Author's Note: Much like with the last chapter, I'm taking the narrative liberty of yoinking Nia from the post-game content and putting her into the main game, because why not?

xxx

/Time: During Chapter 3, during Ouroboros's First Trek through the Urayan Tunnels/

The Ruins of Seebu were oddly named, Mio couldn't help but think.

Having settled down at a campsite within a hollowed-out cylinder (no, not a cylinder: a ruined building, with a style unlike any she had seen before), Mio found herself gazing at the distant staircase that hung limply in the air, shattered long ago. Stairs are supposed to lead somewhere. Where did those lead to? And what had been the purpose of this place? Anything designed like this...had to have had a builder, right?

"Mio?"

Mio blinked, pulled from her internal musings by Taion. "Yes?"

"You seemed...lost in thought." The man's eyes were furrowed, brows barely hidden behind the rims of his glasses; yet despite everything, the worry within them was obvious.

It was strange, how Taion's professional concern had so quickly transformed into a genuine attachment. Despite the airs he put on, Mio sensed that he was fighting himself, more often than not, to stay the proper distance from them all.

(Yet he couldn't fool her. Mere nights before, as she had tossed and turned, her ears had picked up the surprisingly intimate conversation between Taion and Eunie over a cup of Sirius Anemone.)

(But bringing that up would be rude, so you're going to keep quiet.)

For someone who had only been attached to her unit as a support member, Taion had quickly ended up forming bonds with them all...not that he would phrase it in such terms, as distant as he tried to make himself. (What was the reason for that? He didn't have a history with either her or Sena, so his past was still a bit of a mystery, beyond his past station at Colony Lambda.) And...she was going on in her head again, not answering his question. "Well...just thinking about this place, I guess. I haven't been to this part of the Urayan Mountains before." Had she ever actually been? Amidst all the missions and battles she had experienced in her life, it was certainly possible.

(But that only means thinking back to Colony Omega, and to Miyabi...and you would rather not dwell on that any more than you already do, right?)

Taion adjusted his glasses, looking about their location with a thoughtful frown. "Colony Lambda's interest in this section of the Urayan Mountains was largely focused on ether deposits, with not much thought put into the native architecture...but it is strange, now that you mention it. Yet more ruins that are out of place from what we've seen at the Colonies or our Castle; maybe there used to be a Castle situated here, long ago?"

That seemed wrong. "Maybe this 'City' that Guernica mentioned...I wonder if it's anything like this place."

"That would be a dour thought, if true."

Mio shook her head. "Not these ruins. But what they might have looked like...before. When people still lived here." Because there had to have been people, right?

"...hmm." Resting his chin on his fist, the curly-haired tactician hummed thoughtfully after a few moments of silence. "Hm. I think...my old mentor once mentioned something about this place. About a 'legend' she was once told: of Saffronias lining the interior of the Urayan Mountains, for as far as the eyes could see. Yet she had never seen it herself...I wonder where she had heard it from...?"

Mio's ears twitched out of curiosity. "Your mentor? I...don't believe you've ever mentioned her."

"...have I not?" he replied, with seeming surprise. "Hmm. I...suppose I haven't..." The silence between them became awkward, suddenly. (It felt akin to...shame? Tragedy? It was a sensation that felt familiar to her, like the sting of an insect into numb flesh.)

"...you don't have to say anything, Taion."

The man's eyes widened slightly; the motion was obscured by his glasses, but he seemed grateful for the gesture. "Maybe...another time."

xx

How little did they know that the very next day, the subject of Taion's mentor Nimue, Commander Isurd, and the tragedy of Lambda, would come roaring with a vengeance.

But that was a well known story by now, so there's no need to rehash it. Why go over old ground?

xx

Sighing, Taion regained his composure, looking back towards the ruins around them. "If there ever had been a time when Saffronias grew here...it would have been quite the sight."

"It's strange, the things we can afford to think about, now..." It only made the looming deadline of her Homecoming feel all the more acute. (Don't you dare think about it. You can't afford to think about it.) "...I think I'll turn in soon. I can take first watch."

Taion nodded, wishing her a good night as he returned towards the campfire, where the others in their group were pulling out sleeping bags. The light of the sun, filtering in through the great gap in the mountains, was already almost gone; soon, these expansive tunnels would be lit only by their little fire, the manifold channels of ether, and the strange growths and vegetation littered throughout that seemed to possess their own luminescence.

I wish I knew why this place seems...so sad. Quietly withdrawing her flute, she began to play a quiet tune.

