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[Hey fellow Paldea chums. Guess who immediately hit up the library to learn everything about this region that he can?

So now have Armin absolutely beaming at the camera, a wide smile and eyes shining bright as he holds up an atlas for all to see. The atlas is open to the page on the Asado desert.]

It really does look like a sea of sand!

I've wanted to see a desert since I was a little kid, and now I finally get the opportunity. Would anyone be interested in going with me? Huey, you perhaps? I think there is an assignment available too, if that might motivate some folks.

[Hey, Armin will do the assignment while he is there, but he doesn't need it. He'll go just for the excitement of seeing a desert.]

Or, perhaps, does anyone have a tips on travelling through a desert? Bring plenty of water, of course, but anything else? And pick the right pokemon, I suppose. I don't imagine my water pokemon would enjoy the area much.

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[Sadly Cecil does not share Armin's appreciation for immense sandy expanses. If it wasn't for the fact that there's a gym right next to it...]

Rest often, cover yourself well with multiple layers, identify any potential shelter along your path, and if you feel even the slightest bit unwell, leave at once. This world holds advanced healing capabilities, but desert fever is no joke!

[Armin will take all of this into account, don't worry! He's enthusiastic, not dumb.]

Noted.

[a small pause and--]

It sounds like you have some experience with deserts.

[Boy does he have experience.]

I've previously crossed both the Kaipo and Damcyan deserts by foot, in full plate armor, in stressful circumstances. Now, the local wildlife is unlikely to attempt to kill you and you are undoubtedly not responsible for the well-being of an unconscious seven-year-old–

[Please, please do not be responsible for the well-being of an unconscious seven-year-old, is what he'd like to say.]

–but there's still plenty it can do to make your life actively worse.

Cecil, that's--

Should I ask about the full story? Because it sure sounds like a story, but I don't want to push if it is anything too... personal.

[Or painful.]

It's hardly that personal, unpleasant though it was at the time. However, the circumstances were... extremely unlikely to offer any insights on how to deal with deserts in general, shall we say.

[He doesn't mind telling the story, really! But unless Armin is at risk of cutting himself off from a valley through the summoning of an enormous Titan– Oh.]

That said, the unconscious child was not, in fact, the person struck down by fever. And I would hardly have dragged her through a desert, had I any other options at the time.

I don't imagine anyone would choose to bring an unconscious child into the desert.

I would like to hear the story, if you don't mind. I just realised that I don't actually know all that much about your world.

I hardly mind, though it is– Well, unpleasant is still a good word for it.

[In so many ways, too, even after decades.]

I was twenty, at the time. I'll not bore you with the exact politics and circumstances, otherwise we'd not be done by the end of our visit here, but my best friend and I were sent to deliver a "gift" to a village in a neighboring valley. After days of marching through plains, forests and caves, we found our path blocked by a mysterious dragon formed from mist.

We were nothing if not dutiful; when it demanded that we leave, we refused. This led to a battle that we won with great difficulty, slaying the creature in the process. Tired and wounded, we kept walking until we reached the village's limits... and our package exploded, setting the whole settlement on fire.

[As Cecil talks, Armin's expression grows more grave. Especially at that last sentence. That's-- horrifying.]

You were set up. That's-- that's awful.

The realization that we'd been sent to kill so many people, and that our own deaths would have been considered a boon, was indeed a painful one.

[Cecil's voice is surprisingly neutral, all things considered.]

As we tried to make sense of what had just happened, we heard sobs nearby. A young girl, crying over her mother's corpse. The woman was a summoner, you see; one who call upon powerful creatures called Eidolons in battles. However, such summoners must bind their own lives to the Eidolons they invoke... and we'd just killed her dragon on our way to the village.

[...And that neutrality is now gone. The guilt has never entirely left, after all.]

Her daughter was terribly unhappy to learn we were responsible for her mother's death, as you can imagine.

Yes. To her, you were the ones responsible even if you were lied and tricked as well. Even adults cannot always make that distinction, so I doubt a child would be able to, especially when the grief is so fresh.

[Armin's voice is soft and slow. In a way, Cecil had been in a similar position to Annie, Reiner and Bertolt back in his world; the ones who had carried out an awful deed but not the ones ultimately responsible. It's a distinction Armin had learned to make now that he is more of a decade removed from the experience, but would he had been able to feel the same way if he had known right after? He doubts it. Would someone like Eren be able to make the distinction even now? He had always been the more emotional of the two of them.]

It was truly an unfair situation for both of you. Was she the child you carried through the desert?

She was. Dearest, bravest Rydia, though we'd not yet been properly been introduced at the time.

[Cecil's softness comes from a very different place than Armin's. That day had been stressful, painful, a stark look at the violence he'd been enabling for months; it was also the seed of a friendship more than thirty years old. The pain from the ensuing injuries is long-faded, the guilt still (and forever) present, but the pride and love are far, far stronger now.]

But that came slightly later... and was somewhat her doing, in a way. You see, the power to summon Eidolons runs through bloodlines. When my friend and I tried to move her away from the flames, she understandably refused and lashed out, calling upon her power. And Titan, Eidolon of earth, answered.

[And then, more deliberately cheerfully–]

Few seven-year-old girls can boast of having created a brand new mountain range. One of the greatest magical prodigies in the world, truly.

[Armin can't even imagine have a thirty-year long friendship. Mostly because he isn't even twenty-five yet. Sometimes it is easy to forget Cecil is old as balls.]

You sound very fond of her. And proud.

I am! She's the sort of person who will not hesitate to speak out against injustice, or to take a stand against far greater opponents if it keeps innocents safe. I'd have died a hundred times without her help.

[In retrospect, that one attempt to leave her and Rosa behind before they returned to the Red Moon may have been a terrible idea. Just a little.]

However, back then... Well. When I finally woke up, my friend was missing, she was unconscious, and we were cut off from the village by her brand new mountain range. I could hardly leave her alone; thus I carried her on my back as I left through the other end of the valley. Of course, what awaited us there was the seemingly endless Kaipo desert... and its native monsters.

[Armin is honestly a little jealous. He can't help it! He knows the limitations of his own body, and he knows he would never have been able to carry someone, even a small child, across an endless desert.]

Were you ever able to find your friend again? Or were they--

[Oh dear. Cecil should probably clarify a few things immediately.]

Kain's fine! Well, he's fine these days, at the time there were... complications.

[Understatement of the decade, right there.]

Had I not suddenly become responsible for a young girl's well-being, I might have attempted to search through the rubble, monsters and my own safety be damned. But with Rydia there, that was not an option.

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