a happy holiday season and @secret-st-waidwen-exchange to you, @waterdroid! it’s been a hot second since i last played it, but i’m still rotating maneha’s quest in my head, so thank you for the opportunity to really dig into that!
The Abbey of the Fallen Moon is… kind of disgusting, to be honest. Cold, too dim, not quite bare but strangely inadequate in its choices of decor, even in the nicer, shinier parts they show to the public. Underneath the surface, where they’re definitely not supposed to be digging around, is another story, but Maneha’s hardly one to judge. A week ago, she would have called it a fitting end point to the life and duties of a giftbearer, but now… now…
… well. It’s not all bad, but Maneha would be hard pressed to find a single nice thing to say about it. Blasphemous, maybe, but it’s the truth: she’s seen better in the more watery parts of the world.
There’s not much time to linger here—this is hardly the first grisly mess their esteemed Watcher has stumbled upon and dragged them all into, of course, but Maneha finds herself taking in the sights regardless. Might as well, given the circumstances.
Her gaze drifts to Pallegina and, well, now isn’t that something nice? Nicer than most everything else in this dismal place, at any rate. Her eyes are a lovely, luminescent yellow, like the kind of golden wheat harvest the Dyrwood loves so much.
(Good one! If all else fails, at least Maneha would make for a passable poet.)
Those lovely golden eyes narrow into slits, which is just as well when Maneha’s made no pretense of her shameless staring. “Can I assist you?” asks Pallegina, though there’s a razor-thinness to her voice that suggests that she’d prefer anything but.
“Just admiring the view.” The words slip out easily enough, but it only takes half a heartbeat to hear the hollowness in them, that she’s failed to mask—like the whole world has lost a bit of its luster and now, priorities be damned, she’s somehow making it everyone’s problem.
(Unprofessional is the word that comes to mind. Whether it comes from herself, now, is another story, but—wait, who is she even kidding? It’s all her; always has been, always will be, and dismissing the memory would be about as useful as wearing a blindfold for the rest of her life. That’s why she botched the ritual—that’s why the Watcher had smiled so understandingly at her, as the tide receded.)
It doesn’t quite land. A comment like that yesterday would’ve sent Pallegina spluttering, but when those lovely golden eyes narrow further, there’s no irritation there. Somehow, this is worse—it leaves Maneha oddly dazed and off-kilter, like she’s on a boat and hasn’t got her sea legs.
(Her whole life has felt off-kilter, since the vision. Whether she’ll ever get her sea legs, at least in this lifetime, is looking more and more unlikely by the minute.)
Pallegina exhales sharply, not quite in annoyance. “To place your faith in a god, and at the last moment, reject her mercy… I misjudged you, Maneha.”
Something within her sours, at that. It’s not an insult—Maneha knows that, and more than that, knows that Pallegina is hardly one to mince her words—but it hits her like one all the same. It cuts her down to the bone, as well-placed a strike as any Pallegina would land on the battlefield.
“You are… stronger, than I expected,” Pallegina continues, quietly. “Not many kith would have been able to choose as you did. I hope you realize that.”
That obvious, huh? “Maybe one of these days, I’ll believe it,” says Maneha, with a bitter smile.
She must look worse than she thought, if Pallegina’s still hovering. There’s a kindness in her that’s not immediately obvious, behind the sharp words and ever-present poise, but it was never supposed to be turned on Maneha. Not like this—not like Maneha was ever supposed to need it.
“Though I do not know what it is that you wished to forget,” says Pallegina, “I will listen, if you would be inclined to share.”
… well how about that? It’s about the last thing Maneha wants to talk about, ever again—but maybe this is what it means, to live with the memory. Maybe it will never get easier to talk about it—but the burden could be lessened anyway, just as it already has from being shared once.
“It’s not a happy story,” says Maneha, laughing a little though there’s nothing funny at all, about any of this.
“I assumed as much,” Pallegina replies.
It’s harder to form the words, than it had been when she first explained it to the Watcher—but as the story ambles out of her, and Pallegina does not turn away, it helps.
if the bones still slept under that hill, none can say
hope you're having a good holiday season, @tarbuchyloewenthal! here's you're @secret-st-waidwen-exchange gift :D hope i did your watcher and her relationship with kana justice!
The issue with Sun in Shadow, Kana thinks, is that the lack of light, combined with the still, stale air, makes it difficult to measure just how large it is. The journey in had been quick, as any wicked pursuit would demand; the return, however, is slower.
He hasn’t seen them this quiet since the day they all fled Defiance Bay. It’s not a good kind of quiet — too heavy, almost crushing in its refusal to be ignored. It’s the kind of quiet that he’s always felt the need to alleviate with a factoid or a tune, though that’s always been a surefire way to earn one of Maia’s more vicious glares.
(A kind of quiet that almost feels wrong to break — heavy and suffocating and all-encompassing, like it has been the day he’d clawed his way back up through the ruins of Caed Nua, his quest an abject failure.)
As it is, Durance is already sporting quite the scowl. “All is well, my friend?” asks Kana, trying for a smile, and finds that it’s not quite as difficult to summon one as it had been the day his search for the Tanvii ora Toha had come to a bitter, miserable end.
Durance doesn’t dare smile back, but his scowl eases ever so slightly — which, by all units of measure that Kana knows of, is as close to a proper smile as someone like Durance will get.
“Do you ever think before you speak?” he retorts, and the low rasp in his voice undercuts its bite. “Or does the volume of your chanting drown even the smallest, most insignificant thought?”
Kana chuckles, and it warms him as it rumbles in his chest. “Not your finest work, my friend. I’ve heard worse from my sister.”
Durance clicks his tongue, sharply averting his gaze. His staff taps loudly against the floor, but in his footsteps is the slightest unsteadiness, almost a stumble.
A little ways away, Sagani lets out a quiet huff that could almost pass for a laugh. “You must be awfully excited to go home, then,” she says. “That’s the fourth time you’ve mentioned her today.”
“Is it really?” asks Kana, tilting his head to the side. “Well regardless, there’s no guarantee that she’ll be there when I return. She’s quite a busy lady, after all!” Alas, spoiling Ishiza may very well have to wait for a while longer.
… but what would Maia say, if she were to have witnessed what he did? She never put much stock in the gods, and perhaps for good reason — it would have only been a distraction to her when her duties do not demand that she pay attention, fold everything she learns during her travels into her understanding of the world like the Chanters’ College does of Kana?
Does any of it matter when their family has never been particularly religious? Does any of it matter when the Engwithans’ philosophy has little bearing on what their brethren in both Rauatai and the Deadfire Archipelago believe about the same deities?
Durance had been angry, upon coming to some sort of resolution regarding Magran before setting foot in here; Iovara had been nothing but kind as he laughed, and laughed, and laughed as she spelled the truth plainly for them all. Hiravias has always had plenty to say about matters aside from Galawain and Wael, and yet his attempts to dodge those conversation topics has never been so obvious. Edér hasn’t said a word at all since their final confrontation with Thaos, which is all the stranger when his silence is accompanied by a deep-set furrow to his brow.
“But I wasn’t going to say anything,” he whispers back — or at the very least, it’s as close to a whisper as he can manage, which is not very quiet at all.
“You were thinking it,” says Sagani, bluntly.
But how could he not say something? How could he just leave it be, when so many of his friends and comrades have just had the proverbial rug pulled out from under their feet? How could he possibly ignore it, when the answers that so many of them had been searching for had led them to a miserable, fruitless end?
How could he remain quiet, when everything his dear friends and comrades believed to be true had turned out to be little more than a bitter, miserable lie?
(The same way, perhaps, that the same friends had remained quiet but ever present when he’d found a similar end in the depths of Caed Nua.)
A little ways away, there’s Wulfrun, her head bowed ever so slightly and her lips down-turned. When Kana makes his way over to her, lightly bumping his shoulder into hers, Sagani doesn’t protest — which is all the confirmation he needs that his attempts to help will not cause undue harm.
“How goes it, my friend?” he asks, and takes care to keep his voice soft.
It takes a moment, but Wulfrun turns to him with a thin, brittle smile. “It’s going,” she answers. And he knows, without having to ask, that this will not be the last time she lays eyes on this place. This will not be the last time she sets foot in this place — and that, more than anything, confirms that this journey has not broken her.
Kana chuckles, and it warms him as it rumbles in his chest. “Well,” he says, “that’s the best place to start, don’t you think?”
Ranni lays the question there at their shared table in the Waking Sands’ library, amidst the last lit candle flickering between them and Urianger’s soft snoring from over by the bookshelf. She steals a piece of fruit from Thancred’s plate, if only for the welcome distraction.
It’s not like she’s… talked about this before at length with anyone, after it had first become obvious that there were numerous holes and frayed edges where parts of her memory should be — but it has to be obvious at this point, that there are entire histories she can no longer speak to, even if no one will utter it aloud. Recognition in Urianger’s eyes the day she first came to the Scions’ base of operations, Minfilia’s all too thorough explanations of Sharlayan and its various research groups despite all the evidence that Ranni had spent more than enough of her life in one of them, Alphinaud’s thinly veiled attempts at blackmail when she threatened to walk away after the Waking Sands had been raided — that no one had challenged her on it is nothing short of a miracle.
