Vlad had sidled up beside Yoshi, Teige, and Helly, and the four of them watched the scene with a quiet pleasure. After a moment, Helly turned away, murmuring a soft "Ah, pardon me," as ne did.

"Thank god," Vlad whispered, taking off his glasses to wipe tears from his eyes. Teige brushed a few stray feathers from his front, looking pleased, until a series of voices caught his ear.

The sound of them made Hawk look up too, from where he was still hugging Liya tightly. The crowd had begun to murmur amongst themselves, some in Aetherian, but he caught the words reifa, and statue, and aren't they all dead, though...

But then Teige said loudly, "Here now, you lot, nothing to see here! Private business!" and the crowd quite reluctantly began to stir and clear, still murmuring to each other as Teige shooed them away. Helly waded into their midst, and suddenly there was Numair, at nir side.

For just an instant as he turned to leave, Numair paused. The look on his face was unreadable; maybe a hint of a smile, maybe a lot of sadness. But then he'd looked away, as Teige barked, "Come on, move along!"

Through the bustle of the crowd clearing, Hawk saw Numair hand Helly something, and taking the large bundle from Helly in return. Sraddi climbed onto his shoulder from Helly's hand, and with all of this and a quiet word, Numair turned and walked away.

"...H-how?" Liya whispered, pulling Hawk's attention away. She was still holding onto him tightly, crying into his shoulder, her voice coming haltingly. "I did--I started to th-think--but you were dead. H-how did you get here??"

Hawk paused, and then said quietly, "It's a long story, Liya. But I'm here now."

[Hello! This is the end of Chapter 12! Hoo boy. Eleven years in the making! Webcomics! Thank you for reading--whether you've been here from the beginning or you've picked up White Noise recently, thank you thank you thank you. <3

So what's next! Next week 1/15/23 I will update with some guest art by a fellow Hiveworks creator, and then the following week 1/22 we're going straight into the Arc 1 epilogue--because of course there are a few loose ends to tie up, right?

After the epilogue, I'm going to do a series of short comics before we go into Arc 2. No idea yet how long that will take/how many short comics there will be, etc. But there's plenty left to tell!

Thank you again for reading this comic and loving these characters. I love them too. <3 ]