The Far Edge of Fate (Final Fantasy XV)

CHAPTER 10 - TALES OF LOSS AND FIRE AND FAITH

be mindful of ffxiv endwalker spoilers above if you a) have an interest in playing or have played and haven't gotten there yet and b) would like to listen as you read.

Chapter title comes from the lyrics of 'Close in the Distance' from the Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker OST.

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Something heavy was pressing against Aaralyn.

It was the first sensation she was aware of. Her cheek was pressed against something hard, a weight on her back that made it difficult to breathe. Her ears rang and she could hear something crackling in the distance. A constant popping.

Aaralyn thought hard, trying to force her brain to work, wondering if she was on a mission that had gone horribly wrong when everything came rushing back. The dreadnoughts, Pelna's death, the traitors, that Crownsguard member colliding his truck with the dropship.

Her head shot up. She could finally place the crackling noise.

Fire.

She inhaled deeply. The fire singed her nose. Her entire body burned with exhaustion and pain, but she pushed it aside in favor of gathering her strength. She moved to push whatever was lying on top of her away and it lifted with surprisingly little resistance. It fell with a thud behind her. She lifted herself onto her elbows, propping herself up and coughing heavily, trying hard to hack clean air into her lungs through the smoke in the air. She turned her head, wondering what had been pinning her down, and nearly choked.

It was Tredd.

He lay on his stomach, leg twisted in a way it should not have been. One arm was trapped beneath him, but Aaralyn could feel warm blood that was not hers sticking to her back. Tredd's head was facing her, scarred cheek pressed to the ground. His eyes were closed.

"Tredd-" Aaralyn shot forward, pressing her hands to his back and shaking him. Blood from his bullet wound stained her gloves and fingers. "Tredd, please. Come on, look at me you asshole, I know you're not-" her voice caught in her throat. "You can't be..."

Tredd did not stir. His back did not rise and fall with shallow but steady breathing. It wouldn't ever again. And, as Aaralyn looked around her, she could see countless other traitors lying dead on the pavement. There was Sonitus, buried in debris with a piece of shrapnel sticking through his chest. Axis lay a few feet away, facing away, but he was just as motionless as Tredd. One of his legs had been blown clean off.

The truth of what happened in those last moments between the truck colliding with the dropship tore a strangled cry of grief from Aaralyn's chest.

Tredd's last act—his final decision not as a Glaive or a traitor but as a human—had been to protect her. Had been to turn himself into a human shield for her sake, to make sure she lived.

Aaralyn threw her head forward and screamed.

Could today get any worse? First Pelna, then countless other Glaives, and finally Tredd, Sonitus, and Axis. How many more people could it take from her?

The agony ripped into Aaralyn. She leaned forward, kneeling at Tredd's side, tears in her eyes and hands curled to her chest as though it would alleviate the hurt. It didn't. She could only sit there and sob, hoping this was nothing but a bad dream. Tredd was the second person to have sacrificed their life for hers. First her father, now him.

Loss was a feeling Aaralyn was intimately acquainted with.

She just hated how badly it hurt.

She didn't know how long she sat there beside Tredd's body. Enough time had passed for her open sobbings to turn into violent jerks of her shoulders. Her head pounded and every inch of her skin burned with wounds and fatigue. Soot peppered her face and clothes and Tredd's dried blood stained her fingers. Her thigh ached. She wasn't sure it could take weight.