According to the Ishgardian forces' mechanical thermometer - made by the Skysteel Manufactory, the only reason she trusted it to begin with - the temperature in Camp Broken Glass was, in fact, warmer than it had been all week. And yet the wind had picked up throughout the night, bringing with it a dusting of snow, then sleet, then snow again. The precipitation had ended by the time most of the contingent rose in the early morning, but the gusts remained, and they tore through their meager camp with a vengeance.
"This is precisely why," the Fortemps lordling whinged in the rations line behind her, "I proposed we pitch all of our tents closer together, to decrease the circumference of our camp. Anything to create a barrier between us and the elements."
"What," retorted the pirate behind him, "and have us all listen to your snoring every night?"
Ashe rubbed at her temples and heaved a heavy sigh, at least partly in the hopes that either of them would be self-aware enough to take the hint. There was no longer enough coffee in the provisions to go around, and her growing headache would not accommodate a performance to go with her meager breakfast.
When she peered around the camp and noticed Sairsel ducking in at the end of the line, she abandoned her own place and went to join him there. Better to pass fifteen minutes in hunger and good company than five minutes listening to a would-be lovers' quarrel.
"Good morning, Sairsel," she said, as she approached from behind.
Sairsel did not turn, nor did he give any hint that he had heard her at all. She had never known him to be a slow riser, but after all he had endured the previous day-
She reached out to touch his shoulder, and the moment her glove made contact with his leather pauldron, he whirled around. His wild eyes flared, as though he were halfway to striking her and halfway to darting someplace she would never find him again. Then something shocked him back to himself - perhaps the rush of cold air to his lungs, breathed in more on instinct than as a deliberate calming mechanism; perhaps the look of whatever emotion she was trying to conceal from her face, trying not to take personally in the least; perhaps the fact that the pirate and the lordling had chosen that moment to start slapping and shoving each other with all the ferocity of Argath trying to kick Edge out of bed, which put some perspective to any of his inclinations to lash out.
"Ashelia," Sairsel breathed, and his tension did not ease so much as crumble. When he looked at her, it was with the face of one who clearly had not slept more than a few minutes at a time. "Ashelia, I'm… I'm so sorry."
"Please, Sairsel," she whispered back, "I beg of you, do not apologize to me." She did not need to open herself to her Heart-Seer power, not for this. After Ultima, she had been desperate for any and all reassurances that her body and mind were her own - yet after Castrum Abania, she had needed a few weeks to reaccustom herself to even her husband's touches. It was far easier to feel rage toward Zenos for usurping Sairsel, for violating him, than it was to blame herself for a misplaced gesture.
He lingered awkwardly for several moments, staring around at the rest of the camp and those assembled there. If any had noticed his near outburst, they did not show it: next up in line were a Flames private and a Gridanian conjurer discussing the tempered Garleans in low tones.
"Do you want me to bring a serving or two back to your tent?" she offered.
Sairsel shook his head. "No, this… this is fine." He cleared his throat. "Sihtric slept in your tent?"
"He did; he's still there."
"Good," Sairsel replied, and something in the set of his shoulders relaxed much further. She dared not think of Sihtric in that moment, of his great distress, of the tears he'd shed. If she thought of Sihtric in earnest, her Echo would activate, and she would not be able to forget the things she would hear half so easily as the fleeting glimpses she'd gleaned from Sairsel's movements.
They waited together in silence as the camp and its inhabitants passed them by, as the line for rations slowly dispersed. By the time they reached the cookpot, some semblance of their normal, wordless peace had returned to them again; then, upon receiving their portions, a gust of wind rose anew, and it was all either of them could do to hurry back to their respective tents.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
wayward sons of man (ffxiv)
wol-centric, wol/zenos
6 chapters, 11k words (ONGOING)
! post-endwalker (spoilers up to 6.0), canon divergence
on death, the demands of fate, and ineluctable intimacy.
“Tell me, then,” Zenos said. “What is the foremost quality of a hunter, if not ferocity to match that of his prey?”
“Patience,” Sairsel replied stiffly. Oh, at least he could muster up some condescension, if not a real rejoinder to separate the righteousness of his killings from Zenos’s. It would’ve been pale reassurance, anyroad; death was death.
“I waited for you,” Zenos pointed out, almost like a confession.
"You have a certain manner of gazing into your coffee when you haven't slept, Grand Steward."
