After his shift had ended, Cecil, to Kain's dismay, was thrilled to see Rosa aboard. Cecil embraced her with a fierce fondness that Kain hadn't seen before, the hug lingering on longer than Kain expected.
"How?" Cecil asked, as he reluctantly released Rosa. "How are you here?" He had spent the last few hours flying, guiding the airship through the windy skies, his silver hair now wild and unkempt around his shoulders. Cecil looked lit from within, as if his time at the helm had finally healed some long bleeding wound.
"You need a white mage," Rosa said, as if it were obvious. "Who else? I volunteered and King Odin agreed I was most qualified." She cast a sharp look at Kain, daring him to contradict her and throw a shadow over Cecil's joy. Kain said nothing, only looked aside and that seemed to satisfy her. "And now we're finally together."
"We are together!" Cecil beamed as he repeated it and the knot of anxiety finally loosened in Kain. He desperately wanted to believe in Cecil's returning optimism, in the lightness of soul Cecil had on brilliant display again. Kain needed Cecil to stay like this, happy and standing in the light, and away from the shadows that always threatened to consume him.
Maybe, Kain thought, this would be the beginning of a great saga, the three of them, unstoppable and elite. He and Rosa, on either side of the future King of Baron, using their skills to further advance not only the glory of their own divisions but of Baron itself.
"Together," Kain repeated, finally allowing himself to smile.
They traveled overseas, southeast toward Mysidia.
"I've never seen anything so beautiful before," Rosa remarked as she leaned against the ship's railing, peering out toward the western sky behind them. The setting sun painted the sky in a range of reds, pinks, and oranges, the ocean below reflecting the color back in glittering rays across the surface.
"Me neither," Cecil said with a sigh, and Kain saw that Cecil did not watch the sky, as Rosa did, but was instead looking at her. The fading light made her hair and eyes look dark and dramatic, and Kain found he also could not look away. A passing cloud overhead caught her in its shadow and the effect made her oddly familiar, but he could not place who she reminded him of.
Kain shrugged aside the thought, finding it uncomfortable but unsure as to why.
Later, after the world went fully dark, Cecil went to the helm for his shift, while Rosa and Kain went below deck, into the crews' quarters to rest. Kain shifted restlessly in his bunk, unable to find any peace.
Eventually, he climbed out and made his way back up to the deck, trying his best to step soundlessly and not wake the other sleeping crew – especially Rosa. Once on the deck, Kain was grateful for the fresh ocean air in his lungs, tasting sharply of salt.
Kain found Cecil at the helm, looking perfectly at home holding the ship's wheel. Overhead, the twin moons lit the dark sky and ocean, highlighting Cecil's skin and hair, making him look otherworldly. Kain recalled how strange Cecil seemed when they first met, how off-putting and weird he had been. Now, though Cecil was still strange at times, Kain found that he liked that best of all – it made Cecil who he was, and why he couldn't ever be anyone else.
As Kain approached, Cecil smiled, putting the moons overhead to shame.
He is happy, Kain thought. Out here, under the open sky, with his two friends beside him. This is what would make Cecil happy, and Kain could be content in his heart with that alone. He thought of Rosa and felt less sure, but surely that would resolve soon, as Rosa found her passion in service. They could hold on to how things were now and keep that always.
"I feel like I'm dreaming," Cecil said with soft sigh. "Everything is perfect. I'm finally flying on my own. You and Rosa are with me again and we're on the brink of our next adventure."
"Hopefully not too much adventure," Kain remarked, his deep voice neutral. "Maybe a monster here and there so I can show you up in front of your own crew." And Rosa, he thought, and was hit with pang of guilt for even thinking it.
"I dare you," Cecil replied, always more serious about their rivalry than he liked to admit.
"Have your sword on hand and we'll see what happens," Kain said, leaning into the perpetual desire Cecil had to prove himself. Kain found he was unable to leave it alone and wanted to see more of it. "Unless you're afraid," he added, carefully watching Cecil for a reaction.
