafreya had found the fact of Shiva's death by human hands to strangely humanize the Astral.
She wonders now how the god had died. Leviathan snakes her way through her thoughts. Shiva might have been just as fierce and wondrous. Or perhaps not. Her mother, Gentiana, and all the disciples of her family's line had taught her that the Glacian valued mortal lives more than any other one of the Six. So perhaps Shiva would have stayed her hand when she was ambushed by the Niflheim army.
The Hydraean slithers lightning-fast across her mind. After the Revelation in Altissia, it is difficult to believe that any one of the Hexatheon would ever quietly accept their end.
Sliding her mitt back on, Lunafreya starts toward Shiva's head. Her fleece-lined and waterproof pants trap the sweat against her skin as she snowshoes her way over the snow. Her perception of time is skewed. It feels like it takes an hour to walk from the Glacian's heel to her ankle. Lunafreya can just make out the pillars of the raised railway in the distance. Perhaps taking a train here would have been faster. But she supposes that she would have been too high up then to climb down. And a part of her is almost entirely certain that whatever is calling her here is on ground-level. Lunafreya has never possessed a sense of cardinal direction. She could not point out North from South. Or East from West. Her internal compass belongs to the Astrals and their Messengers alone.
The Astrals she feels in her hair. Their Messengers she feels as her fingers.
Right now, it is as though she is missing two on her left hand. Lunafreya has not seen either Pryna or Gentiana since the Hydraean's Revelation. Umbra alone travels with her. He coils around her body at night to keep her warm. His body is far warmer than a dog's should be. It is only because of him that she has made it so far in this icy rift. Glancing over her shoulder, she sees that he is still only a few metres behind her. Somehow, his paws do not break through the surface of the snow. She supposes that is one of the many advantages Messengers are afforded.
Although she is glad for Umbra's company, she cannot help but wish the other two were here as well.
She is almost to Shiva's knee. The snow suddenly comes down so much harder than before. It had not taken Lunafreya long to discover that this region was prone to drastic changes in weather. She does not doubt that this is the doing of the Glacian's remains. It had been this unruly weather that had prevented the ex-Commodore Highwind from taking Lunafreya directly to Shiva's remains. Lunafreya could only ask Highwind to let her off where she could.
The effect the dead god has on the weather does not surprise Lunafreya. The Astrals turn emotion into a tangible force. Leviathan had split the sea open with the sheer power of her rage. It has been weeks since then, but Lunafreya can still feel splinters of that anger in her lungs and legs. These parts of her shake slightly to this day. It should be imperceptible to anyone but herself and Umbra. Highwind had certainly not seen it.
She supposes the knife wound had been the more obvious injury.
It would have been a fatal one if not for the work of the airship's on-board medics and her own power. That she managed to elude so certain a death still bewilders her. She thought that she had exhausted her power when she called on every glaive to come to Noctis's aid.
Lunafreya had thought that she was going to die.
But she is alive. This is a secret. The advantages of being pronounced dead are too great for her to relinquish just yet. Being thought dead means that she does not have to worry about Niflheim or its chancellor searching for her. The latter of the two is the more worrisome.
The Chancellor Izunia is a mystery she has not solved. He feels like a familiar song she does not quite know the lyrics to. Lunafreya remembers the moment when she had tried to disperse the Starscourge in him. That had not been an act of kindness on her part. Doing so had allowed her to probe the depths of his corruption. Her power returned to her that he was a thing practically indistinguishable from the Starscourge. That his muscles and bones were solids heated by corruption into a like liquid.
She does not understand who he is that he can be so soaked in Starscourge and still look human.
The Starscourge in him had been old. By definition, all Starscourge is old. It is all the same vintage. But her power grants her insight as to how long it has festered inside of a particular living thing. In Izunia's case, the corruption did not rot away at him. It simply was. The chancellor must be so much older than he looks.
The Glacian's knee is driven against the side of a hill. Lunafreya is getting closer to it. Shiva's bare stomach forms a ceiling so far overhead that it does little to keep the snowfall off of her. When she looks up, Lunafreya sees the evidence of Niflheim's work. Missiles and shrapnel jut out of Shiva's torso. It looks odd as the skin does not swell where it meets the weaponry. Like they are decoration more than anything else.
Dropping her eyes, Lunafreya continues towards the nearest knee. She has so many questions and no one to ask. Umbra has no answers for her. But maybe whoever is calling her here might have them. It is unclear if they are Astral or Messenger. It is a kind of sharp wind: it tousles her hair and chills the joints in her fingers.
And somewhere else, she can feel the Draconian calling Noctis.
Finally. She makes it to the crest of the hill. It gives her an unobstructed view of the shallow basin ahead and the enormous stack of toppled trees in it. A humanoid thing cuts a dark shape against the wood.
Lunafreya is suddenly very aware of her own fingers.
Picking up the pace, Lunafreya resists the urge to call out. Something in her tells her that she should not be the first to speak. So she just stops a metre or two short of what is clearly the base of a giant pyre and does not say a word.
Gentiana turns to face her with open eyes.