Sairsel Arroway would never have said such a thing while he had been living under her roof. Though she offered him the most rueful of smiles she could muster, she relished this change in him. Theirs was a conversation she sorely needed, and one she much preferred to have now that he was far less terrified of her than he used to be.
Sairsel bounced his foot a little underneath the table, letting Argath snap his jaws playfully against the sides of his worn leather boot. "It's as if you've realized you've been holding a cup of mud the entire time."
"There's a retort I could make there about rangers and eating dirt."
He let out a quiet laugh, but his expression sobered almost at once. "Regardless. I hope Raubahn isn't making needless demands on your time."
She smirked at the mere thought of it. "Twelve, no." Rest of any sort was in minimal supply, but she owed relatively few of her waking hours to the new commander of the Resistance. At least for the time being.
"What else, then? Your dreams aren't troubling you?" As the words left his lips, Sairsel peered around the interior of the Keane house, as though Rosenheim had the means to descend from the rafters like a ghost.
"No." Ashe would never forget that Sairsel had been among the first to learn of her Echo and the dreams she shared with her father, long before the reunion of her family had been a mere possibility. "No, not... not in the usual sense." Her gaze fell back to the interior of her coffee cup, and she sighed. "That is, it has nothing at all to do with my father." For once. "These are nightmares of a more... mundane sort."
"I'm hardly surprised," Sairsel murmured. It was to her an innocent enough statement, but he stumbled over himself to clarify it. "That is- I mean only that you've seen more than your share of horrors."
"But you saw him as well, didn't you." Their eyes met, his wide and searching until at last she spoke the name of the man who terrorized her subconscious thoughts. "Zenos."
Sairsel swallowed hard, but he held her stare for several seconds before his admission. "I did. Only once, at the Reach. Just before Meffrid-"
Her stomach sank at the memory of their friend. Neither, it seemed, could Sairsel dredge up the circumstances of Meffrid's passing. When he spoke again, it was with a deep bitterness. "It was... unlike anything I'd seen before, or anything I've seen since. When I heard what Zenos did to you in Castrum Abania, I..." He placed a hand upon the table, as if to reach out for her, then withdrew it with just as much surety. "Ashelia, I am so, so sorry I was not there."
She shook her head. She could not think of harboring a grudge against Sairsel of all people for the path he had chosen, not least of all because he had striven toward Ala Mhigo's liberation no less fervently than she had, in his own way.
"He's back," she whispered. "Sairsel, Zenos has... he's returned, somehow."
"No." The word left him sharply, sterner than nearly anything she'd ever heard from him. She did not retort, did not begrudge him a harshness born of utter dread. "That's impossible, he... I saw his corpse. Morgana saw his corpse."
Morgana Arroway would certainly have opinions on the subject, and neither could Ashe fault her for them. "You must listen to me. I've no idea how - but the Riskbreakers have received reports that Zenos has returned to the Garlean capital. He's been sighted in the imperial palace after a period of convalescence."
Sairsel stood from his chair so swiftly that Argath let out a bark of admonition. "Convalescence?! He damn near cut off his own head!"
"I know," she said, and found she did not need to feign her patience with him. As Sairsel began to pace about the living room, neither his face nor his movements betrayed any anger that she could discern. If anything, his brow was creased with a grave worry. The rhythmic expression of his anxiety, cramped as they were within the relative confines of the Keane house, was in itself a catharsis.
"I don't know what this means," she continued. "But I'm..."
And she could only stare into her coffee once again.
"You can say it, Ashe," said Sairsel at long last. He had halted, if only for a moment, to stare into the roaring hearth. Behind him, Argath slunk off in retreat to his favorite cushion. "I'm frightened, too."
She nodded toward his back. "I should have foreseen it," she said finally. "I should have-"
"How could you possibly have anticipated a Garlean prince coming back from the dead?"
"I saw him, with my Echo. When he had me locked up in-" It was her turn to choke on her own words. In that tank, she thought, though she couldn't quite express herself even in spite of all of Sairsel's solidarity. "I could sense something horribly awry with him. Whether it was from all the aether he'd leeched from Shinryu, or from me, I've no idea." A memory of the previous night's dreams, of Zenos cornering her in the Undercity, of a wyrm's talons piercing her gut, would not shake loose from her mind. "...And I've tried my utmost not to dwell on it, admittedly."
Sairsel turned his head, his features handsome in fire-lit profile. "Would you permit me a question?"
"Always."
"What are these nightmares you're having of him?"
