Part 3: Yanxia
Percival was waiting at the bridge as they’d arranged, and he smiled as she came walking up, though she was still walking ‘properly’ which meant short little quick steps. “Good. You were in there so long I was worried I’d have to come break you out.”
“Oh, no, not at all,” she said. “Chima-dono gave me the gift of a kimono – and then she got frightened of imagining my future life and wanted to gift me many other things besides.” She’d managed to cap it at hair serum and skin moisturizer. “And then Mitsu and Tori wanted to say goodbye too. I narrowly escaped having tea.” She held out a little paper bag. “Would you like a mochi?”
He popped one in his mouth and spoke around it. “So… you’re sure you want to continue what we started?”
“Yes,” she said. Hesitated, then said the words she had been thinking about for some time. “They tell me I am beautiful, and that is all that matters to them, but I think I can achieve more than simply being beautiful. Even if it costs me my beauty, I want to… I want to experience this world on my own terms. And fighting at your side is the best way to do that.”
He looked startled, then grinned. “Well then, my girl, no more pampering for you, I’m afraid. First we go to get you equipped.”
She brightened. “Then-”
“Yes. It’s ready.”
It was a very different meeting than they’d had almost exactly ten years ago – being taken away from both comfort and hardship by Percival. Now she had agency, and enthusiasm, and trust in him. And now that she thought about it, he was different too. She had been too young to register it back then, but he had been as devoid of hope as she had been, in his own way.
He went to a tailor, and the tailor gave her a pile of new clothes – woollen Eorzean-style tunic and trousers, and a lightweight padded garment, a gambeson. There were also leather boots, the first she had ever worn, and Percival had to help her buckle them on. They were not comfortable, even though they fit. She had given him her accurate measurements over a year ago. “They’ll break in over time and form to your feet,” he assured her, but she wasn’t convinced. But she was well-practised in not showing her true feelings now, and she certainly didn’t want Percival to think she was weak after two years shut away in a palace.
The tailor shook her head. “Putting such a pretty lady in such rough gear…”
“This pretty lady can kick your arse,” Percival said. “But she’ll do it better if not in a yukata and geta.” She smothered a giggle.
The tailor just kept shaking her head.
Then they went to a smith on the outskirts of town, whose shop was strangely subdued compared to similar shops she had seen in Hingashi. There was hardly any merchandise on the walls, and what there was seemed to be not intended for fighters, neither weapons nor armour. She was concerned until the shopkeep pulled out a long, wide, bulky bundle from a hidden compartment. It clanked.
But apparently it was not time to open the bundle yet. Percival simply hoisted it on his back with a little effort and headed out. “At camp tonight,” he said in response to her questioning gaze. “No need for an audience, there’s a lot to teach you here.”
“I look forward to it,” she said.
They headed north, deeper into the mountains, away from the river. Percival seemed very familiar with the land, and made camp in a little hollow in the middle of a forest. Achiyo built the fire while he put up the tent, as it used to be, and she inhaled the scent gladly. “It has been so long since I did this.”
“Mm.” He was untalkative as she made dinner, just watching her. Was she so different from before?
When they had finished eating, he reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m glad you’re back.”
That seemed an inadequate gesture for such a sentiment, and she turned to him and hugged him. “I am glad to be back. Even though my feet hurt.”
He chuckled and returned the hug. “Give those boots some time. You’ve been wearing slippers and sandals for your whole life.” With an extra pat on the back, he pulled away and turned to the bundle. “All right. Behold, the best gear I could get in Eorzean style, from folk whose only encounter with Eorzean armour was through me. Real mithril, and I made sure they didn’t cut corners.”
He had been saving his words for this, it seemed, as he explained every piece, what it was called, how it went on, and how to care for it, especially in the humid environment and frequent rains of Yanxia. When she was all suited up, she stood and moved about, feeling how it weighed upon her – less than she thought it would, yet still noticeable. So this was why he had made her train her strength. To wear all this and also run, or climb a tree, or a mountain, or carry an injured companion, even for a short distance, was no mean feat.
