Melia rolled a handful of pebbles across her palm. Overhead, the flying creatures of the Bionis' Shoulder welcomed the morning sun with their cries. Below, the wind combed through the grass to let the dew sparkle. And with the wind came hundreds of familiar scents, from the bark of the tallest trees to the blooms of the rainbow carrots, all intertwined with the rich flavour of the sky itself.

As another gust brushed through her headwings, Melia followed with her eyes the shape of the rock spires, stretching like gigantic archways across the Shoulder. A Pterix circled the structure before its leathery wings carried it south, towards the glistering Tranquil Tarn where it dove for fish. There, the dome of Gran Dell rose above the kilopumpkin fields, as inviting to the traveller's eye as during the days of the Giants. The fruits stood ripe, and a few stubborn souls moved between the stalks to harvest them.

All this was doomed to fall.

Melia turned her palm, and the pebbles dropped between the grass blades. They would not rise again.

"It is starting here too," Melia said. "Even this far from the Companions' Cape."

"I told you so." Tyrea took up one of the pebbles and hurled it over the edge of the Shoulder. The stone disappeared between the clouds. "The decay is everywhere. It may not look like it, but the piece of rock you're standing on is falling apart. What's worse is that we don't know how to stop it."

"But your research will soon find an answer. Is it not so?"

Tyrea huffed. "I hate to disappoint you, but the time I wasted studying Telethia does not exactly translate well to floating rocks."

"Of course, my apologies." Melia's shoulders slacked. "I should not have bothered you with this issue in the first place."

Tyrea narrowed her eyes and prepared for a heated retort, but Teelan's voice interrupted her. "Sis!"

He had examined the ground a little further down the cliffside and now came running towards them on his short legs. Despite his young age of fifty-five, he had the attentive eyes of a researcher, and no detail escaped him during the experiments he conducted with Tyrea. Even if he might not yet reach the bookshelf above the experiment table. On days such as this, where Tyrea's work called her into the field, he was the first to pack gauges and a magnifying glass. His cheeks burned as he breathlessly stretched a tuft of grass towards Tyrea. Her expression all but melted, the retort for Melia forgotten.

"Look," Teelan said. "This is different."

Melia bowed forward to examine Teelan's finding alongside Tyrea. But she failed to make sense of what she was seeing. Black spots covered the grass blades, almost like a disease. Yet the blackness was too deep to be of natural origin. Melia almost tricked herself into thinking the stains were moving, flaking from the grass with a mind of their own.

"I found it over there," Teelan continued. "But none of the other plants were affected. It looked almost like someone lost the black spots."

Tyrea crossed her arms. "And your first thought was to touch it? A potentially dangerous oddity? I thought I taught you better."

Teelan shrunk. "I didn't think about that. Sorry. I just thought it could be important."

"I know you meant well." Tyrea's smiles were barely visible, even after all these years. As if her facial muscles needed to protect her emotions when a mask no longer did. But now she did allow the smile to show. "I just want you to be cautious."

"I promise. So, what do you think?"

"Could this mean the decay is spreading from the ground to the plants?" Melia asked. The unnatural darkness around the grass blades chilled her despite the morning sun.

"Unlikely." Tyrea rubbed a leaf between her fingers. "Not if it only concerns a single plant. Then again, I should not be surprised if this world has another catastrophe in store for us. Because losing the ground under our feet isn't enough, it seems."

"Still, I feel like I have seen this before," Teelan said.

"During your research on the Telethia?" Melia asked.

"I'm not sure…"

"We can worry about this once we found a way to keep the Shoulder in the sky," Tyrea said. "Assuming the universe doesn't strike us down beforehand. After what happened to the two researchers, who can say who will be targeted next. Teelan, do you have the samples of hover stone? Teelan?"

But Teelan was not listening. He fidgeted with the grass in his hands. "Why don't we ask Shulk for help?"

Melia tensed.

Tyrea ground her teeth and looked sideways.

An Armu bleated in the distance.

"I cannot burden him with…" Melia began, but Tyrea cut her off.

"Don't bother. He won't be of help."

"But Shulk knows more about machines and ether than anyone else!" Teelan said. "He might find something we are overlooking. We should use all the help we can get."