(In a long, long journey to Ul’dah, Ranni boards the caravan. Hums noncommittally when the merchant speaks to her of jewels and riches and adventure, as if she’s some tourist and hasn’t been living in Thanalan for the better part of…
… wait, how long has she been here, exactly? Long enough that walking through the gates doesn’t feel entirely new. Long enough that though she doesn’t recognize the innkeeper yet, even when the innkeeper clearly recognizes her, the inn itself feels familiar. There’s bottles attached to a belt sitting at her hips, and herbs tucked away in a satchel strapped to her thigh, and none of it means anything, yet it clearly must have at some point for her to carry it on her person.
The Lalafellan innkeeper waves her hand before Ranni’s face, her easy, suddenly familiar smile melting away into something far more concerned as she says—)
“Really? And you’re all right?”
One would think that one with proven success charming the pants off of more of Ul’dah than most of its residents can achieve in their lifetime, he’d have a better quip at the ready. Ranni barks out a laugh. “Oh, please,” she retorts. “You had to know something.”
“I suspected a questionable past and potentially blackmail,” says Thancred. “Both of which are entirely within expectations for someone who’s spent the better part of a decade in Thanalan.”
“Oh, there’s plenty of that too, if what I’ve pieced together is accurate,” Ranni retorts.
It’s just that she’s not sure. It’s a hypothesis, one that will likely hold up now that she has the time to properly test it; where it becomes complicated is how much of her pre-existing knowledge of it hinges on speculation.
(There is a theory as to how this all started, all but confirmed now that it’s all over: an encounter with a Hyuran woman taller than an Elezen, dressed in black robes that Ranni would later come to associate with Ascians, with long, curling, wisping hair like a storm cloud. She’d stood in the middle of the desert, gazing up at the stars.
Ranni had only meant to ask if she was all right — but the woman instead tilted her head to the side, her gaze cold and calculating. “So you’re the familiar,” she said. “Well, no matter. You’ve long fulfilled your purpose, little lizard.”
She pressed her ice-cold fingers to Ranni’s temple, and then something in Ranni’s head pulled — a thread yanked loose, unfurling as the woman continued to pull it free. Memory after memory tumbled loose — in Thavnair, an orphanage by the water; kind Arkasodara caretakers promising that a lack of parents did not mean a lack of love.
—in Sharlayan, a swirling gate, Voidsent clawing her fellow researchers apart, years of work falling to pieces as she poured everything she had into pushing those Voidsent back and sealing the gate they emerged from; the weight of disapproval from the Forum, from her mother, from as many teachers and mentors and professors as she could count, when there had been no one else left to blame for it but Ranni; a difference in blood never so stark as it had been the day her mother turned away and never looked her in the eye again.
—in Thanalan, guilds and merchants and adventurers, always working, always bartering, because rent was going up but pay was not, evenings spent at the Quicksand with a lute because just music was hardly enough to pay the bills, but it was still enough extra to scrape by for another month.
When the woman stopped, it was clear that something had happened that she did not anticipate. She staggered back, shock and disgust warring in her expression.
“You…” she gasped. “What are you?”)
“Have you told anyone else?” asks Thancred.
“Just Momodi,” Ranni answers, shaking her head. “It… never seemed entirely relevant before?“
Thancred presses his lips tightly together, bowing his head slightly, and she can’t help but wonder if she’s said the wrong thing. Minfilia had said, more than once, that the Scions were a family; it’s hardly her fault that it’s the same line touted by too many unscrupulous merchants to count.
—and, well, Ranni’s no idiot. There are gaps and holes and frayed edges where parts of her memory should be, but she’d recognized the Archon marks, the day she’d met Thancred by that great tree outside Ul’dah’s gates. It’s been a long time since she last set foot in Sharlayan, but she remembers that much — remembers what it means, for so many people sporting those marks to be congregated in one place together, working towards a common goal.
“W-Well!” she interjects, far too awkwardly. “Ascian treachery sure has a way of building trust amongst those on the receiving end, doesn’t it?”
It doesn’t quite hit its mark — but something softens in Thancred’s gaze. “Even if it’s not relevant,” he says, carefully, “I’m glad you told me, all the same.”
Ranni blinks at him once, twice — and then heat floods quickly into her face. She ducks her head, and steals one more piece of fruit from his plate — then another — then another.
With a wistful smile, he pushes the plate towards her.
He’s not fast enough — not even when it’s already over. He’s not fast enough to stop the summoning. He’s not fast enough to stop Ranni from going in there alone. He’s not fast enough to stop her from fighting that thing alone.
When faced with such extreme, life-threatening scenarios, fresh-faced adventurers tend to react in a number of ways: they collapse; they weep; they turn on the people closest to them in proximity, as the embers that had kept them alive and on their feet through the ordeal have yet to fully die down.
—so it shouldn’t come as a surprise when, after the dust settles, she grabs him by the shirt and slams him into the nearest wall.
“What in the seven hells was that?” she demands, in half a snarl.
It takes him a moment, but the more he looks, the more obvious it is that she isn’t injured. She’s covered in soot and dust, and there’s the cloying stench of burned hair when some of it has been singed off, but whatever scars this ordeal has left must be purely emotional, not physical.
“That,” he answers, as calmly as he can manage, “was precisely what we were trying to stop from happening.“
“And you knew this would happen,” she says. “You knew this would happen and you people still sent me into that… that death trap.”
… well. She has a point there.
“I anticipated that we had more time before a summoning would be attempted,” he says, “but I miscalculated. Even so, I was well aware of the risk. I’m sorry.”
The apology, feeble as it is, doesn’t do much. There’s pure venom in her eyes as she releases him and leaves without another word — and not for the first time, the weight of failure hangs far heavier on his shoulders than he has any right to bear.
—
When all is said and done — when Thancred’s body is returned to him, battered and bruised but otherwise no worse for wear — it becomes difficult to ignore the weight of failure that sits heavily on his shoulders. It’s a familiar weight, but it pales in comparison to everything else Lahabrea had left in his wake — a sense of fatigue that’s seeped into his bones, various aches left from whatever abuse Lahabrea had but this body through when he clearly couldn’t be bothered to properly care for the vessel he’d snatched for himself.
There have been words already — Y’shtola’s all too harsh criticism, Tataru’s teary hugs, Yda’s careful prodding and Papalymo’s proposed tactics on how to avoid a repeat incident, Minfilia and Urianger’s somehow equally terrible nagging, all of it melding together into something warm and secure — proof that for all of the destruction Lahabrea had wrought, it hasn’t destroyed everything.
He closes his eyes, breathes deeply, and leans into it all. The pain and fatigue are an anchor, holding him in place when everything else threatens to spiral out of control — when everything has already spiraled too far out of his control.
He turns his head — and there, in the chair at his bedside, is Ranni, on a war path with whatever she’s grinding into smithereens with a mortar and pestle. There’s a gaping hole where months’ worth of memories should be, but even before then…
“Did I hurt you…?”
His voice comes out as a hoarse, pathetically weak croak — and when she startles, the pestle clanking loudly against the mortar as she drops it, he can’t help but feel just a bit guilty for it.
“What—“ she splutters. “You—No, you didn’t do anything to hurt me. Whatever Lahabrea did, I paid back tenfold.”
She’s a bit thinner than he remembers, fatigue pronounced in the dark circles collecting under her eyes — but she doesn’t look injured. Whatever scars this ordeal has left must be purely emotional, not physical.
“Listen,” she says, averting her gaze. “I… owe you an apology.”
“For what?”
Her lips curl downward in an irritated frown. “After Ifrit was summoned, remember? I was… less than kind to you. I can imagine it didn’t exactly help things, when Lahabrea came knocking.”
“No,” he says. “You… you had every right. I let you down.”
“You did not,” she retorts, shaking her head. “All that happened that day was perfectly within expectations, even if it wasn’t the conclusion anyone was hoping for.”
He winces. “That’s precisely what happened with every Primal afterwards, isn’t it?” he asks. “You had to slay Titan and Garuda, too.”
She nods. “So I did. And I had Y’shtola with me every step of the way for Titan, so if you intend on blaming yourself, then you might as well blame her, too.”
Well, they can’t have that. Y’shtola surely did the best she could, given the circumstances. It’s the kind of argument that would find itself right at home in the Sapphire Avenue Exchange, amidst coins passed between hands and the fairest amount owed up for constant debate.
“Oh, I suppose you win this round,” he says, lightly, “but know that this is far from over.”
She grins, confidently, as she crosses one leg over the other and leans back in her chair with her arms crossed over her chest — as bold and assured as she’d been the day she’d frozen Ungust’s goons solid outside the Quicksand and proven once and for all that she was precisely the kind of adventurer that the Scions had needed.
