– DUST –

Despite everyone looking outwardly familiar in all but dress, Burmecia was an utterly foreign land, save one thing. The constant dull roar of the rain against the small roof was quite like the calming noise of the sandstorm she remembered. She was always at a loss, and quite disquieted when surrounded by silence. Most were afraid of absence of light, she was afraid of absence of sound.

Shannon missed her home, badly. She missed it almost as much as she missed those familiar to her. She passively stirred her tea with her finger, it had gone lukewarm long since. The Burmecian people had welcomed her with open arms and put her right into this little house, even still, finding appetite or thirst in any great portion eluded her.

There came a gentle ringing at her door, from the prayer bells she had hung over it. She was tempted to remain silent and pretend to not be present, but the ringing came again. It was equally gentle, not increased in hardness or insistency in any way, and this piqued her curiosity.

She slowly got up and stepped to the door. Her sensitive ears detected feet shifting behind it, and she knew her steps had been heard, too.

"Water?" Asked a shatteringly familiar voice "Water, they said you were here, please, please answer. Please still exist."

Shannon threw the door open and the rain poured in.

Instantly there were six white arms around her on every side, and instantly she found herself crying.

"Moon, Star, Flower…" She gasped out between sharp pangs.

Sharon, Claire and Nina surrounded their lost temple sister. Familiarity flooded her in a torrent and she found pieces of herself she had set into deep dark corners springing back in vibrant color.

One of them shut the door, she did not know which.

"I missed you so…." She wept.

"Wherever we looked, we couldn't find you." Whispered Sharon. "We heard so much and found nothing. They last spoke of you in Treno, but you weren't there and there was no trail to follow from there…"

"How did you survive?

"Me and Claire both went down the trunk and helped each other, we both got hurt when the fire swept the tree away…." Nina related. "We found Sharon much later, far away…"

"Where's….."

"Eileen still hasn't been found." Whispered Claire in grief.

"There was a lot of talk about where you might be, but nothing about Eileen, not at all. We don't think she made it." Nina said, stroking Shannon's forehead.

"We are so glad you are safe."

Shannon buried her head between theirs.

"Please don't ever leave."

"We won't, we promise."

What was missing was suddenly whole. Surroundings that were foreign and cold were suddenly familiar to her in no way but those absolutely essential. Three beautiful and outwardly unhurt faces that comprised the inner fabric of her world, full of emotion and resolution for having found her brought to her comfort and inner rest. She lay against their embrace.

"How did you find me?"

Freya's nesting instinct returned heavily before their little dwelling even came into view. Just the familiarity of the landmarks was enough to bring it forth. Her grasp around Fratley's waist tightened and her pace quickened.

The few remaining paces to the door seemed to them both an eternity. She gave one glance to the place where he had secretly slept under the shed eaves, and tightly closed and barred the door behind them.

Instantly she was surrounded by him and being lifted up off the floor by his grasp. Their tails sought each other and corkscrewed together tightly.

"No more wandering, it's so cold out there, I wish to stay here forever with you." She breathily said into his face as they undressed each other.

He kissed her.

"Promise." She demanded.

He kissed her again.

"I promise." His hands grasped at her softness. "Take a bath with me."

William enjoyed time away from his siblings. He did not dislike them in the least and loved his little sister most of all, but he could only truly think when none of them were present.

He had sat himself under one of the stone mantles of the palace foundation, nestled deep into a tiny alcove he did not know the purpose of. Here he had used a rock knife to carve little notches in the stone, one next to another in a small line. The rain came down the stone in a slow moving sheet and made droplets that fell off at the notches, and he had lost himself in a ponderous silence and observed how gently carving the notches into different sizes and shapes produced droplets at different speeds.

He eventually had arranged them such that each made a tempo of falling droplets onto the stone below and these were made to compliment each other. Water falling on the stone beat a quiet and percussive rhythm that was entirely his own creation, and he took great enjoyment in this small accomplishment. The sound, combined with the ambient noise of the rainfall, lulled him into a nap. The warm clothing his mother had woven for him cushioned his head and back against the stone and made his rest pleasant and soft.

"Hey." A small voice greeted him.

He came awake suddenly, but without discomfort. It felt as if he had slept for hours. For all he knew, he had. There was no change in the gray, dim sky to indicate how long he had rested.

"Are you okay?" Asked the small unfamiliar brown rat who stood before him. In voice and stature he appeared much older than he.

"Of course I am, I was just tired." William replied.

"Are you hungry, too?"

"A little bit."

"I'll trade you this if you want to come explore with me." The other rat withdrew a shiny red apple from his pocket.

"That sounds fun, thanks." William took the apple. "I'm William."

"I'm – " The other rat hesitated.

William tilted his head expectantly.

"Puck. I'm Puck." His jaw tightened and he seemed to prepare himself for something.

"It's nice to meet you." William responded.

It seemed to William then that Puck was oddly and intensely relieved at his response, and he became confused.

Freya led Fratley by the arm down the narrow thoroughfare. It was Market day, their people were out to partake in it, and they needed to stock her little home with enough vegetables, meat, fruit and spices for two now. Neither of them had attended or seen a market day in a very, very long time.

Here was the familiar Tavern Freya had passed in such a turmoilous state upon her return to Burmecia. Here she lingered to a quizzical Fratley with an inexorable urge to peer into its windows again, one she could not explain.

"Ah, the fire's throne, I remember our times together here." He said to her, kissing her neck."

She did not respond and her ears fell, as she stared transfixed at something through the window.

There were very few inside and the gray light of the rainy day streamed through a largely darkened inner space. Candles and lanterns burned very dim against these beams. A bartender cleaned his shelves and others inside were but a faded blur.

Freya gazed in, without any ability to explain it, upon herself.

Clad in her red dragoon's tunic and light armor, her rainproof but uncomfortable winged hat, and the crest of her Kingdom's knightly wards, she lay with her head on the table and almost invisible under her shroud of garments, a cask just beyond her limp right forepaw, its foam having long since settled. Eyes shut, every appendage limp, breathing heavily in a miserable drunken stupor. Freya watched this Ghost intently.

Fratley followed her gaze and let his eyes adjust to the darkness of what lay beyond the window.

For the briefest and most fleeting moment, he was certain he saw that ghost, and understood what she was seeing before she yanked him from the window and onward, before her step faltered.

He gathered her up.

"Freya…"

"Take me to the door, I need to help her…..I need to help me…"

"Freya, there's…"

"Take me inside."

He brought her to the door and threw it open. The few patrons didn't look up. They both scoured the entire tavern with their keen eyes, but found no ghost.

Bancroft sat on his tilted bridge high atop his tilted airship as a tilted King in his tilted castle. His favorite velvet chair had been burnt getting the vessel to Burmecia, so he sat uncomfortably before the table upon a large wooden crate full of pipefittings that had been dragged up from the engine room.

Here he sat and ran figures on long spools of paper with his fountain pen. He took the tonnage of people, goods, the entirely spent fuel, another unrolled and by now aged document described the weight of the entire furnishings of the airship and he struck these numbers one by one from his tabulations. Being entirely guesswork, and with the entire voyage thrown and scattered to the floor, at this point he was very nearly making it all up and it was most likely all wrong.

"What a thing is this life in developed society." He lamented. "How does the adage go again?"

He looked around for sympathy and found none in the empty room.

"Numbers, numbers, and then you die."

He found he had begun writing repeated "8"'s in rows, and was now drawing them sideways. He drug a thick line across them all, stabbing them most assuredly to death.

"Ashes I say. Ashes, the lot of it."

He turned his head and peered out the windows facing the lee of the airship's tilt. Those on the opposite side streamed with rain, but the overhang of the bridge roof kept the water off of those he looked through because of the angle. He looked down on cold, hard, motionless, rain-battered earth.

Rocks and cracks and gullies were the consistency of the land, largely grassless moors that had been the cause of the less than ideal landing. He hoped the damage to the ship's bottom was not too great.

He then picked out two moving dots against the gray.

Fumbling for his pocket spyglass, he withdrew it, extended it and put it to his eye.

With the assistance of the optic, he discerned two Burmecian children appearing to follow each other toward the airship, playing as they went.

And instantly he felt as if he were some indifferent omnipresence that was towering over them ominously. An empty laugh escaped him as a dry cough.

For a moment, the stout, old, perpetually furious airship captain was overrun with fantasies of giving it all up and going to play with them in the rain himself.

"Too late for any of that. Far too late…"

He put away his pocket spyglass, tilted the sapphire blue bottle and topped up his glass of gin.

It then began sliding across the tilted table, away from him.

He eyed it suspiciously for a time, and stopped it with his hand before it went out of reach.

He angrily addressed the glass.

"I am well aware my company is detestable at times, but in truth, nobody asked you."

The glass said nothing. Neither did the spirit within it.

"Come to think of it…." He noted, "I had better have men stationed under us whenever we try again to lift the ship. Can't have little ones getting crushed…."

