Here's the tumblr version of my Bravely Santa Pieces for Yanmazu!! I mixed a few of their requests together to create these, and I'm very happy with how they turned out!!
So about a week ago I was like "Hey should I write a fic for Koma's birthday" and then I was like "wait I already have a fic Koma would probably prefer I finish, it is way too long to write out in the way I original envisioned but maybe I can speedrun it".
I. Hm. Didn't quite properly speedrun it to the end, but still, happy birthday Koma! Unless I've misremembered the date, in which case happy "hope your weather gets better soon, have some Ringabel suffering in the meantime".
-
Even after the air cleared from miasma, there was a lingering tension in the group. Edea no longer seemed angry: she had worked off a good bit of aggression fighting against myconids. Ringabel had bitten his tongue to not point out that her outlet resulted in them fighting more myconids than strictly necessary, and felt an immense relief when Tiz finally spoke up and asked Edea to stop shaking the fungi's spores loose. But while Edea had obviously calmed down after leaving the woods, she showed no inclination to revisit the argument Agnès had ordered Ringabel and her to put on hold, either to apologize or finish making her point.
...Then again, Edea had made her point quite thoroughly, hadn't she? Ringabel's lungs felt heavy enough to fill a bouquet still. At night it had still felt bad enough that he drank a potion, just to be on the safe side. The pressure from the flowers grew lighter, but only for the earlier part of the evening. In the darkest hours, he woke again, coughing.
It made sense, of course. If hanahaki was born of unrequited love, outright rejection would aggravate it.
He went to use the bathroom, but it was already in use, with sounds that didn't match the typical late-night bathroom run. Instead of, ah, tinkling, or anything like that, there was only breathing, rough and desperate but also muffled. It was unusual enough to distract Ringabel from the pain in his chest, if only for a moment.
Just what was going on in there?
The sound was quickly drowned out by a running faucet, and Tiz emerged from the bathroom only a moment later, apologizing to Ringabel for the inconvenience. Ringabel opened his mouth to ask if something was wrong, but Tiz was already grilling him with his own interrogation: had he been waiting long? How bad was the cough? Did he need a healing spell? Ringabel was so busy waving him off, insisting that he was fine, fine, go back to bed, Tiz, I will be quite all right, that it was only once he was alone in the chamber with the latch on that he realized he hadn't actually been able to ask Tiz what his own matter was.
Well...if Tiz had enough pep to be a busybody at this hour, it couldn't be anything too bad. As puzzling as it had been at the time, they had bigger mysteries to solve, like why that overly cocky man in red had girls hanging off of him, and how to get Agnès in a sexy enough outfit for her to win the flower festival and get a message to the vestal of water. If he could win Edea over, and how he should do it, or if he should just resign himself to having his flowers removed in Eternia. So Ringabel dismissed the oddity with Tiz until similar circumstances arose a second time: late night, needing bathroom, bathroom occupied with odd sounds. Tiz's bed had been noticeably empty. Ringabel, grateful he at least wasn't coughing blood this time, though he did need to void himself, stood silently and gauged the situation. Was Tiz ill? He'd seemed fine during the day, though...and it had been too long for him to still be sick from the last time, wasn't it? His breathing sounded off--did the boy have allergies? Florem was lovely in many ways, but the pollen would make anyone's life hell if their body couldn't handle it. No, wait, allergies should have shown up during the day, too... Ringabel was too absorbed to notice the tap being turned off, and both he and Tiz jumped when Tiz opened the door and they came face-to-face with each other. The younger boy scurried back to their room and to bed before Ringabel could ask if he was ill, and Ringabel really needed the toilet first anyway. In the morning, the vagabond found it too awkward to ask: Tiz gave all signs of being lively and healthy, and Ringabel wasn't about to admit he'd been just...eavesdropping in the hall, instead of knocking on the door to announce himself or ask if Tiz needed any help then.
When the situation came about a third time, Ringabel listened for only a few seconds, long enough to confirm it was Tiz inside. Then, he did knock. He heard a thump in the bathroom, and then the tap rushing with water, but no immediate response. He frowned. "Tiz, are you all right?"
"Yes, sorry!" Tiz called, his voice rough. "I'll be out in a minute."
"You're not sick, are you?" Ringabel asked once the door opened. "I couldn't help but hear. You seemed to be in some distress." His hand went to his own throat, still rough from earlier coughing, and Tiz's eyes widened.
"Oh, uh...you're right. I was a bit sick. I...I think I ate something bad yesterday. But I'm sure it's nothing serious. A little more sleep and I'll be right as rain."