It’s not a bad day, exactly — but there’s a vice grip around Kaoru’s lungs, and a soreness to his jaw from how hard he’s been clenching it all day, and in the absence of a proper appetite, his stomach has once again skipped past hunger and tumbled into a cloying, familiar nausea.
So: it’s not the worst that he’s felt, at this time of night; if he gets a sports drink in him soon, he can start to claw his way back up. Just… in a minute. He can hardly be blamed for making himself as comfortable as possible, despite the circumstances.
He sits on the floor with his back against a chain link fence, on a rooftop he’s reasonably sure he’s not supposed to be on any time of the day, let alone late at night outside the building’s normal operating hours. His earbuds are starting to malfunction, the sound on the right side oddly muffled unless he holds the wire at a particular angle, and he’s turned down the volume on his MP3 player in the vain hope that the quiet, peaceful piano melody will fix whatever’s broken in his head this time around.
He closes his eyes and counts his breaths, in-two-three-four, hold-two-three-four, out-two-three-four-five-six-seven. It doesn’t touch the uncomfortable weight that’s settled on his chest, but it cuts into the noise buzzing in the back of his head, so he counts it as a win.
There’s the sound of footsteps nearby, assured at first and then hesitant. “Fuck off, Kojiro,” he grumbles. It’s not the most eloquent dismissal, but he’s been in a shitty mood all day, and Kojiro has the tendency to fuss when it gets this bad. (Which it’s not, because it’s not like anything in particular has happened to set Kaoru off this time. It’s just his shitty brain, being his shitty brain. Rubber, meet glue.)
The footsteps stop for a moment — but then there’s the shift of fabric as a warm weight settles next to him. The silence is evidence enough that it’s not Kojiro after all, but the stench of cigarette smoke confirms it.
He opens his eyes, looks up — and Adam doesn’t look once in his direction, opting instead to pull his knees to his chest and stare, blankly, ahead.
Kaoru won’t pretend to understand what exactly it is that Adam’s been dealing with outside the skate park; they leave this shit at home for a reason — but he can hazard a guess from the logo of a fancy prep school, emblazoned on soft jackets that are far better made than the nicest clothes Kaoru owns. There’s distance, sometimes, in Adam’s eyes when they skate — a faraway look there that only starts to fade an hour in, and sometimes not even then.
Kaoru’s not so presumptuous to think that it’s in any way comparable to his own shitty moods — but when Adam doesn’t move for a long moment, he pulls out his left earbud, running his thumb over it on the off chance that earwax has clung to it, and holds it out to him.
Adam doesn’t say a word — but something softens in his gaze, imperceptibly, as he takes the earbud. He doesn’t say a word as Kaoru scoots closer to lean against him, letting his head fall on Adam’s shoulder. Kaoru turns up the volume a little, and Adam doesn’t laugh at him for his old man music tastes, and for a moment that stretches to a small eternity, this is enough.
They won’t talk about it later. Kaoru will go home later tonight with Kojiro, sneak back into his house through the kitchen window, resolutely ignore his sister’s complaints at having to cover for him again and threats of revenge via household chores. His head will be in a fog and he’ll be in a worse mood tomorrow when he’s tired, but he won’t be able to say yet that all of this isn’t worth it.
Maybe, whatever’s got Adam so down will right itself by the next time they skate together — but Kaoru can’t quite shake the feeling that it probably won’t. It’s not something Adam will ever deign to share with him, when he already takes such pains to hide the life he leaves behind when he comes to the skate park. They leave this shit at home for a reason, after all.
/
It’s three hours to closing, and Kaoru regrets not taking the day off — but he’s already taken too much time off work between days spent confined to the hospital and the various check-ups and physical therapy appointments in the weeks after his discharge. His clients and his students’ parents have been understanding, but there’s a fine line where their patience with him will inevitably wear thin; he’s moved enough deadlines and canceled enough classes in the past couple of months that he’s dangerously close to crossing it.
His ankle has been weakly throbbing for the past half hour and there’s a band of tension that’s settled into his temples, four hours out from his next dose of painkillers. He’s worked through lunch and Kojiro will yell at him later for it, and his stomach has once again skipped past hunger and tumbled into a cloying, familiar nausea.
“Carla,” Kaoru calls out, an unacceptable degree of weariness in his voice. “Play Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words, Book 1.”
“Okay, master,” she replies. “Songs Without Words Book 1, by Felix Mendelssohn.” A soft, peaceful piano melody echoes through the store.
Classes won’t start for another hour, and there’s always a lull in customers around this time of the day, so Kaoru takes a moment to bury his face in his arms on the table before him. It’s a bit uncomfortable from the pressure it’s putting on his knees, but the makeshift darkness helps a little. He doesn’t expect to fall asleep — he’s not tired enough, and he’s in too much pain for that — but his thoughts start to spiral in nonsensical directions when he tries to count his breaths, in-two-three-four, hold-two-three-four, out-two-three-four-five-six-seven.
Then the music quiets as Carla says: “Person detected near the front door.”
With a quiet groan, Kaoru peels himself off the table. His sleeves have left lines pressed into his cheeks that he won’t be able to rub away in time. The bell chimes as the door swings open, and Kaoru plasters on a smile that’s usually enough to get him through most customer interactions on days when he’d much rather eat glass than talk to anyone.
“Welcome!” he greets, very pleasantly.
—and in walks Diet member Ainosuke Shindo, in a ridiculously expensive-looking tailored suit and his hair neatly oiled back. When his gaze meets Kaoru’s, there’s an unacceptable degree of recognition in his eyes.
“Something I can help you with today?” asks Kaoru, before Shindo can remind everyone listening in why, precisely, they leave this shit at home.
Shindo takes the hint, and averts his gaze. “Just looking around,” he says, very stiffly.
… well, he’s not the first customer to do that. Not every one of them comes here with the intent of buying something, or signing their kids up for a penmanship class; the more touristy types act like it’s a museum, which works well enough for Kaoru when they keep their distance from the pieces mounted on the walls and don’t touch everything.
He wonders what excuse Shindo must have given, to be able to come in today uninhibited — what items he must have pushed around to free up his schedule for this. There’s a very old instinct, deep within Kaoru’s gut, to preen — but he resolutely crushes it before it can bloom into anything resembling gratitude for something that Adam had made very clear never existed.
(At S, the other skaters speak of a changed man. It’s the stuff of stories, to quantify just what exactly had dragged him out of that dark, dark hole he’d dug for himself — a shared love for a shared hobby rekindled, Langa extending his hand and Adam, for reasons that they all have yet to fully puzzle out, taking it. It’s precisely the outcome that Kaoru had planned for, the day he pushed Langa onto the track with duct tape binding his feet to his board, and yet—and yet—)
“How much for a commission?” asks Shindo, as he ponders a piece mounted on the wall closest to the front door: four flowing kanji, an excerpt from a poem.
“That depends on the size and number of kanji, sir,” Kaoru answers, very pleasantly. “But I should warn you...” And because he’s feeling vindictive enough: “I’m recovering from some injuries I sustained recently, so there will be a delay.”
Shindo hums. “My sympathies,” he says. “I heard it was an accident?” That had been the official record, at any rate — a convenient story to explain the hospital stay and the countless appointments since.
Eat shit and die. “Attempted manslaughter, actually,” Kaoru replies, airily.
The barb hits its mark, and Shindo winces. It’s not nearly as satisfying a sight as it ought to be.
Slowly, gingerly, Kaoru rises to his feet, hobbling over to the cashier’s table. In one of the drawers, there’s a sketchbook; he flips it open to a blank page, and reaches for a pencil. “What did you have in mind, Shindo-san?” he asks, politely.
Shindo frowns, his hand drifting upward to rub at his chin; within seconds, it becomes evident that past the confident, implacable exterior, he really has no idea what he’s doing here. Perhaps on another day, when Kaoru’s ankle isn’t throbbing and there isn’t a migraine threatening at his temples, he’d laugh.
“What do you recommend?” asks Shindo, blandly.
Kaoru exhales, slowly, and begins to write. There are a number of characters and phrases that come to mind, with varying degrees of cruelty — but Shindo had come here today, entirely unprompted. He’s done so without any scorn or disdain, and there’s nothing like boredom in his eyes as he watches him work. It’s not enough — probably won’t be enough for a long, long time — but it’s more than Kaoru had dared to hope for, the day he and Kojiro first heard that Adam had returned to Okinawa.
Somewhere in the way Adam leans over to peer at the sketchbook, too close – in the uncomfortable weight situated semi-permanently on Kaoru’s chest, that has nothing to do with the man who invaded his store — in the soft piano melody echoing through the store from Carla’s tinny speakers — a sentiment comes to mind: Something lost, found again. Something broken, only now starting to mend.
Kaoru turns the sketchbook around. Adam staggers back with a frown, not entirely comprehending — but that’s all right, at least for the time being. It’s a far more earnest attempt than anything Kaoru has seen from him in a long, long time.