Puck and William chased each other, hid in crags, and skipped stones underneath the great airship that had come to rest on the rocky ground just outside their Kingdom.

Drawn by its shadowed presence in the fog of rain, they marveled at its great streamlined riveted form and the gigantic mirror-surfaced knife-edged airscrew propellers at her stern. Here, they took shelter from the rain under the overhanging mass of the hull.

"I had no idea airships were so big, I've never seen one before. Its as big as our palace." William was unable to stop looking upward, fascinated by the immense iron creation.

"I rode this airship here." Said Puck.

"That's amazing, I wish I could travel like you. Mama and Dad don't want any of us to leave Burmecia." Replied William.

"I'm an adventurer!" Puck declared, and then became downtrodden. "I used to be, anyway…"

"My father says he used to be, and saw every corner of our lands, but now he just wants to stay home with us."

Puck stared at William in sudden misery.

"Your dad is smart, you should do as he says, you should be very glad he's still…." He stopped, and his lip quivered.

"What's wrong?"

Puck began to shed tears, he buried his face in his arms and the folds of his clothing, and tried to turn away from William.

He felt William's small arms wrap around him from behind.

"It's okay, I don't mind that he doesn't want to do much. He's very good to us, I love my father."

Puck coughed.

"What's your father like?"

Puck bent over and began to wail, and sob heavily. William recoiled at the sound, and understood.

"Please don't cry, I almost lost my dad too, before I was born."

"Almost d – doesn't count!"

"Maybe it's good to cry." William embraced him again from behind. "Mum says there is nothing wrong with crying and to never listen to anyone who says there is."

Puck tried many times to regain mastery over himself from the grief. Unable to succeed fully, he forced out the words he had slowly.

"You're a good friend, William. Do you know you are the second friend I've ever had."

"Who was the first?" William asked.

"His name was Vivi…."

"Can you tell me about him?"

The Inn was dark, but warm with the heat of stoked fires. Steiner felt some familiarity here, as it was primarily occupied by Alexandrians and Lindblumites who were in Burmecia to contribute to the rebuild effort.

The faces of humans, dwarves, other creatures similar to he were to him a sudden and welcome contrast from nothing but rats.

He still reeled from his blow. He felt as if his entire insides had been torn out of him. Trying to fall back against the familiar bolster of Alexandria as he had in all such instances he had felt dread or emptiness, he now found absolutely no comfort there. The bolster cracked and failed him.

And here came through the air his name, and then again, and a third time.

He looked up.

"Adelbert Steiner?" A portly Burmecian asked.

He glared up silently, displeased at having had his silent misery interrupted.

The rat stared back.

"To whom do I speak?" Steiner asked.

"I'm Dónal, parchment carrier in service to my Kingdom." The rat replied.

"Do you require some sort of medallion or accolade?" Steiner growled.

"I require to know if you are Adelbert Steiner."

"Yes, I am."

"I bear a parchment for you sent to your last known location within the Kingdom. I did not find you there, so I have been looking."

Dónal offered up a leather binding and Steiner snatched it. It bore the Alexandrian Royal crest.

"From whom?"

"Alexandria, more than that I do not and am not permitted to know." Dónal said. "It is not our business. I am grateful for this parchment's successful conveyance. Farewell!"

Dónal quietly stepped out of the dark room before Steiner could respond.

He opened the binding and withdrew the paper within it. His eyes picked out the seal and signature first and recognized them instantly.

Adelbert Steiner

Your presence is hereby requested forthwith within the Queen's Chamber of Alexandria Castle as soon as you are able.

You are requested to accept the Red Maltese in honor of your distinguished service to our Kingdom, and to accept the role of Supreme Commander of all forces military and Civilian within this Kingdom.

It had long been my intent to see this done since I ascended this throne, but the unfortunate circumstances regarding my general and your beloved have expedited my decision.

I will miss her, but most assuredly not as much as you do now.

I have no words to tell you how sorry I am.

I miss you, and love you very much.

Dagger

Steiner resisted the urge to rip up the letter.

How did she know?

Freya. Somehow. A carrier pigeon, a spell, intuitive connection, something. Damn her.

Their family was too close knit for Garnet not to know.

A wayward airship captain trudged and splashed through the inundated Burmecian cobblestone road followed by an entourage of his crew, laboriously pulling an immense load on a skid behind him. The drainage here had evidently not been fixed yet, and due to the unevenness of the stone, the skid had been a wagon up until a short time before when the wheels had disintegrated. Bancroft had received a tip about a carpenter who had attempted to reinstate his works in this part of the city and had been searching for him all day.

The sound of a hammer through the rain finally brought him out of that rain and through a nearby door. He smiled broadly at the warmth and dryness and the line of beautifully crafted ornamentation, bulwark, tool handles and most importantly, some sparse examples of newly built furniture along the wall.

The workshop was in total disarray, but well stocked and he recognized many tools from Lindblum, new saw blades of fine steels, files and rasps, chisels, a brand new block plane almost as long as he was, and especially a large, burly and finely polished copper-jawed vise sitting on the floor, still half way in its transport crate. All the fruits of his home city's industrial engine.

"Greetings!" He bellowed.

An old rat looked up from his work on a bell hangar.

"Yes?"

"I captain the airship El Adrel, which now lies stricken outside this city. Due to unfortunate circumstances, my entire vessel requires re-furnishing. Are you familiar with pre-aviation era Crellin style cabinetry and ornamentation my good man?"

"No." The rat replied.

"Then I shall furnish you with drawings. Bannister, Webb, Moran!"

Three of the crew dragged in the skid from the rain. Bancroft threw the burlap cover off its load. The airship's safe and its complex locking mechanism gleamed in the light of the lanterns.

"Set your price and you shall be thoroughly compensated."

The old rat stared at it flatly, and then looked to Bancroft and spread his arms.

"Lindblum's currency isn't worth much here. I may have more tools than I've ever had before, but I don't trust foreign steel or foreign craftsmanship, and right now they are useless to me anyway because this place is still a wreck. I only had enough help to finish my roof and close in the holes in the wall and windows before they were called away to somewhere else. I've been doing what I can, and waiting for them to return since."

In his hurry and single-mindedness upon his intended task, the clutter had delayed his accurate assessment of the true state of affairs. The new tools sat upon damaged workbenches, the windows were poorly boarded over. The roof joists were held in place with a great deal of falsework. Block and tackle and stone lay everywhere. Candlesticks and lamps were devoid of candles, the floor tile was cracked, smashed and even cratered in many places. Whatever he could see, he quickly discerned was made worse by what he could not see.

Bancroft shouted out the door.

"Gentlemen, come hither!"

Ten more men including the ship's chief engineer marched into the workshop.

"I see that bringing you all here was not the waste of time I feared it would be. In this instance my instinct and planning was impeccable. You shall follow this man's instructions to the letter!"

"Aye!" They all responded in not-quite-perfect unison.

Bancroft turned to the Burmecian. "Consider us in your service until this fine establishment is back in service."

At this he smiled, and turned away.

"You can come out, you know. It looks like it's finally time to finish setting this place right."

A tiny young rat slowly peeked his head out from inside of a box.

"This is Kenneth. He's my helper and my apprentice. Kenneth, it looks like these people will do anything we say."

"Will they make mama feel better?"

All were silent as stone.

"Are you sure?" Kal asked as he fussed over his wife. "If even one of that batch of turnips was rotten, I'll throw them all away and wash out the box with soap."

"I'm certain, my darling, there's no need to throw away our produce when I remember how it felt the first time."

She pressed his forepaw against her belly.

"Besides, it isn't like we didn't know this would happen…"

Kal went red and laughed softly.

"Are – are you sure we'll be able to…"

"Yes."

"I'm – gonna be a father…"

Wei began to laugh and rose against his grasp.

"You already are a father!"

"I'm going to be one again!"

Kal leapt from the bed and ran out of the house, calling for his children.

Wei looked after him as he went, and slowly got to her feet to follow him. Her stomach still churned, but the warmth and intense gratitude inside her brought stability.

Outside, Kal had already vanished into the streets just as he had the first time she had discovered she bore children. She steadied herself against the garden wall.

"Wei…"

Lyra, the wife of their neighboring household, approached her.

"Hello Lyra, I'm so happy to see…"

"Wei, you're with child!"

Wei blushed and could not resist a smile.

"How did you know?"

Lyra paused.

"Because I am too…." She instantly looked at the ground and went equally red. In an instant Wei had gently clasped both her forepaws in hers.

"I knew you and Douglas would succeed, it was just a matter of time. I am so happy for you."

Lyra's uncontrollable smile was suddenly marred by visible queasiness.

"I have a potion to help with that, come inside with me, I need some too."

"You again." Steiner made no effort to hide his dismay.

"Yes, me again." Bancroft proudly declared.