At first she opened her mouth to tell him that they were only nightmares, not premonitions, and that he would have no need to worry of them. But such a statement would be dismissive, not least of all because neither of them had any way of knowing if it was true: her Echo had, after all, granted her new abilities over the course of the past year alone. And the careful tone of Sairsel's voice indicated that he was not seeking out his own placation, but her comfort.
"You mustn't tell another soul," she began.
"Of course."
"Edge is the only one who knows." And if he were not waking up to her screams more often than not, she doubted she would even have told him. "Not even Zaela, not even my father, has any idea. If anyone learned-"
"I swear, Ashelia."
"Do you remember his stride on the battlefield? The way he would walk toward one of his opponents?"
Sairsel's frown deepened. "All too well."
"In my dreams, he's tracking me through the Undercity just like that. His steps are as loud as anything against the stone. And no matter which paths I take, no matter how fast I go or which traps I lay, he'll have me cornered by the end - close enough to run me through, or put me in chains."
"Gods," Sairsel breathed. "You dream this night after night?"
"Most nights," she corrected. "And the dreams differ each time: where I go, when he reaches me. What happens when he does." She tried to read the expression on his face. "It isn't a vision; rather, nothing about it feels prophetic. It simply feels like..."
A deep silence lapsed between them, nearly a minute long, before Ashe realized she had been waiting or hoping for Sairsel to finish her thought for her.
"...Like I've no escape," she finished weakly. "And I wake up feeling more foolish than ever-"
"Why?" he asked, point-blank. "What you're feeling, what you're dreaming - it isn't a weakness."
"I should be able to pull through this. We defeated him and Ilberd's bloody wyrm, and yet I can't stay awake through a single council meeting because he's keeping me up at night."
"None could ever fault you for it. Not after all you've done and given."
"But they do!" she snapped, in a tone much too harsh for the company of friends. Sairsel did not flinch. "I shouldn't give a damn for what any of them think, I know, but when they call me a pretender-"
"I would call you no such thing. Would others?"
She took the briefest of moments to sniffle back tears, to indulge in self-pity for only a moment. "Not friends. But others - yes."
"Others like Morgana?"
"Not only Morgana. Tibost, the one who looks after the markets in the Quarter. The nunh of the M tribe. And that's to say nothing of my critics in the Undercity."
Sairsel took only a moment to glance at her before stalking back over to the table in a few fluid strides and refilling her mug with hot coffee. As he sat back down, his foot settled against hers, and he made no effort to move it away.
"Ashelia," he began. "This council business - is this something you want to do? Truly?"
She gave the question the consideration it was due, watching the tendrils of steam coil from her cup. "...Yes," she replied. "More than almost anything." Short of seeing a world free of Garlemald.
"I think it's telling," Sairsel continued, "that you've spoken not a word of this 'Seraph' you encountered in Dalmasca - yes, Zaela told me about that," he added in response to whatever expression she was surely making, for the word alone brought a heave of nausea to her gut, "and that you mean to carry on with the obligations of the Undercity, the council, and Dalmasca's rebellion efforts. Now Zenos himself has risen from the grave, and you're taking personal responsibility for that as well." He was staring at her more intently than ever now. "You're running yourself ragged."
"You sound like my husband," she grumbled.
"Then listen to him, if not me. Ala Mhigo will be far worse off if you collapse because you've yet to spend any longer than an afternoon tea processing all the ungodly shite you've seen."
"You're hardly one to talk."
The rebuttal was as certain a sign as any that she had naught else to say in her defense, and Sairsel knew it; he raised an eyebrow and slid over the saucer of creamer from the other side of the table. "I'll call in a favor from Raubahn, and try to have him relay reports directly to you for the time being. I'll say nothing of the dreams," he said as she opened her mouth to protest. "But I imagine you'll need him in your corner while you sort this out publicly. Especially where Morgana is concerned."
She poured a few drops of cream into her coffee, then a veritable river, then sipped at the drink until it burned on the way down. "Thank you," she said.
"I have faith in you," Sairsel continued, a little quieter. It was a welcome compliment. "Gods know none of us would be here without you. And in regards to Zenos..." He held out his hand and took hers, still warm from holding her coffee, and again he did not draw back from the touch. "...You can count on me for whatever you need in the days ahead. I swear it."
