The skiff skimmed the harbor like it hated water.
It didn't bob the way boats did. It hovered—steady, smug, a slick gray wedge held up by crystal hum and Public Safety entitlement. The lanterns along its rim painted everything the same color: correct. White light. Clean light. The kind that made people look guilty just for having pores.
Zidane sat on a narrow bench with his wrists cuffed in front of him, elbows tucked in like that would make him smaller.
It didn't.
Across from him, two officers watched the city approach with the relaxed boredom of men commuting to a job where other people screamed.
Beyond them: Alexandria.
From a distance, it was beautiful in a way that felt intentional. Towers like spears. Walls like a crown. Warm gold windows stacked high over the black water. It looked like safety as a concept, sold in bulk.
Up close, it looked… managed.
The docks were a forest of pylons and patrol rigs. Nets hung from crane arms like spiderwebs—Mist-catcher nets, thick with old residue, crusted white-gray in the seams. Crystal pylons dotted the pier line, each one etched with runes that shimmered faintly in the lantern glare, as if the city itself was whispering ward-words to keep the air obedient.
Banners snapped in the wind. Big ones. Too many.
PUBLIC SAFETY KEEPS YOU WHOLE.
The slogan was painted in neat, friendly lettering, the kind you used on children's books. The crest beside it smiled like a mouth with all its teeth hidden.
Zidane stared at it until his eyes started doing that thing where they wanted to slide away on their own.
"Keep you whole," he muttered. "That's… a choice."
One of the officers across from him didn't look away from the pier. "Quiet."
Zidane smiled anyway, because his face hadn't been told it was allowed to stop. "Just reading. Big fan of literacy."
The officer's jaw tightened. Not anger yet. Procedure.
The skiff glided in and locked against the dock with a soft clank, like a cuff clicking shut. A rope gangplank unfolded with a mechanism that sounded too smooth to be honest.
A dock sergeant waited at the edge, clipboard in hand. Actual paper, actual ink. The kind of bureaucracy that survived every apocalypse because it didn't need magic to ruin you.
He looked down at Zidane like he was inspecting a crate.
"Transfer?" the sergeant asked.
The lead officer on the skiff nodded once. "Unattached stray. Suspected thief. Unregistered cell confiscated. No known pact. No known household."
Zidane's tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth. He tasted stage paste all over again, like his body had filed it under important memories.
"Unattached," Zidane echoed brightly. "You make it sound like I'm a drape."
The dock sergeant didn't look up from the clipboard. "Mouthy."
"Expressive," Zidane corrected. "It's a performer thing."
A gloved hand gripped Zidane's upper arm and hauled him up. The cuff chain tugged his wrists together with a small, sharp reminder: don't get ideas. He stepped onto the gangplank and the harbor wind hit him full in the face.
Alexandria smelled like salt and incense and hot metal.
Under it, faint but constant, was powdered crystal—dry, sharp, almost sweet. The scent of magitek. The scent of anything in this city being capable of turning into a weapon if the right person signed the right form.
Zidane's fingers twitched toward his wrist out of habit.
He stopped himself.
He wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of watching him fidget like a trapped animal.
He made it three steps before he felt something brush his boot.
A soft bump. A familiar weight.
His heart jumped so hard it hurt.
He glanced down without moving his head too much.
A small figure waddled between his ankles like it belonged there.
Chef hat. Round face. Calm eyes.
Quina.
Quina looked up at him, blinked once, and said, politely, "Arrived."
Zidane's breath caught. He almost laughed. He almost cried. Both felt equally unsafe.
He covered it with the first thing that always worked—noise.
"You—" he whispered, half-scolding, half-prayer. "You absolute—"
Quina tilted its head. "Friend left. I followed."
"Yeah, well," Zidane murmured, warmth flaring in his chest like a match he hadn't meant to strike, "next time maybe don't—"
A boot slid in front of Quina.
An officer looked down, expression flat. "Contraband."
Quina looked at the boot like it was considering the concept of obstacle.
Zidane's smile snapped on so fast it felt like it tore something. "That's not contraband. That's… my lunch."
