HI KAM ooooh! best friends talk!

both kolin and olyzas' stories and close-knit bond connects over the loss of their worlds. for extra background to kind of set the 'when', olyzas' exodus from their own shard (the third) to the source was executed via an ascian named alyssum (one of my other ocs!) at the end of the reflection's life- dalamud falling, burning. like the warriors of darkness, this deal to destination was through the 'renunciation of flesh', and involved travel in death! after the deal to do so was struck, alyssum sent olyzas on a, charitable? way- pushing them off the shelf of the cliffside of cape westwind's mirror, and cast into the ocean below (in writing, grimly, olyzas' isn't a reliable source for what ended up actually /killing/ them first- the impact from the fall, the broken body after it, the drowning, or the ocean boiling from the moon's impact above. ooc: it was the drowning.) olyzas then sank from the third's sea into the aetherical sea. they stayed falling for some thousand years in stasis, calamity after calamity, until what was a bottomless well became the wave's surface on the source. they surface on the shores of vesper bay! which, on said source, is very close in landscape to cape westwind- the location olyzas' plummeted at alyssum's willing hands a world away.

the soul is timeless but olyzas' mind isn't- despite being in the aetherical sea for so long, to olyzas, the travel was a haze of altered consciousness; a delirious perception of space that forgets what a moment even is, but it's not years. it's undefinable and that's terrifying. and at first, they don't understand where they are, what's happening or why, and when the last thing in their memory was their home coming to an end; they panic! and crawl to the port town, panicking. the sky should have fallen, and it hasn't.

image: a soaked to the bone, 8" foot tall dragon, approaching individuals in vesper bay desperately, frenzied, what day is it? not understanding, no not the /date/, why there still is day at all? postulating at strangers, they shouldn't be here! this reasonably scares people trying to have a normal one and upsets the peace and olyzas is very promptly arrested for being hysterical, refusing to leave and causing problems.

they meet mr. kolin barlin this way, while sitting in a holding cell waiting to be released for their misbehavior (but still, everything doesn't make sense. they still ask questions to brass blades; some sympathies are given) who with the power of influential wealth and a monetarist's snap is bailed easy! kolin's has ears where rumors float on the foam of poured glass; laughter shared between the daily news and some castaway au ra talking about believing just yesterday was doomsday. no references, family, or traceable details at all- and that to kolin sounds Suspiciously Familiar, as another old traveler to the source. honing in on that thread, kolin folds olyzas very easily under his wing and into his pack of immortals; other souls made tangible under alyssum's bargain- as kolin has been alyssum's partner in becoming shepherd for a long time.

as for hitting it off quickly, FHDSFDSK ABSOLUTELY- kolin and olyzas, out of all the other immortals kolin has gathered are the only two from shards that were doomed and swept away by calamity. this makes olyzas a target to kolin's favoritism, and further align their strong respect for memory and how they choose to immortalize their respective homes; braids, time. song, stories. kolin has a very indulgent personality that equally exacerbates olyzas' that they never fully released in life. they are both gossips, (and olyzas has a trained eye as an observer, as former prophet to their people. they see everything, and kolin loves it) and cultivate each other in very assuasive ways. kolin is very, very encouraging of olyzas' more impish behavior, and vise versa in helping kolin get away with just about everything. this comradery and their shared loftiness for /being/ immortal and /being/ together in this situation makes them very quickly inseparable.

at first, olyzas doesn't immediately fall into the demeanor of who they are now: immortal, timeless pride and respect for who they are- their last moments on the third were blown-out, not enough time and not enough and the world is too much i am alone the world is too much. when they arrive on the source, their first moments are the fast-built repulsion of feeling /relief/. the survivor's guilt in inverted skin, that there was no longer the moon's pressure. but

nobody is looking up to them anymore, but all eyes are shut. it's learning how to deal with fear of too much that mutated into fear of nothing, and kolin is the strongest influence in olyzas' life at the start that moves them in the direction of acceptance past the grief, to not worry, to be? more human and less human, because they aren't anymore. and olyzas is the rest of the way to opening the eyes again, but through themselves. shame that lives without pity. they are best friends and they'd do anything for each other, through just the force of amazing chemistry and similar stories. kolin and olyzas everybody