Polyphony at Twilight
Rating: General Characters: Jehantel, Aureia (WoL) Word Count: 3,103 Summary: A wandering minstrel and an ex-Garlean operative share a meal around a campfire where both reveal more secrets than they intend. Read on AO3
Deep in the Twelveswood, in the shadow of a hollowed out tree trunk, a campfire crackles, its flames dancing to and fro to their own rhythm as they reach for the stars.
Jehantel leans forwards, forearms on his knees, and observes the woman across from him. She sits cross-legged, brows drawn together and lips pursed with concentration as she stirs the pot strung over the fire. What was once his evening meal is now theirs to share, his simple stew bolstered by spices and meats far too fine to have come from these woods. Some Gridanians may find her half-Elezen features a novelty, but his visitor has always struck him as quite ordinary. Dark hair and ruby eyes of a kind he has seen countless times before, and a face that can blend in naturally in a crowd.
What is not ordinary is the quiet power with which she carries herself. It is not noticeable on a cursory look, but a keen eye will note what many will not—the efficacy of her movements, the precise way she surveys her surroundings, how she never quite fully relaxes even when in safe company. She’s a soldier. A warrior.
A spy.
Not anymore, perhaps, but some habits never fully die. He knows that more than most.
“I must thank you, stranger, for this gift,” he says, nodding to the pot. “You did not have to go out of your way for me.”
His guest shrugs and keeps stirring. “I was in the area,” she replies.
“That is becoming a common refrain, I see.” He chuckles, thinking back to the first time she stumbled upon his quiet camp. She was haggard and exhausted, bleeding from a cut on her cheek and drenched to the bone from a day of endless rain. She sheltered with him for the night; breaking bread and allowing him to tend to her wounds. She didn’t say much, though her gaze never strayed far from the brilliant bow she carried with her, its pulsing light a beacon in the dark.
It is a magnificent weapon, one seemingly composed entirely of aether. That she still carries it with her only confirms his suspicions—she is no ordinary archer, nor is she a member of the Gods’ Quiver. For what purpose, then, did she return? This is the third time their paths have crossed, one too many for it to be incidental.
And so it is with burning curiosity that he asks his next question. “Have you reconsidered my offer, young one?” Jehantel says, catching her eye.
Her hand slows, the wooden spoon scraping against the sides of the pot. “The answer is still no,” she replies shortly. “I’m not interested.”
“And yet you have found yourself here, in a place not easy to find, far from the roads most travelled. Nevertheless, I am grateful for the company. Rare is it for these old bones to meet new faces.”
A hint of a smile tugs at the corners of her lips. With a shrug, she returns to the stew and absorbs herself in tending it, stirring with a little too much intention. A performance, in its own way, and a convincing one. Not all those who playact are actors, just as not all who dance are dancers.
Exhaling a long breath, Jehantel rearranges himself on his log, stretching out his long legs and tipping his hat to the sky. Evening is settling in and the Twelveswood is bristling with activity. Beyond the leafy canopy, a swath of pinkish purple sweeps across the sky like the brushstrokes of a painter, and the first few stars emerge from the haze. Insects hum in the dark, their rhythmic chitters a counterpoint to the hoots of nocturnal birds and the flutter of bat wings. The woods is a symphony in the dusk, its melodies rising and falling in harmonious rhapsody to those with the patience to hear it.
Before him, the campfire dwindles. Humming to himself, he reaches behind the log to dig through his meager belongings and withdraws his lyre. A small, battered thing, much beloved and well trusted. His constant companion. They have journeyed far and wide together, and they will do so again.
Hesitant fingers touch the strings, the familiarity of the movements at war with the stiffness in his joints that now besieges him in his later years. It has been some days since last he played, his hands and wrists requiring rest. There is always a moment’s pause when he returns after a recess, the fear that his fingers will stumble and fall as if the skill earned from years of playing has simply vanished overnight. But the fear is never long-lived, dissipating the moment he closes his eyes and plucks the first few notes.
He plays. He sings. The music soars, the ancient Gridanian battlesong resounding to the very roots of the trees. The forest quiets and even the wind holds its breath, as if the whole of the Twelveswood is listening.
But there is one in the audience who is not.
Jehantel slows, drawing out the last phrase to an aching stop in an elongated ritardando. When he cracks open his eyes, he spots her on the far side of the fire—knees drawn into her chest, head crooked into her shoulder—staring absently into the flames. The stew bubbles away, forgotten.
“You are displeased,” he says softly.
His guest looks up. “No, I…” She sighs and passes a hand across her face. “I’m sorry. It’s lovely.”
“Your countenance would say you think otherwise.”
“I don’t, I…” She loosens her grip on her knees and falls back into her cross-legged position. Though he calls her young one, it has not occurred to him until now just how young she is. Old enough to be long out of the unpredictable ebb and flow of young adulthood, but young enough that she still has much to learn, about herself and the world. Just as he did when he was her age. By the Twelve, he may have even been younger than her when his companions were lost and the course of his life was changed forever. “It’s hard for me to hear, that’s all.”