Ahtyn raised her hand to open the door on her left. With a creak, its metal grates slid aside, amid a burst of rainbow light, to grant her passage. Aether propelled her upward to the final dungeon in Lyhe Ghiah. A burst of gold hit her eyes before she could fully comprehend the magnitude of gil lying there for the taking, not to mention the treasures that lay within - a suit of armor! lost relics from Sea Wolf history! a frog plushie! - and yet her gaze fell upon one treasure in particular-
"Well come, my dear sapling!"
Her own beautiful branch, draped across a conveniently placed divan, their wings fluttering as they pulled up the hem of their skirt ilm by ilm.
"Wait."
Feo Ul's fingers stilled, their mouth shaped mid-word in a perfect O.
"...Feo Ul." She looked around at the interior of the final chamber and could not summon the energy to speak anything but the first words that came to mind. "This is ridiculous."
"Och!" They threw their hands up in the air. "So cold our sapling is! Your beautiful branch slaved away at this dream for an entire day, while other, graver matters required our utmost attention-"
"That sounds more to me like a failure to prioritize, but go on."
"You're hardly one to talk!"
"Hey, I'm asleep. I can't do shit right now." Then an idea came to her - the sort of logic that only ever came about through dreams. "How 'bout this: I'll head into Lyhe Mheg, make sure everything there is all taken care of, and then you and I can... you know..."
Feo Ul bit their lower lip, their ginger eyebrows flashing upward twice. "Nooo, sapling," they teased. "I don't know."
"End the night on a good note?"
"We'll see what we can manage," they said. All at once they stood directly before her, and with a flick of their wrist and a single finger tapped upon Ahtyn's nose, the floor suddenly gave way beneath her. She hurtled through clouds that tasted strangely of cotton candy, until at last she landed with a splash into the pools of Lyhe Mheg.
Even before she had cleared the water from her eyes, she heard a familiar voice calling to her from one of the nearby hillocks.
"Ahtyn!" It was A’zaela Linh, waving to her from beneath a macaron-patterned canopy. "You're here too!"
"Yeah," she said, spitting out stream water all the while. "I'm here."
Sairsel Arroway was also there, it seemed, sitting next to A'zaela upon a rather unassuming mushroom. Despite his rather whimsical surroundings and the flush of playing cards in his hand, he bore an expression fit much more for the Eighth Umbral Calamity than a fantastical dream world.
"We're playing poker," A'zaela explained as Ahtyn approached.
She couldn't help but frown. "Do you know how to play poker?"
"No," said A'zaela and Sairsel in unison. A'zaela explained in a whisper, "Tyr Beq put us up to it."
"Ah." For all the difficulties that so often came about from being Feo Ul's sapling - difficulties to which Sairsel could relate all too well - Tyr Beq had a reputation for far lengthier jests. "Well, I vote we do something else." Even as she spoke the words, she found herself sitting down beside them at their table. "Poker doesn't really appeal to me, either." She grabbed the cards and dealt them each another hand of three, her own hands refusing to heed her. "Fuck."
For all her protesting, when she turned over her three cards, they were writ not in numbers and suits but in major arcana. "...Hm."
"Hm," agreed Sairsel. His furrowed brow indicated his own confusion at this turn of events.
"Hm," A'zaela concluded.
They each shared their hands with one another, with implicit and unshakable trust. Sairsel bore The Hierophant, inverted; The Sun; and The Hermit. A'zaela placed Strength; The Star; and The Lovers in quick but careful succession, her cheeks glowing bright pink all the while. Ahtyn, for her part, displayed her cards as gingerly as though they were made of glass: The Hanged Man; Justice; and The World.
"Cool twist," said Ahtyn, and her friends nodded their agreement.
With their fortuitous readings thus displayed, any anxiety or trepidation vanished at once. They spent a good deal of time frolicking like children, unbound by the observations of guileful mortals. Mostly, they went up to the petal hammocks and watched the multi-hued sky as its color changed ceaselessly.
"Would be nice to see some stars in here once in a while," Ahtyn remarked.
It was not to be, at least for the present. Her eyes closed as if of their own accord, and she wondered, not for the first time, if falling asleep here would cause her to wake up on Hydaelyn.
"Night," she yawned, curling into herself within the hammock.
Briefly, she hoped her friends would not hear her if she snored.
Instead she woke within Lyhe Ghiah again - the throne room, not the dungeons - and rushed herself back to Feo Ul's awaiting embrace.
All things considered, it was a better dream than any she could have hoped for.
Plot spoilers for 5.3 through the inclusion of an NPC.
"I still don't understand why this place is called the Whitecap," said G'raha, frowning over his pint of ale. "We're well away from the sea."