Despite knowing they would inevitably run into each other in the Inn, Steiner had tried to avoid it as one would avoid a plague.

Bancroft extended his enormous hand.

"I believe we got off on the wrong foot."

Steiner hesitated and then suspiciously took Bancroft's hand. Bancroft immediately did all the shaking.

"I already know your name and standing and you already know my standing. I am at this moment simply Bancroft Ellenroad."

"And how may I help you?" Steiner asked anything but earnestly.

"I think the question, really, is how may I help you."

Steiner raised an eyebrow.

"I do not in any way understand the circumstances surrounding your misery but I assume it is a matter most serious."

"Yes and it is none of your concern."

There was a long silence.

Steiner broke it. "I have come to question the nature of my service." He thought for a moment. "And the nature of my entire life."

Bancroft narrowed his eyes.

"Have you ever had cause to question these things?"

"My service? Continuously. My Life? Only once, when I married." The last word rolled off Bancroft's tongue with contempt.

"Why?"

"Because life is full of un-ideals."

"Only a life badly lived is full of those." Steiner insisted.

"I could not disagree more strongly." Bancroft shook his head.

"What is the nature of your service?"

"I am a captain in the fleet of the Civil Service."

"You serve your Kingdom."

"Good heavens no. Only in the loosest sense. I primarily serve myself."

Steiner's expression flooded with disgust.

"My airship performs tasks and jobs based on who is willing to pay for them. It just so happens that many of these errands, including this most recent one, have been requested and paid for by my Regency. My airship lives in Lindblum and receives all the care it requires to continue to operate there, but I must pay for that care and make the ship earn her keep. I fly under my Kingdom's flag, and am entitled to all the protections and services of that Kingdom, but my airship is my own."

"You are no different than a commoner and his market carriage!" Steiner declared, aghast. "You are paid for your service?"

Bancroft was equally aghast. "My good man, do you mean to tell me that you are not compensated for your service?"

Steiner stared at him. This man was suddenly more foreign to him than the rats of Burmecia, the monsters of the evil forest, the black mages, or those he had met in Terra.

"It is unconscionable to me how any man could demand payment from his Kingdom for his service, beyond that of shelter, sustenance, and the knowledge that that Kingdom and its lands and peoples are healthy and prosperous." Steiner firmly stated. "I will always believe this, but my recent misfortune has made me question my own priorities and if I wish to continue that service."

Bancroft did not know how to respond.

"A paragon of Virtue." He finally said, without a hint of his usual sarcasm. "Or a sap of the highest order."

Steiner was filled with rage but quieted when Bancroft brought his hand up and continued, "I am convinced it is the former."

"How could you be so cynical?" Steiner asked.

"Knight, I am a product of a supposedly enlightened. We are a culture of those who question all we see around us and, quite often, laugh at it. Many of my countrymen have grown cynical with the prosperity begotten by our industrial nation. It is the height of cruel irony, and I was not aware of how pervasive the mindset was, truly, until this very conversation. The middle class we are now seeing grow so rapidly in Lindblum is a phenomenon recorded nowhere else in recorded history."

"What is a middle class?" Steiner asked.

Bancroft was again stunned silent. He had never turned over in his mind how Alexandria essentially had none.

"The middle class is what we call commoners, as you would know them, who have achieved the ability to gain power and wealth through knowledge and merit only.

"How does one gain power or wealth with no bloodline, inheritance or highly regarded surname?"

"Good god, by their wit, their talent, their drive, their work ethic? Their ability to create what has not been created before and make it useful, the deftness of skilled trade and commerce? The natural qualities of leadership or common sense?"

"These things do not get one very far in Alexandria."

"We know they bloody don't and it's why you have always been a laughing stock to….." Bancroft abruptly stopped. "And yet we are self absorbed, sarcastic, ungrateful, and such places as Alexandria produce men with virtue and selflessness far more whole than any countryman of mine…"

Steiner looked at Bancroft ponderously.

"Tradeoffs…..there are always tradeoffs." Bancroft muttered. "Just as with an airscrew propeller, Lift means drag, more lift begets more drag."

"Adelbert Steiner, Knight of Alexandria, you are giving me much to think about."

Leading William by a forepaw, Puck found the engine room now a very different place. The machines rose as monolithic forms in almost pitch darkness devoid of detail, like tombstones. It was as the time he had wandered through the crypt under the palace.

Everything that had churned and spun and darted up and down or back and forth now lay still. The heat had given way to cold, and the dim light had given way to candlelit darkness.

Specifically one candle.

He found Giffard polishing, cleaning and attentively adjusting all he surveyed by its light. It was cold, and he visibly shivered now and again.

"Are you cold?"

Giffard was surprised to see them.

"Puck!" He knelt. "Yes, I am a little cold."

"It was so warm in here before, what happened?"

"Without coal there is no fire, without fire there is no steam, and without steam there is no warmth and we cannot heat any of the ship."

"Why is there no coal?"

"Because our captain is an idiot." Giffard grinned.

Puck eyed what was very obviously a blanket and a poorly stuffed pillow lying on the hard iron deck floor, near it an empty bowl and spoon.

"Do you want a place to stay that's warm?"

"Truthfully yes, but I doubt I could afford the Inn."

"I meant anywhere you like, even the palace."

"How?" Giffard raised an eyebrow.

Puck looked down and turned his foot apprehensively back and forth. "I'm the King of Burmecia."

William laughed.

"I had heard that." Giffard winked.

"What?" Puck asked, indignantly, disliking that Giffard now knew, no matter who told him. It always ruined the way people acted around him. "Why didn't you tell me?"

William stopped laughing and stared at Puck.

"You never asked me!" Giffard grinned.

"You mean you're actually…." William stuttered.

Puck wilted and changed the subject. "Giffard, this is my friend William. William, this is Giffard, he is one of the people who knows how to make airships fly and he's a great teacher."

"Wait a minute!" William protested.

"Can you tell us what you are doing right now, and can we help you do it?" Puck asked Giffard.

"Certainly. I'm just cleaning everything; this is something you do all the time with steam engines. The bearings where parts rub against each other or turn inside of each other are lubricated by oil that comes down through these little pipes. If any grit or dirt or even dust gets into the bearings, they will get damaged or even get hot and melt whenever the engines turn. Here, take a rag!"

"You're the King of Burmecia?" William furiously danced up and down on the spot.

"Having sworn Fealty, must I spend my life in servitude?" -Adelbert Steiner

"I know how it feels to lose a loved one." Freya placed a forepaw on Steiner's shoulder.

"With respect, I do not know how it feels to hope for or experience the return of one who is lost, either."

Freya was silenced, and held back sudden tears.

"Sir Fratley was at worst only rumored dead, and he eventually managed to find his way back to you in two ways."

"You are Family to me, Steiner. You would be whether or not we shared Knighthood."

"I am grateful, for I am now a man without a country."

Freya was horrified. "What ever do you mean?"

"Garnet has sent for me, she intends to make me the supreme commander of Alexandria."

"I would offer you my congratulations, but I fail to see how that makes you a man without a country – it is in fact quite the opposite…"

"Because I no longer feel that my life has a purpose. My purpose was always my country. Alexandria to me was never just a place, it was an idea. But now that Beatrix is gone, and all that awaits me at home is a title and no hope for any meaningful future, that idea is gone."

"You have a Queen to look after, as you always have."

"Queen be damned."

Freya was physically unbalanced by this statement.

"Steiner…"

"Garnet had no business embarking on that entire adventure. None of us did."

"But the world was changed for the better…."

"For you perhaps..." Steiner spat, bitterly. "The war got you your Fratley back. It also destroyed Alexandria, and your home, and Cleyra, and it ended so many thousands of lives, and upturned millions more. It destroyed my beloved even after it was over! If Garnet hadn't been so childish, Brahne would never have…"

Freya stared directly into Steiner's eyes.

"Yes, Steiner, she would have. Brahne was an indescribable evil trapped in a body."

"And furthermore – " Steiner continued. "I would never have been ruined to the point of learning how to question the Queen and Kingdom I made a pledge to protect without regard for myself…."

"Steiner." Freya clasped his face in her forepaws. "I am certain, quite certain, that you would have learned to do so, anyway. You were always destined to grow, because you had the capacity to do so."

"To violate one's oath is not growth."

"Yes, it absolutely can be."

"You asked me once long ago, having sworn fealty, must you spend your life in servitude? I remember then I did not know how to answer you, because in many ways I was grappling with the same question. Now I do know, the answer is absolutely not."

"And how did you arrive at this answer?"

"A great deal of my life was spent searching for something missing, as was yours. But then I found him, and then found him again after losing him, no less than twice. Fratley saved me in every way I could be saved. Fratley always taught me all he learned, and he has learned in his journey to return to me, that life is precious and not to be wasted in servitude to cold and distant ideas. An idea will never show gratitude for what you have done for it. You must serve yourself also."

"That is selfish and does not align with the principle of Knighthood."