“The lyre? Its notes are not for everyone.”
“No, the…” She grimaces. “The song. All of it.”
He frowns. “Is it perhaps the lyrics that are not to your taste? I once met a fellow who abhorred rhyming schemes. For what reason I know not, but once he learned to avoid the tavern at night, he was gifted with pleasant dreams.”
Not his best work by any stretch, but it serves its purpose. Her lips twitch—another hidden smile—and she quickly looks away, letting her hair fall across her face.
“It’s not that, either,” she says after a moment. “I don’t like… I’ve never enjoyed… I… never mind.” In the growing dim of twilight, she seems an echo of herself, as if lost in a distant memory. For someone so confident she is strangely tongue-tied, unable or unwilling to explain herself further.
A sentiment he understands well.
“If the music does not speak to you, it does not speak to you,” Jehantel says gently. “There is no shame in that.”
She laughs darkly. “Oh, it speaks. Believe me, it speaks, like the drunkard at the tavern who doesn’t know when to shut up.” Her gaze wanders, sweeping out from their shelter in the great tree to the forest beyond. She follows the scurrying of squirrels as they dart through the underbrush, the flight of a bat as it arcs through the air, the green glow of a wind sprite dancing above tall blades of grass. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult your playing again. I’m sure if you played for anyone else, they would love it. I know it’s precious to you, like it’s precious to a lot of people. But when I hear music like that, I feel like someone is stabbing me in the head. Soft or loud, it doesn’t matter. I need to scream to blot it out or walk away, otherwise I will well and truly lose my mind. That’s why I can’t accept your offer.”
Shaking her head, she returns her attention to the campfire. It is dying in earnest now, reduced to glowing embers and red hot logs. Cursing under her breath, the stranger rises to her feet and fetches kindling. She tosses it on the blackened remains and kneels down, attempting to blow life back into it. When it fails to catch, she tucks her hair back behind her ears in a businesslike manner and hovers her hand above the embers. A ball of fire-aspected aether appears in her palm, yellow-orange and bursting with energy.
The kindling sparks, the fire roars, and the stew continues to bubble.
“There,” she says happily and sits back on her haunches.
Jehantel surveys her curiously, his lyre lying heavily in his lap. “Perhaps you would find it to be a different case if you took it up on your own volition,” he continues. “There is joy to be found in music and song, yes, but as with most events in life, if it is forced upon you without invitation, then it is more anguish than delight.”
She stares at him, the glow of dancing flames reflected in her ruby eyes. “Jehantel…”
He returns her gaze. “You are no archer of the Archers’ Guild, are you?”
“No, not really. How did you know?”
“You brought foreign herbs where a Gridanian would have harvested from their local garden, you bought meat when you could have hunted your own, you just performed an exemplary example of controlled thaumaturgy without a focus, and—most important of all—your bow is attracting moths, my dear.” He nods at the gleaming weapon lying in the grass. A couple of the small creatures flit about it and bounce off its limbs. “Dare I ask where you obtained it? I imagine the story could make for quite the gallant ballad.”
“I don’t think there’s much gallantry in falling down a hole into underground ruins.”
“Perhaps there would not be, but perhaps there would. Where is your sense of imagination and wonder, young one?”
“I just don’t think it would make a good story!” She blows out a puff of air and grabs the spoon, then returns to stirring the pot. “There isn’t anything interesting about getting lost in a maze and tripping traps.”
“And yet even after your escape, you’ve returned for more.”
“I, well—” She cuts off and raises her head, looking at him sharply.
He smiles. “I am of the Twelveswood, my dear. I recognize a Padjali weapon when I see one. And I have heard more than one tale about what awaits in Gelmorra below, and the Wood Wailers’ call for adventurers.”
She falls silent for a moment. To his surprise, her expression softens and she busies herself with the bubbling stew, giving it one final stir. “Dinner’s ready,” she says quietly, scraping the bottom with the spoon. “I think it may be a little burnt… I may have overdone it when I relit the fire.”
“Dinner with company always tastes better than dinner alone. No matter how burnt.”
The stew is, all things considered, delicious. Though she has said many times she is no cook, it is clear that she knows a thing or two about cooking in the wilderness. She may not be a hunter—at least not by the Gridanian definition—but she is at home in the wilds. The mark of someone who has wandered very far indeed.
“If I may, my dear,” Jehantel ventures after some time. “You are a combatant by nature, yes? Perhaps your aversion to music is simply a dislike of the ballads spun by songsters in taverns and inns. The power of song can enchant and captivate an audience, for certain, but it can be so much more. A talent, a skill to shape the very outcome of conflict.”
