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they're all strangers and you've got no mother tongue. (major spoilers for shadowbringers.)
[AO3 LINK]
Amaurot is beautiful.
It also gives you a strange feeling.
Of course it gives you a strange feeling. After everything you've learned, it would be highly irregular if you didn't feel strange when standing on Amaurot's streets, surveying its bright buildings. It's still as beautiful--and tragic--and impressive--as it was when you first discovered it. Emet-Selch's creation magic must have been in a league of its own. Since his death, not even a single lamp or lightshade has dimmed by a noticeable amount. Shades of the ancients still walk the streets, still debate with one another, still greet you with curious but undeniably warm friendliness. They repeat their steps taken from one day to the next, perpetually ahead of the Final Days, before each and every hell broke loose. Emet-Selch's final unnecessary flourish, perhaps: his people (your people) can keep on existing for a little while longer.
You're looking up at those gleaming skyscrapers when one of the shades approaches you. It's not unheard of, but it still catches you off-guard every time it happens. They're so large and gentle. "Hello there," says the shade, and you nod in greeting, unsure if this shade is one you've met before. "Little one, I couldn't help but notice that you have been out and about for nearly the entire day, left to your own devices." It's only now that you realize you've been walking in circles around the city, over and over again, aimless and strange. That which drives you--well, it can't be called déjà vu, because you still don't personally remember any of this. You're simply here for the sake of being here. For the impossible chance that you might learn something, recognize something, that will aid you in what you have to do next.
You open your mouth to reply--to dodge the concern, if nothing else. Your confusion and questions are a burden you wouldn't share with the Scions, much less a pale imitation of a long-since-dead compatriot. But the shade only shakes their head and you wonder if this one might pity you a little bit. "After making a few inquiries, I confirmed that you do indeed have a valid residency permit within Amaurot. I'd encourage you to return to your domicile and check in with your guardian. He must be concerned for your constant wandering. Won't you go and see him soon?"
Guardian. The hair rises on the back of your neck. Yes, you have had inquisitive shades speak of your guardians before, as they presume you're young and you must have guardians to look after you. The candid nature of this shade is unexpected, though. It's different. It's giving you more of that strange, throat-tightening feeling you can't quite define. Not déjà vu, nor dread, nor hope, nor resentment...
Your domicile, as it turns out, looks like an especially tall and glamorous apartment building you might find near any of the city-states on Eorzea. The electronic doorman recognizes you, allowing you to come inside. You inquire at the front desk and you're told your apartment is located on the fourteenth floor. (Always that number, always coming up again...) On the elevator, you're accompanied by two shades that murmur to each other about what they'll do if the cataclysm from across the sea should reach them here. They have plans to leave before things deteriorate too much, for a sister city and southernly safety; they don't have as much faith in the Convocation of Fourteen as it seems their compeers do. Tomorrow evening, they'll repeat the same conversation, and they'll make the same plans to evacuate. The day after that, they'll repeat the same conversation, and they'll make the same plans to evacuate. And the day after that...
You don't have to fiddle with a key to your apartment. The front door, still so clever a technology, recognizes you as soon as you arrive. Something in the frame unseals with a low whooshing sound, and then the door swings inward, sparkling at the edges. Your apartment lies before you. It's dark, but your first step is all that it takes for the foyer and the rooms beyond to breathe in and then brighten. You can't tell where exactly the light is coming from. It's a mild and inoffensive shade of white. The furnishings are also mild and inoffensive. Larger than life, obviously, and largely uniform in appearance. The designers had a great appreciation for symmetry. Though each piece is heavy and sturdy-looking, they're each as beautiful as the greater architecture. A ways in, you arrive at a rather breathtaking view of Amaurot out the floor-to-ceiling windows in what must be the communal living room.
Then, from just behind you: "It's about time you arrived, hero."
You turn around quickly, forcefully, leaving nothing to chance. Emet-Selch is standing off to the side, at the start of some hallway or another, leading to more rooms in the apartment. He looks just as he did, just as you knew him to be, for the majority of the time you knew him: a royal Garlean with poor posture, piercing eyes, and a crooked smile. It's inconceivable that he should be standing here when you put a godsdamned axe forged of the purest, most terrible light straight through his heart.