She noticed it was not the same as his, despite the similarity in design. “Why are there more parts than yours has?”
“Because you don’t have a lot of experience yet, and I want to know you’re going to be all right even if I don’t have my eye on you every second of every battle.”
“Should you not have these other pieces as well?”
He shrugged. “Maybe I could, but I’m happy with my gear at the moment.” He seemed dissatisfied with how she stood at rest. “Feet slightly apart, remember, pointed outwards, or else a sudden attack will knock you over with a light tap. You’re not wearing a kimono now.”
“Right.” She had been so well-drilled in aristocratic posture it had partially overridden the training he had given her before. But it wasn’t completely gone, and with a few reminders, it was coming back to her.
“Why do they teach you to point your toes together, anyway?” he asked, still subtly adjusting her stance.
“It looks cute,” she said. It wasn’t necessarily together, but more parallel than men stood, anyway.
“Maybe on small children,” he said. “They must have completely filled your head with all kinds of rot.” He smirked. “Of course, they said the same about me. Too bad, you’re stuck with me now.”
She laughed. “I shall endeavour to exemplify the best of both worlds.”
“Yes, it’s up to you what you want to be in the end. Hold firm to your convictions – even if I grouse about them. That’s another thing that it means to be an adventurer.”
“I didn’t realize being an adventurer was so philosophical,” she said, trying to test the limits of the gauntlets. She was nearly as free in them as she was without them, and it surprised her. She would have to become accustomed to picking things up in gloves, but that was not insurmountable.
“For some folk, it’s not. But I’ve had some time to think about it with you away. To think about what I want to teach you. Did I mention I’m glad you’re back? All my thinking not going to waste.”
“I missed you as well. I was rather lonely without you, despite being surrounded by so many people. None of them truly care for me as you do.” She’d never said that during his visits; she didn’t want him to feel badly about leaving her there.
He looked away. Had she embarrassed him? “Well. That’s… good to know. …Now let me show you your new shield.”
The next morning over breakfast he asked about Yorihiro. “So what happened between you two, anyway? Seems like it was very sudden.”
“It’s quite simple,” she said. “When I mentioned that I had been training to fight with you, he suggested that I spar with him. Neither of us were expecting me to be better than he was, but he took it very ill. He has not spoken to me since.”
“What an arsehole,” Percival said.
“He wasn’t even trying to fight properly,” Achiyo said. “I don’t understand. After he said he would go easy on me, I told him not to, and he did anyway. Should I have held back too?”
“I dunno,” Percival said. “I don’t think so. It’s pretty condescending to hold back against someone who’s asked you not to. If I were in your place, I’d try even harder because I was insulted he was holding back.”
“The other women said I should not have humiliated him. That I should never try to be better than a man.” She thought Percival would disagree, but she wanted validation.
She got it. “That’s bullshite,” Percival said. “He humiliated himself by being a sore loser. Good on you for smacking him around. And their advice is rot. Always act with integrity. If you’re good at something, don’t hold back.” He thought for a minute. “It’s not an immutable rule, I can think of reasons to withhold your true ability, like me for teaching you, but… salving someone’s ego is not one.”
“It seems to me that would be a good rule as long as one has the strength to back it up,” Achiyo said. She did not forget how Prince Hien had saved her when she had frozen up.
He grinned. “That’s what we’re going to work towards. You’ve got talent, and soon you’ll turn that into skill. Ready to get started?”
“Yes,” she said, but thinking of Yorihiro had dampened her mood.
Of course he noticed, he still knew her better than any other. “Wish I could get my hands on that brat and tell him he’s a failure of a man. But since you’re already better than he is, probably the best revenge is completely forgetting him and outshining him like the sun next to a candle.”