“We can discuss styles and logistics at a later date,” says Kaoru, before he can utter another word. “You already have my contact information.”
The spell broken, Shindo’s head dips into a perfunctory nod. “Of course,” he replies. “Thank you.”
As Shindo turns towards the door, Kaoru steps out from behind the counter – but then his ankle folds painfully to the side, and he stumbles. It won’t be the worst fall he’s suffered, but it will be a painfully embarrassing one in all the ways that the only thing to blame for it will be Kaoru’s carelessness. He flings his arms out, grasping for the table as leg starts to buckle under him—
—and then Adam grabs his arm. His grip is firm, but not painful, and against everything Kaoru’s come to expect from him, every predictive model he’s run to prepare for this inevitable encounter, he does not let him fall.
“Please be careful, Sakurayashiki-san.”
Kaoru stares up at him for one moment, two — then, when he’s reasonably secure on his uninjured leg, wrenches his arm out of his grasp. “Unhand me,” he hisses, a bit uselessly when Adam makes no attempts to reach for him again.
Adam nods. “My apologies,” he says, just as uselessly when it doesn’t even scratch the surface of what he ought to be apologizing for — but there’s a reason they leave this shit at home, after all.
In the end, he buys a pack of brushes that Kaoru’s reasonably sure he’s never going to use — but money is money, and he can’t bring himself to feel too bothered about it. Adam leaves with an awkward wave, and when he’s out of sight, Kaoru reaches for a nearby chair and sinks gratefully into it.
There’s… no telling what’s going to happen, from here on out. Somehow, that’s far more frightening than when Adam had returned a stranger, and refused to look Kaoru’s way even once. At S, the other skaters speak of a changed man, but… could it be true? And if so, how long will it last? It promises a headache — worse than the one already threatening at his temples — but Kaoru has a class to teach in an hour, and so he puts it out of his mind for the time being.
He’d be a fool to hope, after everything — but maybe, if this continues, he can let himself be foolish. Just a little.
It’s late, when a knock comes at her door. “It’s open!” Rhea calls, sitting cross-legged on her borrowed bed in the Baldesion Annex, not looking up from the small cluster of tiny stars twinkling over her star globe.
It’s probably one of the twins or G’raha, she reasons. She’d been… out of sorts, back in Garlemald — enough that they’d started to hover in a way that she’s always found damn near suffocating. And then there was that whole business with Anima, with Zodiark, their sojourn to the moon catalogued in idle days spent in the company of the Loporrits, while the star teetered on the brink of disaster.
It’s not that she doesn’t appreciate their company — it’s just that the thought of answering their questions, engaging with their theories and predictions, is too exhausting by far.
—so it’s a relief when it’s Thancred at the door instead. “Evening,” he greets her, a bit awkwardly. “Am I interrupting?”
With a flick of her wrist, the stars dissipate and the star globe spins back into stasis. “No, not at all,” she answers. “Is everything all right?”
He sighs. “Must you assume that something is wrong the moment one of us seeks you out privately?” he asks, a bit petulantly.
She laughs, a bit humorlessly. “So much has already gone wrong,” she says. “What’s one more?”
His gaze drifts over to the star globe, closed and lying dormant on her bed. He has a good memory for the things she’s told him, even in passing — of her earliest days in Ishgard mired in uncertainty, as the Scions remains lost and scattered. She’d told him, then, that when her magic failed to fall into her grasp like it once would, when Alphinaud and Tataru had been depending on her to be strong, she found herself looking to the stars themselves for guidance, and there had been people there willing to teach her how.
She’d told him, then, that you could never see the stars that well in Gridania, when the trees covered so much of the sky and when it rained so much. To look to the stars, watch as they cartwheeled across the sky, was a reassurance that she was no longer there — that her life was, for once, truly her own to shape as she saw fit.
(You couldn’t see the stars in Garlemald, either. It’s not something she’d dwelled on overly much while she was there — not when there were more pressing matters, not when it was all she could do to keep her own head amidst everything that had happened — but it’s just one more reason why she’ll die happy if she never sets foot there again.)
There’s that pinch to Thancred’s brow that he gets when he’s about to fuss, and she takes that as her cue to take his hands and drag him inside her room before he can inspire anyone else in earshot to fuss too.
“Now that we’ve established that we’re not dealing with an immediate crisis,” she says, “it would make me very happy if we didn’t discuss any of the other crises that we’ll have to deal with tomorrow.”
At that, Thancred smiles. “Noted,” he replies. “Actually, I wanted to ask if you wished to partake in yet more of the Loporrits’ culinary feats.”
He sets his bag down on the table, and almost comically, a handful of multicolored carrots spills out.
“Please tell me you didn’t raid their kitchen,” says Rhea.
“I did no such thing!” he retorts, feigning offense. “I simply mentioned, offhandedly, that I actually enjoyed the carrots, and then one of the Loporrits — Growingway? Cookingway? — was so pleased that I was immediately plied with a large enough supply to last me a few meals. And considering that you were the only other person who actually enjoyed the carrots…”
She’d liked the yellow one she tried up on the Loporrits’ ship, so she reaches for the same. It doesn’t taste quite like it did up on the moon — if she were to ask Urianger, he’d probably regale her with lectures on atmospheric pressure significantly affecting one’s senses, including taste — but it’s still good. “Y’shtola didn’t want any?” she asks.
“Figured you should get first pick,” he replies.
She kicks his shin lightly under the table. “Picking favorites amongst the Scions? Not setting a very good example for our younger members, are you Thancred?”
“Oh, spare me,” he says, lightly kicking her back. “With how much you spoil the twins? It’s a wonder their heads haven’t swelled up like balloons.”
There’s a retort ready on the tip of her tongue about Ryne — but she crushes it before it can materialize; they’ve already agreed not to talk about any impeding crises, and the fate of the First amidst the Final Days definitely qualifies as such. If he won’t press her about the star globe she’s taken to carrying everywhere after Zodiark, then she won’t press him about the worries he’s no doubt refusing to articulate. It’s only fair.
—but the mirth has faded from his eyes, and now that she’s started thinking about the Final Days again in earnest, it’s difficult to stop.
“This isn’t the only reason I came, by the way,” he says, quietly. “I… have a favor to ask.”
She nods. “Of course.”
He takes a deep breath, and speaks of those very worries he’s been keeping quiet.
“You cannot be serious,” Thancred grumbles through gritted teeth. He’s dropped to one knee, breathing heavily as he grips the hilt of a blade that continues to sap at his strength with every swing.
“I’ve got you, Thancred!” says Rhea with far too much cheer, and if he never hears the telltale chime of healing magic again, it will be too soon.
In theory, he’d expected this outcome from the moment he agreed to pour as much of his soul as he could manage into those funny little crystal devices. The strength he’d relied on in the First had been cultivated over years, without some of the peskier consequences to having a physical body with physical needs.
—and now that he does have a physical body again, his current strength fails to match up to what it had been in the First, falling apart at the seams to a series of strange and wonderful new symptoms to watch out for — the exhaustion that creeps up on him far too quickly; the heaviness that settles in his limbs when he overdoes it even with the old gladiator’s sword that Raubahn had lent him; the fact that even the most trivial injuries seem to hurt more than they used to.
Gripping the hilt of his blade with both hands, he slowly staggers to his feet. Clearing out the Copperbell Mines is supposed to be an easy job, so this level of exhaustion is inexcusable — but Krile had emphasized that it would take some time for them all to rebuild their strength just to what it once was, at the point of their collapse; building it past that, to where it had been in the First, is another matter entirely.
“Are you sure you’re all right to keep going?” asks Rhea, very gently. He knows, logically, that there’s no judgment in that question alone; with Rhea specifically, there never will be that sort of judgment.
“Hey, don’t you worry about me,” he retorts. “I’ll have to continue relying on your healing more than usual, but beyond that, I should be perfectly fine.”
“Don’t listen to him, Rhea,” Lyse, traitor that she is, quips from over by the blasting device. “He’s just trying to act tough.”
“I am not,” says Thancred, perhaps more petulantly than entirely necessary.
Lyse crosses her arms, frowning. “Oh, come off it. It’s obvious to anyone with a functioning pair of eyes that you’re not entirely well.”
“And to those without a functioning pair of eyes as well,” says Y’shtola, from where she’s leaning far too casually against the cavern wall — leaning… far too much at all, come to think of it.
Rhea gets that pinched look on her face that makes it obvious that she’s about to fuss — and with Lyse at her side, in full agreement, Thancred and Y’shtola are doomed.
“Just a little bit farther, okay?” says Rhea. “We’re almost there.”
“And if you’d like to hang back, the two of us have it covered,” says Lyse, grinning as she slams her fist into the palm of her hand.