Quina perked up. "Eat?"
"Not like that," Zidane hissed through his teeth, then brightened again immediately. "I mean—emotional lunch. Support lunch. It's a service animal."
The officer's eyes narrowed. "It's wearing a hat."
"Professional," Zidane said. "Union."
Quina nodded solemnly. "Hungry."
The officer crouched and reached for Quina's collar.
Quina didn't move.
Quina just opened its mouth a little.
Not a growl. Not a hiss.
Just the quiet display of teeth like a polite warning sign.
The officer paused.
Something flickered behind his eyes—an instinctive flinch, like his body had been told a truth his brain didn't want to process.
The officer stood again, annoyance leaking through. "Get it off the dock."
Zidane leaned forward slightly, voice warm, smile harmless, like he was talking a drunk out of a fight. "Relax. It's nice. It only eats—"
Quina said, cheerful as a weather report, "Bad man will be eaten."
The dock sergeant looked up from his clipboard for the first time.
The lead officer's gaze landed on Zidane like a hook.
Zidane's jokes sprinted in his mouth and tripped over each other. "It's—uh—it's a local saying. Like… good luck."
Quina nodded. "Good luck. Eat."
The dock sergeant's pen paused mid-stroke. "You brought a… talking thing into Alexandria."
Zidane shrugged as much as the cuffs allowed. "It brought me."
The lead officer's voice cut in, clean and cold. "Put it in a crate."
Zidane's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Absolutely not."
The words came out too simple.
Too real.
The lead officer turned his head slowly, the way people did when they wanted to remind you they were allowed to kill you and still sleep fine after.
Zidane's grin scrambled back into place, cracked at the edges. "I mean—c'mon. Look at it. If you put it in a crate it'll… get sad."
Quina blinked. "Sad is hungry."
Zidane swallowed.
The lead officer stared for a beat, then made a small, dismissive motion with his hand.
"Fine," he said. "It walks. If it bites anyone, we put it down."
Zidane felt something in his ribs tighten like a fist.
He kept smiling anyway. "Great. Love a clear boundary."
Quina toddled forward between Zidane's feet like it had just won a negotiation.
They stepped onto the dock.
The pier was crowded—not with celebration, but with spectators who didn't know they were spectators.
Dock workers moved fast and silent. Public Safety lined the walkways in crisp rows, lanterns and aethercasters and polished boots. Citizens kept to the edges with their eyes down. People sold skewers and bread from carts, but even the vendors were quiet, voices low like they didn't want the city hearing them do business without permission.
Zidane's gaze snagged on a netted heap being hauled up from the water.
Something inside it twitched.
A Mist-spawn, caught alive. Pale limbs tangled in the mesh. Too many joints. Too many sharp angles where angles didn't belong.
Two officers dragged it toward a marked circle painted on the pier boards. The creature's head snapped up, empty sockets somehow still expressive—fear, hunger, rage, all leaking out like steam.
A child nearby stared.
The child's mother yanked them back so hard the kid stumbled.
"Don't look," the mother hissed.
The kid's eyes stayed anyway.
One of the officers holding the net shifted his aethercaster from hip to hand. He didn't aim like a man aiming a bow.
He aimed like he was pointing at a stain he intended to scrub out.
A quiet click.
A pulse of light.
The Mist-spawn exploded into white-gray slurry and bone-like fragments, sprayed across the pier boards like someone had thrown a bucket of wet plaster.
The smell hit a heartbeat later—damp rot, old metal, crystal dust.
The child made a small sound—half gasp, half swallowed scream.
The mother pressed the child's face into her skirt.
An officer nearby barked, cheerful and loud, as if addressing an audience: "Public Safety keeps you whole! Keep your children close to the wards!"
The crowd murmured the slogan back reflexively, like prayer.
Zidane's stomach flipped.
"Wow," he murmured under his breath. "You guys do… community outreach."
"Quiet," the officer gripping his arm said again, but his grip tightened. Not angry. Just… reminding.
Quina looked at the splatter on the boards with calm interest.
