A/N: About time I ground this chapter out. Not too much to say about this one, really. Just that I'm a sentimental dorkus and got all wibbly-eyed while writing it. ;O Soundtrack is: "1000 Words (piano version)" and/or "Yuna's Ballad." And, um… you're not really supposedto get weird vibes from this, but if you do… ::sheepish grin::

World Without End

When Lenne and Shuyin finally faded at the peak of Vegnagun's corpse, Leblanc turned with Nooj and Gippal and began to limp down the path back to earth. The pain that shot up her leg gave her pause, made her wonder what things might be like right now were she fatally wounded or something. To Leblanc it wasn't so terrible, and this was surprising. The thought of the others in the same place? Suddenly unbearable. By then Vegnagun's head was only a memory.

Somehow the slope was steeper than it had been coming up. When she stumbled in her growing haste, Nooj caught her by the arm and held her until she could right herself. She answered with a smile, but without a blush. Their eyes locked, and Nooj's looked very, very different. By then Vegnagun's torso was only a memory.

The green-bronze discs in the sky left behind, Leblanc trod on. This pocket of the Farplane was corrupted; it had to be, with its air mottled brown and black and gray like a dying thing. A tapestry of desiccated autumn into winter into spring into the summer of our eternal Calm. By then Vegnagun's leg was only a memory.

Climbing down began to wear at the last stubborn sinews of Leblanc's strength and she knew it showed. She knew it showed in the same way that she knew how Logos might try to peek through the rips in her dress if he were with them, and she knew it in the same way that she knew they would both be there at the road's end, frayed but far from finished. By then Vegnagun's tail was only a memory.

You couldn't even see it anymore. It was like it never existed or some other apt description, but it wasn't Leblanc's job to think it better that way. Leave that to Yuna or Nooj or the fallen Baralai on Gippal's back. Behind her somewhere a tired Rikku groped for something to say in a weak little voice, and suddenly she felt like bursting into tears and didn't understand why.

The party stopped at the bottom. Logos struggled to his feet at the sight of her, nearly doubling up at some unseen pain. Ormi's face was dirty and streaked with blood. Their frantic exclamations of relief and heaven-directed gratitude got all tangled up in this indecipherable knot, but that alone was enough to make her forget about the one in her throat.

"Boss—!"

"Are you hurt?"

"We was so afraid you was—"

"You shouldn't be walking on that leg—"

"I-if anything'd— I dunno what I—"

"Your dress is absolutely shredded—"

"Boys, boys! You know better than that," Leblanc replied, wagging an admonishing finger. Her hand was shaking.

Nooj looked to Baralai, disoriented but on his feet now, then back up at the mess of floating silver rocks, frowning. "Let's keep going."

Everyone else marched on ahead. Nooj didn't look back and Leblanc wouldn't have seen if he had from her place beside Ormi's head and Logos's chest. They stood there long after the rest had gone in this silent, three-way embrace, listening to air and stillness and breathing while the carcass of a giant grinned at them from the distance.

None of them spoke.

fin