I wrote about Alisaie having a bad day. cw: major character death, mention of suicide, discussion of neglect, probably other things but its late and my brain is fried. be careful I suppose.
In a way Alisaie was glad for Sharlayan’s famously terrible climate. In Eorzea the weather so rarely contrived to fit her mood, but Sharlayan had so few sunny days it was almost guaranteed. The sun had neglected to rise that morning, with the sickly yellow of dawn lingering until it was slowly consumed by the dark, encroaching clouds. Only when all trace of light had expired did the rain start; a sudden deluge that had descended upon all of the island in a terrible wall of water. It was probably the perfect weather to attend a mother’s funeral.
The funeral was held in full state at the Rostra. Technically this honor was only for those with a seat on the forum for at least twenty years, but Alisaie had seen not a hint of an objection from her vantage point leaned against the northeastern-most curve of the wall. Then again, she had arrived an hour late-perhaps all the dramatics had been dealt with earlier in the proceedings. Now there was only a steady, solemn silence, broken only by the drone of the priest of Thaliak, as he spoke about the soothing waters of the Aetherial Sea, where the soul is cleansed and all earthly knowledge floats free to pour once more from Thaliak’s ewer. Usually Sharlayan funerals were headed by family members, not religious figures (most priests of Thaliak don’t even have enough to do for it to be their fulltime job), but it was clear from a glance that Fourchenault Leveilleur would not be able to speak at his wife’s funeral. He looked like a corpse himself.
Finally, the service ended, and those present approached the center, to lay a hand on her mother’s casket. She would lie, preserved, for another three days, for nine total, and then her body would be dissolved in lye and her ashen bones relegated to an urn and a spot in the Mausoleum. However disparate their status might be in life, Sharlayan’s dead all lay together. Alisaie watched the procession from afar, and left before the crowd thinned. She made no move towards the casket.
Between the storm and the funeral, the streets were empty. Even those filtering out from the Rostra with her scattered quickly, either teleporting away or simply running to escape the rain. Alisaie lingered, tucking herself in a small expanse of green along the eastern side of the Rostra, where no traffic would disturb her. She could see the Leveilleur Estate from her vantage point, cold white stone and dark windows, and beyond it the sea and sky were both so dark that she could not find the horizon, just an endless night. At that moment it was the Mausoleum’s twin, a stark edifice that lay grimly on the landscape and contained only dead things. After a moment she had to look away, casting her gaze about for anywhere else it could land.
A figure was approaching her.
It was not Krile or Raha, and she could tell at a glance that despite the figure’s statue it was not Urianger either. They had all definitely noticed she was there at the funeral, even after she’d told them- yelled at them, really- that there was no way in hell she was ever setting foot on Sharlayan soil again. This was a tall figure, surely an adult Elezen, wearing the long robes of the Forum. For a moment her heart stopped as she desperately looked for her father’s eyes in the man’s face, terrified he had found her instead- but it was not him at all. Barnier Clarke stood above her, looking quite a bit older than when she had seen him last. He bowed as he came to stand beside her bench, managing to seem completely unaffected by the rain.
“Lady Alisaie,” he said. She could not help but flinch, but if he noticed he made no comment. “I was wondering if you would meet me and Lord Montichaigne for a meal. There are some matters we both believe are vitally important to bring to your attention.”
He was a smart bastard for bringing up Montichaigne, she would give him that. Still, she almost refused on principle. She had no wish for any association with the affairs of Sharlayan, vitally important or not, and a part of her was convinced this was some scheme on her father’s behalf, that they would lock her away in some desolate corner of the Leveilleur Estate. But a small, childish part of her still trusted the Scholarch. He might advise reconciliation with her father, but he would never force it.
Besides, if she was in some closed room, it would lessen the chance for her fellow Scions to find her. She stood, and as he turned away she followed, watching his lonely figure as it made its way into the storm.
The Scholarch was not the Scholarch anymore- he had retired from both school and forum about five years ago, after a health scare. Sitting in his drawing room, a towel draped humiliatingly across her head, Alisaie found it hard to look at him. It was not (well, not just) that he was old. She just couldn’t see him without thinking about how old her grandfather would have been.
They made some small talk as she dried. Montechaigne seemed quite sincerely interested in what she had been up to, in the time between her last stay in Sharlayan and now. He asked all sorts of questions about Eorzea, about the rest of the world, about the different reflections and different stars she had seen. Even now, she found it easy to get lost in talking to him, enough that Barnier’s austere presence melted away. She had told the stories a thousand times before, to fellow adventurers, comrades, and girls in bars.
Still, it felt different, to be telling them in a Sharlayan sitting room, so like the ones of her childhood. It made her feel like a girl again, recounting the plot of some book or a tall tale of her own invention to her grandfather and his friends as they smiled indulgently, before she turned around to see-
Her voice caught in her throat, suddenly, and her eyes burned. She willed back any tears. She had sworn to herself that she would not cry, and she was not going to break that promise now, when the funeral was done and dealt with. She would be fine. She must be fine.