She didn’t want revenge, though. She wasn’t sure what she wanted. She wanted him to be as kind as he had seemed at first. She shook herself and put on her self-control. “I am ready. Let us begin.”
“At least all this lady training has given you good upper body posture,” he commented. “Head up high, back straight, core strong. Smooth, fluid movements. We want that.”
“There was an exercise where we had to walk with vases on our heads,” she said. “It was excruciating.” The fact that she had mastered it faster than anyone else was irrelevant.
“Hm, wish I could have seen that. We’re not going to do anything that funny.”
She eagerly threw herself into whatever he set before her, wishing to make up for lost time. Etiquette training she had absorbed to gain the social tools she thought might be necessary for a samurai’s daughter, to teach her how she wanted to appear to other people, but its significance paled compared to her suddenly increasing passion for swordfighting. She accepted the runs, the jumping, the strengthening exercises, the solo drills, all for the time each day when she and Percival faced off against each other in sparring. He was no longer working her to exhaustion, and before long she realized he could not work her to exhaustion, not with the same exercises he had given her before. She was growing stronger.
They came to a village at a crossroads in a forested valley to the northeast of the realm; Percival called it Shizuihua. He seemed eager to arrive, lengthening his already-long stride as they came up the valley, until Achiyo was trotting along beside him.
It was only perhaps their second village since leaving Monzen, though it had taken them over a fortnight to reach, walking steadily through endless bamboo groves, wide flat plains of fields, or completely-uninhabited steep-sided mountain valleys. There were ever signs of Garlean occupation on the horizon – a fortress here, a factory there – but she might have been surprised at how few soldiers they had to hide from on the road. “I’m on a register, but you’re not,” Percival said. “And we’d best avoid them until we’re ready to put you there. If we do at all.”
It was late afternoon, and the village looked welcoming from far down the valley. Achiyo had grown accustomed to her boots after so long walking in them, but she was still glad when she was able to take them off, so she was looking forward to the inevitable break they would have here. Though Percival was acting slightly strangely; several times he seemed about to say something to her, and then stopped.
They entered the village and Percival seemed to have a specific destination in mind, striding directly to a smaller house with what seemed an inordinate amount of smoke rising from behind it. He rapped on the door and slid it open without waiting.
“Oh!” Achiyo heard a woman inside exclaim. “Percival! I didn’t expect to see you again so soon- Ah, would this be Achiyo-dono?”
Achiyo stepped in after Percival, blinking as her eyes adjusted. The house had two rooms, and the room they were in had a table and benches, a cooking fire, and shelves and shelves of pots of all shapes and sizes. They were plain, but well-made. There was a Hyuran woman sitting at a wheel in the middle of the room, having just removed her hands from a pot in progress. “Percival, you did startle me. It’s a good thing you didn’t ruin this pot.”
“Sorry,” Percival said without much remorse. “Achiyo, this is Hiina. I met her a while back, and she puts up with me when I’m in the area. Hiina, this is Achiyo.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Achiyo said, bowing. “Percival has been remarkably reticent about his journeys in this land. Please don’t let us bother you. I should apologize for interrupting you thus unannounced.”
Hiina chuckled a little. “Just give me a few minutes to finish this one and take it into the back to dry. Please sit, Achiyo-dono. Percival, I am sure you are thirsty after your journey, but you will have to serve your own drinks.”
It took Hiina-san a few more minutes to deftly complete the pot she was shaping, and then she detached it from the wheel and took it into the yard behind the house. From the smoke they had seen before, Achiyo guessed her kiln was also there.
“Why have you never mentioned her before?” Achiyo whispered to Percival while she was gone.
He looked awkward. “I didn’t know how to bring it up. And what you were doing was more interesting, anyway.”
Ladies were permitted to sigh, if not to huff or roll their eyes, so Achiyo sighed. “I am at a disadvantage here. You will have to talk a lot more when we leave.”
“I was going to stay a few days…”
“Then I will have to ask her myself. Does she know that we are staying so long?”