"I told you, he won't be of help."

"Would you rather let the Shoulder decay than talk to him?"

"That is not the problem. We would have more luck turning the Telethia back into High Entia then dragging him out of his little hole." Tyrea closed her eyes for a moment, and the mask of an enraged assassin made room for the face of an older sister. "Teelan, we have made tremendous breakthroughs in our research before. As long as I can count on your assistance, I trust we can replicate these breakthroughs. Even if it means reading through the entirety of levitation literature first. Do you have the samples?"

Teelan patted the worn bag at his side in which a collection of floating and non-floating pebbles waited to find a new home on an experiment table.

"Then go on ahead and drop them off. Tomorrow we can start mining these rocks for every last one of their secrets."

"So I have the evening free to read through the new passage on Telethia we found?"

Tyrea smiled. "Of course. I will join you."

Teelan beamed, and after a last wave, he stormed across the meadow back towards Alcamoth's entrance, light as a feather. Melia looked after him as the light of his presence grew smaller and smaller until it vanished in the vastness of the sky. Seeing him and Tyrea together gave her what she so desperately needed.

Hope.

But when the cries of the Shoulder's wildlife returned to her ears, and when Melia's gaze returned to the spires and fields and waterfalls brimming with life, that feeling vanished. Taken by the tides of an uncertain future.

"Stop staring," Tyrea said. "I hate to be the one to remind you, but work is calling."

"Yes, of course."

Each step on the trodden path and on the suspension bridges was its own arduous journey until at last the teleporter enveloped Melia, and she traded the fleeting, dying sounds of the Shoulder for the eternal marble of Alcamoth.

Sunlight seeped through the glass dome and bathed uncounted tent walls in friendly hues. Where once High Entia scholars had strolled across the parc landscape now white canvas pyramids blocked the view. The gurgle of the two massive fountains went under in the heated discussions of neighbours and the shouts of children playing catch.

Melia followed them with her eyes as they pushed through the crowd, bumping into adults and knocking over crates. They were too absorbed in their game to offer more than a mumbled sorry before they resumed their chase. Not even their departure from their homes in Gran Dell could dampen their spirits for long. They were still laughing, still chasing, still able to see a playground were others saw a refugee camp swimming, drowning in concerns towards the future.

A chill befell Melia, but she pushed the unease aside. The refugees needed to see her as confident and strong. Someone who offered them hope. So, although each step on the polished walkways and trimmed patches of grass was its own arduous journey, Melia wandered through the crowd and offered an open ear to those who needed one, a word of support for those who had none, and a scapegoat for those who could no longer blame their misfortunes on a god.

Indeed, being the hope of the High Entia was no longer enough. The camp included so many more faces, the weathered faces of Homs, the eternally grey faces of Machina, and the large-eyed faces of Nopon in all colours of the rainbow.

In these times, they all needed a little hope.

Melia took a calming breath and searched her surroundings for a glimmer of this hope to harvest and share. In the end, her focus returned to the group of children. A High Entia girl tripped in her attempts to outrun the catcher. But instead of exploiting the opportunity or running after the others, the Homs boy helped her back to her feed. A gesture so simple.

A moment later, the occurrence was forgotten, and the pair chased after their friends.

Melia couldn't help but smile, even though the gesture came with the taste of bitter kiwi. Perhaps Aaron could play with them later.

Tyrea's voice rose over the muddle of conversations. "You wear that face again. The one that tells me you are shouldering more problems than you can carry."

Melia turned. Until this point, Tyrea had followed her with all the quietness of a second shadow, and Melia had almost believed she had left her side to deal with more interesting tasks. A rather foolish thought, admittedly.

"Perhaps," Melia said. "But I may never find out how many problems I can shoulder unless I dare to test my limits."

Tyrea rebuked an innocent bystander with a glare, as if he alone had devised all the burdens under which Melia struggled. "That mindset will destroy you one day. And a lot sooner if you don't start to let others in on your problems."

"A strange advice coming from someone who refused to show weakness in front of others until a few years ago."

Tyrea huffed. "I changed my ways. You could do the same if you weren't so stubborn."

Melia chuckled, but it sounded fake even in her ears. "You really don't have it easy with a nuisance like me. Are you certain you don't want to change your mind? There must be more rewarding ways to pass your time than staying here as my shadow."