"Steiner, if you die or become unable to continue, you can't be anything, let alone a Knight."

Steiner was silent.

"I thought Fratley lost to me, but I regained him and I shall spend every moment of my life with him forever. If I had given into my despair, he could never have found me or I him, because I would have died. When all seemed lost with his memory, I chose to stay with him because that was when we needed each other the most, not just for him but for me. My grief was such that a part of me sought to run away from him because I could not look upon what had once been. You have not lost Alexandria, it still exists. Even if your Kingdom is changing, you should not turn your back on it, not for Alexandria's sake but for yours!"

Steiner's gaze shifted from at her to through her. She felt his line of sight meet the crests of the mountains behind her.

"For that same reason, I have decided to renounce my Knighthood." She said.

Now it was Steiner's turn to be horrified.

"What?" He asked. "Unimaginable, and hypocrisy of the highest order! You are telling me to remain loyal to my cause while you abandon yours?"

Freya stared at him and then laughed sweetly, and recaptured his face in her forepaws.

"Steiner, Alexandria was everything to you?"

"Yes. To myself and to Beatrix."

"Fratley was everything to me. Always. I stumbled into my novitiate trying to fill an emptiness it could not fill, but when I found him, he did fill it. I only progressed, and became a Knight for him, and because of him."

"But why do you abandon your cause?"

"Fratley is my cause. I love loving him, and being loved by him, and being whole because of him."

Steiner's face was suddenly flooded with tears and she knew why.

"I wished for that with her." He fell to his knees. She knelt with him and drew him into a hug.

"I know what you thought of her." He heaved.

She was silent, and nestled her head into his neck.

"Your Fratley never made himself a tool of war, and he made cheer and wellness wh – wherever he went…" He continued. "I guess we all must face the fire we build."

El Adrel's first mate Trevor Bannister, navigator Jay Smar, helmsman Daniel Webb, chief engineer Isambard Forquenot, quartermaster Gianni Garibaldi and watch engineer Henri Giffard all sat in a circle around a large table in the Tavern.

The intense conversation about their mutually unexpected agreement on the beauty of Burmecian women had tapered into a dead ramble about the quality of cloth, no one knew quite how, and had then died quietly.

After a long silence, Webb spoke first.

"Gentlemen…" His voice framed a question he was hesitant to ask.

They all looked at him intently.

"Is it just me, or does our captain seem to be going thoroughly insane?"

They stared at him, and then each other, and all unanimously agreed.

"Yes, he has."

They brought their flagons together in solidarity and disappointment with a loud clank.

Gray dealt a card. "Two Moons."

Doyle laid one on the table. "Ribbon."

Gray sensed an impending loss, and took even more pleasure in it than he would have at a win.

"Do you have any idea how much I missed our card games?" He asked.

Doyle grinned. "I never actually thought we would sit in this tower again and play as we had before. That felt like a dream too far."

"You can even see the palace spire rising again. It feels almost just like before." He took Doyle's forepaw in his. "I am grateful you are still here, and that we have our families. I can't imagine how horrible it would have been for me if you were killed."

They were silent for a time, letting the pounding rain against the roof of the tower beside the outer gate fill their ears.

"It's your turn." Doyle said quietly, trying to hold back quite a lot.

Gray laid down a card depicting a formidable airship. "Viltgance."

"Ah, one of Lindblum's great fighting fleet." Doyle remarked.

"Yes. Gray said, sullenly. "One of those that didn't show up when we needed them….twice."

Doyle's eyes went wide and he looked past Gray.

"What's wrong?" Gray asked.

"Why is your card coming right at us?"

Gray whirled out of his chair.

A gilded falcon upon a gigantic shielded ram pierced the clouds over the rocky moorland far beyond the gate. The sky was full of the sound of machinery and airscrew propeller blades thrashing the air, and the thunderous blast of a steam whistle.

In Lindblum, both rats had only ever seen the famed battlecruisers from a great distance and partially hidden behind hangar doors, where they appeared as small as wooden toys. This one filled the sky and came at them faster than anything they had ever seen.

"BATTLESHIP!" They both yelled down to anyone who could hear.

Nina and Claire examined their new bars of soap just outside the small shop they had bought them from. It was deliciously fragrant.

"I always wished that soap tasted as good as it smelled." Claire sighed, causing Nina to giggle.

"What?"

Nina shook her head happily. Just then a large human barged out of a neighboring door, muttering loudly about Gin and tonic.

A loud splashing made itself present above the sound of the drizzling rain, at a different tempo than the man's steps.

"If I do not see another bottle within five minutes, I swear I shall anatomically invert."

The splashing became louder and up ran a large long-tongued creature in a chef's hat. It barreled headlong into Bancroft, and knocked him into the puddles of the street. It remained upright, and towered over him as he struggled.

When he regained his senses and looked up at the Qu, it bellowed at him.

"You want better drink than rain?"

Bancroft screamed.

"Noise not yummy for Quina Quen!"

Bancroft screamed louder and tried to get away, falling deeper into the puddle.

"Hair water resistant! You use olive oil?"

Quina tore a ball of matted, oily hair from the side of Bancroft's head, and ate it.

Bancroft went silent from equal parts shock and furious indignation as Quina decided how his hair tasted, and then continued screaming in terror.

Nina and Claire had sunk to the cobblestones, their backs against the wall of the shop with laughter, each time they were able to open their eyes to look at the scene, or each other, their laughter only grew harder and more uncontrollably buoyant. They held onto each other to stop from falling over, or from floating away as they both felt they were about to.

Bancroft's screaming tapered off and he stared at the two Cleyran maidens with the same expression of absolute horror.

They were slowly able to quiet their laughter and looked back at him, a giggle escaping every so often. Quina continued to chew on the ball of hair. Bancroft looked at Quina, then back to Claire and Nina, gestured furiously at Quina with both arms, and began screaming again.

Claire and Nina's laughter renewed even stronger than before until tears streamed down their faces.

Originally intending only to upset Bancroft, The silver eighth-piece Puck had paid Quina to run into Bancroft had far exceeded its worth in results.

He watched intently from a corner, his gaze absolutely fixated on the Cleyran girls, unable to eliminate the hot blush he felt in his face.

Bancroft stumbled into the stone laid clearing behind the city entrance. What filled the sky over Burmecia's inner gate also filled his heart.

"Ohhh, sweet shining Herald of Civilization!" He wrung his hands in the air at the immense flying battleship. "Bring me relief and passage home!"

On the signal mast between the sweeping lift airscrews flew the Regent's Banner. 085, her hull numbers identified the Eighth fleet group, Fifth ship of the line. He knew the ship well.

The battlecruiser Voltaire drew to a stop over the clearing where throngs of Burmecians, Cleyran survivors, and smatterings of every other race present for the rebuild effort pointed up and waved at her. Some already were beginning to slip blocks into place on the greased wooden runners so she could land.

Her tremendous tail boom airscrews feathered and slowly ceased to turn and as she hovered, her empennage of under-planes retracted, pivoting up against the sides of her hull, and after hovering in the air for a moment, she came down upon the carefully arranged blocks and stone. Her bottom turrets cleared the ground by mere feet, and her tail screw booms nearly threatened to collapse the inner wall such was her length.

He could already make out a very familiar face on the Admiral's sternwalk of the airship. He staggered forward into the rapidly growing crowds.

The Ninth Cid Fabool had not expected such a welcome. White paws extended upward and past the railings of his sternwalk as soon as the airship had come to rest. Happy long-nosed white faces and ears pressed inward toward him.

"Cid!"

"Welcome Regent!"

"Thank you for the relief!"

"We wish you well!"

"Have you seen our King?"

"Long live Cid the Ninth!"

Reaching one forepaw his sleeve was grabbed by twenty more.

A mother lifted her child up almost to the level of his head. "The provisions you sent us last harvest saved my little one from starvation!" She exclaimed. "Olive, this is your savior! He was a friend to our King, and a friend of Burmecia!"

Cid's grin, which had been widening, turned to a wince of intense emotions.

"I'm so happy to see all of you, too…" He said, almost in-audibly over the commotion.

And then he caught sight of a familiar face trying to push its way through the crowd, gesturing at him with gigantic hands.

Cid shook his head with dismay and acceptance. Of course Bancroft couldn't have had the decency to delay his arrival, he just had to interrupt this beautiful scene.

Cid took a great delight in watching the sideburned, melon sized head and flailing arms sink beneath the waves of beautiful white rats. He extended both arms down, and everyone who could reach him took hold. He hoisted four rats up onto the sternwalk with him by his own strength, and they all began to talk at once.

"Was your trip a safe one?"

"What can we do for you?"

"I've always wanted to meet you and express my gratitude."

"I have a new roof thanks to what you have been sending!"

"What have you brought for us!"

"I've never seen a Battleship before!"

The crowd began to cheer repeatedly. "Regent, Regent, Regent!"

