The halls of the infirmary in Terncliff are the same as infirmary halls most everywhere, save that unlike most of the ones you've been in, this is a place for civilians, not soldiers. There is another member of the Resistance standing guard outside your door, but that's all.

You see no signs of Severa or Valdeaulin as you exit, but nod at the soldier anyway. As you're leaving, you hear Jade's voice from behind you, "Two doors to the left and across the hall," and nod your thanks over your shoulder.

You might have guessed that, you suppose, seeing as there are a pair of guards posted there as well, who look you up and down. "You might as well go in," says the one on the left, not entirely bothering to hide his distaste. "He's awake, and he said to expect you."

Again, you only reply with a nod, before one of the soldiers swings the door open.

Within, Aodhan's room is not so different from the one you've been confined to these last few days, though there is a wheeled desk extended over the bed instead of the proper one your not-quite-cell had. There are a few papers on it, mostly neatly bundled except for a wide scroll with an unfamiliar diagram on it. A bowl, spoon handle sticking out over the rim, sits to the far side, the scent of stew still present in the room.

The Warrior of Light himself looks uninjured, but worse for wear regardless. Propped up by pillows, he seems barely able to keep his eyes open, even though they snapped to you at the sound of the door opening with well-honed reflexes.

You close the door, and the silence stretches, until you ask, once more, "Why?"

"For those we can yet save," Aodhan answers, a phrase that rings clear as a mantra, "and to take back as much as is taken." Rote as the words appear to be, they are spoken with no small amount of resolution. Even the act of speaking seems to draw on his strength in a significant way, however, because he slumps then into the pillows, staring at the ceiling in clear frustration before muttering, "Asch? Help."

You cannot say you are entirely prepared for what next occurs. You've heard rumors of the shade that sometimes appears by the side of the Warrior of Light in battle, hair not a natural red but the color of fresh blood on white, but you're seen the young man, Luke, who Aodhan has seemingly adopted as something like a brother, if only at a distance. His hair is as red as the rumors say, but nothing else about them aligns, and so you assumed the rumors to be merely conflating him with the black clouds of a shade that you have seen Aodhan call upon in battle.

The young man who appears at the foot of Aodhan's bed appears in the same manner as the shade, but there is no billowing shadow or mystery to him. Not solid enough to dent the bed under his weight, perhaps, but real enough, especially when you know well that the person before you is capable of summoning an eikon out of whole cloth.

You tense, involuntarily, as his eyes narrow on you, before he glances back at Aodhan and says, "You shouldn't be summoning me either, you know. Aetherial exhaustion."

Aodhan, weakly but smiling, makes a rude gesture before slumping into the pillows and closing his eyes. This appears to be the end of the exchange between the two, because with a disgruntled toss of his head, the shade turns his full attention to you.

It isn't the same as being under the eye of the eikon. It is, perhaps, worse, because in the entity that you now know to be called Lorelei, there was neither judgement nor malice, while in the green of the shade, you can see both fairly easily.

"Let's get one thing straight," 'Asch' says. "I don't like you, and I don't forgive you. You'll find no absolution from me, Gaius van Baelsar, no matter what sympathy Aodhan might regard you with at this point. Frankly, if it had just been you, I would have told him no, because Lorelei is mine and of me, not him and his, and as far as I care, you haven't changed enough to justify not leaving you to rot."

It is a statement to take in. Lorelei is mine and of me, to begin with - the rest is not surprising to you, because you are not unused to the sharpness of Eorzeans towards you. That Aodhan regards you with any sympathy at all is news.

You are not foolish enough to miss such obvious pieces, however, so you say, "It is you who spoke to Emperor Varis at the parley, then, I presume."

A nod with no softening of expression. "Varis was a pawn of the Ascians and a moron," Asch says. "And a worse father than you by all accounts, which is a high bar to pass."

He knows precisely where to strike. You do not give him the pleasure of seeing you flinch. You say, "And yet you helped me."

"I helped Alfonse," Asch says. "You didn't enter into it. The sins of the father shouldn't determine the fate of the child."