"And abandon you when you need a voice of reason the most?" Tyrea crossed her arms. "No chance. You can't get rid of me that easily."

"And your Telethia research with Teelan? Is that not a more fulfilling task than what I can offer you?"

"Because there are no Telethia left in this world? Sure, what a promising work I'm doing."

"I meant fulfilling in a different sense."

"I know. But Teelan isn't running away, and I told you, you can't get rid of me that easily."

The crowd streamed by. A High Entia mourned the loss of a broken plate. Three tents farther, a Nopon sold floating pebbles from the Shoulder with a keen eye for business only his kind seemed to have mastered. A mixed couple exchanged kisses amidst the dry flowerbeds.

Melia soaked in these images of normalcy, she clung to them and held tight because she knew she would miss them as soon she traded the bustle of the camp for the echoing silence of the palace's chambers.

Yet she could not ignore the ascending build of Melfica Road, and her feet led her there and to the imperial palace beyond without mercy.

"I appreciate your support," Melia said and sidestepped a Machina who balanced a concerningly skew pile of data pads.

To catch Tyrea off guard was no easy feat, but the sudden resumption of their conversation achieved just that. She growled when she stubbed her toe on an unsuspecting data pad in her path.

"With what?"

"With more things than I can list," Melia said. "With more things than I can reasonably demand from you, even. In regards to Aaron, you seem to have a positive influence on him as well. He trusts you."

At the mention of Aaron's name, Tyrea smiled, but her expression soon darkened, and not even the light from beyond the glass dome managed to soften the hardness around her mouth.

"He deserves a better future than this." Tyrea gestured at the scenery around them: the tents, the refugees, the lack of ground to stand on. "On Bionis, at least we could raise our weapons against the enemy, even if that enemy was the Bionis itself. But now we are fighting a steady decay and a slow death. That's not a world I would wish for anyone, least of all Aaron."

They reached the moving walkway. Soundlessly the floor parts climbed upwards, but Melia felt her legs grow heavy, and she couldn't place another step forward.

"I cannot shield him from all that is happening in Alcamoth and on the Shoulder," she said. "I cannot swipe the fears from my face when I cover him up for the night. That is what worries me most. That he will see and learn too much too quickly. He has trouble sleeping already."

"So you noticed?" Tyrea looked sideways. "I hoped you wouldn't."

"Even now that I have noticed, I remain powerless."

That seemed to rub Tyrea the wrong way. Her blue eyes froze to glaciers that would do honour to the icicle-covered cliffs of Valak Mountain. If that part of the Bionis still existed.

"For the love of the ancestors, don't turn this into another worry that will eat into you," she said. "Melia, there is nothing you should or can do if Aaron doesn't sleep through the night. In fact, it should not even surprise you. With a father like him."

Melia strangled a sigh. A handful of refugees were looking her way, and if her shoulders sank any lower, they would have no chance but to notice and draw grim conclusions.

"Please, do not revive this discussion," Melia said.

"I was always against this! Don't you see that he is in shambles, that he has been that way ever since that girl died? The Homs he once was won't come back, no matter how earnestly you hope. Even if you can't see it: he is a wreck. And if you're not careful, he will pull you down with him."

Melia gave no reply. Tyrea had detailed her opinion on this matter many times, always with scorn, always with vigour. Of course, she worried as only a family member could. But this discussion was worn out and better left untouched in the dark corners of the wardrobe.

So, despite the heaviness of her legs, Melia stepped onto Melfica's moving walkway and let herself be carried upward. The rich tapestry of scents from a hundred people and a thousand dishes and tokens faded to leave the air with its usual taste of marble and reverence. The individual faces blurred until they melted into a single accusing glare. Why don't you do more, it said.

"Where are you going?" Tyrea asked. Her hand rested on the railing, but she made no move to follow Melia.

"The laboratory. It is as you said: I am too stubborn to change my ways. And it seems one of these ways will always lead me there."

Tyrea's frown deepened, but soon the crowd had swallowed her, and Melia could no longer make out her accusing glare amidst the many others. All the while, the walkway carried her higher, away from the refugees and back into the venerable embrace of the palace where one could play pretend the old days had returned.

