The night in Traverse Town had no dawn—only a pale imitation of morning that lingered somewhere between candlelight and starlight. The lamps burned soft and constant outside the Moogle workshop, their glow stretching across the rain-slick cobblestones like threads of gold. Inside, the air smelled of ozone, ink, and sugar.
Helios stood at the balcony rail, watching the dim constellations glimmer against the perpetual fog. Two quiet hours had passed since he'd drifted back from his talk with Cid, and sleep had only brushed him in fragments. It was enough. He'd learned long ago that rest wasn't the same as stillness.
When he finally descended to the main floor, the Moogles were already bustling—spinning gears, polishing and recalibrating their synthesis reactor for the day's work. Their workshop was alive again: tiny hammers ringing like bells, sparks bursting in miniature constellations.
"Morning, kupo!" one of them chirped, voice high and cheerful. "You're up early for someone who doesn't sleep."
Helios smirked faintly. "Consistency is my only flaw. Besides, I told Cid to stop by around this time."
No sooner had Helios spoken these words that the door creaked open, and Cid stepped in. His boots left a trail of rainwater and faint grease across the tile, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder. The cigarette in his mouth burned a dull orange. "You weren't kidding about the hours you guys keep," he said, glancing around at the curious, fluttering Moogles. "And here I thought I was bad."
"They're pretty much nocturnal," Helios said, gesturing to the Moogles as they buzzed around Cid in delight. "Or hyperactive. The distinction doesn't really matter here."
The Victorian Moogle—wearing victorian clothes and a monocle—floated up and bowed midair. "Cid, master engineer of Radiant Garden! It's an honor, kupo!"
Cid blinked, then barked a laugh. "Haven't been called that in a long time. Guess I'll take it."
Helios motioned toward the forge room. "Come in. There's something I want you to see."
The workshop beyond was larger than it seemed from the outside—a circular chamber lined with cables and hanging crystals that pulsed faintly with mana. A great metal frame dominated the center, etched with sigils and runic channels. Around it, holographic projections spun—schematics, notes, fragments of design: Twilight Heart, Mana Transfer Node, Digital Arc Terminal.
Cid's cigarette bobbed once before he removed it from his mouth. "You weren't exaggerating," he said. "You're buildin' a damn miracle."
"Or a catastrophe," Helios replied calmly. "Depends on who's operating it."
The Moogles gathered on the benches nearby, several clutching notebooks larger than themselves. One tugged a lever, and the holo-schematics zoomed outward, displaying a rotating model of the Twilight Heart core—an orb-shaped array threaded with crystalline conductors. Lines of light pulsed through it like veins, feeding into a secondary structure shaped like a heart turned inside-out.
Cid stared. "Alright, walk me through this. Slowly. Preferably with less metaphysics and more engineering."
Helios crossed his arms, the pale light from the projection reflecting off his coat. "You've seen Ansem's digital conversion research—the Grid and the machine, data containment theory. The foundation was sound but incomplete. This," he said, gesturing toward the model, "is a refinement. A heart that exists in both planes simultaneously."
The Victorian Moogle bobbed in excitement. "The New Heart, kupo! It channels the energy resonance through a bi-digital matrix! That means—"
Cid cut in. "That means you're talkin' about ripping people's hearts into code and stuffin' 'em in a computer."
Helios inclined his head. "Crude phrasing. But yes."
Cid gave a low whistle. "That's... bold, even for me."
"The goal," Helios said, "is preservation. A digital ark, of sorts. A way to store hearts—consciousness, identity—before a world falls to darkness. It could be automated, scaled, refined."
The older man's expression softened slightly at that, though suspicion flickered in his eyes. "You came up with that after Radiant Garden fell, didn't you?"
Helios didn't answer immediately. He looked past Cid, toward the shimmer of blue energy inside the forge chamber. "I came up with it because I'm tired of watching many people die for the mistakes of the few," he said finally. "You remember that night better than anyone."
Cid grunted. "Can't say I do, exactly—parts of it are fuzzy. But the screams? The smell of metal burnin'? Yeah, those stuck."
Helios's voice was quiet. "That's enough to prove the point."
For a moment, the two stood in silence, surrounded by the soft hum of reactors and the flitting shadows of the Moogles. Then Cid sighed, dragging a hand through his gray hair. "Alright, so what's my part in all this?"
"Integration," Helios said. "The Moogles can handle the crystallization—the structure, the magical flow—but the terminal must be something that can withstand digital instability. That means engineering, not just enchantment. You'd oversee the mechanical architecture."
Cid set down his bag, pulling out a schematic pad and a battered toolkit. "And if the magical channels overload?"
"They'll melt and the hearts within will be lost," one Moogle squeaked.
Cid smirked. "Charming. Guess I'd better make sure they don't."
They spent the next hour bent over the schematics, their voices rising and falling in debate. The Moogles argued in quick, chirping bursts about resonance thresholds and containment harmonics. Cid countered with mechanical logic, tapping the blueprint's edge with a wrench. "If your input stream's this tight, it'll bottleneck before the main transfer sequence even starts," he growled. "You'll fry the power lattice."
The Victorian Moogle puffed up indignantly. "We accounted for differential field ratios!"
"Yeah, on paper," Cid said. "You ever seen paper survive a magical surge?"
Helios observed quietly, half-smiling as sparks of genius clashed like small thunder. He'd always admired that kind of friction—the productive chaos of minds colliding. The room glowed brighter as the arguments turned to discovery, and soon they were sketching adjustments on floating blueprints, trading notes faster than he could track.
Eventually, Helios stepped back, satisfied. "You'll get along fine," he said, breaking their focus for a moment.
Cid glanced up. "You leavin' already?"
Helios shrugged lightly. "You don't need me here for this part. I only build the impossible. You make it functional."
"Compliments don't suit you," Cid said, lighting another cigarette. "Where you headed?"
Helios tilted his head toward the ceiling. "Back upstairs. There's someone I need to speak with. Hope she's awake."
"Oh, ya got a girl up there? Try not to blow it," Cid muttered.
"No promises."
The Moogles' laughter followed him as he climbed the spiral stairs back toward the loft. The mechanical hum faded behind him, replaced by the quieter pulse of the town outside—the drip of rain from eaves, the whisper of wind over cobblestone.
For all its timeless twilight, Traverse Town had its rhythms: machines waking, lights dimming, the murmur of hearts trying to keep pace with an endless night.
Helios paused at the doorway before leaving the workshop entirely, glancing once more at the glow spilling out from within. Cid and the Moogles stood over the schematics like priests before a shrine, arguing passionately over how to keep a miracle from collapsing.
It made him think of Radiant Garden and Nightfall—not the grandeur of its spires, but the people inside them. Builders. Dreamers. Fools who believed in the order of the universe.
He smiled faintly.
"Maybe this time," he murmured, "I can achieve what I want."