tâm and eris's epilogue friendship on the delrose for decades post-campaign makes me soooo 🥺 it's about the kids who grew up as thieves and pirates who choose to leave the terror of their childhoods behind but for whom the adventuring was never the terrifying part. it's about people who remind each other of their other halves—tâm listening to eris spin stories and endlessly grateful for the explanations in them, telling eris i think you know what that feels like describing who ari is to her in the same conversation as i'm glad i don't have to hate you; eris looking at tâm and seeing parts of nyx in the anger and in the protection, the parts of nyx that can't stand to watch eris using magic on ari with a casual cruelty. it's about that first meeting in the jilted creed stronghold, both of them walking through dreams and through the demiplane of the dead but also curled around a glowing sending stone in the middle of the night talking to a friend. it's about the delrose's new first mate, and its new quartermaster—thalia and xarus over again, friends to the point of family. it's about two people who watch their other halves walk away into solid, happy lives on solid ground, insofar as that exists in a world where the islands float and shift, and who love them so hard, and wave goodbye nonetheless to let them live their own lives. it's about the teens who remember feeling scared they could get asked to leave this ship that is home any day if they did the wrong thing who grow into adults who keep the delrose a place where people stay.
idk i just want to think that. the first day that nyx walks off the delrose not planning to come back, tâm squeezes eris's hand as she waves to her sister all the way down the quay and then bumps eris with her shoulder when she finally turns away. and tâm thinks about xarus, and makes a big cup of tea, but also thinks about lian, and sits eris down on the deck to chat about everything and nothing and to play and lose game after game of cards to her just to let eris have something to do with her hands that isn't work on the delrose right then.