Melia's boots clacked on the immaculate marble floor on her way through these grand halls. Despite the tall ceiling, today the air weighed heavily with history and threatened to crush her. The gold faces of High Entia statues looked down at her. Judging.

The hope of the High Entia. A rather mocking title if she failed to bring even a fraction of hope to one man – the man she loved, no less. But Melia would try. As she had tried for the past twelve years.

The familiar sound of humming engines greeted her when the teleporter released her into the laboratory. Crates piled in the corners and workbenches lined every open space on the wall, but each tool lay on its predestined place, from the smallest screwdriver to the largest welding torch and all the utensils in between for which Melia had no name. Not a single astray nut spoiled the floor. As if the order of the room was designed to balance the internal chaos of its owner.

Shulk sat cross-legged in front of what appeared to be a heating unit. Said heating unit had spilled its insides, a mess of color-coded wires, across the floor and shared more resemblance to a bagged animal than a piece of machinery. Unaware of this uncanny likeness, Shulk had buried his arms to the elbows in the heating unit and fiddled with the cables. He might as well perform magic and rewrite the universe. What he was doing far surpassed Melia's understanding.

Maybe he had heard her approaching boots, or maybe her presence had upset the carefully crafted climate of his workspace. Shulk looked up. He smiled. Then he vanished back into the world of wires and circuits.

"Hello, Melia," he said, his eyes locked on the insides of the heating unit. "Are you alright?"

This phrase belonged to his ritual to the same degree as his regular escapes to the laboratory. He asked this question every time Melia visited him here. To get her to talk before she had a chance to pose him the same question.

"I'm fine." The expected response to the ritual.

Shulk nodded and rewired the heater's control panel. Maybe, if Melia had the courage to give a different answer, he would place his work aside for a moment. Maybe she could try tomorrow.

"Will you have much to work on today?" Melia kneeled down beside Shulk and watched his hands as they navigated the labyrinth of cables with absolute sureness. "We have another failure with one of the Havre. Helmaline wanted to know if you could perhaps take a look at the engine."

"Sure."

"Maybe Teelan could assist you. You know how much he admires you."

"Sure."

"Shulk, I—" Melia did not know how to continue. A thousand things swirled in her head that she wanted to discuss with him, from the small, insignificant happenings today to the world-ending worries on both their minds. But more than a conversation, she yearned for him to look at her. A brief marriage of eyes, anything to drive away the emptiness in his expression.

He was not always this distant. While he still avoided crowds and the myriads of Melia's political meetings, he had made careful steps on his way to recovery. Before, the mere mention of Fiora had sent him into his mental fortress from which he would only emerge after a day of silence. Since then, he had built new machines. He even visited Colony 9 from time to time.

But lately, all the progress had collapsed in on itself. Something kept him up at night, and too often when Melia awoke, his pillow was cold.

Melia needed to try all the harder to reach him in his shell. Even though Aaron's odd behaviour already weighed on her. Even though the Bionis' Shoulder was falling apart. Even though a thousand accusing glares commanded her to do more.

And so, Melia used the only method that would rouse Shulk from his work-infused stupor: merciless honesty.

"I miss you."

The sentence hung between them for a moment. Heavy.

Shulk freed his hands from the tangle of cables and looked at her. "I'm right here."

"And yet I feel your mind drifting away. Each day a little farther. And I can no longer tell if it is within my power to pull you back."

The apathy from before had vanished. Hurt and regret carved furrows between Shulk's brows. "Melia…"

"I know that you are seeking refuge here at night. But I do not understand why. What is on your mind that you can relate to these machines and not to me? Even if it is not my company you seek, you have other friends in Alcamoth and beyond who would listen."

Shulk twisted his hands; oil and copper rust blemished the scarred skin. They both listened to the heating unit's stuttering breath.

After a long moment, Shulk replied. "I'm having visions. Of the future."

Melia stiffened. "You believed a return of your visions impossible. In this world, with no gods…"

"I know. I have no logical explanation either."

"Still you are certain that what you see concerns the future?"