"Soup?" Quina asked.
"No," Zidane whispered. "No soup."
Quina considered. "Waste."
Zidane didn't have an answer for that.
They moved.
Past more banners. Past more ward pylons. Past a patrol rig where two rookies practiced drawing and holstering their aethercasters in perfect synchronized motion, like a dance rehearsal where the choreography ended in blood.
Zidane's eyes kept scanning, because scanning was what kept you alive.
And because, somewhere behind him on the water, the Prima Vista drifted toward a secondary dock lane under escort like a celebrity being led by guards.
He craned his neck just enough to see the ship's silhouette in the lantern haze.
He saw faces on deck.
Cinna, tight-lipped, arms crossed like he could physically hold the world together with disapproval.
Blank, posture still, watching with that steady calm that made Zidane's throat do something stupid.
Marcus, lounging against a mast, smiling like this was a show he'd paid for.
And Baku—Baku stood at the front rail, cigar glowing, smiling big enough to be seen from the pier.
He lifted a hand in an easy wave.
Not frantic. Not guilty. Not even apologetic.
Just… friendly.
Like he was sending off a kid to school.
Zidane's grin turned sharp on instinct, a blade he could still hold.
He raised his cuffed hands slightly and gave Baku a little bow, exaggerated, theatrical.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Baku's smile widened.
Zidane lowered his hands and felt something cold settle behind his ribs.
Quina looked up at him. "Friend is mad."
Zidane's smile stayed. "No."
Quina blinked. "Friend lies."
Zidane's laugh came out too quiet. "Okay. Yeah. Maybe a little."
They reached the checkpoint where the pier turned into a wide stone road leading into the city proper. The gatehouse wasn't a gate so much as a funnel—stone archways lined with crystal pylons, runes bright enough to sting the eyes if you stared too long.
A Public Safety clerk waited with a fresh clipboard and a fresh expression of bored cruelty.
He didn't look at Zidane's face. He looked at the cuffs.
"Name," the clerk said.
"Zidane," Zidane answered, because lies felt useless here. "Just Zidane."
The clerk's pen scratched. "Origin."
"Unfortunate."
The pen paused. The clerk looked up for the first time, unimpressed.
Zidane's grin went sweeter. "Airship. I'm… part of the décor."
The clerk wrote anyway. Probably UNKNOWN.
"Purpose," the clerk said.
"Apparently," Zidane said, "I'm a civic project."
A hand pressed the back of Zidane's neck lightly—not violent, just guiding, like he was a stubborn animal being led into a pen.
"Move," the lead officer said.
Zidane moved.
They walked him through Alexandria.
Up close, the city was gorgeous in a way that made his teeth itch.
Balconies draped in flowering vines. Carved stonework polished to a shine. Lanterns strung in neat lines like a festival that never ended.
People passed them in small clusters, heads down, voices low. A few glanced up at Zidane's cuffs and then away so fast it felt like being rejected by the air itself.
On a corner, an old man preached loudly to no one in particular.
"The Mist is punishment!" he shouted. "The Mist is hunger! The Mist is the mouth of the world!"
A Public Safety patrol walked past him and didn't even slow down.
The old man lowered his voice instantly as they passed, as if someone had tightened a collar around his throat without touching him.
Zidane's skin crawled.
He kept walking, because stopping was a great way to get corrected.
Quina waddled beside him like a little ghost that refused to be ignored. People stared at Quina longer than they stared at Zidane—some curious, some disgusted, some afraid.
One child pointed before their mother slapped their hand down.
Quina waved at the child.
"Hello," Quina said, politely. "Hungry?"
The child's eyes widened.
The mother yanked them away like Quina had offered plague.
Zidane's grin softened, just a fraction, and he hated himself for how much he needed the tiny absurdity of Quina's existence right now.
The lead officer kept a steady pace. Not rushing. Not dragging his feet. The pace of someone taking you where you were going, no matter what you felt about it.
Zidane watched the street tilt upward toward the castle road.
Alexandria Castle loomed above the city like a judgment that had never been appealed.