—and she’ll probably insist on carrying one or both of them back to Mor Dhona, too. There will be a huge spectacle, as Lyse valiantly strides through the gates with a weary and forlorn Thancred on her back, and a barely conscious Y’shtola tucked under her arm like a bedroll. It had been perfectly lovely, when it had been Rhea to valiantly carry him back home after the small matter of saving his life and freeing him from Lahabrea’s clutches; Lyse will gloat.
How humiliating.
“No need,” says Thancred, slinging the gladiator’s sword over his shoulder. “We’re good to go for a while longer. Right, Y’shtola?”
“As if there was any doubt,” she retorts.
Lyse turns to Rhea, then, the two of them sporting twin grins that all but confirm that Thancred and Y’shtola have fallen into some sort of trap. (Or they could simply be happy that the recovery is going far more smoothly than anticipated — which is more likely, but far less interesting.)
“Well, if you insist,” says Lyse, as she lights the blasting device’s fuse.
There’s much that he’s read about the place in times accumulated over the years; there’s much that he’d heard from Cid, and then the Scions themselves, about what this place had meant to those who once considered it home.
An imposing statue of the town’s chief patron — a single tavern a couple streets away from the water — a dozen tiny shops and offices and homes lining the streets — a single, nondescript office by the water that extends so deeply underground that the sand and the dust will not touch them there.
“You remained here by yourself, all those months?” asks G’raha, as they descend the steps past the front desk.
“Thou presumest that I remained isolated here against my will,” Urianger replies. “I asked to remain here while the others relocated to the new headquarters in Mor Dhona. ‘Twas my choice alone, and one that went uncontested.”
It speaks to pattern that would repeat in his insistence to remain in Il Mheg. The difference here is that it had been a younger Urianger who’d made that choice — one ignorant of the tragedies to come.
—for when he made the choice to remain here, in the Waking Sands, he’d done so with Minfilia’s blessing. It had been a different Minfilia than the one the First knew — a person more so than a symbol of hope, dear to many but not all, and perhaps not wholly aware of the role she had yet to play in this tapestry of intertwined fates.
(A different warrior, fresh-faced, and not quite the Warrior of Light or Darkness, and unmarred by the many, many tragedies to come — a different Y’shtola, who had yet to be pushed to the sorts of extremes that would rob her of her senses — a different Alphinaud and Alisaie, fresh off the boat from Sharlayan and so very convinced that they could make a difference in this foreign land — a different Thancred, far too entrenched in the role the others had expected him to play that no one, least of all himself, had noticed when it had made him a target for Ascian interference.)
“Do you miss it at all, Urianger?” asks G’raha, pressing one hand against the cool stone wall of the Solar. “Those earliest days, when all the Scions had been together, I mean.”
Urianger hums, pacing behind the desk. “’Twas a different time altogether,” he muses. “To compare it to our current practices would be to draw an equivalency that may not exist to begin with. The Scions’ current processes have been defined by the near annihilation of our previous order.” His eyes narrow, as he averts his gaze downward. “By the untimely departure of friends and comrades we once held dear.”
What must it have been like, to meet in this room? To surround Minfilia at that table, to be in alignment towards a common purpose — an efficient machine, strengthened by the strong ties independently cultivated in each city-state by individual Scions. How much of Y’shtola’s work with the Night’s Blessed in Rak’tika had been informed by her work in Limsa Lominsa? How much of Thancred’s easy and consistent rejection of Eulmoran norms had been informed by his work in Ul’dah?
And what part did the Warrior of Light have to play in all of this, beyond what had been committed to the written record?
(Would G’raha have had a place in any of this?)
As if reading his mind, Urianger gives him a gentle smile. “I have no doubts, however,” he says, “that hadst thou come to us then, we would have welcomed thee with open arms.”
G’raha chuckles. “Your patience with me would have worn thin soon enough,” he says. “I was quite the vainglorious fool, back then.”
“Perhaps,” says Urianger, “yet thine presence would have been valued and respected, as would that of all others who’d pledged their lives in service to the same ideals.”
Were it anyone else saying the same, then it would be little more than pretty words — but because it’s Urianger, a certain warmth, comforting and secure, settles in G’raha’s gut.
“But to answer thine query,” Urianger continues, “yes, I do miss it sometimes. When I close my eyes and try to paint a picture of the comforts of home, of being surrounded by friends… ‘tis conversations in the Ocular of the Crystarium, as well as days spent huddled in this very building that appear with equal measure.”
“Regardless of the location, surrounded by friends both old and new…” says G’raha. He pictures Rammbroes’ camp just outside the Crystal Tower, in Mor Dhona — the Isle of Val, surrounded by fellow scholars — idle days in the Crystarium, Lyna at his heels throughout various stages of her life, all the artisans and crafters and guardsmen and apothecaries and beast handlers working together to make the city a safe haven for all who sought refuge from the Sin Eaters’ onslaught.
—and then: the Rising Stones in Mor Dhona, in a body both familiar and not, surrounded by friends connected across worlds, across timelines.
He takes Urianger’s hand in his, commits each line and callus to his memory. Let this, too, be something worth returning to — a source of comfort and warmth and security, that can only be attained in the presence of loved ones held most dear. “Come,” says G’raha. “Let’s go home.”
The hail and sleet of Garlemald is nothing like the cold winds in Coerthas. Maybe there is some grain of truth to the narrative that those born here naturally grow up hearty and strong
Rhea, on the other hand, shoves her hands as far into her sleeves as they’ll go, crossing her arms tightly over her chest and her tail lowering close to her legs in order to retain as much warmth as possible. The logical thing to do, in such cases, is to go where it is warm — which, in this case, is back inside the train station.
It’s not that she won’t go back — especially when Alphinaud and Alisaie are still there, sporting Magitek collars specifically designed for torture. She just… needs a moment.
She has to make it quick. The longer she stays out here, the higher the risk that someone will find reason to activate those collars — and then the twins will pay the price for her selfishness. It’s just that there’s only so much of the refugees’ jabs she can take, before the urge to run straight into the city and relieve herself with a small massacre on the local Magitek population becomes too strong to ignore.
(There’d been a woman inside, who spoke of an old friend who’d fallen at the Praetorium. Looking back, Rhea can’t put a face to the name that woman had provided — can’t remember if that woman had personally, wholeheartedly believed in Gaius’ crusade on Eorzea, or if she was simply there because she had no other choice.
Would it have mattered either way, when Garlemald’s aggression then demanded a response? Would it have been better had Rhea just laid down and let Gaius have his way, and let her home fall to the wayside in the process? They’d been lucky, that it hadn’t gotten nearly as bad as it did in Ala Mhigo and Doma.
—but while this woman sat in Garlemald’s capital city, comfortable and surrounded by friends, would she have extended the same care she’d demanded of Rhea, to the adventurers Livia’s forces had massacred at the Waking Sands? To Ysayle?)
These people are hurt, she has to remind herself — robbed of everything that once made them feel strong. It’s only natural that they’d lash out, particularly at those they’d been raised to believe were inferior. Even though their words are barbed, their insults targeted, none of it is personal.
If she keeps reminding herself of this fact, then maybe they’ll get through this no worse for wear. This, too, shall end, and there will come a time when she can put as much distance between herself and this miserable place as possible.
“Oh! So that’s where you were.”
She doesn’t entirely stop the flinch in time — and it’s unacceptable, when Alphinaud needs her to be strong here while he and Alisaie are being held captive, even if that’s not precisely what Quintus had said he’d intended. If he notices, though, he says nothing on the matter as he makes his way over to her.
“Is everything all right?” she asks automatically. “They haven’t hurt you, have they?”
“They’ve kept their word,” says Alphinaud, smiling a little. “They’ve been reticent as ever, but I think the sick and injured are starting to warm up to us, at least.”
Well, of course they are. It would be sheer stupidity to deliberately antagonize the people coming to you with aid, when you’re in desperate need of it — but that hadn’t quite been the case for the previous batch of refugees, had it?
(Was death truly a better alternative for those sisters than to accept aid from the very people they’d been taught to believe were savages?
Licinia had called them as much, and she’d meant it — right until the very end.)
“And you?” asks Alphinaud. “How are you faring?”
Rhea shakes her head. “They haven’t laid a finger on me,” she replies. “They said they won’t, and they haven’t given me any reason to believe that they’ll change their minds.”
His smile fades into something far more tired. “That’s not what I meant,” he says. You know that’s not what I meant, is what he implies.
Rhea takes a deep, shuddering breath as she curls into herself, just a little bit more. What she ought to say to Alphinaud is the same thing he’s been telling himself since the day they showed up, miserable and forlorn, on Haurchefant’s doorstep after everything had fallen to pieces at the Sultana’s banquet: that there is much that he will not know about the way this world works when he is a wealthy scholar from a noble family and descended from a beloved hero.