Shulk nodded. "Everything points in that direction. But neither the place nor the people I see are familiar. I'm not even sure I could meet them if I wanted. And yet I have this feeling this is where I must be, that everything I've done will lead to this future." He paused and shook his head as if to cast off these thoughts. "I can't even blame you if you think I'm going insane."

"I would never dream of it. However, you must admit it is strange. After all this time…"

"That's all the more reason. Melia, what if I can change the future again? Like I used to? If I could use these visions to fix the Shoulder, things would finally turn around for the better."

"I would be the first to cheer if such a thing were possible. But we cannot solely rely on vague premonitions. Our actions determine the future, is that not what you once believed?"

"If the visions could at least show me something I can make sense of. Something immediate. A way to stop the Shoulder's collapse… anything of use. If the visions had returned sooner, maybe I could have prevented it." Shulk tensed his hands, and the fingernails dug into his palm. "I could have saved her."

"Shulk…" Melia chose her words with great care, afraid to drive him back into his shell. "Have you considered that it is this very feeling of powerlessness that caused these new visions? You yearn for a taste of control. The very control you think to possess through your visions."

"Then you don't believe me."

Melia couldn't bear Shulk's broken expression for longer. She captured his fidgeting hands with hers. Maybe her touch could offer as much warmth as her words.

"I do," she said, "and I always will trust your judgement. But I cannot name how often I have wished for a glimpse at the future myself. I would understand if you missed this gift."

Shulk looked sideways. "I shouldn't miss it. This is the world we all wished for. Even Fiora."

Silence, heavy and oppressive, hung in the laboratory. Melia contemplated to stroke Shulk's hand, but she did not dare to move.

The machines hummed on.

On the shelf behind Shulk, the Monado replica collected dust.

After a while, Shulk resumed speaking. "I will ask Teelan if he's interested in helping me out with that Havre engine. Would that be okay?"

It was more than Melia could have wished for. "Yes. I'm glad."

He mustered an almost-smile, and for a heartbeat, the man who had saved Melia in Makna Forest returned, as bright as ever. "Then I'll see you for dinner. Unless your meetings will take longer today? I don't want to stand between you and your duty to Alcamoth."

Melia hesitated. Maxis had asked for an appointment to discuss a possible increase of security forces for the refugee camp. Furthermore, Melia had planned another inspection of the Companions' Cape, or rather the crumbling remains of the headland. The relatives of the two dead researchers waited for consolation. Then there was the negotiation with Colony 9 farmers for a surplus on supplies…

Melia shook her head. "No, do not worry. I will be there. Perhaps, if you feel comfortable, you could tell me more about your visions. We might be able to make sense of them together."

"Perfect."

As if he noticed them for the first time, Shulk looked at his lap where his and Melia's hands remained interlaced. He tilted his head, one of his mannerisms when searching for the answer to a riddle that had tormented his mind for a while.

Then he squeezed her hands with a smile. "Thank you."

They climbed to their feet, and Melia hesitantly released his hands to allow him to clean up his workspace. Once the broken heating unit occupied one of the rare empty spaces on the massive shelf overcrowded with finished and half-finished engineering projects, Shulk returned to Melia's side. They only parted in the great entrance hall of the imperial palace. Shulk headed for the Havre landing spots, and Melia tricked herself into believing that his steps carried more energy than the day before.

What she would not give to see him truly at peace.

Had she not sworn to protect his happiness? In that, Melia had failed. But perhaps it was not too late to hope for a new chance of happiness in this world. The sky was boundless after all. And no one could tell what waited beyond the horizon.

This thought comforted Melia as she climbed the wide stairway to the throne room. Where the ancient statues had looked at her with judgement before, she found wisdom and a familiar warmth in their gold-embellished faces. A feeling like home. A home untouched by the troubles of a dying world.

Being the hope of the High Entia might still be a mantle she could fill out and wear with pride. Either way, Melia would try. Shulk's determination on his journey across Bionis and Mechonis would continue to push her forward.

Even if he himself no longer possessed that determination.

Shulk relished this strange serenity in his chest as he made his way to the landing platforms. A feeling he had thought lost since the return of his visions. Or rather since that day. Since Fiora.