“She won’t mind. She’s put me up before. There’s no inn here, you know.”
Hiina came back in. She was a bit taller than Achiyo, and a little bit plump, with grey streaks in her dark brown hair that was done up in a simple, practical bun. She had washed the clay from her hands, but they were very rough and calloused. “So what brings you this way?”
“Achiyo quit her noble education,” Percival said. “So I thought I’d bring her along to see you.”
“It is good to finally meet you, Achiyo-dono,” Hiina said. “Percival speaks of you often, and with such pride.”
That took whatever snarky wind was left out of her sails, and she blushed profusely. “I have not even done anything yet.”
“I don’t believe that is true, Achiyo-dono,” Hiina said. “You decide your own destiny, and have endured such hardship to come so far.”
This wasn’t court. She couldn’t tell if Hiina really meant it or if she was somehow trying to win favour with Percival by praising her. But on the other hand, it wasn’t court – what reason would Hiina have to dissemble? “Thank you,” she said. “I owe everything to Percival.”
“Not everything,” Percival objected impatiently. She gave him a look – she would be dead without his interference, and anything she’d achieved since then would be moot, wouldn’t it?
“I owe him a great deal myself,” Hiina said. “Please, Achiyo-dono, will you tell me of how one lives at court?”
“It is not as interesting as it might look from afar,” Achiyo said. “It is true they dress in beautiful clothes, and they eat delicious food, and live surrounded by beauty and splendour all their days. And no one wants to speak plainly, except Kaien-sama, and even he must conceal his true intentions, for all are under the constant surveillance of the Imperials.” She couldn’t withhold a grimace. “As for me personally, I spent an increasing amount of time fending off admirers determined to rescue the poor orphan girl and make her into an ornament of their house. It was very tiresome.”
“It is still hard to believe that anyone could give up such a life to live as Percival does,” Hiina mused.
Achiyo tried to explain further, and the discussion lasted through Hiina cooking dinner. Achiyo watched her carefully, because cooking was not something for nobles to learn, and while she could make edible food, she still did not know much about Doman cooking.
After dinner, she finally managed the resolve to broach her curiosity about Hiina. “You are a potter?”
“Yes, all my life,” Hiina said. “I make and repair enough for the village’s needs, and sometimes merchants will buy some extras from me. Though it is becoming harder now.” She hesitated, glancing towards the door, then went on. “My husband died fighting the Garleans, so many years ago. My children have been taken for their wars. And even I who remain am taxed so hard that I should have to sell a quarter again as many pots to merchants to afford to live.”
Achiyo felt pained anger and sympathy surge up inside her. “How could they do such a thing!?” What happened when she could not pay? Would they imprison her, or enslave her, or…?
“Very easily,” Percival grunted. “I think we figured out what metrics they’re using, though.”
“A potter in Monzen would not have any trouble to pay these taxes,” Hiina said. “And they assume that all potters must be the same everywhere. I think. It did not use to be so bad. But it has become worse and worse, and my life’s savings are now gone to it.”
“That’s-” Achiyo had felt the fear, had seen the consequences of questioning the Empire. But she had not fully felt the casual, deliberate injustice, not until this moment.
“Percival has been of immense aid,” Hiina said softly, looking at him with grateful eyes. “I don’t know how to repay him.”
Percival fidgeted. “I just had a bit of money left-over last time they sent tax collectors your way. I can’t do the same for the whole country, but the way they were treating you…”
It was like how he had met Achiyo, and she couldn’t help but smile privately at the comparison. She wondered if there was anything else similar between them.
There was an awkward pause. Hiina and Percival were only looking at each other. Achiyo felt there was something very important she was missing.
“Achiyo,” Percival said with a strained voice, “could you…”
“She doesn’t have to,” Hiina said. “It’s all right. You brought her all this way, it would be unfair to…”
“What is it?” Achiyo asked, genuinely ignorant what he wanted from her.