There is much that Alphinaud will only understand on paper, scraped together from however many records and personal anecdotes he can get his hands on — that when things go wrong, people will look at those they deem savages and insist that the wrongness is due to some intrinsic quality in those people that made it this way. It’s not a life she would ever, ever wish on him, and yet…
(—and yet: Kan-E fumbles a simple spell, accidentally overextends the bounds of Gridania’s delicate balance with the Elementals when she has vastly more power than she knows how to control, and it’s just a mistake that will gently be corrected, and always forgiven; Rhea fumbles the same spell, accidentally overextends the same boundary when she has vastly more power than she knows how to control, and it’s a fundamental failing due to her Keeper of the Moon Miqo’te ancestry.)
There will not be a place for Alphinaud, in that perfect world with one nation, one race that Garlemald's emperors had envisioned — but Garlemald will be the only place in this world to insist so, purely on the basis of what Alphinaud is. Sharlayan will turn its back on him because of politics, because of disagreements of ideology, but not because of what he is; the same cannot be said for Rhea, when the only thing that managed to convince Gridania that she belonged there just as much as any other Hyur or Elezen that claimed it as their home, was that she was the godsdamned Warrior of Light.
… that’s not what that woman had said, back in the train station. That’s not what any of them had said, because they are hurt — robbed of everything that once made them feel strong. It’s only natural that they’d lash out, particularly at those they’d been raised to believe were inferior. Even though their words are barbed, their insults targeted, none of it is personal.
(That it sounds far too close to the things whispered behind corners in her childhood, even though no one would dare to tell it to her face with her mother and later Brother E-Sumi standing right there behind her, is nobody’s problem but her own.)
“I’ll… tell you about it later,” is what she ultimately settles for. She tries for a smile, brushes the hair out of Alphinaud’s eyes — and he doesn’t look entirely satisfied, but he doesn’t push her to talk, either.
“You’ll tell us, if it gets to be too much?” he asks, very earnestly.
Not that Rhea would actually tell anyone this — at least, not until they’re all safely ensconced within the Rising Stones or the Baldesion Annex, free from prying eyes — but Fandaniel… may have a point.
It’s miserably cold in Garlemald, the city somehow even worse when the smell of blood and rot and smouldering metal can’t be ignored so easily. The twins, despite the collars the legatus had forced them into, still walk with a bounce in their step, even as Jullus continues to watch their every move. None of the civilians huddled within that abandoned train station have thrown more than barbed words their way — which is a relief, considering how badly it went with the previous set of refugees they’d sought to aid.
Finally left to her own devices, for practically the first time in days, Rhea breathes deeply through her nose and tries to appreciate the quiet. Any moments when those same barbed words aren’t being hurled her way are to be relished. It’s not quite that bad, she tells herself — people who are hurting as badly as the refugees huddled in that train station are bound to lash out, particularly at those they’ve been taught to perceive as inferior and the enemy.
It’s just words at the end of the day — words she’s heard before, even if they were whispered in the shadows and not thrown directly in her face. That those words burrow under her skin regardless — chipping away at whatever resolve she’s built since the day she left Gridania, picking at scabs that should have scarred over long ago until they bleed like no time has passed at all — that’s her own business.
(She’s not that child in Gridania anymore, desperate to prove that she wasn’t the monster the Wood Wailers and Seedseer Council insisted she was, even if they wouldn’t say as much to her face, and unable to resist the anger that would inevitably sprout when nothing she did, no matter how well-behaved she was, would ever be enough for them. She knows this, and it’s horribly selfish of her to dwell on that when the people here are suffering so much more, and yet… and yet…)
“Finally escaped the watchful gaze of your keepers, have we?”
It’s only sheer force of will that prevents her from jumping, at the sound of Thancred’s voice — but it cuts through the haze that’s settled over her mind, yanking her back to the kind of awareness that’s terribly necessary in such circumstances, yet out of reach in recent days.
She can’t see him, but a warm, familiar pressure settles on her back — and just like that, it becomes all the more obvious just how her jaw hurts from how hard she’s been clenching it, how stiff her shoulders are when they’ve been hiked up for hours, and how her nails have left crescent-shaped indents in the palms of her hands with how tightly she’d been clenching her fists.
“Are you all right?” Thancred asks, quietly.
“I’m not injured,” she whispers, as discreetly as she can manage when Jullus isn’t quite looking in her direction, but could probably still discern that something is amiss if he were to really pay attention. “Neither are the twins.”
It’s painfully obvious what exactly she’s leaving out of her answer, but this is hardly the place for him to press her on it — so the pressure on her back increases, just a little. He tells her about the scouts Lucia had sent to follow them, when Jullus had first brought them to his camp, and of the good news that’s reached the camp in her absence; she tells him about Quintus, and all that he’d told them once Thancred had lost sight of them.
“And what about you?” he asks. “Do you need an extraction?”
“I don’t think the twins would appreciate that,” she replies. “And even then, it’s too risky with those collars still on them.”
Thancred sighs. “I meant just you. Back at the camp, we’ve got a wig for Y’shtola and some temporary dye for her tail. She’s ready to step in whenever you need some time away. No one will notice that there’s a different staff-twirling Miqo’te in their presence unless they think to look closely — and given the present circumstances, that’s unlikely.”
Why would they think to plan for such an event? Unless…
“It was Lyse and A-Ruhn’s idea, before you ask.”
Oh gods. Lyse she can understand, but the last thing she needs is A-Ruhn fussing over her. If anything, she should be fussing over him — enough to make up for how much Kan-E, Raya-O, and Brother E-Sumi would fuss if they were here too.
“Do I really look that bad?” she whispers.
The pressure on her back extends until she’s pulled, gently, into something warm and solid — and there’s her answer.
“I’m fine,” she answers. “I can go for a little longer, at least.” It will be miserable, and it will continue to burrow under her skin, chipping away at whatever resolve she’s built since the day she left Gridania, picking at scabs that should have scarred over long ago until they bleed like no time has passed at all — but knowing that Thancred is here, watching, takes the edge off.
“If you’re sure,” says Thancred.
His grip on her tightens, and it’s all she can do to not lean into it.
“Have faith,” he whispers. “With luck, this will all be over soon.”
Over by where the twins are standing, Jullus looks up and evenly meets her gaze. Rhea breathes deeply, and clings to whatever comfort remains from Thancred’s words before she slips back into the same performance that has kept her and the twins alive under Garlean supervision for days.
FFXIV Write 2022, day 25: extra credit (in from the cold)
Her hands won’t stop shaking.
Objectively, Rhea knows that the blame lies with the heavy fatigue that anchors her to her bedroll, weighing down every limb, and the dizziness that makes it feel like her insides have been scraped out with a trowel. What’s important, she reminds herself, is that they’re ultimately just physical symptoms, at the end of the day — things that will go away with time (that they do not have), rest (that she can’t afford to take), and taking full advantage of the supplies they have at their disposal (that she’s leeching from those who need them far more).
At the very least, somehow her mind is clearer than it’s been in days. She’ll have to thank Zenos for that later.
Over by the door, Thancred ducks his head in. “Oh good, you’re still awake.” There’s a mug in his hands, steaming and sweet-smelling.
“Is that cocoa?” she asks, as he hands it to her. “Where did you get this?”
“Emmanellain’s personal stash,” he answers, sliding to the floor next to her. “Don’t worry, I didn’t extort him for it or anything. It was his idea. Contrary to popular belief, I am perfectly capable of having a civil conversation with him.”
The cocoa’s warmth seeps into her hands, steadying them a little. It tastes just as she remembers — of cold nights in Coerthas, made all the warmer by good company and an open hearth.
With a weary sigh, she slumps sideways to rest against his shoulder; in turn, he maneuvers his arm around her to hold her upright. That, too, is an anchor — one that makes her head spin a little less.
“This… should be affecting me more, shouldn’t it?” she says. “I mean… he was inside me. Had I died back in the city, in that other body, this could have ended very badly.”
She says it like she needs to convince herself of it — but the fact of the matter is: it hadn’t been wholly disturbing, to be inside that other body. Not when the Echo has mimicked that same sensation time and time again — put her inside other bodies that were not her own, including that of the person sitting next to her.
No, the difference here is that it was an Ascian to facilitate today’s events — that it was possible for an Ascian to pluck out two souls and place them in different bodies, like mismatching dolls. Add to that, the fact that this was not a simple slice of time taken from the present, or a journey into a past that was not her own.
It’s still not the worst thing an Ascian has ever done to her, because nothing will be worse than the way Elidibus had sunk his claws into her chest — dug for every weakness, every insecurity, in hopes of tearing her down before she could even muster the strength to fight. Fandaniel’s animosity is not personal like Elidibus’ was.
(It’s still not the worst thing that’s happened in the past week alone.)
Thancred hums. “Do you want it to affect you more than it already is?” he asks.
“No, that’s not…” she starts. “I mean…”
What does she want, exactly? To prove Thancred correct, that having someone wrest control of her body against her will was exactly as harrowing for her as it had been for him? That it had been more than just a minor inconvenience — and one that she’s paradoxically grateful for when the enemy that most demanded her attention was, for the first time in weeks, someone who did not call her a savage and a barbarian and a monster to her face, for the crime of responding to Garlemald’s aggression with aggression of her own?