"Rosa won't be impressed if we turn tomorrow into a contest," Cecil said, not rising to the bait, immediately deflating the tension of their back and forth.
"No," Kain agreed easily, trying to hide his disappointment. "She wouldn't be."
"What... what do you think would?" Cecil asked, unsure. "Impress Rosa, I mean?"
"She's not one to impress," Kain replied, speaking without thinking about it. "Rosa's never impressed because she expects you to be your best by default. She..." and he became suddenly self-conscious. But Cecil was casting him a desperate look from the side, and Kain could not ignore it. "Rosa wants to be inspired. Show her the best you can be, and she'll strive to match or beat you."
"You know her so well," Cecil said quietly, and Kain wondered if he heard jealousy in Cecil's voice, or if he only wanted to. "Do you think that's why she came?" Cecil asked, his voice small. "To match me?"
And me, Kain thought, seized with his old possessiveness. "Is there something going on between you two?" Kain asked, then closed his eyes, not sure if he could bear the answer.
"I don't know," Cecil admitted. "Sometimes, I think there might be. She looks at me like there's no one else in the world. And I feel..." he hesitated, grappling for the right words. "I feel something. Like finally seeing the dawn after the darkest night."
This is what heartbreak feels like, Kain thought as new raw pain tore through him. Was this finally it, when he'd lose Cecil and Rosa to the other, once they decided they liked being just two instead of three? And Kain was helping it along? Kain reluctantly opened his eyes.
But Cecil was oblivious to Kain's distress, still distracted with maintaining his watch and holding the wheel steady. "What should I do?"
Kain was silent for a long moment, then quietly asked, "Does she really make you feel that way?"
"Yes," Cecil said with a happy exhale, breaking Kain's heart again.
And he had been seeing it, Kain realized, and mistaking it only for Cecil's passion for becoming a pilot. But it had been more than that, hadn't it? Rosa brought out the light in Cecil in a way Kain never could, her very presence soothing the tension in his troubled soul. How could Kain deny Cecil this, or anything? Was he so possessive and jealous that he wanted them apart if it meant them loving him more than they loved each other?
"Rosa wants to matter," Kain finally said. "To make a positive difference in the people around her. If she truly makes you feel like a better version of yourself, show her that. Show her how much she makes you a better man."
It's what I couldn't do, Kain thought.
Cecil considered this for a long moment, letting the roar of the engines and howling winds fill the air between them. "This would change things," Cecil finally said, not looking aside to Kain, only staring straight out ahead. "Would you... be okay with that?"
Would he? Kain so desperately wanted things to stay exactly as they were. But how could he ask his two best friends to put their feelings aside just because he couldn't puzzle out his own? Could he tell Rosa, no, he couldn't be with her, and then deny her something with someone else? Was that fair, even if his greedy impulses demanded otherwise?
"If it brings you both happiness..." Kain started but the words became strangled in his throat.
"Kain..." Cecil cast a quick glance toward Kain, before looking back ahead. His grip on the wheel tightened, as if he was determined to stay focused. "I'm sorry, I just..." he hesitated. "If it bothers you at all, I won't do anything."
"Do as your heart commands," Kain said, his words tight through his clenched jaw. "I am tired," he added, without pausing. "I should go."
"Kain!" Cecil called out at Kain's back as he retreated, but Kain did not stop.
Back below deck, Kain crawled back into his bunk to stare at the darkness around him, wondering if things could get any worse.
After reaching land and passing over Mysidia, their flight slowed considerably, mindful of potential monster encounters. The Zus could be aggressively territorial but mostly kept to the forest that surrounded Mount Ordeals. Cockatrices, too, tended to travel in small packs of three to four, attacking in formation against the perceived threat of the airship.
The Red Wings crew had their cannons set up on either side of the ship, poised to take quick aim at any potential targets. Kain stood at the railing, his lance drawn. If any monster got too close to the ship, Kain would Jump, easily gliding through the wind currents, striking at the creature's wings, or eyes, effectively disarming it. As the monster lost control of its own flight, falling gracelessly through the sky, Kain would Jump away, riding the currents back to the ship.