"Not as far as you might think," Ashe pointed out. "If I'm remembering correctly, this place was established as a trading hub for Eastern sailors, a few generations back."
That was assuming she had remembered it correctly. The Whitecap had been a prominent feature in her childhood memories - mostly the exterior, given that the former proprietors had been loath to admit children. Since then, most of what she'd heard of it had to do with its former and current-day Undercity connections: where and when deals were made, and by whom. She was keeping an eye open for any such interactions now, engaged though she was with her company.
It was a good activity for when she needed to pretend A'zaela and G'raha weren't making moon eyes at one another.
"Will we be going elsewhere for the evening?" G'raha asked.
"Why - this place not to your tastes?" Ashe couldn't resist a taunt, accompanied by a smirk. "Not shiny enough, perhaps?"
To his credit, G'raha laughed, even as A'zaela blushed. "Hardly. I'm simply wondering how much to pace myself."
"You're telling me you'd fancy a bar crawl through Ala Mhigo?" She raised an eyebrow. "Brave and foolhardy, G'raha Tia."
"Please pace yourself," A'zaela whispered.
But Ashe shook her head, still fighting an urge to laugh. "We'll have to stay here at least until Edge can meet us, and Nymeia only knows when that'll be."
"I imagine we wouldn't stray too far; there was another pub just down the street-"
"That's Rinomy's Board," she interrupted. "We don't go there."
Her tone was so definitive that both A'zaela's and G'raha's ears went flat. "Why not?" said A'zaela.
That was a story best not getting into on such a spirited evening - the coldness that would seize her whenever she would so much as pass through the block, the tearing in her gut, the abject sadness in her father's eyes when he'd at last told her that Rinomy's was the place where her uncle and namesake had died. Instead she summoned her smile and gestured vaguely with the hand holding her glass of arak. "Ala Mhigan things."
This explanation satisfied G'raha, at least - and a moment later, his face brightened as his eyes fell on a newcomer over her shoulder. "Ah!" He waved both his arms, nearly losing his balance in the booth.
"Edge?"
As A'zaela followed his gaze, she grinned as well. "No, it's Sairsel! And- Twelve, what's his name..."
Ashe turned in her seat to see for herself, uncertain and curious to determine under what conditions Sairsel Arroway had found himself with a companion. She did not know if she was more disappointed or amused to see him parting a crowd of Highlanders to help clear the way for Pipin Tarupin. The vice marshal gave Ashe a friendly wave, and all the others at the table a smile. He pulled up a plump cushion, using it to reach the height of the table; with it, he fit comfortably between her and Sairsel on the bench.
"We thought it best to get out of our respective parents' hair," he explained. To G'raha, he said, "Apologies for being unable to meet with you today. Urgent Alliance business, as always."
"I understand completely," G'raha replied, and Ashe could hear for a moment the patience of a hundred-year-old diplomat in his voice.
"We'll be in Ala Mhigo for a few more days," said A'zaela. Then she frowned. "Sairsel? Is something wrong?"
The ranger had not spoken a word since taking his seat. Instead, he was staring off into another corner of the tavern - characteristically brooding.
"Sairsel." Ashe reached over Pipin to touch Sairsel on the shoulder.
Sairsel gave a start but made to disguise the motion by standing. "I'll grab us drinks," he said at once, and fled for the bar.
Pipin gave a subtle point toward one of the soldier-looking types standing along the opposite wall. "Would he be an acquaintance, Grand Steward?"
So familiar was the man, even with his face turned away, that Ashe burst into laughter. "O-Oh gods! I didn't even see-"
"Sairsel's glaring daggers at your back, Ashelia," said A'zaela.
"He's an old Resistance comrade," she noted.
"For you, or-"
"For both of us," she confirmed, not trusting herself to say anything further. It was getting much harder to hide her laughter, to the extent that Leofric Snakesbane would surely look over at their party at any second.
But he did not. When the pugilist glanced up, it was toward Sairsel - and he made a beeline to join him at the bar. A'zaela's mouth fell open in shock as Sairsel greeted him warmly.
"Can you hear what they're saying?!" G'raha whispered.
Pipin shook his head, as utterly engrossed as the rest of them.
"It seems amiable enough," said Ashe. "Let's just hope he doesn't- Fuck."
Sairsel had gestured over to their booth, making certain to point out exactly to Leofric where his old flame was sitting.
"That bar crawl is sounding more and more like a lovely idea," she muttered, her teeth gritted into a smile.