As they climbed, the air shifted. Less spice and fish and street bread. More stone. More polish. More crystal dust in the wind.
More silence.
Halfway up, they passed a side alley where a Public Safety wagon stood with its canvas cover tied down tight.
The wagon wasn't special.
The restraints stacked beside it were.
Child-sized cuffs. Small collars. Leather straps with crystal inlays.
Zidane's throat tightened so fast it felt like someone had snapped a rope around it.
He kept his face smooth. He kept his smile in place.
His eyes did not stop moving.
Quina's head tilted toward the wagon.
"Small friend smells scared," Quina said softly.
Zidane didn't answer.
Because if he answered, he might say something he couldn't take back.
A woman in a clean uniform stepped out of the alley and snapped the restraints case shut. She didn't look at Zidane. She didn't look at Quina.
She looked at the lead officer and nodded.
The lead officer nodded back.
No words.
Just procedure.
Zidane's stomach turned.
He swallowed it down like paste.
They reached the final stretch of road leading to the castle gates. The stone was lighter here, almost white. The crystals embedded along the path glowed faintly, as if the road itself was being watched.
At the base of the gates, the lead officer finally stopped.
Two guards in full armor stood like statues, aethercasters holstered at their hips like jewelry.
The gates were massive, carved with floral patterns that felt like they were trying to pretend they weren't teeth.
Zidane exhaled slowly through his nose.
He tried to summon a joke.
His brain offered him ten.
None of them felt safe enough to exist out loud.
The lead officer took a step closer to Zidane, voice low enough that it felt private even with guards nearby.
"You're lucky," he said.
Zidane's grin returned by reflex. "Am I?"
"Yes," the officer said, calm. "Most strays don't make it past the docks."
Zidane's smile tightened. "What, do they fall in?"
The officer didn't react. "They become examples."
Zidane's joke died halfway into his throat.
The officer's gaze dropped, briefly, to Quina. "And that thing is lucky too."
Quina looked up, expression serene. "Luck tastes good."
Zidane made a small sound that might've been a laugh if it hadn't been strangled by anxiety.
One of the guards at the gate raised a hand.
The gates began to open.
Not quickly. Not dramatically.
Slowly. Smoothly. Like the castle was swallowing.
As the gap widened, Zidane caught a glimpse through the opening—courtyards lit by lanterns, polished stone, rows of guards, and banners hanging inside too, as if the castle needed reminding of its own slogan.
He also caught something else.
A figure on a balcony above the courtyard.
It..definitely wasn't Brahne.
A young woman stood behind a carved railing, posture straight, hands folded in front of her like she'd been taught how to exist under observation. Her hair was dark in the lantern light. Her expression was calm.
Not cold.
Careful.
Her gaze moved across the road below and landed, briefly, on Zidane.
It didn't feel like being stared at.
It felt like being noticed.
Not as a crate.
Not as a stain.
As a person.
Zidane's breath snagged.
His grin almost slipped.
The woman's eyes softened a fraction, like she was about to look away and then didn't.
Then someone stepped beside her—another silhouette, taller, and the woman's posture shifted subtly, almost imperceptibly, into something more formal.
She looked away.
Zidane's chest did something stupid and tight.
He didn't know why.
He didn't like not knowing why.
Quina followed his gaze up to the balcony, squinted, and said, brightly, "Pretty."
Zidane almost choked. "Quina."
Quina nodded, as if offering helpful commentary at a dinner party. "Pretty smells sad."
Zidane's throat went dry.
The lead officer's hand closed on Zidane's arm again. "Move."
Zidane moved.
He stepped through the gates as they opened wider, cuffs clinking softly, Quina waddling beside him, the castle swallowing them both like it had been hungry all along.
Behind him, the city noise faded.
Ahead of him, the corridor of stone and light deepened.
And somewhere above, that brief, careful gaze lingered in Zidane's mind like a warm hand on a leash he hadn't agreed to wear.
The gates shut behind them with a quiet, final sound.
Not a slam.
Not a threat.
Just the soft closure of something that had decided he belonged inside it now.
For the good of Alexandria.