Percival glanced at her, perplexity crossing his face. “In all your time with those nobles, have you never had to… give someone space?”
She blinked. And then it clicked. “Oh. Oh!” She sprang up, her practised grace deserting her, and she hastily regained control. With a delighted smile she could not fully contain and a graceful turn, she nodded to them. “I shall… er, go on patrol for a while. A few bells, perhaps.”
“Percival,” Hiina began.
“Hiina,” Percival said in the same tone.
“Pray excuse me,” Achiyo said, and ducked out of the house before anything else could happen.
How embarrassing! She should have seen it the moment Percival entered Hiina’s house – but she was so used to her guardian keeping to himself that the thought he might have made a real friend, a lover, even, had not crossed her mind. And the cues they had been giving had been rather different from the ones she’d learned in high society. She pinched herself to relieve her feelings of guilt, and set out to walk around the perimeter of the village in the twilight.
She had not gone far before someone confronted her, a young man in farmer’s clothes. “Who are you and what are you doing here!?”
“I am Kensaki no Achiyo and I am travelling,” she said, taken aback by his aggression.
“You are… not with the Imperials, are you?” His gaze nervously flickered to her very un-Eastern armour that she had not yet removed – Percival did not take his off until just before sleeping, so she did the same. “I swear my family paid our taxes this season.”
“No,” she said. “I am from Hingashi.”
“And what brings you here to Shizuihua?” he asked suspiciously. “What brings you to Doma at all? Come to gawk at our lowly state? Our piteous, humble existence?”
Was he looking for a fight? Did he think fighting with an outsider would relieve his feelings? “I go as my guardian goes. And you are very rude; you haven’t even told me your name.”
“My apologies, your worshipfulness,” he said sarcastically, and she decided this conversation wasn’t worth the effort. “My name is Ishiku. And if you’re not Garlean, then you should get out of our country. We don’t need you making problems too!”
“Ishiku, shut up!” someone hissed behind him, and a shorter boy came up and started dragging the young man away. “Sorry, miss, please don’t kill my brother, he’s such a hot-head, haha…”
She watched them go silently, trying to sort through what had just happened. Why were they both so afraid of her?
They stayed in that place a couple days, and the grumpy young farmer looked sourly shamed when he realized that she was connected to Percival, but she didn’t care what he thought after he’d been so rude. Not when the real reason for their visit was to spend time with Hiina.
Hiina was a kind woman, somehow practical and whimsical at the same time. She had the same subdued feeling as most other Doman people Achiyo had met, but she could still smile, and it was a pretty smile. She told Achiyo of her son and daughter, whom she had not heard from in years, gone to fight for the Imperials in far-off lands, but the Imperials had not told her they had died…
There was an exquisite lidded pot, glazed white with a design of dark floral leaves, in a place of honour in her kitchen, and she explained that she had crafted it for Percival as thanks for helping her with Imperial tax collectors. “I put all my skill into this pot, to make something worthy of my saviour, and then when it was done a sennight later, he turned around and said he didn’t want it. Can you believe it, Achiyo-chan?”
“That’s not what I said,” Percival objected loudly. “I gave it back to you as a gift, because I can’t exactly be carrying a fragile pot around through the wilderness. Anyway, you use it, don’t you?”
“I… do keep the tea leaves in it… when I can afford tea…”
“There you go,” he said. “Hiina, you pay me back whenever I’m in this region and come crash at your place. We talked about it.”
“It doesn’t satisfy me,” Hiina said to Achiyo, who had to smile at the absurdity of the situation.
She learned more about Percival, as well. There was something different about him than she had seen before; she had thought she noticed something when he came to visit her in Doma Castle, but she had only thought such differences were from not having seen him frequently, and from growing up herself. He was still taciturn and unexpressive, and yet… he made more jokes, was the easiest change to notice. His stern grey-blue eyes were softer. She even learned that he was named after a fairy-tale knight, though he seemed embarrassed by it.
