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Grilled Cheese is a product of Village Compute

Version devBuilt at: 2026-10-17 18:04:42 EDT

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The crystal sat in the middle of the table, an innocuous little thing glinting amber in the reflected firelight. The main area of the company house was blessedly quiet, for a miracle, most of the friends and companions Pye and Orestes had gathered on their travels out for the time being. Rinalle perched on a bench, alternating leaning toward and away from the crystal. Pye clattered around the kitchen, sulkily making something Orestes would consider “normal food,” and Orestes poked at the crystal with a finger.

“What is it supposed to do?”

“I’ve survived for thirty-some-odd years without sleeves, though I must protest that at least some of my robes have had something approaching sleeves, or at least cover on parts of my arms. And, need I remind you, the ambient temperature of my surroundings does not tend to bother me, for several reasons.”

“M’naago says you can still get frostbite.”

Rinalle scowls. “That traitor. I have never had frostbite.”

He thinks it started with Ifrit. Maybe it was before that, but he remembers feeling it once he’d been healed and helped off the ground from where he fell during the fight: the pressure to do better. No one said anything to his face; they didn’t need to. It was in the air all around them. Ifrit was gone, for now, but Eylanni had become a burden when the primal knocked him unconscious, and there were enough people to worry about without him adding himself to the list.

A single ear flick is all that tells him M’halku heard his footsteps. That’s as well, since he’d not been hiding them and had in fact kicked a rock on purpose to gauge the Miqo’te’s state. He doesn’t often get more than an ear flick in acknowledgment, but though he’s become singularly adept at reading M’halku’s body language over the years, this twitch of the ear feels more desultory than others. Well, that’s what the wine is for.

The figure is disheveled, practically wearing rags and looking like the sort of unwashed that comes after weeks of a lack of care. Nalle’s seen a lot of people look like this, though none so far have run directly at him. Desperate times have made desperate people, though, and Nalle is the only guard for what someone might think a trove of items to be resold. The crates mostly hold foodstuffs, things their next destination needs after a virulent pest destroyed much of their fields, and they wouldn’t be able to buy it back from some opportunistic thief.

The life of a jaeger pilot was a lot of waiting around, with brief, terrifying surges of movement. Everything revolved around anticipating an attack, and the best pilots were the ones who didn’t succumb to the anxiety of the wait. There was training to do, physically preparing their bodies for the demands of moving a giant hunk of metal, and simulations to run, mentally rehearsing options so that when the time came they didn’t freeze up and give the kaiju an opportunity. Those took up a lot of time. But equally as important as all of that was keeping up relationships with people other than your copilot.

“Just follow them tracks an’ you’ll get to Black Brush.”

Eylanni smiled and thanked the man profusely. Follow the tracks, he could do that. That was the sort of directions he worked best with: none of that “east for two malms then north for three.” Who knew what east and north were, anyway?

Eylanni talks to the plants. He heard somewhere it helps them grow, so on days he has more spare moments, he sits among the rows of crops he and Ryder have planted and tells them stories.

May contain graphic violence

May contain graphic violence

“It’s probably fine, right?”

Eylanni paces across the main room of his sister’s house.

“It’s definitely fine.”

He paces back across.

“Unless it’s not fine?”

He turns for another pass.

“It’s fine,” Ryder says from where he sits, folding cloths into a neat stack.

Nalle wakes to the familiar feeling of salt on his cheeks. Generally he doesn’t remember his dreams, for a mercy, but whether or not he does, they always leave an impression. He lies still, measuring his breathing until it evens, then opens his eyes to find what he knew he would. Pye is watching him, curled on his side to face him, brown eyes inscrutable in the darkness. Dawn must be close, but it hasn’t yet grasped the horizon.

“Did I wake you?” Nalle asks, knowing already what Pye’s answer will be. The man shakes his head, lying, but Nalle has never woken up from a dream or a nightmare without Pye already there, waiting for him to regain his senses.

“Lanni, psst, Lanni.”

They’re supposed to be sleeping. Eylanni is doing a good job of pretending he is: he might fool mama, but Rinalle knows better. His twin is as known to him as his own heartbeat, which is currently bouncing excitedly around his chest. He’s cross-legged on the floor beside their bed, the new tome papa brought back from the village last sennight open before him. One small candle gutters nearby.

Finally, Eylanni opens one green eye, the mirror to Rinalle’s own. Rinalle grins at the question contained therein, the why can’t you let me sleep as obvious as everything else about his twin.

It began with a vision. The mountain glade hosted their clan moderately well, though it was too small for all of them: several family groups had gone farther down the Spine, avoiding the fledgling village in the area so as not to overtax their hospitality. If they were still around when the tribe came through in another few cycles, they’d know they’d last and they could trade.

Tanria was not daydreaming, precisely, when it happened, but neither was she paying her task the attention it was due. She looked around guiltily when she saw the figure, thinking she’d been caught out. The figure did not move. It did not speak to call over others or loudly announce Tanria’s laziness. Though she was already half-ignoring what she was supposed to do, she peered closer at the figure.

Rinalle pours a measure of water into the bowl before the statuette of Nymeia.

Spinner, guide my steps.
Lead me along the weave and lend me the strength to affect my fate.
What is to be will be.

Ilberd was taller than him, more heavily muscled in the way of frontline fighters, but even he stumbled a few steps when Nalle barreled into him, shoving abruptly with hands that still couldn’t always correctly gauge their own strength.

“Why?” he growled, pinning Ilberd to the tree just behind him. “Why would you do that?”

Maddeningly, Ilberd grinned. “You’ll have to be more specific, little flame. I’ve done so much.”

Eylanni doesn't like to think that he might have been happier before his brother came back from the dead. He does sometimes anyway.

He’s not sure what he expected, if he’s honest. Though his memory of his early years is faulty and he’s long since given up hoping he’ll remember more, he does remember what his bedroom looked like when he lived with his family at the temple. The rough stone walls, carved out of the mountain itself, haven’t changed. The hangings on the wall, dyed Spinner blue, look newer, though he couldn’t say when they were replaced. Some time in the last fifteen years, the beds were swapped out for ones that seem better made. He’s not a craftsman like Pye, who’s still in the kitchen with Rinalle’s mother, trying to prove he’s a worthy partner to her son, but a shake to the corner post does nothing to wobble it.

His heart hurts every time he visits the old temple where they saved his life or the burial grounds at the Peering Stones where M’rahz had laid to rest what few scraps they could find at the Wall once it was safe enough to do so. But every year it hurts a little less, the ache less painful and more familiar. It’s become an old friend, one he doesn’t always agree with but that can always be relied upon.

They’ve been out here for days. It’s supposed to teach him something, but Eylanni hasn’t quite figured out what it is that Pye wants him to do. Which apparently isn’t the point, it’s not about what Pye wants him to do, it’s about what he wants him to do? But Eylanni isn’t interested in doing any soul searching: he followed Pye to the deserts of Thanalan—gloriously warm after the freeze of Ishgard—because Pye promised he’d help him. And because there might be people with weapons and grudges back in Ishgard who wouldn’t look kindly on Eylanni’s continued stay there, no matter the battered and bruised shape he was in.