The four Burmecians on the sternwalk gingerly picked up Cid by his robe, sending him into a fit of laughter, and lowered him over the railing, down into more waiting arms. Here he was supposed in the air by the crowd, and moved over its surface like a cork in the water. He was lifted right past Bancroft, who was now screaming expletives and insults at him in frustrated rage. This only flooded him deeper with laughter, which rang out over the crowd. At last he was lowered to the ground and was again surrounded by questions, excitement, and gratitude.

Being a ship of war, Voltaire had limited space for freight and goods. What space she did have was piled high with crates of coal. With the help of a thousand white paws, crates by tens and hundreds were loaded onto a seemingly endless train of wagons.

Each rolled, one by one, out through the inner gate, down the road to the outer gate, and out into the craggy moorland off the beaten path leading to the Kingdom, toward the huge tilted form of airship El Adrel against the gray sky. Cid led the way, doing the lion's share of the work pulling the first wagon over the uneven ground.

"Gingerly now, don't break the wheels!"

"Cid, thank goodness you're here."

"I received your homing pigeon." Cid smiled with exasperation.

"And not a moment too soon." Bancroft spluttered, fatigued from the walk over the moors. He had not helped pull a wagon. "It is agreeable to see you, my old friend."

Cid could not resist drawing the stout old captain into a short embrace.

"What happened to your hair?" Cid asked.

"It has been an utterly dismal time. The gin is almost gone, the ship cannot be slept in, the beds in the Inn are far too soft and I feel as if I am drowning in them whenever I try to rest, the Burmecian food has been intolerable, I have been attacked by a fearsome creature…."

"Why can't the ship be slept in?"

"Without any steam, there are no working radiators. Surely you know that."

"Surely you have heard of blankets on a bed?" Cid shook his head, his mustache bristling.

"Ah yes, that is another matter entirely."

"What do you mean?"

"We burnt all of the beds."

"You what?"

"And the blankets. And everything else on the ship, for that matter."

"Why!?" Cid demanded in a mixture of mirth and rage. He then became silent, and understood why.

"Aha, hahahahaha! BahahahahahAHAH!" Cid began to laugh.

Bancroft stared at him in dismay.

"I – I Ahahahaha! I was g – ahahaha!" The Regent's voice cracked. "I was going to ask how you made it here, but you Hahahah! You just gave me all the explanation I needed!"

Bancroft became incensed and was going to reply, but was stopped as the convulsing man on the floor began to point toward the gin cabinet along the bridge office wall. In that instant he hated his old friend, as he had found himself doing many times before.

"W – why didn't you burn that?"

"A Lindblumite's gin cabinet is his castle." He replied, defensively.

"Coal is all well and good, but we can't take off until the ship is righted." Bancroft pounded his fist on the table.

"I am in agreeance." The Chief engineer added. "The last airscrew-masted airship that tried to lift herself from an angle like this ended up falling onto her side."

"Nicodemus, I believe." Bannister said.

"I don't think that jib crane the Burmecians have could right a ship a third this size."

Cid laughed. "Gentlemen, have none of you ever looked closely at the rams on my battlecruisers?"

The crowds were not nearly as large as they had been when Voltaire arrived, but a large amount of Burmecians and Cleyrans had come out over the moors, following the battlecruiser as she slowly made her way toward El Adrel, and watched with interest.

El Adrel had landed broadside to Burmecia and tilted to her starboard side, away from the city. Voltaire took her place between the city and El Adrel, and hovered in the air, her rear airscrews turning with their blades feathered. She had dropped immense chains, and the crew of El Adrel had drug them over to their stricken ship and laid them out, attaching them to slings and tying these, and rope and cable, to bollards, cleats, irons and strong points on the ship's superstructure.

High above in the breeze, Voltaire's airmen draped the chains over the top of her shielded bow adjacent the ram, and began securing the links to the sturdy iron ring built through it. The warship illustrated herself to all those present to be as versatile a tool as a pocketknife with fold out additions, while seldom seen in use; every ship of her class had this dragging-iron under the ram bow.

The chains hung in the air, limply.

Cid stood commandingly atop El Adrel's tilted flying bridge with semaphore flags. Bancroft held a spyglass up to his eye, and Bannister stood ready at the polished bronze signal cannon.

"Everyone ready on my command!" Cid raised his fist.

A telegraph lamp flashed back from Voltaire's bridge, the great battleship hung at the ready and bristled with power.

"And, Heave!" Cid shouted, raising the flags high above his head. Bannister pressed the lit slow-match into the cannon's touchhole and it went off with a bang that knocked everybody but Cid off their feet. From the raised muzzle, a green flare soared high into the gray sky and exploded in a shower of brilliant emerald light.

Voltaire's telegraph lamp flashed four times and the ship gave four whistle blasts, she was filled with the sound of ringing engine telegraphs end to end and the sound of her beating propeller blades changed as they pitched to reverse and the steam engines pulsed. She tilted her lift airscrews back on their trunions as far as they would go. The battlecruiser bore down against the load, the chains pulled tight in the air.

The crowds began to cheer at the incredible sight, but their cheering was drowned out by the noise of power and load.

Creaking and groaning filled the air. Voltaire strained at the chains, the chains protested and shifted, El Adrel's hull groaned.

Voltaire's thrust screws churned faster and faster. A white plume of steam erupted from the top of the ship as the stokers built fires that came up against the boiler safety valves, trying to get every ounce of power she had to give.

The telegraph lamp flashed.

"Voltaire reports full power astern!" Bancroft hissed with invigoration.

The battlecruiser slowly fishtailed as she pulled at the chains. The sound of her engines was so intense that is shook the ground.

It was so subtle that at first they didn't feel it, but the crowds began to cheer. El Adrel slowly but surely began to tilt upright.

"Lessen, Slack off!" Bancroft shrieked. "We can't have her going over the other way!"

Cid lowered his flags to an angle, turning his head to the side toward El Adrel's bow, checking her angle against the horizon.

Voltaire again rang with engine telegraph gongs, and her engines backed off. The jet of steam from the safety valves intensified as the throttle valves on her main engines were choked back, the plume of steam towered hundreds of feet into the air over her and sounded like a continuous cannon blast.

Underneath El Adrel, crewman and civilians alike piled blocks and wedges into the opening gap under the hull near the keel as the airship slowly came up right as they had been carefully instructed to do so beforehand, so she would not settle again once Voltaire stopped pulling.

The straighter El Adrel sat up, the lower Cid dropped his flags, and the less furiously Voltaire pulled against the chains.

...

Four of the airship's men and two Burmecians had run completely out of blocks and broken off rocks and stone with a pick axe and shoved them under the blockwork they had set up as the hull inched up and up.

"Wedges, wedges!" They called, furiously looking for any wooden wedges or stops on their wagons and finding none. They all stopped to look at the ship's cook, who stared back at them dumbly, and then ran off.

"Where's he gone!"

No sooner had he vanished behind a crag, than he returned with a stack of finely framed paintings.

"Where did you…"

He furiously rammed them into the gaps.

...

The Horizon drew nearly level across El Adrel's bow. Cid knew she could very easily fall all the way over if he did not remove the tension at the right time. Too early and she could roll back the way she had come from and crush everyone underneath her, and perhaps even fall on her side. Every bit of experience he had with the dynamics of large flying machines and all the extraneous circumstances he had faced with them came into play here.

Picking the moment, he brought his flags level and waved them sideways.

The telegraph lamp on Voltaire's bridge flashed on and stayed lit. His crew had maintained impeccable readiness; furious and instant ringing of telegraphs before the lamp shutters were even open, the blades of the thrust airscrews instantly feathered before the sound of the engines died away, the lift airscrews quickly turned forward and drew plumb-level.

The chains grew slack. El Adrel stopped moving with a barely detectable lean to the right remaining, balancing almost perfectly on her keel and with only a fraction of her weight leaning upon the blocks on her starboard side.

The cheers erupted from the airships this time before the crowds.

Voltaire let howl her whistle and whoever was on the steam valve refused to let it go.

Voltaire sat heavy and still again upon the slip blocks, and the landing area was again alive with activity. This time not so much huge throngs as small crowds, groups of people, individuals and families and couples watching, children playing. The battlecruiser's crew clambered about inside and outside their airship, making sure she had not overextended her engines, making adjustments, washing the hull and booms and superstructure.

Cid was still surrounded by Burmecians and Cleyrans, as well as those from Lindblum who were still enwrapped in the restoration of Burmecia. Most of them were very eager to go home. The familiar faces of Steiner and Freya stood nearest, Fratley stood against her. Wei and Kal had brought their children. All listened intently to him.

"Voltaire will go on to Alexandria and then return here with further relief supplies on the way back to Lindblum. I will remain here until El Adrel is ready to depart and take my leave on her. Someone has to make sure that Bancroft doesn't drunkenly run her into a mountainside on our way home."

"You're right." Smiled Steiner.