“So… you are ‘not ready to go back to Eorzea’, are you?” Achiyo said to Percival pointedly, as they set off at the end of their stay.
He blinked; apparently he had forgotten. “Did I say that at some point? Yeah, it’s true. Not just because of Hiina. Though she’s a big part of it, certainly.”
“Why did you never tell me about her?” she asked reproachfully. “You told her all about me. That is hardly fair.” Saying that her life was more interesting than Hiina’s was the weakest excuse she could think of.
Percival was quiet for a bit. “I did mean it when I said I didn’t know how to tell you about her. ‘I’ve met someone’? We care about each other, but it’s not…” He stopped again, then continued slower and quieter. “It’s complicated for me, for both of us. I should have told you, even so, and I’m sorry.”
“Complicated?”
He avoided her gaze. “She… I… ‘Friends with benefits’ is an insulting way to put it, but neither of us wants a permanent commitment right now. But it’s not like we’re just friends, either.”
She wanted to push; she still didn’t understand. If she cared for someone, she would want to commit to them whole-heartedly. Perhaps… if she were in Hiina’s place, having already lost one husband, it might pain her too much to take a second. Perhaps Hiina having an Eorzean husband would cause her problems. Perhaps she didn’t want to have to explain to her children when they returned someday.
But really, it wasn’t her business. At least it wasn’t the sort of nonsense that Chima had passionately consumed. At least it was something real.
Achiyo’s studies in combat continued to progress rapidly. In fact, it was only a few moons later that she first defeated Percival in fair combat. For a moment as he went sprawling, she tensed, a little worried of his reaction.
He was grinning. “Ow. Nicely done.”
That was all the praise he normally had for her, but it was so far removed from injured anger that she felt happiness glow through her entire body.
That was not the last time, either. He stepped it up; they were no longer practising with wooden gear, but full-on fighting with real steel, and she knew he was not holding back. Yet only a sennight later she defeated him again. The better she got, the more she seemed to sense what he would do next, where his next blow would land – almost to an uncanny degree. From there, the frequency of her victories increased until she consistently came out on top a little over half of the time. And it seemed the better she did, the better pleased he was.
Her previous studies seemed to be of nearly no use here, and not all of her new-learned persuasive arts worked on Percival. Fluttering her eyelashes at him, which had worked amazingly well at court, only got her a sigh and “Achiyo, I know what you’re doing.” But she had become more stubborn than before, it seemed, and if she really wanted something, she learned how to persuade him. It was only that sometimes she wondered if she had wasted two years of her life, learning useless manners on a whim.
They were still travelling; there was not so much work for mercenaries in the heart of Doma, neither against monsters nor bandits, not where the Empire held sway so firmly. So she could not really put her improving skills to the test, but most villages had labour to hire them for, and it kept them fed and sheltered. Doma itself, the wider realm of Yanxia, was beautiful, winding between stunning misty mountains, steep-sided with rounded tops, through which flowed glittering fertile rivers. Ancient temples seemed to float in the clouds on the peaks. Everything everywhere she looked was green, the twisting trees, the towering bamboo groves, the long grasses of the meadows of the flatlands, the rice fields around the settlements. Birds called with strange voices, and crickets sang as long as the sun was up. Percival, who had seen a lot of the first areas before, made sure to point out things he’d noticed before.
And yet the villages seemed… She had detected a pall of fear over the court in Doma Castle, of anxiety in Monzen, but it was stronger in the rural areas. By and large, the buildings were not kept in such good repair as she was used to, and the people there were short with strangers, especially someone from Eorzea as Percival was. Soon she found herself taking the lead in most conversations, shielding him with her Hingan ethnicity, which though foreign they at least did not associate with the Empire. Now folk did not think he was her father, nor her husband, but her servant and bodyguard. It bothered her, but it amused him.
