I gazed into the eyes that, just moments earlier, had been glazed and blazing red with the rage of eons. Now they were, once again, gold and cool. The bitter anger, the biting cynicism, the vengeful disappointment – all these things were gone from them, drained like poison from a festering wound. In their place was a calm resignation, an acceptance of the hand which fate had dealt.

“Remember that we lived,” Emet-Selch, the Architect, said softly.

I nodded. It was the least I could do for the help he had given. Remember him. Remember his people. Remember the tragic burden he had borne on his own shoulders for years beyond numbering. I could do that.

After the fire and rage, the shadow and despair, the war and the blood, came peace and calm acceptance. As I regarded my most worthy adversary, watching the light of a new dawn wash over his face and through the hole where once his heart had been, I made a vow to him and to myself. I would remember him. I would remember his people. Their city. That they had hopes and dreams no less than the hopes and dreams of those whom I protected. And, one day, perhaps, when I made that last journey to the place where all souls are eventually called, I would stop in to share new memories with my old friend. Perhaps then he would tell me what it is he’d seen that twisted his features into horrified sorrow. And perhaps we would open a bottle of the bittersweet brew and reminisce, trading tales and truths, hopes and fears, laughter and sorrow, until such a time as it came for us to make our next trek through life.
“I will,” I promised the shade of a man who had once and always been as much a part of my life as my own shadow.

And then I left the city of dying memories to return to the land of the living with the Scions and the Crystal Exarch, my old friend G’raha Tia.

That night, as I watched the sun set on a world still new to night’s shadow, I found myself sitting alone at a table in the bar with one glass before me and one to the side, lost in my own memories and promises to one who I prayed had, at long last, found peace.

Prize: Chocobo Barding