It wasn't one of the off-seering melodies, nor was it any of the established pieces that had been provided for practice in her old training manual. It was a melancholy song that seemed to fit this place, in a way that she couldn't put into words.

xxxx

The events of the days to come would put this brief conversation to the wayside...and who could blame them?

It would not be until months later, when — in the midst of tracking down Origin shards alongside the awoken Queen Nia — that the subject of the Ruins of Seebu came up once more.

xxxx

/Time: During Chapter 7, before Ouroboros invades Origin/

Mio exhaled quietly as Krastor and Sandhu faded away into blue motes; though the Agnian assassins had attacked them without warning, sending them off was only...proper. (They had not spoken at all during the fight; had they been possessed by Moebius? Or were they improbable deserters who treated everyone and everything as an enemy? There was no way to know now, alas.)

(In the background, she could hear Lanz gripe. "Feh, those damn mudders got my arm good.")

("Oh quit your belly-achin'," retorted Nia, her hand shining with a watery shimmer. "Lemme at it and you'll be right as rain.")

As she and Noah put away their flutes, Mio's eyes turned back towards the Agnian Queen, her focus on healing the gash in Lanz's bicep. She...fought pretty hard.

Nia had been strangely distracted by this place, she now realized; the Queen had been looking about with an expression that evoked nostalgia and loss in equal measure. It was only upon arriving at this isolated platform, where two powerful assassins had been lying in wait, that her melancholy had transformed into fearsome intent. Does this place...remind of her of something? No, that's wrong: she lived in the world before Aionios. She might very well have been here.

With a level of tact that she partially credited to M's numerous memories, Mio waited until they had set up camp within the same hollow tower as before.

("Meh-meh, Zoka must be travel through time. Why else would Zoka see you again?")

(Eunie tilted her head with confusion. "Has it ever occurred to you that we could just be passin' through?")

("Awfully inefficient means of travel, unless...you desire to buy from Party of Zoka so badly that you come all the way to Urayan Tunnels for my goods!")

("Nah, think we'll pass, mate.")

("Meh-meh? Such stinginess that I've never observed in all my years!")

Whilst Nia was at the edge, looking towards the long and empty expanse of the great gap in the mountains, Mio walked to her side. "Nia?"

The older woman glanced at her, unsurprised by her presence (though, with such long ears, it was truly a miracle that anyone could surprise her at all). "Yes, Mio?"

"...this place is called the 'Ruins of Seebu.' But for some reason, the name never really seemed to fit..." Looking back at the odd wreckage, she continued, "I was wondering...if you had any insight into this place? What it used to be? Stuff like that..."

"...Fonsa Myma."

Mio blinked, looking towards the Queen with shock. The woman, however, wasn't looking at her: those yellow eyes were focused entirely on the hanging platform where they had just fought the assassins. "Excuse me?"

"I don't know where 'Seebu' came from...but I've always known this place as Fonsa Myma: a grand city, unlike any you've ever seen."

...a 'city'? "As in, there's more than one City?"

Nia impulsively loosed an unladylike snort, before covering it up with a delicate cough. "Well...there was a time where there were as many cities as there are Colonies. And smaller versions, called 'towns', and even tinier ones called 'villages'. This place...it used to be beautiful. But now..." The woman glanced at her with a look Mio couldn't quite categorize: simultaneously sad and joyous in so many different ways.

"The Urayan Mountains...you told us that they weren't so 'picturesque.' What did you mean by that? Because you make the ruins of this...Fonsa Myma..." (It felt right, to say those words; they fit this place like Seebu never could. Seebu seemed like an imposter now, but why?) "...you make it sound so lovely."

"Ah. I guess you've caught me." The Queen raised a hand over the crystal in her chest, fist clenched as though she meant to hide it. "Well...it's complicated. I have good memories of this place...and bad ones as well. All of them are important in their own special way...but I try to focus on the good over the bad, even though the bad helped shape me into the woman I am today..." Nia looked back towards her, with that same painful expression...

xxxx

In another place, and another time: when Uraya had still been a nation, and the interior of the Titan had still been alive, joined though it was with the land of the new Elysium...

"Hang on tight, love!"

"I'm hangin' on, daddy!"

"One...two...THREE!"

Childish yells of delight — one from a man who still bore the heart of an idealistic boy, another from a young girl with fluffy ears — echoed through the tunnel to Olethro Ruins as they skated down a watery channel. The Great Stairway blew past at high speeds, as air and droplets of water rushed by their faces; the man's reinforced boots slid along the slick stone as though it were ice, whilst the little girl in his arms held on for all she was worth.