(Not that Thancred would understand that, without a lot of explaining on her end. Garlemald’s bigotry is equal-opportunity, applied with the same force to every individual who refuses to bend at the knee — but no one in Eorzea, who claims to have his best interests at heart, would think to call him a savage and a barbarian and a monster. The Elementals’ permission notwithstanding, Gridania would welcome him with open arms, and not immediately associate him with the poachers and outlaws it decries; he wouldn’t have to be the damn Warrior of Light to earn that grace.)
(Why is she still so stuck on this, when Fandaniel has all but confirmed that his plans to bring about the Final Days are so close to fruition?)
“It was nice to get out of my head for a little while, despite the circumstances,” she tries. “It… really, really shouldn’t have been.”
It was nice to make it all someone else’s problem for once, as nonsensical as it is — even though Zenos would never, ever see it that way — even though it would have ended very badly for everyone involved, if Zenos had had his way.
(How much worse would it have been, had Thancred not come to her that day in the city, and assured her that she and the twins weren’t alone?)
“I’m fine,” she says, her voice breaking, “and that’s precisely the problem.”
His expression crumples, then, into something far too close to pity as he pulls her closer, rubbing her arm up and down. “You’re not,” he says, “but clearly not for the same reasons that everyone else here expects.”
Strange, how that affirmation alone invites a stinging pressure to bloom behind her eyes. The first sob takes her by surprise, shuddering through her body and threatening to spill her cocoa.
Thancred’s grip on her tightens. “Just a little more,” he says, quietly. “We’ll be home soon enough.”
When A-Ruhn had parted ways with Eschiva, he’d had a vague idea of how things would go, amidst this coalition of delegates headed for Garlemald.
One: Seedseer or no, he’d have to prove himself. Padjal are generally respected, sure, but those who’ve done their research will know that he’s far closer to the age he looks than Kan-E and Raya-O.
Two: Lyse Hext, who spent no small amount of time in Gridania during her tenure as a Scion, would be a friendly face to which he could anchor himself, in the worst case scenario. Though she no longer wears a mask that covers her face, though she goes by a different name, the ease and familiarity of her presence has not changed.
Three: when Rhea learns that he came here accompanied only by members of the Order of the Twin Adder, and not by Eschiva or his other sisters, she’s going to fuss. A lot.
Rhea, predictably, greets him with a hug — positively beams with pride when he introduces himself to the rest of the coalition. It’s been a long time since he last saw her, so he’d like to think that that pride is not misplaced — and maybe, when they get a quiet moment to themselves, he can ask her about her journeys to that other world Raya-O had written to him about; maybe he can ask her about the toll it all took on her conjury, and work with her to… maybe not fix it entirely, but alleviate it, just a little.
—but then his luck abruptly runs out when she turns her gaze, sharply, to his robes — and more specifically, where they cut off and leave his legs bare.
She crosses her arms and gives him such a stern frown that it would send even Raya-O quaking in her boots. Kan-E would be wearing the exact same look if she were here, and somehow that makes it even worse.
It takes a few moments, but the linkpearl connects. “Hello?” comes Rhea’s voice on the other line — a bit tinny and muddled by static for a moment, but it clears quickly enough. “Can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear,” Thancred answers.
There’s a crash, followed by muffled cursing — then the telltale rummaging of a linkpearl knocked askew, and then righted. Somewhere in between, there’s a high-pitched ringing that does not fade until the rummaging stops.
“So,” he says, very carefully, “I take it that your journey across the ocean was successful?”
“It was!” she replies. “We arrived this morning, and—sorry, I know I said that I’d inform you as soon as we did, but then we got so busy that—“
“That’s all right,” he cuts her off. “No harm done.” Giving the esteemed Warrior of Light a moment to herself after crossing an entire ocean? Perish the thought.
“What about you?” she says. “Did you have a safe journey back to the Rising Stones?”
“Oh, come now,” he retorts, chuckling a bit. “I’ve made the trip a thousand times.“
“Even so, there is technically a war,” she says, as if she hadn’t just barely scraped through an altercation with the crown prince of Garlemald himself.
“Now who’s fussing?” Thancred retorts. “And technically, I think the danger of your exploits far outranks that of mine.”
Was it a smooth journey over the waves, he wonders? If she’d run into trouble on the way, it clearly can’t have been that bad. She doesn’t sound like she’s struggling, at any rate — but she’s always been annoyingly good at hiding these things.
“Thancred, I can hear you fussing all the way from over here.”
He huffs out a quiet laugh. “Can you now? I wasn’t aware that the Echo extended quite that far.”
She is right about the fussing, though.
“I have to go now,” she says, “but… perhaps I can call you again, later tonight? Will you be busy?”
“You don’t need to give me status updates, Rhea,” he says, sighing.
“It wouldn’t be a status update,” she replies. “Not really. Just… Kugane’s very different from Aldenard. You’d like it here, and… typically, when loved ones cannot partake in your travels with you, it falls to you to paint a picture for them until they can.”
… loved ones, huh? That she doesn’t immediately backtrack, insist that she’d meant something else instead, all but confirms that her words are intentional.
(And the all too pleasant warmth that settles in his gut at the realization — he’ll carry that to his grave.)
“Tonight, then,” he says, and can’t help but smile.
The ribbon is a vibrant red, and soft to the touch; it’s also nearly a hundred thousand gil.
“What’s it made of, do you think?” asks Tataru, squinting at it. “Unicorn hair, perhaps?”
Rhea giggles, and files the question away to pester Kan-E with it later — she’s always been particularly opinionated about unicorns. “Kugane does seem like a place that attracts a lot of tourists, doesn’t it?” she asks. “Imagine: a fine, artfully crafted hair ribbon, made from natural fibers local to Kugane and colored only with the finest dyes…”
“And it’s actually a bargain, for what it’s really worth,” says Tataru.
“Oh, but of course!” says Rhea. “What better way to memorialize your time in the Far East than by purchasing a ludicrously expensive hair ribbon?”
For good measure, she takes the ribbon and holds it by her head — not to wear it, especially when the shopkeeper looks like the type who would charge them for it if it’s returned with even the slightest imperfection — but she can’t deny that it would look rather nice with her white mage’s robes.
It’s utterly frivolous to entertain such thoughts, though — particularly when she needs to be on her guard, when it’s Lord Lolorito’s associate that’s hosting them for the duration of their stay. Hancock seems nice enough, but nice means very little when it’s Lolorito’s coin he answers to.
(—and just like that, before she can stop it, the simmering anger is back. He’d been all too pleased, the day everything had started to slide back into place — never mind that he was one of the people that had knocked it all out of joint in the first place. It had been far too easy for him to wash his hands of the whole affair, when the Sultana had awakened — never mind the months Raubahn had been imprisoned in Halatali; never mind the injury he’d sustained the day of the banquet, that he would never truly recover from.
Never mind that the whole ordeal had robbed Y’shtola of her sight, and Thancred of his ability to channel aether; never mind that it had robbed them all of Minfilia.)
Tataru tilts her head to the side, her brow knotting together in concern. “Are you all right?” she asks.
Rhea manages a smile for her, but it’s not a genuine one. “Yes, I’m fine,” she answers, smoothly.
Somehow, that just makes Tataru’s brow furrow further. “Oh no you don’t! I’m not falling for that one again!”
… damn Tataru and her eye for these kinds of moods. Rhea sighs, and sets the ribbon back down. “It’s not like you can do anything about it, short of finding us new quarters that don’t leave us indebted to Lolorito.”
At that, Tataru’s expression softens. “We’re not indebted, though,” she says, gently. “Remember what Hancock said?”
And if there came a time when Lolorito would cross them once again, whose word would be believed? No matter how hard they worked to prove the veracity of their claims, would it make any difference at all?
“Although…” Tataru reaches over, runs her fingers along the ribbon’s length. “This would look quite nice on you. And we were told, explicitly, that whatever we purchase today on the Scions’ behalf will be happily funded by Lord Lolorito himself, when it’s him that’s indebted to us.”
She grins, before hailing the shopkeeper. Within moments, gil is exchanged, and Tataru preens as she presses the ribbon into Rhea’s hands. “Don’t you worry,” she says. “Whatever problem he has with this transaction, he can take it up with me. I’m sure he’d love to explain just what he’d intended with his scheming, when everyone who matters knows that it was that that drove four Scions into hiding, maimed two, and robbed us of one altogether.”
It’s a hollow victory — and a paltry one, when it will barely make a dent in his vast reserves of wealth and influence — but it’s satisfying all the same.
Does it speak to negligence or arrogance, that the Crystal Braves chose to abandon him here and not leave a single guard to watch his movements?
There’s another reason, of course — a far more obvious one. Crumpled on the floor as he is, bleeding from a wound he cannot see without contorting his body in a manner that will surely aggravate it, there is nothing left here worth watching. He no longer poses a threat, not to them — perhaps he never truly did.