Cecil, not currently on shift at the helm, had come to watch, fully outfitted in his armor and his sword sheathed at his hip, as Kain had hoped.
Kain had never seen Cecil's dark knight magic in action, always veiled by the privacy of Cecil's isolated training. When they sparred, it was hand to hand combat only, without outside magics, only testing their steel and muscle. Kain, despite his distaste for the magic, found himself endlessly curious to finally witness it and he could not leave the thought alone. However, none of their missions had required Cecil to flex his full power, and if all went well, this mission would be the same.
Each time Kain Jumped back to the ship, landing on the deck with a dull thud, he saw Cecil watching, hand poised at his sword's hilt, itching to prove himself but not having the opportunity. Did Cecil want to show off as badly as Kain wanted to watch it? Kain could not tell.
Eventually, they approached Mount Ordeals, floating high above its summit. At some point, Rosa came out to the deck, and peered at the mountain below them. She had been to Mount Ordeals recently, in the last days of her cadet training. White mages from both Mysidia and Baron eventually came to the base of Mount Ordeals, to learn how to employ their magic offensively against the undead.
Baron white mages, despite the nature of their magic, did not hesitate to use their power in whatever way they could. Rosa was no exception, returning from Mount Ordeals a little bit tougher than before, with a new determination in her eyes. Kain wondered what she saw there but did not dare ask.
Now, she peered over the side of the ship at the distant mountain, and for a brief second, Kain thought she looked scared. But she shook her head, and the expression was gone. As she straightened from the railing, Kain spotted the quiver and bow at her back.
"Come to slay monsters?" Kain asked Rosa. "Hate to disappoint you, but it's been quiet."
"For the best," Cecil said, deliberately not looking at Rosa. "There will be plenty of exciting missions, in time."
Around them, all was calm. The buzzing roar of the engines had become a comfortable background hum, along with the whistling winds around them. As the three of them stood together, peering down at Mount Ordeals, Kain absently wondered if things would ever be this peaceful again.
A shrill cry pierced through the calm, loud and terrible. As Kain turned around to identify the sound, his world tilted suddenly, his legs thrown out from beneath him. As he scrambled to find his balance, he realized the whole ship was shaking back and forth, threatening to tip over and spill soldiers off its deck.
Chaos exploded around them as the crew shouted to each other and the ship violently rocked. As Kain tried to get his bearings, to look up and see what was shaking the ship, an inhuman scream filled his ears, drowning out all thought.
Cecil shouted something, then took off in a run to the other side of the ship. Kain started to follow, but paused, offering Rosa a hand to steady her on the uncertain, moving deck. She took it with a grateful look, and hand in hand, they followed Cecil together.
It was on the other side that they could see the Zu bearing down on the ship, its wicked talons digging splintered grooves into the wooden deck. It lifted its head and gave voice to its terrible scream once more. Up close, the monster was massive, made all the larger as it spread its wings wide, nearly spanning the width of the ship itself. The black wings seemed to fill the sky, nearly blocking out the sun. Each flap of its wings sent staggering blasts of air against the crew who tried to fight it.
Kain watched as the crew tried to turn the cannons inward, but the Zu was too close to effectively aim at. Cecil tugged his sword free from its sheath, the black blade lost in the Zu's dark shadow. Kain glanced back at Rosa, who nodded back to him, disentangling her hand from his. Kain crouched low, flexed his knees, then took off into the sky.
From up high, Kain saw them as small figures in a puppet show, playing out their parts as Kain watched. Rosa found cover behind the ship's center mast, drawing an arrow through her bow. Cecil, armed with his sword and shield, ran to confront the Zu. It greeted him with a swipe of its claws that Cecil met with his shield.