"Right..." The older man echoed back. As an amnesiac, he got to have first experiences quite often, and he felt it safe to say that this was his first experience with a friend lying to his face, because bad food yesterday most certainly did not explain illness several days beforehand. With another person, with another subject, he wouldn't have hesitated to point out the lie for what it was. But Tiz wasn't in the habit of lying, and it was his own health, leaving Ringabel feeling torn. Confront the lie? Respect another's privacy? Try asking Tiz again? All it took was Tiz glancing toward their room for Ringabel's mouth to take over with something completely useless: "Have a good night, then."
Tiz scurried away again. Ringabel used the bathroom, because he needed it.
...In the morning, he found tissue spotted with fresh blood in the bathroom's waste bin, and his lungs ached with sympathy as he realized what was wrong with Tiz.
Breakfast that morning was awkward. Ringabel was trying to be discreet and not stare at Tiz so as not to arouse the girls' suspicions, but the boy wasn't helping when he kept raising a hand to cover his mouth whenever he talked or smiled, like he was afraid of a coughing fit happening at any time. By the time he asked Agnès to pass the salt with a fist over his lips, the girls had definitely caught on. Edea pointed her fork at him.
"What in the world is the matter with you, Tiz? No one cares if you've got something on your face. Well, unless it's really funny."
"What? Nothing's the matter," the boy said hastily. He forced his hand to the table, giving Edea a closed-lipped smile. "See?" he asked, barely opening his mouth.
The Eternian stared at him. "...No, something is the matter. You are definitely acting strangely."
"Here, Tiz."
His hand flew up to his mouth again, even though it meant he needed to put his fork down so that his other hand was free to take the shaker. "Thank you, Agnès."
"See? You're doing it again!"
Agnès had joined Edea in openly staring, and Ringabel felt like either laughing or banging his head against the table. He settled for looking to see if the waitress had come back out--both because she was very pretty, and because he needed more coffee to deal with Tiz being dedicated to a charade he was completely inept at carrying out. He made a mental note: never ask Tiz to keep a secret.
"Ringabel, you sleep with Tiz. Why is he acting weird?"
Edea immediately had all his attention again as his head snapped back to her. "Edea, phrasing." She shrugged nonchalantly, but there was a tiny grin on her face as she speared bacon onto her fork until it was packed full. Ringabel shrugged. "As for why Tiz is acting like a skittish foal, I'd wager he's still intimidated by the natural beauty of Florem. Why, Rosalina alone could stop a man's heart."
"Ringabel, please do not flirt with our waitress," Agnès ordered.
"I've got an idea," Edea told the other girl. "Every time he flirts, we'll add to her tip from his allowance."
"Wait, why?" Ringabel protested. "I'm not doing anything unpleasant!"
"How would you know? She's working, she can't tell customers to get lost."
That...was actually a fair point. Ringabel mused on this, chewing slowly on his toast and then swallowing. "I could flirt with her after we check out. Then I'm no longer a customer."
Agnès sighed tiredly, but the conversation was drawn away from Tiz's abnormal behavior as Edea squabbled with him about when and how he was allowed to flirt with the inn's employees. Tiz could keep his secret a little longer.
Ringabel's hanahaki had already made things awkward a number of times. He could see why Tiz was trying to keep his sickness quiet, even if he was flirting with disaster given his inability to lie. Agnès was uncomfortable enough with Ringabel flirting with other women; how uneasy would the vestal feel to know there was a man who loved her deeply enough to be lovesick?
Goodness, half of their quartet was lovesick, and so far signs pointed to both those loves being doomed indeed. He hated the idea of forcing himself to move on from Edea--even if that was what she wanted, it just felt wrong--but...perhaps he could give Tiz an encouraging nudge to move on from Agnès, and if he so happened to move on as well, then no one in the party would need to chug potions daily any more.
"What do you say to a double date?" Ringabel asked Tiz.
The boy gave him a skeptical look, then shrugged. "Well, I guess... it might be fun to try once."
Hmm. That was far less arm-twisting than Ringabel had expected he'd have to do. Was it a touch disappointing that Tiz was so faithless to his love, even if it was unrequited? Or maybe Tiz had already considered his options and was taking the pragmatic approach to support Agnès on her journey. How admirable. It made Ringabel feel a bit of a scoundrel for feeling so reluctant to do the same.
But he was making a good faith attempt. He could give himself credit for that. He engaged a charming young beauty in flirtation that very day, and she agreed to bring a friend around with her the next evening for a date. Said friend seemed rather unenthusiastic to be paired with Tiz--when would the boy learn to dress himself for style?--but Tiz had his own charms. In fact, by the end of the night, he had both ladies smiling as they discussed dye methods.