But in one way or another, his conversation with Melia had helped. While she might never understand how the loss of two strangers squeezed his lungs and awoke in him the desire to cry, she knew about the visions. That burden no longer weighed on Shulk's mind alone. After he had pushed away everyone from his life in Colony 9, Melia was still here, ready to listen and offer a hand to hold when he felt everything slipping from his grasp.

It was… nice to have her around. A friend.

If he had been a better friend in turn, maybe she wouldn't suffocate under her responsibilities as empress so much. Shulk had left all matters of political nature to her; at best he had supplied her with relevant data or some blueprint for an infrastructural project in Alcamoth. Year after year, he had buried himself amidst his machines, and she had buried herself in written complaints and petitions.

But they could still turn things around, right? With a little help and without a single vision, they had freed Alcamoth from the Fog King. They could hold the capital together too.

Fixing a stubborn Havre engine was as good a place to start as any.

Vessels of various shape and size stood on the platform to the palace's left-hand side, each unified in the curved, organic design of High Entia technology. Sunlight reflected from uncounted polished metal shells, blinding those who espied the pride of Alcamoth's fleet for the first time. Some vessels measured no more than a man's torso, drones to scout an area. Most of them were out in the field and monitored the decay of the Shoulder. But the platform housed other airborne ships: sleek one-person hunters and large, boat-shaped aircrafts that could carry a political figure to a meeting with all the pomp one could wish for.

Shulk exchanged a few formalities with Helmaline and then steered towards one such vessel. Helmaline had asked for his help with maintaining the imperial fleet often enough to know when to add insight on a given ship – and when not to bother Shulk with small talk.

This time she left the battlefield to him and marched left to bark instructions at an overly enthusiastic Machina pilot.

The lid behind which the Havre's engine slumbered already stood open, and a handful of tools lay scattered around the crime scene, everything a mechanic could and couldn't find useful for the task at hand. Shulk ignored the mess and focused on the engine itself.

He tried a couple levers, tugged at a few cables, checked the ether supply unit, and deemed the catalyst to be the perpetrator. The regulator needed a recalibration, otherwise the catalyst would feed the main circuit with such a dazzling amount of energy that an unsuspecting pilot would call himself lucky to make it out of the Havre in one piece. The engine itself certainly would not survive.

Shulk removed the damaged piece and pondered. The recalibration would take a while, at least four hours if he also replaced the connecting pieces. And looking at the bent turn-lock fasteners, that was probably for the better. Not the most exciting work by any means; the catalyst's inherent program would only need a few lines of code altered before it fixed itself. At a snail's pace, but Shulk had yet to find a way to shorten the waiting time.

Speaking of time, now that he knew what to do, Shulk should make truth out of his promise and ask Teelan to assist him. Unfortunately, the repair required very little assisting. Teelan would know better ways to spend his time.

Shulk turned the damaged catalyst in his hand and was still pondering when Teelan appeared, seemingly by chance. Or maybe Melia had sent him.

The past twelve years had altered the young High Entia no more than a mild summer breeze. At most he had grown a few centimetres. Whereas Shulk's Homs body headed towards death and decay at a constant pace – rapid by High Entia measurement –, Teelan's round face and wide eyes gleamed with a hint of eternal youth, especially whenever he stumbled upon a passage about Telethia in Alcamoth's library. He clutched an ancient book to his chest and shuffled his feet as if he didn't know why he had come.

"Hi," he pressed out and held his book in front of him like a shield.

Shulk needed time to form a response. "Melia talked to you already?"

"Yeah."

"So you… know about the Havre?"

"I think it needs a repair."

"Right. You're right."

Silence. Helmaline berated the pilot about the poor maintenance of his ship somewhere to their left.

Shulk took a deep breath. Now or never. "Would you like to help me with this?" He presented Teelan the catalyst. "Only if you want to, of course."

Teelan's eyes widened. "Really? I'd love to!"

He dropped down next to Shulk and studied the catalyst as well as the open machinery from which it stemmed. "It needs a recalibration, right?"

"That's… true." Shulk frowned. "How did you know?"

"I've helped out Helmaline a few times before. Well, if you can call short-circuiting the last engine I touched 'help'. These machines have so many layers and parts to keep track off. They won't make sense to me. I would like to do other work, but… my own research has hit a wall."