They visited Hiina every few moons, nearly as often as Percival had come to Doma Castle. No matter the season, she always welcomed them, although sometimes they had to bring their own food. Achiyo always made sure, more surreptitiously now, to give them plenty of time to themselves. She was certain her attempts at subtlety were not at all subtle, and she felt a completely undeserved degree of smugness from seeing them admire each other, but did it really matter?
Percival also returned on occasion to Monzen, though he seemed less interested in work from Kaien-sama now that Achiyo was no longer living there, but she saw through him pretty quickly. He was giving her a chance to re-connect with Tori and Mitsu, and the two other girls always pounced on her, dragged her to a teahouse, and demanded stories of her adventures. Such tales were not terribly interesting, Achiyo thought, as they hardly went anywhere that would be considered ‘exciting’ to a resident of the capital, yet her friends clung to every word – and then filled her ears with all the castle gossip safe to utter outside the castle. It was strange – she would have thought she didn’t care about it at all, but she found herself eager to hear it. Perhaps it was eagerness to hear Mitsu and Tori speak more.
While travelling, the two of them still avoided Garlean patrols as much as they could. Percival was right, though, it wasn’t too hard for the two of them to avoid Imperial attention while they were in the midst of the wilderness. And when they had to fight monsters, she was no longer observing in the back, but fighting alongside him, their swords flashing together, and she pulled her weight in both defence and offence. The first few times she struck down an attacker, whether a huge beetle, or maddened forest spirit, she found herself shaking afterwards, staring at the bodies afterwards in morbid fascination – but it did not last. It was part of her job, she reminded herself. And quite soon, she found herself becoming good at her job.
Ambushed on the road by a small band of Lupine, they fought for their lives. She had made a mistake in the fight; she was out of position, she missed a strike, she had hesitated before the killing blow on her opponent, and her enemy’s countering attack seared across her hip between two plates. Then Percival was there beside her, striking at the man who had injured her, and he fell choking.
“Fall back!” Percival ordered her, and fought on. She did as she was told, limping slightly, but when the second-to-last enemy crept behind him, she could not let her go unchallenged and moved to intercept.
Percival dealt with the one before him and spun, knocking the ambusher away and then finishing her off. “I gave you an order!”
“There was-” Achiyo began to defend herself.
“No back-talking on the field!” Percival snapped. “How bad is your injury?”
“It hurts but I can walk,” she said. He watched her walk and shook his head, getting out one of their precious health potions.
“We’ve too far to go. Take this.”
Her heart was beating harder than it had been in battle as she drank the potion, cleaned her gear, and they set off, leaving the bandits where they lay. He seemed angry, and it was because of her – she had made mistakes, she had made the fight more dangerous. Silently, they marched on towards their destination westward through the bamboo forest.
When they stopped for the evening, he set down his pack, gestured that she should do the same, and then had her stand at attention in front of him. For an instant he looked deeply uncomfortable, and then his face became stern again. “You were out of position and you disobeyed an order. That’s not acceptable, Kensaki. You hesitated, and I understand, this was the first time we’ve fought Spoken folk, but it cannot happen again. You’re lucky you were only mildly wounded. Can you think what would happen if you were unlucky?”
She could, and had been during their march, and she nodded mutely. It was a fairly mild lecture as far as a military reprimand went; she had heard Garlean drill sergeants screaming abuse at soldiers in Doma Castle. Yet it was still difficult to be on the receiving end, something she had striven so hard to avoid as a child, and she was carefully blank to ensure that no trace of that upset escaped her. Though certainly he knew that her blankness was a sign of what she kept hidden.
“Going back into battle on an untreated injury with no healers around is like running back into a burning building you already escaped from: extremely reckless. You’re raw and inexperienced and that’s even more reason why you cannot go against orders. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Do you know what you could or should have done differently in this situation?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. She had thought about that too, overthinking it as was her wont, until she could think of nearly five other things she could have done instead.