*
Now, dear reader, I must confess: I've been writing this narrative based on my journal from the time, and back then, my attentions were focused more on the wonderful women of Florem than Tiz, especially as I thought his willingness to try dating meant he would quickly get over his innocent crush on Agnès. ...Though, thinking back, his willingness was simple politeness. He is rather bad at saying no. When he took over the bathroom once again at night, I realized he might still be struggling with his first love and spoke to Edea about the situation--awkward with our own matters, yes, but traveling in a quartet can make it impossible to find an understanding neutral party. She wanted him cured as well, and agreed to distract Agnès with shopping errands so that I could speak to Tiz more openly on the matter.
Except Tiz refused to discuss the matter. He claimed he didn't have Love's Languish--made the most absurd claim that the blood in the wastebin hadn't been from coughing, but because he'd mistaken his razor for a toothbrush. How could someone as fastidious as Tiz make such a careless mistake?! He got agitated when I pointed out the absurdity, his denial becoming more vehement, and I thought we might have a real argument when a simple way to settle the matter occurred to me--
--
"Then Agnès could reject you entirely, and you wouldn't cough a single petal?"
"Of course I wouldn't," Tiz ground out. "I've been telling you, I'm not lovesick!"
"Good. We'll settle it now and be done with it."
"What?"
Denial could only go so deep before it was downright unhealthy. Ringabel grabbed the younger man by both shoulders, turning him around and steering him through the plaza until they both ended up in front at the last shop Edea had taken Agnès to. There they waited until the girls emerged, and Ringabel beckoned Agnès urgently. "Agnès, I have an unusual favor to ask."
"Yes?"
"I need you to insult Tiz."
The vestal had already looked surprised, but at this her mouth fell a little open, and she looked from him to Tiz. "What? No. What nonsense are you playing at?"
"Just once!" Edea added quickly, catching onto Ringabel's idea. "But we need you to do it, to prove something." If Tiz wasn't sick, a cutting remark from Agnès wouldn't affect him. But if he had hanahaki, something was sure to come up.
Agnès frowned at Edea too; she had quite the skeptical expression, as though she was convinced they were playing a joke on her. While Ringabel tried to think of something to persuade her indulgence, Tiz sighed. "Please, Agnès? It's the only way I'll convince these two. I won't hold it against you, no matter what you say. Uh...think of it as helping me improve my personality. What's my worst trait? Be frank."
The poor girl looked even more baffled to have Tiz second the request, but Ringabel could see that she was thinking, working to come up with something good while also looking to each side, as if scanning for an escape route from this entire scenario. "You...ah...well..." She took a deep breath, and then looked Tiz square in the eye. "You are far too meddlesome!"
No. Instantly, Ringabel could tell this was not going to work. Edea seemed to have the same realization, her expectant face dropping into a frown.
But Agnès seemed emboldened, continuing. "Yes! You're too meddlesome, and you don't listen when others tell you to stay out of their business! Though you may have helped me, still--"
Edea couldn't take it any longer, cutting in with a roll of her eyes. "No, no. Agnès." She took the other girl's shoulder and pulled her back gently. "You have to really insult him. It should be something Tiz would find bad too. Meddling? You might as well have said his hair's brown. It's just a fact for him. No, wait, unlike his hair, he takes pride in his meddling. His hair, meanwhile, is a bird's nest, because he hasn't brushed it a single time today."
Ringabel had to hastily bite back a laugh, especially as Tiz made an extremely indignant noise in his throat.
"See? That is an insult. You have to say something that's bad. Maybe not the hair, though, it won't have the same effect now."
Agnès frowned. "He doesn't know how to talk to women," Ringabel added helpfully, in case she needed ideas.
"He's bossy. Every single time we pack up the tents, he always starts telling everyone what to do." Edea left out that she and Ringabel tended to not make much progress when he wasn't telling them what to do.
"He doesn't know how to dress, either." Ringabel plucked at the sleeve of Tiz's shirt. "You've been wearing this for five days and counting--"
"I wash it!" Tiz said, yanking his arm away. "Besides, it's--" He cut himself off, looking away.
Hm. Okay, the shirt was a delicate subject for some reason. Maybe too delicate for this? Ringabel cast about for a different angle, snapping his fingers when he had one. "He's always gawking when we come to a new town, like a regular bumpkin. You'd think he'd have learned that buildings are a real thing by now--"
Agnès cut him off with a stamp of her foot. "Unacceptable! Unacceptable!" Her voice was taking on that shrill edge that it got when she was genuinely upset, and Ringabel raised his hands in surrender. "I don't know what sort of joke you two are playing, but I find no humor in it! Tiz has been a loyal companion, and you treat him like this? And you!" She pinned Tiz with a fiery look, and Ringabel could feel the boy quail. "I change my mind! Your worst trait is this complete failure to stand up for yourself! You--you should not let them bully you so!"