"We're nearin' the jump! Ready?"

"Yeah, yeah!"

"Three...two...one...alley-OOP!"

The two soared through the air, landing on yet another channel across an open patch of brick and masonry; the slide continued onward, the duo happily cheering as they soared towards the capital proper.

"Another one, daddy!"

"I see it! Here we GO!"

Another jump, and another slide: faster they went, until Fonsa Myma proper came into sight.

"Hold on!"

The girl did as instructed, hanging on with all her might. The man's arms protectively wrapped around her as he jumped one last time; however, as his feet met the ground, the momentum was just a bit too much-

"Agh, ogh, egh!"

The girl merely felt a bit topsy-turvy, shielded as she was by the man's torso and his mighty arms; when they finally tumbled to a stop, she uncurled herself with a grin, staring at her father's grinning yet woozy face. "Let's do it again!"

"Eh...think I'll need your mother to take care of daddy's booboos before we try again..."

A third voice interrupted their fun. "And you think it'll be that easy, yeah?"

The two looked towards the long-eared woman in flowing robes, eyes flashing with maternal indignation. "Ah, hey Nia-"

"Don't you 'hey Nia' me, you absolute spanner!" she ranted, impulsively healing him regardless. "By the Architect, what the hell possessed you to do something so bloody stupid-"

The little girl piped up. "I wanted daddy to show me the big slide, and he did! And it was fun! I wanna do it again!"

The man chuckled, placed his hands around the girl's torso to keep her still. "Just a bit of harmless fun."

"Harmless, eh? That bruise on your back says otherwise! You know we have that meeting with Raqura tonight, you dunce!"

Brushing past the reminder about their evening plans, he focused on the first bit. "It's harmless compared to a lot of the other stuff we once dealt with. Our little kitten likes to ask questions, you know? Besides...you know I'd never let anything hurt her."

Nia's eyes softened, looking at the man with frustrated fondness. "...I know." Finally, she looked down at their daughter with an exasperated expression. "Ya shouldn't be pulling your daddy along into doing silly things, especially when he knows better."

The girl pouted. "But I'm just doing what me and my sisters always do, though! Like that thing last week where-"

Seamlessly interrupting her, Nia said, "And we're gonna need to have a long talk with Pyra and Mythra about that...right, dear?" she finished, punctuating her statement with a sharp look and a grin full of pointy teeth.

For some reason, the man looked less confident than before. "...you know I love you, right? You, and all you guys?"

"Nice try, pal." she replied, shooting him down with a smile.

It was a memory of halcyon days...

xxxx

...but it was quickly overshadowed by a sad smile and a shake of the head. "But the good memories are as painful as the bad ones, I suppose...just in different ways."

After all her experiences, Mio had an inkling as to what that sensation felt like. With an empathic nod and not an ounce of pity, she — unknowingly paralleling her conversation with Taion all those months ago in this very same spot — said, "You...don't have to say anything, Nia."

"...thank you. Maybe...another time."

Sensing that the moment had come and passed, Mio retreated towards the campfire, sneaking one last glance at Nia's back — unbowed, despite the weight of so many years and burdens — before walking along. Fonsa Myma...this place used to be so full of life. There was once a time where...it didn't seem so sad.

Maybe a time would come, when life would once more flourish; a time where it would once more sing its own song?

xxxx

This conversation would bear unexpected fruit, not too far into the future: overlooking the grander ruins of the Maktha Wildwood, Nia would speak of the tragedy of her old world, and how it had led to the creation of Aionios.

Yet, at the end, the people that Ouroboros had grown into would not be denied.

"We might get hurt...and someday, we'll be gone. But we have to keep moving forward, in spite of all that. That's what it means to live. Right, Nia?"

At this, Nia — in spite of her memories of a time where life had reigned in places long dead — could not help but smile. "...yes. Exactly right."

xxxx

Author's Note: There's some unavoidable headcanons I'll have to delve into for some of the flashbacks, because we just don't know how much time passed between the end of Xenoblade 2 and the events leading up to the Intersection. I'll try to keep it as vague as possible, to make it as retcon-proof as possible.

But I can totally imagine Rex going down the slide of Fonsa Myma with one of his kids. Pyra would be the concerned one, Nia would rant at all of them while she still heals their booboos...Mythra would probably challenge them to do some tricks on the way down, to at least make it a challenge.

Anyhow, I'm honestly surprised there was no similar event in Fonsa Myma for Nia to comment on during her Ascension Quest. It was a golden opportunity for one!