Alphinaud would like to think that once, he did indeed know his Braves — trusted them to share his ideals, trusted that those ideals were all they would need in order to lead Eorzea into a brighter future. That wound in his gut — or perhaps in his side? — renders his thoughts traitorously slow to collect; perhaps it’s that that staves off the imminent panic that everything he’s worked for these past months is falling to pieces before him.
It occurs to him, far too slowly, that nobody will come for him here. That was likely the Crystal Braves’ intention from the outset.
With a deep, shaking breath that threatens to catch in his chest, he pushes himself to his hands and knees — presses one hand against the wound, as he slowly staggers to his feet. The pain is dulled, but all the races that populate this world are built with some sort of defense mechanism that enables them to survive in the midst of what should otherwise be debilitating; regardless, Alphinaud has studied enough anatomy to know that the relief will only be temporary.
He takes one step, two — and then his knee buckles, failing to support his weight. “Please,” he chokes out. “Whatever tragedy will occur today, I know that I am responsible...” With one hand braced against the floor and the other pressed to the wound in his gut, or maybe his side, he staggers back to his feet. “I know that it is due to my arrogance, that those who will enact this tragedy are able to act at all. All I ask—”
—he cries out when pain pulses at the wound — a wave of lightheadedness washing over him, threatening to send him crashing back down. “All I ask...” he gasps, “... is for a chance to make this right.”
For a moment — one that stretches for far too long — all is frighteningly still.
—and then, a voice sounds: “Thou wouldst carve a path, so that the light may shine once more.”
... a prayer, answered; a solution, proffered. (So the Antecedent and the Warrior of Light hadn’t exaggerated after all.)
“Whatever it is you would ask of me, I will do it,” says Alphinaud. “Just... it cannot end like this. Not today.”
For a moment that stretches for far too long, all is frighteningly still.
... and then, like a warm blanket draped over his shoulders during a cold afternoon in Coerthas, the voice speaks once more: “Come to me, my child. By thy deeds shall this star see salvation.”
The Lalafellan secretary, Tataru, at least entertains the idea for a while. “Mistress Gunji,” she says with so much patience that Yae likes her already. “I’m having a little bit of trouble understanding what brought you here today.”
—so she’s said already, multiple times — but Yae did not get to where she is without a little persistence. It was a necessary quality, to convince her parents that leaving Yanxia was a far better bet than simply waiting for Garlemald to get bored of the whole colonial affair; it was necessary to keep her head above water in Ul’dah, lest her naivete land her on the wrong side of some hoity-toity merchant.
“Well,” says Yae, clasping her hands together on the table. “I was told that there would be work here. Adventurers’ work, specifically.”
Damn Thancred and his vagueness. Ask about the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, he’d said — probably knowing full well that any research she could personally do, before deciding one way or the other, would result in anything more than vague references to an obscure study group from Sharlayan. Maybe it was his fault her three-month grace period, within which she’d have to find herself a new master lest she be dropped from the retainers’ roster, had come so dangerously close to running out.
(Working at the Miners’ Guild pays well enough for her, alone, to keep somewhat comfortably afloat in Thanalan — but there’s nowhere near enough to send some back home. Mama and Papa had been so understanding about it, too — writing to her that they were fine, that her younger siblings were fine, that she didn’t have to work herself into the ground for their sake.)
“Ah, we’re not… hiring, exactly,” says Tataru, “which makes me all the more curious how you even found this place.”
“I was advised by an acquaintance back in Ul’dah,” says Yae, “to seek out the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, if I was ever in need of employment. Of the adventuring sort, I mean.”
Tataru, understandably, looks unconvinced. “And this acquaintance is…?”
“Thancred Waters.”
Just like that, the skepticism fades from her expression. “Oh, you’re a friend of Thancred’s!” she says, with no small amount of cheer. “Well that clears quite a few things up. You’re the one who swung a pickaxe at a Voidsent, aren’t you?”
To think that Yae had made herself look good for this interview — combed and styled her hair; lined her eyes with makeup; cleaned and polished her scales; frantically washed the stains from her nicest bliaud.
And all Tataru knows her by — as well as, presumably, everyone else in this organization — is Yae’s harebrained, wildly unsuccessful until Thancred had kindly arrived to finish the job, plot to bludgeon and skewer a Voidsent to death with mining equipment.
(Oh, Thancred’s in for it now.)
“I realize it maybe wasn’t the smartest plan,” says Yae, laughing nervously, “but I had limited options at my disposal, so I had to improvise.”
“Which is far more than a lot of others would do in your position,” says Tataru, grinning, “and that, incidentally, is exactly the kind of quality we look for in adventurers.” She hops from her seat, and gestures towards the flight of stairs behind the table. “Why don’t you come inside? We’ll discuss logistics anon.”
… oh well. It’s far from the most outlandish thing Yae’s done in the past year. Maybe this will be worth her time.
From a theoretical standpoint, Thancred knew that there would be an adjustment period, immediately following his return to the Source. What had been five years and then some for him spanned no more than a few weeks for his body; to return to that body, five years older, was to acknowledge, point blank, that there would be a discrepancy between what is and what should be.
He knows this from a theoretical standpoint — and yet, his hair is far longer than it should be.
It’s not the only change worth noting. His shoulders aren’t quite as broad as he expects them to be, much of the bulk he’d relied on in the First conspicuously absent. In the days immediately following his awakening, he’d come to the realization, somewhere, that Tataru had kept his face clean-shaven while he slept. He’ll have to thank her for that; the more he thinks about it, the less he knows what he’d have done, had he woken to a face full of bristles that he had no memory of growing himself.
The hair, to be perfectly clear, is the least of his worries — cutting it is easy, and no matter what he does to it, it will grow back; his hairline hasn’t receded quite that far yet, thank you very much.
“So,” says Rhea, as she runs her fingers through his hair. It’s a comfortable feeling — grounding, when everything else threatens to spiral out of control. He finds himself leaning into her touch, against all logic — and she rewards it with a gentle tug on a handful of strands. “Hey, don’t fall asleep on me here.”
He hums. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says in a low, rasping voice — but the repetitive motion of her fingers running through his hair is just soothing enough that it’s making him drowsy, so he really ought to watch himself. “Thanks for this, by the way. Tataru offered, but the thought of anyone else holding a knife so close to my face…”
It isn’t until the words are out of his mouth that it registers just how insulting they would sound, if anyone else were to hear them. “Don’t worry,” Rhea replies anyway. “She didn’t take it personally.” She stops her ministrations then, and retrieves a pair of shears. “How short were you thinking?”
“Unchanged, please.”
“’Unchanged,’ as in…?”
—and here is the tricky part, because “unchanged” can mean one of two things: it can mean precisely the length his hair currently is, only cleaned up a bit. He might braid it like he once did, years ago — slip back into an old skin to which he’d lost access, and only recently reclaimed.
It can also mean an approximation of what his hair had been like in the First. The last time his hair had been that short, in this body, he was agreeing to Y’shtola’s mad gamble and belly-flopping into the aetherial sea — but it’s what it had been in his most recent memories, even if those memories are detached from this body.
(Which would be better? Which would make him feel even a little bit less out of joint? How long can he remain like this, turning a blind eye to the fact that his present reality does not align with what this body remembers?)
Rhea’s hand falls gently on his shoulder — warm and secure, and everything that it ought to be. “How about,” she says, “I just start cutting, and you tell me when to stop?”
His hand drifts upward, meeting hers — and however shameful it is, to hold onto it as if it’s all that’s anchoring him to this strange, shockingly new existence, she does not comment on it. “Do what you must,” he whispers.
He holds on for a moment longer than he ought to — but eventually she has to withdraw her hand, to set to work. His hair shortens to his shoulders — then to his ears.
—and when she stops cutting, what’s left is a close approximation of what his hair had been like in the First.
His head feels… lighter — but far closer to what he remembers. She hands him a mirror, and he turns his head, examining the haircut from a different angle. “Well, I’m no professional,” he says, “but I think we’ll make an aesthetician of you yet.”
“So you like it, then?” she asks, smiling.
When he peers into the mirror, the face that stares back doesn’t quite look like his own. His cheeks are too thin — almost gaunt, from the way the skin seems to sink into his bones. His skin is oddly washed out, pallid, from months of being confined to a dark chamber with little to no proper sunlight.
—but it is his. He’ll simply have to get used to it.
“It’s perfect,” he says. “Thank you.”
She smiles at him, as brightly as ever — and that, too, is a point of familiarity he can hold on to, if only for a little while.
“Now,” he says, “what do you say we grab something to eat? I, for one, am rather tired of nothing but archon loaf.”
She sighs, heavily. “You and me both. I have no idea how you Sharlayans subsisted on it for so long.”
“You grew up in Gridania,” he retorts. “You have no room to talk.”
As they say their goodbyes to Tataru and Ephemie and make their way out of the Rising Stones, he finds himself grasping for her hand once more — and when she squeezes his hand back, it anchors him to this strange, shockingly new existence that he’s only just started to grow used to.