"Wait, Agnès," Tiz said quickly, "They're not bullying me, really--"
She scoffed. "This is no time to play the peacemaker. We're leaving," she said decisively, grabbing his hands. "We are going back to the inn, and these two can join us when they are ready to apologize."
And, without a look back at "those two", she marched off, pulling Tiz behind her as the boy stammered half-formed explanations that soon trailed into silence.
Ringabel and Edea contemplated what had just happened.
"Well...that didn't work," Edea sighed. "She never insulted him properly, so he's going to keep hiding his illness, and now she's mad at us, too."
"...I think he might have actually been telling the truth," Ringabel said slowly.
Edea looked up at him incredulously. "That he isn't lovesick? But he's so obviously head-over-heels for her."
"Oh, yes, he was lying lousily when he said he didn't love her. And she would never reciprocate his feelings because she's a vestal...out loud." Ringabel rubbed a finger over his chin, a smile slowly curling his lips. The more he thought about this, the more certain he felt. "But consider that display just now. She defended him quite passionately, and we didn't even say anything that wasn't true! Even if she would never say it, you can't say his feelings aren't being returned, can you?"
"There are far too many negatives in that sentence," Edea told him. "But...you think she loves him, too?"
"Which means that story about mistaking the razor for a toothbrush was true." Ringabel winced at the thought of that. Just how sleep-deprived had Tiz been?
"That's not important! This means they're both in love with each other, but they won't get together because of stupid Crystalist tradition!"
-
Yes, surprising, isn't it? That Edea was a romantic even then. She wished for Tiz and Agnès to be honest with their feelings for each other.
The cause of Tiz's nighttime troubles only came to light in Eisenberg. With the city glowing from the rising heat of the lava beneath it, it was all too easy to catch a glimpse of Tiz leaving the inn...and finally I saw that his ragged breathing was caused by a bout of crying, not lovesickness. Following him, I confronted his poor sleeping habits and coaxed the man to finally open up about what was bothering him. He'd been having nightmares about the destruction of his village. About the way his brother had slipped from his hand into the chasm. Suddenly, the odd mix-up between razor and toothbrush made much more sense as he described just how much rest had eluded him. It was something of a miracle he'd even been functional during our travels.
-
"This will sound terrible, but...I feel like I should have lovesickness. Not...not for Agnès, before you go there. But if lovesickness afflicted other kinds of love besides romantic ties. It is only for romantic love, isn't it?" Tiz said, his voice wobbling. "That's the only kind of love anyone mentions along with it."
Ringabel nodded. "I believe it only afflicts lovers. Count your blessings. It's not easy on the body."
"Sorry. I know I shouldn't be complaining about it to you."
"My friend, you lock your thoughts up entirely too much. I can't even tell what your complaint is. You should speak more freely, as I do!"
"It's just...sometimes I feel like not having it means my love for my family is lesser. My chest feels tight, but there aren't any flowers inside. There's no proof of how much I miss Til, no..." The boy bit down on his lip, blinking his eyes quickly before he turned away. "Sorry." His shoulders hunched inward, his frame shrinking. "I shouldn't be..."
"Even men need to cry at times. It's all right, Tiz." Though, as Ringabel said that, he wasn't entirely sure what he should do. That idea, that love needed to be proved--it sounded both horrible and horribly familiar at the same, and he had no idea where that sense of recognition was coming from. He couldn't look at it too closely when his friend was so out of sorts.He reached forward with one hand to pat Tiz's shoulder, holding it there when he realized how much the boy was trembling. Contrary to his usual habit, he tried to think carefully through his next words. "I'm glad you're not sick, Tiz. You needn't prove to anyone how much you care. Your actions make that apparent enough. Your love for your family isn't less because you lack lovesickness. Far from it."
"Th...thank you," Tiz stammered, but the tears did not stop straightaway. That was all right. If Ringabel had a knack besides wooing ladies, it was for staying up late. He could stay here in the warm night with Tiz until the boy calmed down.
-
I eased off a little on teasing Tiz and Agnès after that. Oh, not completely, they both made it far too easy, but I didn't want to push Tiz too hard when I knew now that he was still grappling with his grief. Just tiny nudges to get a rise out of him and distract him out of seriousness. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and all.