Emet-Selch can't help but sigh at you.
"Oh, do put down your weapon. I am not what you would think to call alive and well, Warrior of Light. I'm not even here. I'm supposed to be here, yes, but I'm not... actually... here." He gestures lazily to the rest of the apartment. "Lest you worry yourself, I'll have you know that I didn't consider granting my shade any selfsame powers. I'm about as harmless to you as a newborn calf."
Finally, you find your voice in the thick bramble that is your throat.
"Your shade?"
Emet-Selch nods, but he's almost wary about it. "Why, yes. If that much isn't obvious to you by now, then you are truly hopeless. Before I departed from this mortal coil, I decided to leave behind a trifle of myself, to better answer your questions, should you happen to have them. I have since been waiting for you to return here and to ask the questions you have for me that I didn't otherwise have the chance to answer. Battles of life and death aren't so good for that sort of exchange."
"I don't have any such questions for you," is what you growl on instinct. You don't want to know about this doomed city or its doomed inhabitants. You don't want to understand this strange and swelling feeling in your chest. This feeling that threatens to overwhelm your senses with who and why and where and when and what and how and, worst of all, what if. Now that the answers possibly stand before you, within your reach, you don't want to hear anything that might make matters even more complicated. Zodiark, and Hydaelyn, and the hateful war between them...
The last thing the Warrior of Light needs is to harbor more regrets.
"As I told you before, I have never once lied to you." Emet-Selch closes his eyes, struggling to contain his indignation. "But it seems you're no less determined when it comes to lying to me, even after all our years apart. All right, then... It's not as though I have anyplace else to conduct myself, so I'll just wait around here until your shining ignorance loses some of its luster." He is no doubt serious about that: he's already ambling over the grand, commodious bench that's positioned in front of the windows. He hops up onto the edge of it as if he belongs there, then dismissively waves a hand at you. Then he says, with a wire-tight smile, "Let me know when you've found the time to sit down and have a chat."
You leave the apartment after that. You run down the hall to the elevator you arrived in, and you don't stop running until you're on the outskirts of the city, where the coral is thickest and most unforgiving. Only then do you allow yourself to kneel down and cry.
Amaurot is beautiful.
It also gives you a strange feeling.
Of course it gives you a strange feeling. After everything you've learned, it would be highly irregular if you didn't feel strange when standing on Amaurot's streets, surveying its bright buildings. It's still as beautiful--and tragic--and impressive--as it was when you first discovered it. Emet-Selch's creation magic must have been in a league of its own. Since his death, not even a single lamp or lightshade has dimmed by a noticeable amount. Shades of the ancients still walk the streets, still debate with one another, still greet you with curious but undeniably warm friendliness. They repeat their steps taken from one day to the next, perpetually ahead of the Final Days, before each and every hell broke loose. Emet-Selch's final unnecessary flourish, perhaps: his people (your people) can keep on existing for a little while longer.
You're looking up at those gleaming skyscrapers when one of the shades approaches you. It's not unheard of, but it still catches you off-guard every time it happens. They're so large and gentle. "Hello there," says the shade, and you nod in greeting, unsure if this shade is one you've met before. "Little one, I couldn't help but notice that you have been out and about for nearly the entire day, left to your own devices." It's only now that you realize you've been walking in circles around the city, over and over again, aimless and strange. That which drives you--well, it can't be called déjà vu, because you still don't personally remember any of this. You're simply here for the sake of being here. For the impossible chance that you might learn something, recognize something, that will aid you in what you have to do next.
You open your mouth to reply--to dodge the concern, if nothing else. Your confusion and questions are a burden you wouldn't share with the Scions, much less a pale imitation of a long-since-dead compatriot. But the shade only shakes their head and you wonder if this one might pity you a little bit. "After making a few inquiries, I confirmed that you do indeed have a valid residency permit within Amaurot. I'd encourage you to return to your domicile and check in with your guardian. He must be concerned for your constant wandering. Won't you go and see him soon?"
Guardian. The hair rises on the back of your neck. Yes, you have had inquisitive shades speak of your guardians before, as they presume you're young and you must have guardians to look after you. The candid nature of this shade is unexpected, though. It's different. It's giving you more of that strange, throat-tightening feeling you can't quite define. Not déjà vu, nor dread, nor hope, nor resentment...