"Young Adelbert, how I have missed you! What are you doing here? I expected Voltaire's crew would find you in Alexandria! How is Garnet?"

No sound came from Steiner's mouth when he opened it to reply.

Others quickly overtook him.

"We're so glad you are going to stay here with us. What can I do for you?" One rat asked.

"Do you need a place to stay?" Asked another.

"Come to think of it, I do. A battleship has very Spartan accommodations." Cid replied, causing an uncontrollable grin in who had asked him.

"Steiner!" He gestured to the Voltaire. "Do you need a way home?"

"I – had planned to go on foot. I know room for passengers is at a premium on a ship of war."

"Look harder."

It took Steiner another glance, and a moment to realize that the flags flying from the signal mast were the Alexandrian Royal banner, and a pendant bearing the crest of the Knights of Pluto.

"You shall have the Admiral's quarters."

He recognized the beginnings of protest in Steiner and raised his hand.

"I insist. It is the very least I can do."

Steiner pondered for a long time.

"I accept."

With the Alexandrian banners flying, Voltaire departed into the rainy gray painted sky, and with her departed Adelbert Steiner.

They watched the ship until she had nearly disappeared, and then went into the city. The small crowd that followed him slowly broke up with fond words and gestures as those who comprised it began to return to their work, or to their homes.

Wei lifted up her youngest daughter and Cid gave her a kiss on both cheeks before the family bid them farewell.

Soon all who remained with him were Freya and Fratley.

As they went, Cid surveyed all that was before him, and his expression turned from resolute, to wistful, to ponderous, to grim, to miserable.

"This is far worse than Lindblum ever was, even now."

"Yes and, despite your help, our people lack direction because of the death of our King. People have finally begun to accept he isn't coming back, and the grief in the air hangs colder than the rain in winter. It has made everything almost pointless for them."

"I am no stranger to that feeling. Your King Artemus was a dear friend to me, Freya. I miss him more each day, and it makes matters worse knowing that I killed him."

"Brahne and Odin killed him, Cid."

"If I had mobilized the fleet quickly instead of sitting on my laurels, Brahne would have never had the chance. He would be alive, as would the people of Cleyra. The blame lies with my complacency."

Neither Freya nor Fratley could disagree with him.

"What of Puck?" Cid asked, sadly. "He is your King, now."

Freya and he looked at each other and passed a million unspoken words.

"He still has a childhood to live out and is intent on doing so." She replied quietly.

"And that is understandable."

He stopped as they went under the arch of a still ruined bridge, and took a proper look at them both.

"Freya, you look completely different from when I last saw you."

"I haven't the reason for my usual garb anymore."

"That's not what I meant." He smiled. "You don't look weary anymore. The whole time I knew you, I never knew you to look so relaxed, your eyes are different, your stride is different…"

Freya pressed closer to Fratley and laid her head on him. "It is because blessings are as tangible as sunbeams, Regent. And I have received one."

"Well now, then this must be exactly who I suspected it to be. We haven't been properly introduced. Freya, is this the one who your endless search for brought me to my Kingdom? I had heard only murmurs that you had regained him…"

Fratley bowed to him.

"Sir Fratley, it is gratifying to finally meet you, and to know you have been found."

"Not half as gratifying as it is to be found, Regent."

"Both of you call me Cid, damnit!"

He continued looking them over.

"I am so happy to see you together at last, and I envy you."

"Why?"

"Love of someone lost and regained is far more powerful than any other. Love unencumbered the matters of state surrounding you is love as it is meant to be felt. These are things I will only know, and never experience myself. Walk in green fields, touch in shadow, laugh in light. This is the stuff of life."

Freya and Fratley said nothing, only looked at each other.

"There is a matter of some importance I must speak with you about."

"Anything, Cid." Freya replied.

"Bringing coal to my idiot friend and his airship was not the main reason I came here. It merely gave me a date to do so."

They nodded.

"First I wanted to see the restoration for myself, secondly I have a promise I want to make to the new King, and all who serve him, and a gift to give. Do you know where Puck might be found?"

"No, we never do."

"I see. Then please find him, if you can, and I will try as well. I wish to arrange a meeting at the palace between he and my fleet admiral at the soonest possible time; he stayed behind in Burmecia with me when Voltaire left. You would not have seen him, he is a very quiet man. I wish for you both to be present at this meeting."

"We will try to find Puck."

"Thank you." Cid nodded. "And if by some misfortune you cannot find him before my fleet admiral and I return to Lindblum aboard El Adrel, please convey this gift to him yourselves."

Cid withdrew a small jeweler's box from his breast pocket and opened it. Inside lay a small blue stone.

"If he can be found and the meeting can be arranged, please bring this with you. We will present it together."

"What is it?"

"This is a twinstone." Cid explained. "A Cleyran survivor gave this and its sister stone to me as a token of appreciation. Appreciation for what I still do not know. It will seek to find its sister in times of trouble, and can carry messages across impossible distances to the other stone no matter the distance between them. My fleet admiral keeps the sister stone, if Puck or this Kingdom ever again needs my help, all he has to do is call for help through this one."

Despite the work still continuing, the palace had been transformed. The shining new pearly stoned roof outdid even its former grandeur, the old one had not shewn so bright and new for hundreds of years since its last renovation, in a time long vanished from living memory. The spire again pierced the foggy sky.

Everyone including Freya had become so used to the gaping hole in the roof, the original warm and dry torch-lit darkness of the interior was at this moment less familiar.

The statues and masonry carvings and smooth floor flickered in the ancient orange light, and the smoke made the aethereal light from the few stained glass windows into well defined, subdued rainbow beams.

Freya followed Fratley and led Puck by the hand to the base of the statue of the Protector, where hushed figures waited in the shadows. One figure became very quickly recognizable as Cid. Another made itself out to be a dejected and restless Bancroft. The third was large and unfamiliar.

"Lord Puck." Cid bowed.

"It's just Puck, ya know."

Cid laughed. "I am so glad to see you. How are you?"

"I miss my father." For a fraction of a second, Puck lost his composure, and then suddenly regained it. "But that's more than can be said for a lot of others here."

"I miss him too. Quite badly." Cid nodded. "And we are here to give you something I wish I could have given him."

Freya withdrew the small box from her downy white tunic and gave it to Puck.

"What is it?" He asked.

Cid turned to the other figure, who had been looking up quietly at the gigantic stone likeness of the Protector. A truly immense man with a long, dark, thick beard and a brow so deep, his eyes could barely be seen in the dim light. His face was worn and harsh and furrowed, but radiated a peculiar gentleness from a place far behind its exterior. He towered a head higher than Cid, and was as broad-shouldered as a cannon carriage.

To all of them, he seemed as large as the statue.

"This is Kurn. He is my fleet admiral." Cid introduced him.

"That is a twinstone." Kurn spoke.

Puck fondled the small blue stone and then asked, "Where is its twin?"

Kurn withdrew an identical stone from his pocket. "I possess it."

"What's it for?"

"It is for if you, or anyone you love, or your Kingdom, ever need help."

"I don't understand."

"Watch."

Kurn moved the stone he held to his lips, and whispered something very quietly to it.

It began to glow, and it drew a pencil-thin blue line of light through the air to the stone Puck held, which also glowed. He heard his stone whisper, and held it to his ear.

"Long live the King." He heard Kurn's voice near his ear as if Kurn himself had placed his mouth inches from it.

The stones remained connected by the line of light, even when Puck tried to pass his forepaw through it.

"These stones are one, separate only in body." Kurn explained. "As you see, one stone will always point the way to the other. All you need do is ask for help, and I will hear you, and be guided to you no matter the weather or distance."

"These stones carry our voices?" Puck asked.

"Our feelings." Kurn responded.

Puck again tried to grasp the tendril of light.

"You try." Kurn quietly encouraged.

Puck looked at his stone for a long time. So long, that to all present the rain against the palace roof began to deafen them.

The look of intense sorrow again crossed Puck's face and he lifted the stone to his mouth and nearly kissed it.

The line of light between the stones was suddenly as a lightning bolt. Kurn inhaled sharply as the one in his hand exploded into an electric blue star that lit the palace brighter than the sun on the clearest day. The bones in his hand were visible. Everyone recoiled and shielded their eyes.

"I want my father back!" Puck's voice echoed up into the high vaulted ceiling as the blue explosion faded.

Kurn had thrown the stone clear of him. It lay on the floor, it's blue glow still radiating in the darkness. The flesh of his hand in which he had held it smoked and sizzled as if he had stuck it into a cooking pot.

All present stared in shock.

"I'm – I'm sorry!" Puck pleaded. "I didn't even say anyth…"

"I know you didn't." Kurn gritted his teeth and shook his smoking hand, trying to cool it in the air. "There is nothing to be sorry for, little one."

The silence was deafening. Kurn's hand eventually cooled, and he picked up the stone, touching it gingerly first to see if it too had cooled.