In the meantime, Edea and I continued our romantic tango: a flirtatious advance, a smooth step back, round and round in circles. Yes, in retrospect, we were going absolutely nowhere at all, except through our potions stock as I coughed up piles of petals. In Eternia, she started prodding me to think about the surgery to remove the flowers, which made me at times grateful we were enemies of the state--until that was resolved, she couldn't expect me to actually go through with it, so I had time. At least until we reached the Holy Pillar and Airy used the light of the four crystals to banish the Great Chasm. Then, with the fighting done, Lord Braev Lee would have no reason to oppose us any longer, and presumably he might be willing to reach some kind of accord with Agnès... and Edea would expect me to go to a doctor, unless I could woo her.
But the Holy Pillar was exactly where things went awry beyond anything we could have expected. The dark knight Alternis attacked our ship and gave us the fight of our lives, yelling at Edea to stop being a fool. His attacks only got fiercer as everyone's stamina was tested, his asterisk giving him strength from his pain, only coming to a stop when he started to...cough.
And cough, and cough, hacking on one knee until Edea tore off his helmet to help him breathe. She gasped when the helmet came away with a shower of blue petals tumbling out and falling to the deck. They were spattered with blood. Lovesickness, except...Edea said he'd had the surgery, so how...?
I heard Edea say his name in horror, and both Alternis and I looked up in time for me to see his face was a reflection of mine. He had my flowers for Edea. My face.
And when the ship rocked again, Alternis tumbled over the railing into the Holy Pillar, leaving not a clue save for the journal he dropped.
The light soon overwhelmed us all on deck, and we lost consciousness...only to awake in Caldisla. We were seemingly several months in the past. The crystals were once again dark. Edea refused to speak to me. I was mostly distressed about the latter, though the question of who Alternis was in relation to me also plagued my mind. The journal I had was near identical for his in the passages that had survived; only a few entries were different in Eisenberg. And since we seemed to have traveled back in time, I was somehow...him? Him in a timeline where he had fallen through the Holy Pillar...though I would have expected to find my double wandering Caldisla in that case, and he wasn't.
I preferred not to think too heavily on what other fate might have followed such a fall. He was a scoundrel, anyway. He'd threatened and insulted Agnès so many times, and he'd lied to Edea about having his flowers removed. Edea confronted her mother with what she knew in the new world, and Lady Mahzer had sighed as she told us the truth of the matter: when Alternis had first started developing feelings for Edea, she'd still been a bit young in years, and he'd tried to hold in the intensity of his feelings, pretending to see her merely as the daughter of the Lord Marshall he'd sworn to protect. He choked back his feelings until they turned into flowers, at which point Edea had learned of his true feelings and had been horrified, rather than endeared. Lady Mahzer had quickly realized her daughter would not fall in love with Alternis, and both she and Lord Braev Lee had tried, for weeks, to convince Alternis to spare himself heartbreak and illness by having the surgery. He had been adamant in his refusal, saying he would rather die even as he fell dangerously ill, and the Lees had known the teenager was not afraid of harm from surgery, given how much he'd injured himself in service to Eternia.
"At one time we thought he would finally agree to surgery, which is why we told you he'd have his flowers removed," Mahzer said heavily. "But then he balked at it again. He was so distressed over the matter. He never wanted to displease your father, and he hated how unhappy his illness made you. But...for him, those feelings are too important to give up. Please try to understand, Edea."
Braev had sent him away on a long assignment in Eisenberg, hoping distance would kill off the flowers. It hadn't, but under Kamiizumi's guidance, Alternis had learned to manage it somewhat better, trying to remember only positive memories of his time with Edea and only briefly most of the time... and being able to fall into a black rage that would empower his dark knight abilities at a second's notice with the right thought that would set his flowers into full bloom. Alternis had asked Braev's permission to return to Eternia, swearing that if Edea ever learned he was still lovesick over her, he would undergo surgery immediately. His distance from Edea, his refusal to take his helmet off when most would, his supposed disdain for Edea... all of it had been a pretext to keep her from realizing he was still in love with her.
I wrote at the time that he must have been quite a twisted man, and I still think so. A love that can't be shown is quite useless. But I do understand what he was thinking, even if I don't feel the same.
On a cold morning of November, Edea Lee was found stabbed to death on her bedroom floor. Her bedroom was in complete disarray. Dry patches of blood stain the walls. And there was no culprit to be found.
Format: PDF
A/N: My rindea multi was taken down by, well, me lol. but I didn't want it to go to waste so I am uploading it here. Fully. All of it. If anyone is interested, the download link will be down below. Enjoy it!
