Chapter 27: Settle

With Shulk now home for three meals a day, Melia had to start buying groceries more often - not that much more often, since he didn't eat a lot, but measurably so. He'd muttered something about paying her back, but he was her guest, so she'd ignored him. Maybe if he tried to actually give her any money, she would consider working something out.

As usual, before actually going to the markets in Colony 6, she spent some time walking around the colony. The early morning was usually quiet at the border near the Pod Depot, so it was a nice environment to relax and think before the occasional chaos of shopping in the still-rapidly-expanding colony. Not that she lacked a quiet place to think at home, but she could only pace around it so much before a change of scenery was needed.

She noticed that the trees were starting to turn. Soon, this walk would be much more colourful. It was an exciting prospect for her and the other High Entia - plants from Eryth Sea generally only turned a similar shade of unappetising brown in the autumn. The myriad of tree colours native to the rest of Bionis would be spectacular.

Something unexpected grabbed her attention. If her ethersense wasn't mistaken, someone was sleeping in the cargo bay of one of the ships sitting at the depot.

Why is there a person sleeping out here? There are enough resources for the unprivileged in Colony 6 that this is unnecessary. She focused her attention. High Entia...male...half-blooded...somewhere between 110 and 150 years old. Unlikely to be a person I know.

I'm going to investigate.

Melia stepped up to the pod. The cargo door was closed, but that was little obstacle to her. All she had to do was get close enough that she could summon an earth elemental on the other side, and use it to flip the switch she knew the location of from other ships of the same model. With the door open, she peered inside.

The man was tucked into a back corner. Based on the state of his hair and clothes, he had clearly been travelling on foot for a while. Even asleep, his hand clutched a sword.

Before Melia could decide what to do, the man woke up. The sound of the door or the change in lighting must've roused him.

"Back! BACK!"

He tried to leap to his feet but failed to consider the sloped wall, causing him to hit this head and collapse. He tried again and succeeded this time, pointing his weapon towards his would-be attacker with two trembling hands.

"Don't test me! I know the sword! Not another step! This is my territory! Leave me be!"

Melia spent a moment to consider the situation. Too exhausted to be in his right mind. A threat to himself more than anyone else. Disarm, and attempt to de-escalate.

She swiped the still-present earth elemental across the cargo bay, easily knocking the sword out of his weakened grip.

He sputtered and stammered for a moment before raising his fists. "You won't have me, you cur!"

With a yell, he advanced on her. Melia was only half expecting it, but he was sluggish enough that she didn't need to be. She easily dodged his punch and slapped him in the face, sending him sprawling.

"It rather disappoints me that this is our first interaction," she said. "Please do endeavour to not make it a pattern."

The man had been collecting himself for another attack, but something made him pause. Whether it was the content of the speech, or just her voice, or maybe a better look at her from here he'd landed, something in the back of his mind was visibly fighting for the front. After a few moments, he had it, and his face turned to shock.

"M...Majesty? Y-Your Majesty?!"

Melia suspected where this would go and made to stop it before it started. "You shall make no attempt to prostrate yourself before me. Frankly, I'm tired of it."

The man chose to instead simply stay down. "Oh, Your Majesty, you are even more compassionate than they say! I am not worthy of your mercy!"

Don't make me believe that. "Now stand, and tell me who you are."

He quickly scrambled to his feet, with a large smile on his face that seemed halfway between very relieved and very fake, and bowed.

"I am Gael'gar Uzubeth of the personal protection division."

Melia took a moment to think. She couldn't write a list of everyone in the division from memory, but she did make an effort to introduce herself to each one soon after the day of their promotion, and he was not familiar to her.

"I know of none by that name."

Gael'gar's smile grew a bit nervous. "Of course, I should not expect it. I only graduated my training mere days before...well, I'm sure we all know what happened. Your Majesty was surely too busy with other matters to be aware of my promotion."

Melia's eyes narrowed. It would have been the right month for personal protection promotions, and Kallian as regent could have approved the forms while she was away. It was a fairly reasonable alibi. But none of it could be proven.