Kain angled himself, aiming his lance downward, then let himself fall. He plummeted through the air, encouraged by the air currents he passed and used to push off from to propel himself even faster. With the force of his whole body behind it, he drove the tip of his lance deep into the Zu as he landed on its shoulder, in the middle of its immense wingspread. Kain felt the fibers of the large muscles part before the sharp blade of the lance. Still in his landing crouch, he shoved the lance in deeper, the jerking motion sending a spray of sticky dark blood across the ship's deck.
The Zu screamed as Kain landed, then screamed again as he yanked his lance free. It bucked wildly, trying to throw Kain off, its panicked wing flaps set the ship rocking wildly in its turbulent wake. Kain saw Cecil scramble to hold something, while Rosa stood on braced legs, her bowstring drawn tight as she aimed upward.
Rosa's arrow flew obediently, despite the wild winds and ongoing chaos around them. As the arrow struck the Zu's eye, it let out a mournful cry, a high, screeching sound of protest. With another flap of its wings, it flew back, away from the ship, disengaging its claws from the deck.
Kain ran across the Zu's back, prepping himself for another Jump, to leap the distance from the Zu to the ship. But he stopped short as he saw Cecil run to the ship's side, his black blade drawn and pointing at both the Zu and Kain. Even at this distance, Kain could sense the wrongness of Cecil's stance and how wicked the blade looked in the dark.
Kain watched, dumbfounded, as an inky shadow bled out from Cecil's sword and crawled across the sky toward them. The same wrongness seized Kain, grabbing him by the throat and squeezing tight, making breathing impossible. Drowning in the darkness that was strangely familiar, his vision narrowed, and Kain distantly wondered if Cecil would secretly delight in finally being better.
Hush, my love, crooned the darkness, enveloping and inviting, beckoning him to an old memory of warm comfort and absolute security. You must sleep now…
Please, please, Kain pleaded, panic coloring his desperate thoughts. Mama, don't hurt me….
The darkness abruptly released him, and Kain could breathe again, sucking in greedy lungfuls of air. Blood dribbled from his nose, down his mouth and chin, and the coppery smell overwhelmed his senses. Below him, the Zu was given no such mercy, twitching as it suffocated in Cecil's Darkness. It suddenly dropped altitude, its wing flap slowing down. The unexpected drop woke Kain up, becoming aware of himself again.
Kain ran, swinging arms wildly as he jumped, launching himself from the Zu toward the ship. He hit the deck hard, rolling as he landed.
The Zu struggled through its wing flaps, dropping lower with each. It swung out its claws, in a desperate bid for purchase against the ship's red hull. Its talons sunk into the wood, and the Zu hung on by its claws, its body dangling, rocking the ship violently, tearing up wood its frantic efforts. Somewhere in the chaos, Kain thought he heard a woman's scream.
With one last shriek, blood spewed from the Zu's beak, and it lost its grip on the ship's hull. It flapped once, then twice, then dropped away, falling freely through the sky, unable to stop or slow itself.
The ship still rocked uncertainty, however, and was starting to drop altitude. Kain leaned over the railing and saw the ship's punctured side, torn up by the Zu's claws.
"Kain!" Cecil shouted, drawing Kain's attention back. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" The ship lurched beneath them, sending them stumbling together. Cecil held on to Kain, then straightened. "I'll apologize later. I need to get to the helm." He paused, then looked around. "Where's Rosa?" he asked, with a hint of rising panic.
"Kain!" Rosa's cry seemed impossibly far away. Kain and Cecil exchanged a horrified look, then ran to the opposite side of the ship. They looked over the railing to see Rosa dangling by a broken wooden plank, ripped loose from the red hull by the Zu's claws. Rosa held on to it with desperate fingers, her legs swinging freely beneath her. The wind tugged greedily at her white robes, threatening to drag her away forever.
"Go get her!" Cecil demanded, pushing Kain toward the railing. "Jump over and pull her back up!"
