"We make for Raithwall's tomb, then."

Fran felt the fine hairs at the bases of her ears quivering, sense deeper than sound. This man she did not know spoke no untruth, but neither did he speak full truth. This was not unusual for humes.

Through the long desert march they fought side by side, and she came to recognize the honesty of his sword, his sweat. The Nam-Yensa sandsea yielded nothing, but they moved across its breadth as best they could. Captain Azelas was Dalmascan to his core, and Ashe's desert blossom opened in the sunlight of his smile.

Basch, too: his shoulders would relax when Vossler flanked him, a silent pledge of trust. When once they ran from the terrible sparking of a hidden entite, Ashe stumbled. Before any of them could react, Vossler lifted her in his arms that she not be left behind. The princess laughed about it that night around their camping fire, embarrassed, but far from angry. Few others might have gotten away with such a trick-- that they all know.

Fran did not laugh. She watched the hesitant slant of Vossler's smile, and kept her peace. This war was not her own, after all.

#

Climbing the iced slopes of Mt. Bur-Omisace, not one of them was not grateful for an extra pair of hands. And if trust was not a draught so easily poured these days, Larsa yet trudged alongside, unbothered.

He was not much like Vossler. Not only short a score of years, the youngest Solidor was so finely Archadian bred that his every word cut two ways. Fran scented no malice, but only intrigue running deep as heartsblood, blades honed with words and words sharpened to blades.

No one mentioned his name when it came time to draw for first watch, or second, or third. Vossler had not stabbed them in their sleeping; his watches were all sound. But the memory rankled, and so he slept fitfully by the watchfire for the nightlong blizzard: perhaps dreaming the things that hume children dream; perhaps dreaming of empires and treaties signed in family blood. Balthier would not look at him. It was Penelo who was moved to pity, and gave him her blanket when it was her turn to keep the fire.

Fran seldom slept. She watched the restlessness behind Larsa's eyes, and kept her peace. This war was not her own, after all.

#

The third to lend his sword was different, still.

"Reddas" was no more his true name than "Lamont"'s, but it suited him in much the same way. Fran noted his secrecy no less than his confidence with a blade, or the judicer's pitch to his words. Like Vossler, a man used to speaking his mind; like Larsa, a man used to being listened to.

This time, the party surmounted not sandstorm or snowstorm, but the Pharos. Like the impossibly tall towers in a children's tale, her topmost reaches scraped the belly of the sky, her roots hid in the wild Ridorana Cataract.

The mist was growing stronger; each of them touched by it, each of them struggling. Except for Reddas. Around their night-fire he told stories, coaxing a smile from each face in turn.

...Until he lunged into the Sun Cryst with his sword drawn: a betrayal undone, a hidden truth that was no longer a burden. Vaan, perhaps the only one truly surprised, cried out his name.

Fran held him back. She watched the Sun Cryst dazzle, mist burning along her skin-- and found tears on her face. Perhaps she was not so distanced from this battle, after all.