Sixth Circle of Hell
Ishgard. The home he had not seen for five years. Gareth’s heart felt heavy in his chest as they made their way through the Gates of Judgment, and up the Steps of Faith, now purged of the blood and bodies that had littered it like so many flowers. The gate leading into the city proper opened before them, and Gareth’s throat suddenly felt too tight for the passage of breath. Cold wind stirred, frigid and piercing. He squinted against the sting of its keen edge, his steps faltering.
For a moment, Gareth simply stood in the shadow of the city he had fled from, not minding if Aymeric and Lucia had continued on ahead. Before the imperious faces of grey rock, he felt so small. The eyes of the city were cast upon him, and his guilt doubled until the poison of panic spilled into his chest. The thought that he should turn back pulsed in his mind, plucked at his reflexes. But he could not. He had offered to help Ishgard, and he had meant it. This was his chance. And with the Scions scattered and missing, where else could he go? Returning to Gridania would be admitting defeat.
Gareth forced a steadying breath past the lump in his throat. Squaring his shoulders, he strode through the gates. The Foundation greeted him. Like everything else about his surroundings, it was cold, imposing. And yet, so familiar.
A strange sense of restoration washed over him, mingling strangely with the feeling of intrusion. I’m home, he thought, and a sad little smile crested his lips. His feet remembered the pathways, his eyes remembered every stone and brick, his lungs remembered the wintry sharpness of the clear air. He followed Aymeric, but in truth he needed no guide. You can never forget the land that births you. No matter how hard he had tried, there had been things he had never been able to let go of. And even if he was misshapen now, no longer belonging where he had started his life, he felt as if he somehow clicked into place, a bent puzzle piece that had been removed from the mosaic, finally pushed back into its slot.
Gareth touched the pendant at his throat as they came to a halt outside the Order of Knights Most Heavenly. Closing his eyes, he thought he could feel him. The shade of his father. Staring at him with disappointment, maybe even resentment. But for the first time in years, Gareth swore he felt him, could remember the details of his face as if it had only been minutes since he had last seen him.
Opening his eyes, he turned on his heel, allowing his gaze to linger upon each and every detail of the world around him. He drank it in deeply, these memories that were now no longer just images in his mind, but real things that breathed all around him. Perhaps to most he would look like a man staring at something he had never seen before with awe, but this was not the case. This was the gaze of a man who had been lost at sea for years and had finally returned home, seeing his land with fresh eyes tainted by nostalgia.
Wordlessly, Gareth greeted the streets that had housed him, and prayed they would accept him once again. Feeling this odd collusion of newness and sameness, as if he were different and yet as if no years had passed, his hands began to shake.
“I can scarcely believe I’m in Ishgard.” Again. Ishgard, as it had always been. Except, perhaps, different, since he was upon its streets under the guise of a foreigner. Could the changes his mother had wished for truly be on the verge of dawning?