Kain hopped up on the railing, balancing himself carefully as he tried to see how he could get down to Rosa. He hesitated a second, then the broken plank shifted, inspiring a shriek from Rosa as she swung further down. Like climbing the castle walls, Kain reassured himself, before scrambling down the ship's side. He inched closer to her, making painfully slow progress.
"I'm slipping!" Rosa warned, her voice going high with terror.
"Grab her and Jump!" Cecil yelled, leaning far over the railing, his face white with fear. It was an eerie mirror of the day Cecil had almost fallen from the castle tower, only now he looked down instead of up, his eyes begging Kain to let go instead. "Get to the ground and I'll find you both!"
"Don't you dare!" Rosa protested, grunting as she tried to pull herself up.
"Can you do this?" Cecil asked; the wind threw his hair around wildly, but his eyes remained intensely on Kain, as if his whole world hinged on Kain's answer. The ship shuddered again, lurching awkwardly forward. Someone in the distance shouted Cecil's name. "Kain, can you do this!?" Cecil demanded.
Kain thought of Albert's long-ago warning, that he may one day have to pick between Rosa and Cecil. Kain could take Rosa and Jump to the mountain below, leaving Cecil behind on a crashing airship. Or, he could let Rosa go, take Cecil and Jump to safety instead, ensuring that at least Cecil – the future King of Baron - survived above all others. How could Kain explain that he was only doing what Cecil wanted, because he could not bear to tell Cecil no.
"Grab on to me!" Kain yelled down to Rosa in warning as he scrambled further down the ship's hull, using the broken planks sticking out as handholds.
"Don't Jump!" Rosa yelled back, but she reached for him as he got closer. He stretched his hand down to her, fingers straining. Just as her fingers swiped his, the ship lurched again, throwing Rosa's dangling body wildly back and forth. The plank she held on to splintered with a final crack and broke away. Rosa fell, still reaching toward him, the shape of terror on her open mouth as she wordlessly screamed into the tumultuous wind.
Kain pushed off from the hull, propelling himself downward, slicing efficiently through the air to catch up to Rosa. She was flailing as she fell, her robes whipping around her, catching the wind and slowing her down. He caught up to her quickly, grabbing her and pulling her to him. Rosa clutched at him with her arms around his neck.
"I've got you!" Kain shouted into the wind, not knowing if Rosa heard him, but she held onto him tighter anyway.
Compensating for Rosa's extra weight was difficult, and Kain found the wind currents harder to find and navigate, tumbling awkwardly in and out of them. Still, he slowed their descent, but wasn't sure it would be enough as the earth below them approached too rapidly.
As his boots struck the ground, Kain felt something shatter in his shins. The pain rattled through his bones, made him shudder with an unexpected shriek. He dropped his grip on Rosa, sending her tumbling to the ground, then fell, collapsing in on the intense pain in his legs.
Rosa rolled to a stop, then promptly got to her feet, unharmed by the fall. She had her bow in hand, an arrow nocked and ready as she looked around. Her readiness seemed intense as she ignored his obvious distress.
"Rosa," Kain called out to her, but Rosa whirled around on him, pressing her fingers to her lips to silence him.
Nearby, an otherworldly moan sounded, followed by the slow awkward, shuffle of feet on the ground. Rosa muttered something below her breath, then took up a defensive stance in front of Kain, her arrow drawn.
"Be still," she whispered, "and try to stay conscious."
But the pain in Kain's legs was too demanding and insistent, overwhelming his senses entirely. As he collapsed to the ground, his vision grew dim, his awareness shrinking in view. He looked up in time to see Rosa fire her arrow, its tip exploding into flames as it launched. For one perfect instant, the halo of fire framed her, highlighting her hair, making her look like a Warrior of Light, the famed heroes from their story books.
Rosa, always looking out for him, always taking care of him, always helping him win. How could he not lose his heart to her? How could he ever think otherwise?
With the taste of blood in his mouth, the darkness closed in on Kain. His last conscious thought was the desperate hope that the shadows now surrounding Rosa were only his imagination.