“-Apologies,” she managed to gasp out. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest, and no matter how she focused on calming it, it seemed to just beat wilder. The men before he exchanged glances, before turning their sickeningly sympathetic gazes on her.
“...Thank you for being with us, Lady Alisaie.” Barnier finally broke the silence after a painful few minutes. She lost her focus on calming herself- which paradoxically seemed to quiet the blood rushing in her ears.
“Right,” she mumbled, then tried again. “Yes. You mentioned it was vitally important, and- helping is what I do, right?” As soon as the words came out of her mouth she had to fight the urge to cringe. Some people could get away with being that corny, but she wasn’t one of them.
Montechaigne smiled indulgently, but all she got out of Barnier was a nod. “Right. Well, this situation is…quite a bit more delicate than adventurer work. It’s not something you can run at with a sword.”
Any good mood and goodwill she had dissipated. “I’m quite used to delicate situations,” she said shortly. She wanted to say that she held back from saying more because of her respect for Montechaigne, but the truth of it was that exhaustion held her tongue more than anything else. Barnier, now pacing, seemed not to notice the sudden turn of her mood, but when he tried to speak again, Montechaigne interrupted. His voice was frail as old paper, but it still commanded the room when he spoke.
“Did you notice the young lady, seated beside your father?” he asked. She…had not, actually. She might have seen a child, but she certainly didn’t take notice of any- and besides, she had found it even more painful to look at her father then at Montechaigne.
“Not particularly,” she said, bizarrely feeling as if she had answered a test question wrong.
If he thought less of her for inattentiveness, he did not let it show. “She is quite… retreating, I must say. She’s a very shy child, more shy than either of you ever were. But she was there, I can assure you- the young Lady Auréline Leveilleur. Your niece.”
In that warm room, beside a roaring fire, Alisaie felt colder than she ever had in her life.
“Oh,” she heard herself saying, and then, stupidly, “How old is she?”
“She’s five years old,” said Barnier. “If I recall correctly, Lady Agnes was pregnant when you were last in Sharlayan.” He paused, and added, “During the affair with the End of Days,” as if she would forget.
Alisaie’s breath was even, her heart still. Carefully, she gathered up every raging part of her and locked it away, and she did what she always did when she needed a level head. She pretended to be him.
“Is it a matter of the girl’s care, then?” she found herself asking. Both men winced.
“...Indeed,” said Barnier. “Ameliance had assumed her primary care, but then the illness came. It was…easy to miss, while she was sick and the entire Leveilleur mansion- along with most of Sharlayan- was focused on your mother’s condition. But now that Ameliance has passed, it has become quite obvious that your father is…not sufficient as a carer. Which would be one thing, but he has also let most of the staff go, and has made no effort to enroll her in classes. It is obvious something must be done, and as you are the girl’s only other relative, we thought it best to at least consult you.”
It was hard for her to picture her father neglecting a child’s education. But it was obvious that the shell at the funeral was not capable of much at all, right now. Alisaie had never seen her father like that, never even imagined he could be so….
No time to wonder. “Am I really a relative? I was disowned, as you recall.”
“Sharlayan law does not recognize disownment as disqualification for custody, especially when the parent was not the disowning party.”
Barnier looked uncomfortable. “...Abdicated responsibility. Lady Agnes Cantrell petitioned for her marriage to be dissolved and her affiliation returned to her birth family after the…unfortunate loss of the young heir.”
The unfortunate loss of the young heir. How many layers of abstraction, just to say “after your brother killed himself.” Alisaie wondered if his grave bore his name at all, or if it was simply inscribed Here Lies The Last Gasp Of The Leveilleurs.
Still, she did not let her rage show, and after a second, Barnier pressed on. “Since Aureline was born to the Leveilleurs, and your mother seemed quite insistent on retaining custody, at the time we saw no issue with the arrangement. “
“I thought it would be unfair, to tether the girl to a mother- and family- who resented her,” Montechaigne interjected. “And I…selfishly…thought it would help Fourchenault and Ameliance, to have someone young in their house, someone full of life and energy. But then…”
“Then they discovered Mother’s cancer, and nobody had any life or energy to raise a child.” She hadn’t meant to say that. Still, if they did this at Barnier’s pace it would never be done. “But why would Father just…give up on her care?”
There was silence- she looked up from her clenched fists to find Barnier looking towards Montechaigne to speak. The old man took a long sip of his tea, then sighed. “I…believe that at the moment, Fourchenault does not see a future for himself, or for her.”
“We are planning on intervening for him, as well,” Barnier rushed to assure her, as her jaw dropped. “But we thought it prudent to make sure the girl was in a better environment first and foremost. Some of the staff has been staying on for her, even after being let go, but that situation is not tenable! Our plan was to wait to see if you attended the funeral, and if you did not we were going to ask Archon Urianger if he had any insights to her care.”
They should have asked Urianger- they would know what to do far, far easier than Alisaie. She wished she could ask them herself.
But as angry as she was, as shocked and sick as she felt, she knew her answer, even as it felt like bile in her throat.
“...May I meet her?” she asked, and both men relaxed.