Freya was overwhelmed with the desire to go to Puck and comfort him, and she did so. Looking at the child King, and at Kurn, she felt a schism in the air.

She drew Puck's head near her bosom and he did not resist, and shut his eyes. She gently stroked his hair.

"With respect, Admiral…" Freya began. All turned to look at her.

"The Twinstone is as impressive an item as it is beautiful a gesture, it very clearly serves its purpose. But you will forgive me if I am suspicious of how a Human, with no ties to our Kingdom or peoples, and who was uninvolved with any defense of Burmecia or Cleyra, would respond to a call for help."

She looked directly at Cid.

"We could not rely on you last time, and look at what was just sent between those stones. There is far more of it that you cannot hear or see or feel in this place because of that."

A nervous silence prevailed. Cid shifted on his feet with extreme and visible discomfort and apprehension, his eyes darting between she and Kurn.

"You are right to say these things." Kurn replied, quietly. He then turned. "Nella?" He asked into the dark.

Before his voice had finished echoing in the cavernous space, they heard soft footsteps.

"Please allow me to show you that my interests in your people and my understanding for them is genuine."

A beautiful white rat drew towards them. Such was her beauty that all those present widened their eyes to better see her in the dimness.

Her face was beautiful; the subtle sweep of her nose was framed by large soulful deep eyes and delicate upturned eyebrows. She trailed long, healthy, clean hair, much lighter than their people's usual golden blonde but not quite the moonlit white of Freya's. Her hands and feet were small, her tail was short and only its tip ran along the floor. She had the shape of a fertility idol; large breasts and deep thighs overwhelmed her silken gown and filled the air around her with softness. Her skin was very fair and reflected the torch light like water.

For a moment, Freya was overwhelmed with a childish worry that she would lose Fratley to her.

The beautiful rat went directly to Kurn's extended arm and pressed herself to him.

It was Freya who spoke first.

"You're Cleyran!"

She smiled and nodded at Freya.

"You're correct." Kurn replied, wrapping his other arm around her. "And Nella is my wife."

All present stared.

He continued. "I found her dying of thirst in the Vube desert while the fleet was searching for survivors from what the mad idiot queen did to the tree. Before I met her, I walked this world as a dead man. I restored her to health in body, and she planted in me a garden which still grows. She has softened Lindblum with her presence. She has taught and is still teaching me her ways. I cannot be without her. I cannot even be out of sight of her. Another room is too far away. Without Nella I would die a thousand deaths."

"Remember that petition I mentioned, about ending the Festival of the Hunt?" Cid asked Bancroft.

"All life is to be cherished." Nella spoke in a soft, light voice. "This is what my people believe, it is what I know to be true. No being that feels should ever be made to suffer, or lose another it cares for."

"And to think that a people such as this, who produced a woman such as you, were almost erased." Kurn spoke softly, but his voice ran thick with rage. "So yes, Freya Crescent of Burmecia, I do care, immensely, about both your peoples, as Cleyrans originated here. I am sworn to protect Burmecia as I am sworn to protect Lindblum and I will come if called as fast as airscrew propeller or my own feet, if necessary, will carry me."

Freya was utterly satisfied. She bowed to Kurn.

"Damn!" Fratley brought his foot down hard on the floor. Everyone turned to him.

"What's wrong, my love?" Freya asked.

"Forgive me, forgive my absent mindedness!" Fratley clenched his fists.

"What's to forgive, dear boy?" Bancroft finally spoke up.

Fratley stepped toward Nella and looked right into her eyes. "Nella, the great Tree of Cleyra has been reborn."

At first it did not register, but suddenly her eyes grew wide and shimmered in the torchlight.

"What?" Kurn asked, stepping toward him with her.

"What!?" Exclaimed Cid.

"I – is this true?" Nella began to weep.

Bancroft, Freya and Puck all nodded in confirmation.

"We were there." Puck said.

"We all saw it happen." Smiled Freya

"I almost ran into it with my airship." Bancroft excitedly declared, causing the ecstatic Cid to shoot him a furious glance.

Nella was overwhelmed and sunk her face into the folds of Kurn's jacket collar. He kissed downward onto her forehead and held her tightly as she cried into him.

Cid jigged up and down on the spot. "I will ask how this happened later, oh how furious I am to not have been able to see the reactions of the survivors or the Burmecian people when you told them! Please tell me, tell me what was it like when you did?"

Fratley stared at Cid, nonplussed.

"Nobody told any of you?" He asked.

Bancroft, Freya and Puck all went red in the face.

"Wait, you didn't tell them?" Fratley asked indignantly. "I'm the first to tell any of them?"

"I forgot." Freya said, abruptly biting her lip at what she had said.

"So did I." Said Puck.

Fratley raised both his forepaws in front of his face and shook them.

Freya's eyes shut against a tide of intense laughter. She struggled to hold it back but it began to escape as squeaks. Eventually her dam of composure broke and the palace was flooded with her laughter even more wholly than it had been a short time before with blue light from the twinstone.

"Oh Frabjous Day!" Bancroft exclaimed sheepishly underneath the buoyant joyful sound, breaking the spell.

He looked at she and Fratley. "Everyone knows you two were too busy locked in the throws of passionate love, and the better for it." He turned to Cid. "My lord regent I suppose one could say that I forgot as well due to drinking myself into a violent stupor over the – incident….regarding the amount of fuel on shipboard, and having no bed to sleep on it slipped my mind. At least these two had a bed to do all that sleeping and quite a bit more in, they should have told everyone at this point due to the larger proportion of rest and relaxation!" Bancroft stamped his foot with emphasis.

"I am a man of institution and of civilization, I am a man of perpetual indignance and indulgence, I am of port and city creature comforts, hot and cold running water, furnishings and transit. I am truly ill equipped to be of any use to a place as close to the raw nature of things as this, especially while it is recovering from a war."

Cid had not heard him, and was bounding away across the palace.

Bancroft hurriedly turned to the others and opened his hands. "My lord regent is a level thinker when it counts but when frivolity and joy ggrrrrips him, also a man of passion and impulse, we must give chase!"

Bancroft did so at a tremendous rate of speed.

Puck followed suit.

Fratley took Freya by the hand and began to run, she followed step, but lagged behind him. He could always run faster than her, but she looked back over her shoulder. He sensed her dragging on him and slowed, and followed her gaze.

Kurn and Nella had stayed behind, and he was in the midst of trapping her laughter in a deep kiss.

Freya, Fratley and Puck trailed Bancroft through a busy market in a square to a small monastery at its edge still covered in scaffolding.

Cid had gone up the belltower, and stood perched on the roof outboard of the bell gallery with the sheave rope in his hands. He furiously rang the bell, back and forth, with his entire body weight.

"Town Meeting!" He shouted down. "TOWN MEETING!"

People from the market and all around had heard the bell and gathered to watch the strange spectacle, and those in the tower, including the bellkeeper came out as well.

"The tower is still under repair! What are you doing up there?" The rat cupped his paws and shouted up.

"Reporting by airship, The Great Tree of Cleyra lives!" Cid screamed down so powerfully his voice split.

"He speaks the truth!" Freya and Fratley echoed in the crowd.

Those gathered first began to dumbly look at each other, and then express disbelief, then shock, then joy. Cleyran survivors were easily visible by the intensity of these reactions.

"TOWN MEETING BLAST IT ALL!" Cid screamed.

Then, the bell hangar beams broke. Cid, the beams, the sheave wheel and the gigantic bell disappeared from view and went crashing down the tower, to the horror of all who watched. On the way down, plumes of masonry dust issued from the windows at each story, one after the other.

They all found him in a crumped heap in the base of the tower with the Bell, in a pile of masonry and beams. His arm was sprained, and he was laughing.

Bancroft looked to Freya and Fratley as those who had beaten them inside came to Cid's assistance.

"I will reiterate, our Regent is a man of passion, and imagination. It is why the star of Lindblum shines so brightly against the constellation of this world" He said to them, beaming at the Cid.

William found Puck in the graveyard.

As he approached, he saw Puck had made something in the overhang of the entrance to an ancient crypt vault.

"Whatchya doing, King Puck?"

Puck startled and whirled and placed himself instinctively between William and the curiosity. His face was wet and red, he had been crying. For a moment it seemed to William as if he would defend what was behind him to the death.

"What's the matter?"

Puck fell to his knees. "Don't – don't call me that, I hate it. I just call me Puck, like before."

"What's that?" William pointed behind him.

"It's nothing." Puck quavered.

"Can I see?"

"No."

"I can kind of already see."

"Then why did you ask?"

"Who's the guy in the pointy hat?"

Puck fell. He was unable to even stand against the force of his own grief.