Teelan had dedicated his research to the flimsy dream of one day undoing the Telethia transformation. All these High Entia that had succumbed to mindless creatures under the curse of Zanza, their creator – and their destroyer. Innocent High Entia like Teelan's mother, built only as a tool of destruction. Based on the knowledge found in the tome Teelan clutched to his chest, he had run tests and had developed formulas, had stayed nights awake, and had refined his theory after countless failed attempts. But he had worked for nothing. The Telethia had abandoned the skies around Alcamoth.

And what was gone would not return.

"I doubt I have anything to offer that could help your research," Shulk said. "But if you want, we can go through the structure of the engine together while I recalibrate the catalyst."

Teelan nodded and in his enthusiasm even forgot to hold onto his book. "Yes, yes! I mean, it would be an honour."

"Okay, then." Shulk took a deep breath. The air tasted of motor oil and copper. Familiar. Comforting. "You see, every machine is almost like its own person. They're complex, and one misplaced part can upset the entire system. Like how we can't do our best work when we're sick. But when all pieces harmonise, the machine will show it by humming. You can tell a lot about the wellbeing of an engine just by listening…"

Teelan was an excellent student. He memorised a machine piece's name and function after Shulk showed it to him once, and he connected dots to tell how these pieces worked together to create a unity. Even though his true passion lay with history and biology, he listened to Shulk's explanations with a hunger for knowledge that knew no end. Shulk had last approached his work with this level of excitement when he had done his first studies on the Monado, back in Colony 9. But Teelan didn't need a mystic sword to spark his interest.

"What's this one for?" Teelan asked and held up another spare part scattered around their work space.

Shulk took the piece with a smile. "Blue chain. One of my favourite parts. You can use it to connect two separate mechanisms. And because it conducts electricity, you can even link two electric circuits with it when they would otherwise only work half as efficiently."

"So, if I took this art core coil…" Teelan lifted the marvellously shaped coil. "…and combined it with this piece of blue chain…"

"It could keep this Havre floating even if the engine itself is damaged. That's right."

Teelan let the blue chain jingle about his fingers. 'Awesome', he mouthed.

While the catalyst recalibrated itself, Shulk dismantled the Havre's engine all the way to the circuit boards. Teelan examined the parts, compared them to a Telethia's organs, and together they formed the machine back into a unit. Where necessary, Shulk replaced a shaky conductor or a worn bolt. And with a grin, Teelan handed him the needed tool before Shulk could ask for it.

Shulk could not have wished for a better assistant. Before today, he had not even realised the benefits of a work partner, or he had forgotten them. A second pair of eyes to look for flaws in the system, a second mind to rely upon. Teelan's steady hands fixated the miniscule ether plugs even Shulk had trouble with.

It was… nice. Yes.

Five hours later, Shulk bolted the lit, and with a satisfying chink, the last piece slit into place. The Havre should now glide through the clouds like a Tokilos, humming its most joyful tune. Shulk smiled as he ran his hand across the cool metal shell.

Then he turned to Teelan who looked at the repaired vessel in awe. "You were a great help today," Shulk said. "Are you sure you didn't take extra lessons in machinery?"

Teelan beamed upon the compliment. "I read a few things in a book. But that was nothing like holding the parts in my own hands. You explain everything in a way that makes sense to me, not at all like the confusing blue prints in the book. Did you teach all of this to yourself?"

"Most of it, yes. But travelling across Bionis and seeing all the different ways people harness technology helped a great deal to advance my understanding. The Machina use a completely different method to build a flying ship compared to the High Entia."

"The Machina rely more on computer chips and software, right?"

Shulk nodded, once again impressed by Teelan's well of knowledge. "This makes the Machina less reliant on the fragility of an ether cycle. I've found that combining the different approaches to technology gives the best results. Otherwise I would have never been able to build the Monado replica."

Teelan tapped the leather binding of his book. "Maybe I could do something similar. I've always looked at High Entia scriptures for a way to reverse the Telethia transformation. But what if the missing piece was always hidden in research done by the Nopon or the Machina?"

Shulk tensed. The Telethia were gone. But he didn't want to shatter Teelan's hopeful expression. "It's worth a try," he said instead. "And if you otherwise have an afternoon to spare, you can help me with some other engineering project. I would like to rely on your assistance again."