"On any other day, I might accept this claim. However, you have been caught red-handed in a dishonourable act that is not befitting of one who would be accepted as a personal protector."

"I do not deny this. My judgement has eroded over the past few months of duress. It was a moment of weakness."

"Explain."

Gael'gar took a deep breath; to his credit, he did not seem to be losing his nerve. "Very little of my unit survived the initial events of those months ago. We took refuge in Eryth Sea, keeping a lookout for allied movements in hopes that Your Majesty had survived and would come bearing orders one day. After only a week, there was a disagreement on whether to continue this course of action, or to take a more proactive approach in searching the land. The argument was fierce, and in the end, the unit split in twain. The larger half left to be proactive, and I was left with only one other colleague. Only the next day, our camp was ravaged by a swarm of sea creatures, and I escaped alone. I can only assume the other half met a similar fate, as I failed to find any trace of them, and I have had a difficult time of it ever since. Very few are as trusting of my tale as you, Your Majesty, and all refused me shelter for any more than a day of pity. In the end, I came upon this ship, and took it as a shelter in what little way I could."

Melia crossed her arms as she considered the story. It was hard to believe that a personal protection unit, hand-picked for the best co-operation, would disagree on a matter so much as to split themselves after a mere week of aimlessness. But personal protection soldiers were primarily trained for dangerous citizens and enemy combatants in urban environments, rather than rabid beasts in the wilderness, and so might indeed fare poorly if unexpectedly forced into such a situation. And if what he was saying were true, she could corroborate the story with those he claimed to have met along the way, to at least ascertain he had told everyone the same thing.

"For the moment," she decided, "you have my belief, but not my trust. That, you will have to earn."

Gael'gar entered an even deeper bow than before. "I could not ask for any more, Your Majesty. I shall do whatever is asked of me from this point forward to earn Your Majesty's trust."

Let's see if you mean it. "For starters, you will address me by name rather than by any title."

"B-B-B-But, Y-Y-... But Your..." His mouth opened and closed a few times, grappling with itself. "The title expresses my absolute devotion to you and yours! It cannot be simply discarded like-"

"You are not up to date on current events, so you cannot be blamed for not knowing. But suffice to say that changes are being made to how we govern ourselves in the wake of the societal upheaval. Whether it is correct or not, I do not care. If you are truly "devoted" to me, you will do as I say."

Gael'gar twitched a few times and swallowed hard. "Y-Yes, Lady Melia."

"...That will do for the moment. Now, come with me. You require proper food and lodgings after your ordeal."

Melia spent the next half hour bringing Gael'gar to Colony 6's homeless quarters and getting him set up. Apparently he had only just reached the colony, so it was probably his next step anyway, but he was still twitchy and paranoid enough from his journey that having her along smoothed out the process a lot. By then, the populace was properly out and about, so her shopping was a bit more chaotic than usual.

As she left, she took a glance at the Pod Depot to notice that the ship Gael'gar had been sleeping in was now gone. It was probably a good thing she'd found him first, or he'd be who knows where in his addled state. As poor as his first impression was, he didn't deserve what happened to him.

Shulk grumbled as he stepped upstairs. The cloudy weather today, combined with the shortening hours of sunlight, was making it harder to wake up on time. As usual, he knocked on the bedroom door to confirm that Melia was absent, then creeped open the door very slowly to double-confirm it, before hustling through as fast as he could and into the bathroom for his shower.

As the days went by, he was starting to admit that taking a shower more often wasn't actually all that bad. Sure, it was time wasted because he was awake without working on something. But in hindsight, he was often wasting that time anyway by being half-asleep when trying to get started - taking a shower ensured he was fully awake before breakfast. He was still no morning person, but it helped.

He was just getting ready to step into the shower when he saw something strange out the window: Melia standing in the clearing behind the house.

What's she doing out there?

He got closer to the window for a better look. Melia was simply standing there, three bolts summoned and idle, with something (a camera?) on a tripod not far away.

Huh. Must be doing some sort of experiment that's dangerous indoors.