He glances at her, watching her closely. Though she pretends to be more captivated by her soup than she is by his speech, she sits with a straightened back and an ear turned towards him. “The archer upon the field can shift the tide of battle. It takes a stalwart and steadfast soul to remain behind, to support the company from the rear and watch as their comrades forge ahead only to fall in bloodied soil. How he must have raged then, watching his fellows fall and unable to look away and abandon his duty lest that moment cost another his life. Such inner turmoil gave rise to action, the only action he could take. In desperation, with his bow as a makeshift instrument, he sang and by the strength of his voice, he gave the gift of spirit to his comrades.”
She scrapes the last of her stew out of the bottom of her bowl. “I know the stories of the minstrel companies,” she says flatly. “I think it’s rubbish.”
He raises an eyebrow. Clearing his throat, he sets his bowl down at his feet and clasps his hands in his lap. “By all means,” he invites, gesturing with a hand.
“You see the power of song as one that invigorates on the battlefield or gives comfort to the dying. Beautiful and well-meaning in theory, but in practice? I know something of war music, Eorzea’s not the only realm to have it. What about the war horns, signalling the moment before the charge? Or the sound of a thousand soldiers marching in formation, more important in number than they are as people. What about the klaxons blaring as a warning when your fortress is breached? Or the same damn music they play in the mess hall every night, lulling you into a stupor so you never think twice, or the processional marches when your unit is paraded on display at the capital as a reminder of the good you’re doing for your nation? The anthems sung, again and again, as a reminder of where you come from and what you are fighting for with no room to question why?”
Her eyes glint as she speaks, the words falling faster and faster until her voice rises in a crescendo. “That was the music I was raised on, Jehantel. And there may be a world of difference from the ballads you sing and the songs I heard as a child, but there is one thing that remains the same. In peace time, it may be pleasant and entertaining, but in times of war? It’s propaganda wrapped in romanticism, making you believe whatever your leaders want you to believe.”
The campfire pops, spitting sparks, the crack echoing off into the distant woods.
Jehantel meets her eyes. “Have you considered, young one, that you are a cynic?”
“Have you considered, old one, that you’re a sentimentalist?”
He chuckles. Oh, to be properly scolded by the sharp tongue of youth.
His guest sets her bowl aside. “Perhaps I can’t stand to hear music in the same way you can’t stand to pick up your bow,” she says solemnly. Her gaze passes behind him, peering through the dark to where his bow rests upright against a tree. “You live in the woods, but you’re no hunter. You have the build of an archer, and yet you can’t bring yourself to draw it. A treasured belonging you bring everywhere because you can’t bear to let go, but it makes you sick to look at it.”
Her words strike true. Guilt twists in his gut, fierce and raw, like wound that will always find a way to rip itself open long after the initial injury. He inhales a sharp breath, the pang of familiar tears stinging in his eyes. Still, he holds steadfast and true, and follows her gaze to the Artemis bow.
“When did it happen?” she asks quietly.
His shoulders sag. “Decades ago,” he replies. “I lost my companions. My comrades. My friends. All in a single night of slaughter.”
“And you left everything you knew behind because of it.”
“Aye. I did. A simple minstrel is all I am now.”
“A simple minstrel in search for lost battlesongs.” Though the remark is pointed, he can hear the soft smile behind it. “You have not forgotten who you are, Jehantel.”
His heart lurches and finally he summons the strength to tear his gaze away from the bow. He finds her watching the fire, warming her hands above the flames. The weight of old grief is plain as day, etched across her face. Were she anyone else he would consider playing her a melody, something to soothe the ache in her heart. But she cannot hear the melody for what it is. In her ears, it is corrupted and twisted, malformed from what it should be.
Just like his remembrance of his bow.
Whatever has caused her grief, it has not carried her away from the fight. If anything, it has pushed her towards it. Steeled her, tempered her. Reforged her anew. That is the adaptability of youth.
He clears his throat. “Young one, if I may,” he says hesitantly. “Why do you find the strength to press on?”
His guest exhales a breath and rises to her feet, brushing grass off her clothes. “Because there’s work to be done and a life to live,” she replies. “And if I stop now, it means that they win.”
Wind whistles through the trees, rustling the canopy above. Night has fallen in earnest now, and the Twelveswood is ever more alive.
“Thank you for the stew,” his guest says, stooping to collect her bow. It gleams in her hand, illuminating her in a soft aura of greenish white as she slings it onto her back. “And the company. I should be going now.”
Jehantel raises a hand as if to say farewell, before a new idea gets the better of him. “My dear, if I may,” he says. “Would you sing a melody of your homeland? I will admit I have a certain amount of curiosity.”
She laughs, hands falling to her sides as she finishes adjusting her bow. “No, Jehantel,” she replies. “Goodnight. And goodbye.”
Out through the clearing the former Garlean agent strides, her footfalls soft as the first spring rains. The light of her bow bobs in the distance, growing smaller and smaller until it vanishes into the darkness of the night.
“Farewell, Mistress Malathar,” Jehantel whispers to the trees, a smile on his face.
A third and final visit. He will not see her again.