"Really?"

"If you have other plans, that's fine too, of course." Shulk wished for his puzzle box. For lack of an alternative, he fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. "Tyrea probably doesn't want you to waste your time with me either. I shouldn't have asked, sorry."

"No, no, it's not that I don't want to. I was just surprised." Teelan scratched his chin. "Well, Tyrea said that you prefer to work alone. And that you're a bad influence to Aaron and not worthy of Melia and all that."

Shulk shouldn't be shocked. Honestly, he couldn't even be mad. Tyrea had just reasons for saying these things; they were true.

"But," Teelan continued, "I think she's wrong about you. You know more about machines than anyone else I know, and you managed to teach me about them what no book could. Not to mention that you saved the world! And if anyone can save the Shoulder before it collapses, I think it's you. You're a hero."

Shulk broke eye contact. He didn't feel like a hero. A vessel of Zanza, a tool, a fighter perhaps at some point – but not a hero. The world he had "saved" was falling apart all the same. Everything that he had tried to hold had withered or shattered in his hands.

These thoughts had strangled Shulk since that day. But looking at Teelan now, while the sun shone onto Alcamoth and the voices of all races filled the dome with a gentle murmur, the pressure around Shulk's throat lifted. For one moment, he tricked himself into believing. After all, the visions had returned. And here, amidst machinery and engines, here was a world he was still in control of. Each part had a purpose and fitted in. No more surprises; each failure had a reason Shulk could find and repair.

So, after a moment, Shulk returned his attention to Teelan and mustered a smile. "You give me too much credit," he said, "but I'm glad you said these things regardless. It's all the more reason I should invite you to my lab more often."

"I'll come! Anytime! Maybe you and Tyrea could get better along too. You could examine the samples we took of the Shoulder together. I'll put in a good word for you."

Shulk had his doubts about Tyrea changing her mind. Then again, if anyone could sway her favours, Teelan could. And with a stabler interplay between Shulk and Tyrea, this would take one worry off of Melia's shoulders, wouldn't it?

"That would be great. Thank you, Teelan."

Teelan hugged his book and beamed.

"Oh, and what I wanted to ask, are you busy tomorrow morning?"

"Not really. Is something wrong?"

Shulk patted the Havre's metal cladding. "We still have a last step to complete before our repair duty is done. A field test. I want to fly a few circles around the Shoulder before I give the Havre back to Helmaline. Would you come along?"

Teelan's mouth hung open, and he barely managed a word. "I've never flown in a Havre before," he whispered. "Are you sure?"

Shulk nodded.

Teelan jumped to his feet and knocked over the computing unit they had used for the recalibration. The unit gave a dissatisfied grumble, but Teelan didn't notice. A wonder he didn't shred his book in his tight grip.

"I'll be there!" Teelan half turned only to spin back to Shulk. He couldn't keep his feet still. "Tomorrow morning, right? It'll be great. I have to tell Tyrea about this!"

With that and a last wave, Teelan dashed past the sitting vessels, almost bumping into Helmaline in the process. Her half-hearted complaints failed to slow him, and his headwings fluttered as he sped down Melfica Road in search of Tyrea. Soon he disappeared around a corner.

Shulk gazed after him. The lack of sleep reported back to him through a sting on the bridge of his nose. But he managed to shove the tiredness aside. The Havre gleamed beside him, as wonderful as on the day of its construction. Shulk placed a hand on the cool metal and shuddered.

In truth, he had not looked forward to a tomorrow with so much optimism in a long time.

22/05/22: Melia can't catch a break. Everything to honour Takahashi's vision, right? I'm merely continuing the trend. Or, in the words of my beta: "Melia deserves someone better than Shulk. Change my mind." I think he is quite glad that I didn't write this whole thing from Shulk's POV only. (If you're reading this, dear, thank you for all your tips and for putting up with my mad ideas. You're the best.)

So yeah, Melia gets to be the second POV character in this. And apart from the final chapter, I think these two should be enough to tell this story. As much as I took inspiration from Dune Messiah, the third person omniscient POV is not one of them. It's a preference thing, but I've come to enjoy a limited set of POVs per story more. And before I continue rambling, I'll see you off. Next chapter coming soon, probably.