Eb is smirking, muttering "Wonder if even Kyros has seen the world from up here?" to herself.

"If I threw a rock from up here, I wonder if it would cave in the helmet on one of Ashe's silly-looking Iron Guards. Want to bet, Barik?"

"You disgust me," he shoots back, before turning back and looking out and south, glimpsing the Storm that created his body off toward the ocean in Stalwart-that-Was.

"It seems you have hidden potential."

"If I didn't yesterday, I certainly do now," he says wryly, "Kyros only knows why. ...If that."

"I don't think you need to appeal to absent authority for explanation." She smirks. "Only to finding the courage to take the step."

"Oh, I don't expect an explanation. But I do wonder whether I'm a pawn in a plan he devised."

"Does the thought that you are worry you?"

"Of course. The First Corollary always applies - 'Your life is not yours to discard, the Overlord has plans for you.' But it is disconcerting to become someone where he might exercise that right."

"If you wish to not be a target, the obvious thing to do is amass enough power to make any move against you foolish."

"Ah, but that is a classic - the Archon's dilemma. If you amass half that much, you are very much a target. So have you shown disloyalty, you shall soon meet Bleden Mark. I can't say I dislike power, but I like not being assassinated in the middle of the night more."

"Then you need powerful friends as well."

"And numerous ones. You think like an Archon, my lady Celes. I am not so lofty."

"We're literally loftier than anyone on Terratus."

He gives her a dark look. Not now, Fury.

"She makes a good point. You find yourself in a unique position at this moment. It would be wise to take advantage while you can."

"I know too little. For all I know, I'm a child in a thatch cottage, scaring everyone else out by lighting it afire. Sure, I could exult in commanding the whole building myself - but it may be about to collapse on my head. How do we even get down?"

"That I can answer, Fatebinder. If you look closely, there's an image of Ascension Hall visible in that glowing - portal? Don't know how stable it is, of course, but the alternative is jumping."

"You see? Power presents solutions. I could survive the fall, of course, but now you need not test yourself there."

His eyebrows raise. "Could you? Remarkable. I wouldn't have guessed anyone could, except perhaps a master mage of winds, who I'm told can nearly fly."

"Flying is easy. Growing wings is the trick."

He blinks. "That's possible?"

"Not for everyone."

"I would have said not for anyone. Never even heard of an Archon who could do something like that."

"Here I am."