Your domicile, as it turns out, looks like an especially tall and glamorous apartment building you might find near any of the city-states on Eorzea. The electronic doorman recognizes you, allowing you to come inside. You inquire at the front desk and you're told your apartment is located on the fourteenth floor. (Always that number, always coming up again...) On the elevator, you're accompanied by two shades that murmur to each other about what they'll do if the cataclysm from across the sea should reach them here. They have plans to leave before things deteriorate too much, for a sister city and southernly safety; they don't have as much faith in the Convocation of Fourteen as it seems their compeers do. Tomorrow evening, they'll repeat the same conversation, and they'll make the same plans to evacuate. The day after that, they'll repeat the same conversation, and they'll make the same plans to evacuate. And the day after that...
You don't have to fiddle with a key to your apartment. The front door, still so clever a technology, recognizes you as soon as you arrive. Something in the frame unseals with a low whooshing sound, and then the door swings inward, sparkling at the edges. Your apartment lies before you. It's dark, but your first step is all that it takes for the foyer and the rooms beyond to breathe in and then brighten. You can't tell where exactly the light is coming from. It's a mild and inoffensive shade of white. The furnishings are also mild and inoffensive. Larger than life, obviously, and largely uniform in appearance. The designers had a great appreciation for symmetry. Though each piece is heavy and sturdy-looking, they're each as beautiful as the greater architecture. A ways in, you arrive at a rather breathtaking view of Amaurot out the floor-to-ceiling windows in what must be the communal living room.
Then, from just behind you: "It's about time you arrived, hero."
You turn around quickly, forcefully, leaving nothing to chance. Emet-Selch is standing off to the side, at the start of some hallway or another, leading to more rooms in the apartment. He looks just as he did, just as you knew him to be, for the majority of the time you knew him: a royal Garlean with poor posture, piercing eyes, and a crooked smile. It's inconceivable that he should be standing here when you put a godsdamned axe forged of the purest, most terrible light straight through his heart.
Emet-Selch can't help but sigh at you.
"Oh, do put down your weapon. I am not what you would think to call alive and well, Warrior of Light. I'm not even here. I'm supposed to be here, yes, but I'm not... actually... here." He gestures lazily to the rest of the apartment. "Lest you worry yourself, I'll have you know that I didn't consider granting my shade any selfsame powers. I'm about as harmless to you as a newborn calf."
Finally, you find your voice in the thick bramble that is your throat.
"Your shade?"
Emet-Selch nods, but he's almost wary about it. "Why, yes. If that much isn't obvious to you by now, then you are truly hopeless. Before I departed from this mortal coil, I decided to leave behind a trifle of myself, to better answer your questions, should you happen to have them. I have since been waiting for you to return here and to ask the questions you have for me that I didn't otherwise have the chance to answer. Battles of life and death aren't so good for that sort of exchange."
"I don't have any such questions for you," is what you growl on instinct. You don't want to know about this doomed city or its doomed inhabitants. You don't want to understand this strange and swelling feeling in your chest. This feeling that threatens to overwhelm your senses with who and why and where and when and what and how and, worst of all, what if. Now that the answers possibly stand before you, within your reach, you don't want to hear anything that might make matters even more complicated. Zodiark, and Hydaelyn, and the hateful war between them...
The last thing the Warrior of Light needs is to harbor more regrets.
"As I told you before, I have never once lied to you." Emet-Selch closes his eyes, struggling to contain his indignation. "But it seems you're no less determined when it comes to lying to me, even after all our years apart. All right, then... It's not as though I have anyplace else to conduct myself, so I'll just wait around here until your shining ignorance loses some of its luster." He is no doubt serious about that: he's already ambling over the grand, commodious bench that's positioned in front of the windows. He hops up onto the edge of it as if he belongs there, then dismissively waves a hand at you. Then he says, with a wire-tight smile, "Let me know when you've found the time to sit down and have a chat."
You leave the apartment after that. You run down the hall to the elevator you arrived in, and you don't stop running until you're on the outskirts of the city, where the coral is thickest and most unforgiving. Only then do you allow yourself to kneel down and cry.