At the Forward Ore Settlement
The settlement no longer looked temporary. The outlines of streets were taking shape, and the half, finished stone buildings stood like teeth against the mountainside. Timber frames rose higher each week, hammered together by calloused hands and stubborn will. Smoke coiled from new chimneys, and the clang of hammers echoed from dawn to dusk.
Ore was rich here. That meant long hours, scraped knuckles, and more newcomers arriving every few days from the empire's endless convoys, refugees dressed up as settlers.
Varrin was in the thick of it, standing near a growing foundation and waving a square of parchment in one hand. "You see this line?" he barked at a mason. "It's not decorative, it's the support angle. If that wall gives, I'm making you sleep under it."
The worker grunted an apology and adjusted the beam.
"Better," Varrin muttered, rubbing his temple. "Maybe by next winter, we'll all have roofs that don't fall in."
Nearby, Dole set down a stack of cut planks with a thud. "Or maybe by next winter, you'll lose your voice first."
"Not likely," Varrin shot back, pointing the parchment at him. "The day I stop yelling is the day this place collapses."
A few laborers laughed under their breath and got back to work faster.
Despite the noise, progress came steady. The "forward ore camp," as people still called it, had taken on the weight of something more permanent, but it lacked one thing: a name.
At night, over shared fires and thin stew, people began to talk. Naming a place made it real, made it theirs.
"Vector Hold has its name. Balamb Fields too," said a miner one evening, stirring his bowl. "Feels wrong not to have one for ours."
Lyra was nearby, checking over a rider's scraped arm after a fall from his chocobo. "Names matter," she said absently, her hands faintly aglow with the green light of healing magic. "It gives people something to hold on to."
Dole leaned back on his crate, tossing a small rock toward the fire. "I vote for Rockbottom."
That earned a round of chuckles.
Cid, sitting across from him and oiling his gauntlet, didn't look up. "Narshe."
The others paused.
"It's an old mining town from the northern territories," he said, his tone quieter. "Used to be a place where the cold bit through the stone and the people were tougher than the earth they dug. Feels about right."
Moss, brushing Bran's plumage a short distance away, looked up and repeated the word softly. "Narshe."
Lyra smiled faintly. "It suits us."
When Varrin made his rounds, he caught the word on people's lips, spreading between tents and walls. By morning, someone had carved it into a plank and nailed it above the gate.
Narshe.
It wasn't much yet, but the name settled into the hearts of those who'd built it.
Moss stood at the gate as dawn broke over the mountains, watching miners, smiths, and riders spill into the morning light. The camp no longer felt like a place they were sent to die. It was starting to feel like a place they might live.