Shulk proceeded to have his shower. Most of his thinking was about what Melia might be doing. It probably wasn't related to their tutoring lately, since they had been doing gearworks and other mechanical things. What could she be doing with ether that was unsafe to do inside? Okay, the volatile elementals were generally not something you wanted in a house, but she had enough control of them that it wasn't a concern for her. And why now, when the day's forecast (if he remembered right from yesterday) was not looking good?

Once out of the shower, he took another look outside. Melia was still out there, unmoved, this time with no elementals above her. Maybe whatever she was doing didn't work and she was trying again from the beginning.

Well, as curious as he was, he wasn't going to pry. And besides, he had his own stuff to do. The upgrades to the lab in Colony 9 had been completed last week, so he was still in the "smells like new" phase of having just as much fun simply using the place as he normally did actually accomplishing anything. It would take a bit for the interest from visitors to decline so he could start on his super-secret stuff again, but there was plenty of other things to work on.

Of course, first he had to see how Dunban was doing. The house's frame had been straightened out, and the outer walls were basically complete, leaving only the inside. It definitely could've been finished by now if Dunban had asked for help - after all, Melia's house had been built from scratch in a month - but without the urgency of a Mechon threat or Shulk also being out of a house, his pride demanded that he go it alone as much as he could. He enjoyed the work, and only his right arm brought him to ask his closest friends for help.

Shulk arrived at Dunban's house to find Reyn at work, as usual, fitting trim around the hole for the front door. Dunban was attaching hinges to the front door itself.

"'Ey, Shulk!" Reyn waved at him. "Big one today. Got the windows in yesterday evening, and the door just showed up five minutes ago. Once the door's in, that's the outside all fixed up, and the inside's next."

"Cool." Shulk moved to get a better look. The house looked almost unchanged from how he remembered it now, just newer in colour. Part of him wondered if it could've been done already if he'd helped more, but Dunban had insisted that he didn't have to if he didn't want to, that he should instead do Shulk things if it made him feel better about being forced out. And as much as Shulk still wanted to help, he did think Dunban was right.

Dunban put the screwdriver down and walked over. "That's right. And that means we'll be able to move back in today."

Today. The word rattled around Shulk's mind. It was kind of exciting - for a moment, at least.

"...The inside's still going to be a mess, right?"

"Ah, yes." Dunban looked through the repaired front window. "While the exterior is soon to be finished, we haven't touched the interior yet. The upper floor is clean, but will be the staging area for the materials that can't be stored outside. We will be able to move back in, but it will still be fairly chaotic."

Shulk nodded. "I'll think about it. Still getting used to the new lab and stuff. Don't want to have too many changes going on at once if I can avoid it."

"Of course. My door is always open to you, for when you are ready."

"Thanks."

Shulk headed off to the lab, thinking about it. If he was okay with dealing with the mess and chaos, today, he could go back to having his own room. Go back to not having to go through someone else's bedroom to take a shower. Go back to not sleeping on a couch (it was fun for the first week, but not so much anymore). Go back to...

To not having a lab right there in the basement. To living on a somewhat noisy street kind of far from the transport centre. To having to constantly think about what to have for dinner.

To spending less time with Melia.

This would be a tough decision.

Shulk fully intended to keep thinking about it so he'd have it figured out by the evening. But the moment he stepped into the lab and started doing gem balance measurements, the thought was gone, and like many thoughts that weren't urgent it wasn't coming back. So he worked through the day as usual, having completely forgotten about the option to move back into Dunban's house.

He returned to Melia's house, as was now usual, to find that Melia was cooking some sort of fancy salmon dish for dinner. She seemed to be in a very good mood, which was confirmed when she turned to him with a smile she wasn't trying to suppress.

"Shulk, today I have accomplished a hitherto unknown feat."

She inclined her head towards the table as she worked the fish. Shulk stepped over to see a photograph sitting on it.

"I did see you outside this morning," he answered. "I was wondering what you were doing."

He picked up the photo and gave it a look. In it, Melia was standing fairly neutrally, with four summoned bolts above her.