William saw the shrine that Puck had built in its entirety. A tall and regal Burmecian that he recognized as the now lost King only due to what his parents had shown him was depicted on paintings, a drawing he was sure Puck had made himself, the front faces of the onepiece coins of their Kingdom, a small wooden carving chopped away from a larger piece, and a shockingly realistic print from another machine he had seen in Lindblum, a camera. There were buttons and marbles, a wooden dragon, a belt buckle, a lovingly unfolded letter.

Next to this were more pictures, almost entirely drawings and some quite beautiful, of a black mage in a pointed hat. Under these lay an obviously faked ticket to an Alexandrian play.

"Your dad and, is this…..Vivi?"

"Wh – when I'm King…" Puck gulped. "When I'm King, I'll make a monument for them. It will be taller than the whole s – sky…"

"No, Puck. This is perfect, this is more perfect than any monument."

Puck wailed. William held him tightly.

"And you already are King."

"No. No!" He protested. "I don't care about war, or spears, or fighting, or money, or power, or any of that stuff a Burmecian king should care about! I don't care! I'd be such a bad King, I only care about dad and Vivi!"

"And that is why you will make such a good King…" William declared softly.

Bancroft, having adequately flooded himself with alcohol, stumbled into the old Inn.

On the way down the long, fragrant, dim hallway toward his room, he was arrested by a sound completely unfamiliar to him. He knew Kurn and Nella had been staying here, but he had now evidently discovered the exact room.

Behind the door he heard them making love. The heavy breathing could only belong to someone with Kurn's stature, and Nella's gasps and moans and squeaks and cries were unmistakable. The sound of blankets being thrashed around and bodies finding any way they could to be closer together was interrupted briefly and sporadically with her giggles and I love yous.

He didn't want to listen, but he was rooted to the spot by the utterly foreign sounds and emotions, that poured out from their tightly shut door.

He became lost in thought. He thought himself across a great distance. His mind flew over the Vube desert, across the mountain range, over Qu's marsh and through the Falcon's gate to his beloved towering glistening Lindblum. He flew through the window of the small and stately manor house he occupied and found his wife furiously folding and stacking the clothes from the wicker hamper, fussing over frayed or threadbare collars, and talking angrily to herself.

If one married for practicality and because one regarded a future full of endless arguments and perpetually unrestful mediocrity as a fair price to pay for that practicality, as he had always been taught, his marriage to Agatha Bettencourt was a benchmark. After their first three weeks, sleeping in the same wide bed with a clear mile between them had proven far too close for comfort.

Moving briskly to separate bedrooms thereafter, the first arrangement did not work much better due to the bedrooms being on the same floor and the arguments and criticism that resulted when they saw each other every morning. It was only after he had moved to the first floor and she the third, as his knees hurt him on long flights of stairs, that sufficient distance for diplomacy had been achieved.

Agatha quite often beat him with her purse. He had taken to throwing her up flights of stairs shrieking like an alley cat when arguments became heated and he became vexed. He had stopped the practice when she had discovered being at the top of the stairs afforded her an advantage and one day their library's heaviest bookshelf came back down the stairs at him, followed by a grand piano and a fully occupied china cabinet. From that moment on, he had only ever thrown her down stairs.

The only physical contact they had ever shared was in a fight, or to help each other dress in absurd and expensive clothing for an expensive outing lined with superficialities; clothing requiring as many adjustments and assembly at the back as the machinery in a factory.

He hated his wife. He had married her because he hated her. For that is what the institution of marriage was, to find someone you could hate and be hated by in a tolerable manner and accept the sentence of living in the same house for financial gains and the production of offspring.

At least, that was what he had always been told.

His mind was ripped from Agatha's folding, out the window, away from Lindblum and back across the distance to his body by a powerful sound.

Nella was screaming. His mind crossed and could not understand what he was hearing. He had only ever heard someone scream in pain before, but this was the opposite. Her voice was full of joy and relief, and he heard the wet smack and hushed whines of those screams plugged by a kiss. More intense thrashing, it rattled the door and the floor.

Bancroft was not aware that a female of any kind could be as happy as Nella sounded. Gasping and Moaning tapered into whispers, which then turned into soft crying. He heard Kurn whispering too, but his voice was so deep he could not discern about what.

"I wish we could have children…" He heard her say, tearfully.

Bancroft and his wife had always hated children.

"There, there see?" Puck pointed furiously and William tried to follow his finger.

"I can't see, the leaves are in the way." William whispered frustratedly. The same ivy on the wall that concealed them also blocked their view.

William inched his way higher to a better vantage point, and gasped.

"Those are Cleyrans?"

"The Cleyran Dancing Maidens." Puck proudly whispered back.

Sharon, Shannon, Claire and Nina were practicing dance under the arches of the monastery. Their bare backs and bellies instantly caught his eye. His gaze became absolutely fixated on one of the four, with the darker hair.

"Is that one Nina?"

"Which one, let me see." Puck clambered higher.

"Ow, my foot!" William winced.

"Sorry." Puck peered out. "The dark haired one? No, no that one's Claire. Nina is over there on the side."

"Claire?" William asked.

"Yes, Claire."

"Claire."

"Yes!"

"Claire is so beautiful…"

William felt his face burning in a blush. He was unable to look away to see Puck's face the same color.

"Nina is my favorite." He stammered.

"What if they see us?" William asked, embarrassed.

"Then we jump, and die like men!"

"Do you think…"

"What?"

"Do you think that would make them laugh?"

Puck's blush intensified so much it ran to his eartips.

"I – I hope so…"

"Do you think we should do it now then?"

Freya had found the letter just under their door. Wei and Kal had asked she and Fratley to come over for a dinner at their dwelling whenever they wished. They had done so that very evening.

The steak dinner had filled them wholly and as they sat contentedly in the dim candlelight, Wei softly put her children to bed.

"We wanted you to come to properly express our gratitude." Kal said.

"How do you mean?" Freya asked.

"Zidane saved me from certain death when that statue nearly fell on me." Kal related. "But you fought to save this Kingdom, and our King, and all of us. You fought fiends of the mad queen, and that awful Alexandrian swordswoman. Without you both fighting for all of us, neither of us would have escaped to Lindblum." His voice dropped to a near whisper. "And our children would have died before they were born. And I would have never have seen their little faces." He sniffled. "You are as much responsible for the survival of this family as Zidane is."

"I only fought at Cleyra, and I lost." Fratley spoke up.

"Cleyra's people are our people." Wei answered. "You both saved us, you both tried to save all of us."

The husband and wife stood beside each other across the table.

"Thank you, Dragon Knights, for saving us, and for all you have done for who we love and cherish." They said in unison, and both bowed.

Freya and Fratley were calmly speechless.

"We have come to understand a part of your story, and we are so grateful you are together. We wish to express our gratitude to you and celebrate your having each other with these housewarming gifts.

Freya and Fratley stood up.

"We insist." Kal stated.

Wei presented a small box. "For you, sir Fratley. Come with me, for now it's a secret."

Kal lifted his. "For you, Lady Freya. And the same applies."

Fratley followed Wei where she led him, into a small adjoining room. Freya followed Kal to the darkest corner of the room.

Freya took the tiny box gingerly in her forepaws and opened it. Inside lay a pink ribbon of the most delicate silk she'd ever touched, and it was all too familiar to her.

"A wedding ribbon for my tail." She blushed and gave into a total grin.

"For when that day inevitably comes." Kal smiled. "And I am sure you will agree it is a welcome replacement for the grief ribbon you used to wear."

Fratley opened his small box and withdrew a resplendent ruby red glass vial.

"What is it?" He asked.

"It's an aphrodisiac potion, with magical essence." Wei blushed, and so did he.

"How do I…"

"It's not for you, give it to Freya."

"I thought this gift was for me!" Fratley laughed.

Wei giggled and put her hands to her face, and turned to make sure no one was listening.

"It is a gift for you, just trust me." She cast a powerful glance at him. "Have her drink it, it tastes wonderful, it only takes a few minutes for it to work."

"How well does it work?" He asked, intrigued.

"It's very powerful." She bit her lip. "I love it. Kal gives it to me whenever he knows he won't be going anywhere the next day."

"I look forward to seeing how close it brings Freya and I together."

"It will bring you very close. But Fratley…"

"Yes?"

"You must see that she only ever uses it inside your home. Never ever out of doors." She whispered, her eyes flashing.

"Why?"

"Because it is Stardust, and it has a way of returning from whence it came, and your beautiful Freya already shimmers like a new Star."

His sprained arm in a crude wrapping and wooden splint, Cid set himself upon the wrecked stone wall that opened a gaping hole into a building at the edge of the district. He had bargained for a small wagon and loaded it with mortar, a trowel, chisels, a hammer, new stone, and whitewash if he got that far.

One by one, the stones sat in place. As the wall grew higher, so did his spirit and he found innovative ways of lifting himself to the next course.

When surprised Burmecians found him working all alone and expressed their surprise, he laughed.

When a woman identified him and all the others reacted in horror and concern, he laughed harder.

"This is not the first time I've played the role of city builder, or re-builder for that matter!"