...Four?

"You have four bolts here."

Melia nodded. "Four bolts."

"Wow. That's..." Shulk knew that Melia only ever used three elementals at a time, but he'd never really bothered to pay attention to whether that was a choice or a limit. It must've been a limit if she was so happy about breaking it. "That's impressive, right?"

"It is the first confirmed quadrupling of elementals in recorded history. So it should rate as very impressive."

"Ah. Well, congratulations."

"Thank you." Melia continued to work the stove. "I would demonstrate, but my current level of control is insufficient for safe indoor use. Should you wish to see it for yourself, you may watch as I practise tomorrow. I intend to do so daily until I am satisfied."

"What brought this on?" asked Shulk.

Melia thought about it for a moment. "I suppose it was simply because it had not been done before. I wished to see how beyond all others I truly am."

Shulk tilted his head in a "good for you" sort of gesture. "I'm guessing that's just the start?"

"Oh yes. My current goal is six, one of each. It would please me greatly to be not only the best ever known, but the best ever knowable. To be known for my talent and skill, not my birthrights."

"Well, I know you can do it. I've seen what you can do with ether. It's a question of when, not if."

"I shall combine your confidence with mine to further ensure my success."

The salmon was nearly ready, so the two busied themselves with the rest of the meal preparation. Once they had begun eating, Melia continued.

"What about you, Shulk? As things continue to settle in this new world, what is your ambition?"

Shulk bought some time with an extra-large bite of fish so he could gather an answer. "Keep working with High Entia and Machina technology, I guess. I'm still deep in making ether staves, and I definitely want to make another replica Monado."

Melia was taken aback. "Another? What ails you of those you already have?"

"Oh there's nothing wrong with them. It's just that...they're a bit off, you know? Like it's a perfectly good weapon, but you just aren't feeling it."

"I'm not sure whether I know the same feeling exactly, but I do understand it. An ether staff must be just so for its wielder to unlock its true potential. Many we have tried in our travels did not align with me."

"No I'm not sure that's it. It's like...like I'm so used to...used to the original Monado." He paused for a moment. "It feels weird, really. Weird that I'm so used to the red shape with the hole in the middle. I mean, I had my own Monado for a few minutes, and it had the best design and I think about it a lot, but I don't know where to begin recreating it. So I just keep thinking back to the one I've known my whole life. The smooth red shape before anyone messed with it. Even though it's...his design. His Monado."

"It is not Zanza's Monado." Melia was surprised at how quickly she found the words, but they flowed naturally. "You saw the spindly eyesore he wielded when we confronted him in the end. That was his true shape - prickly, blustering, and a terrible fit for its supposed purpose. No, the shape you are fond of is that of someone else. Of he who symbolises the wielder taking up arms against their creator, of growing in strength via a deeper understanding of the world. It is Alvis' Monado."

Shulk sat stunned for a few seconds, but quickly shook his head and sighed. "You're right. It's Alvis'. I don't know how, but it just makes sense. He's blue with a bit of red, it's red with a bit of blue. You saw how his necklace changed, right?"

It hadn't occurred to Melia before, but looking back, it was painfully obvious. "Yes. He wore a key around his neck for most of the time I had known him, but after our escape from Mechonis and return to Colony 6, it had become a red crystal. I'd thought nothing of it before. Both had seemed so natural that the change attracted no attention, from us or anyone else."

"It has to mean something. Something that didn't matter until then. Maybe I'll ask him next time I see him."

"I shall endeavour to do the same."

The dinner went on with Shulk asking about the recipe. Melia proceeded to explain how she'd pieced it together from observing several different dishes being prepared in various establishments, and had been waiting for a suitably momentous occasion to justify trying it. Given how it had worked quite well, she was considering offering the recipe to a newer restaurant in Colony 6, to help get it off the ground.

Once all was said and done, Shulk headed back down into the basement. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he got the funny feeling that he'd forgotten something. After spending a moment trying to figure it out, he just shrugged.

It can't have been that important.