“Good. At ease.” He sighed and dropped to sitting, abruptly ending the formal interview. “Achiyo, I’m not upset with you. Really, truly. But you have to know that you can’t make these kinds of mistakes. I know how much I can handle, and you don’t yet. And there’s just the two of us, and that means you have to learn fast. I really don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I know,” she said quietly, and went to go start setting up the camp, using activity to let out the anxious feelings she could not show.
He got up and came to help. “I look at you and see the little kid you used to be, but you’re not a little kid anymore. The last thing I want is for you to get killed because I held back and made you think it wasn’t a big deal.” He put a hand to his chest. “I hope you don’t decide to go your own way terribly soon because I’m going to develop a heart condition from worrying about you.”
She was going to cry. The disapproval mixed with the affection was going to cut through her carefully constructed defences and make her cry. She stifled it with an effort. “I understand.” She paused. “Do you think I can still do it?”
He looked surprised. “Without question. Just stay alive, and you’ll be the best warrior in the land.”
She nodded. “I will not give up, despite my mistakes.”
“Good.” They were silent together for a minute. “You will make more mistakes. I will have to reprimand you again. You’re green, it’s going to happen, even though you try so hard. But you can handle it. Don’t let any kind of fear hold you back, just take it and keep pushing forward. You’re stronger than even you think you are.”
Of course, she was being foolish. She should not doubt herself over only one mistake, even if it had been pretty bad. This was what she wanted to do, and she was not going to give up so easily.
But next time she couldn’t hesitate.
They had been in a small village during a Garlean ‘visit’; a unit of soldiers had entered the village demanding more food for their fortress, when anyone could see that the village itself was hardly scraping by. Percival had intervened, drawing their attention and thus their ire away from the villagers, and gotten himself beaten to a pulp for his troubles – and his actions had not even saved some of the villagers from also being struck to the ground. Achiyo had wanted to stop the soldiers, maybe even to fight them, to protect him from the butts of their gunblades, but he’d stopped her with a look and a gesture. They’d been ‘nice’ to her; they’d only shoved her aside and kicked her as they left, telling the villagers to get more food for the fortress and quickly.
“At least I’ve still got all my teeth,” Percival said, inordinately cheerful for the situation as they went on their way into the wilderness in the opposite direction of the soldiers. Was he high on healing poultices? The villagers had kindly bandaged him up.
“The ‘fine art of Garlean manipulation’, hm?” she said sourly, as they marched on. “All you did was get yourself hurt.”
“Sometimes you can spin them so no one gets hurt,” he said. “But hey, no one got arrested.” He sighed. “Or worse. I’ve seen them outright maim and kill, for no more offence than you saw today. Stabbing, shooting, choking… there’s nothing they won’t stoop to.”
“But that’s… that’s wrong!” she cried, her mask of serene grace cracking. “Kami, how can they do that!? It only makes everyone unhappy, it doesn’t make them work harder or… or anything!”
“Making them work harder isn’t the point for them,” he said. “It’s certainly not to make life better for anyone. It’s all to make them feel powerful, and nothing more.”
“But-” She wracked her brain to find an objection that made sense. “Why can they do that? Can’t we stop them? Can’t we appeal to their superiors? Or fight back somehow?”
He frowned at her. “What, you want to fight the empire by yourself? Liberate the nation just like that? You think they haven’t thought of that, that they haven’t tried?” He was right, of course the Domans would have tried, had tried not to be conquered, and she pressed her lips together unhappily. He sighed. “Their superiors don’t care. Or are the ones who order them to do it. We can’t fix everyone’s problems, Twelve know I understand wanting to – but we can make life a little easier.”
“Is that why you came to the other end of the world?” she asked, still angry. “To do chores for everyone suffering from oppression?”
He blinked – and turned his back to her silently. She froze, feeling like she’d been dowsed in cold water. He’d never told her why he had come, but that had been unfair. “Percival – I apologize-”
He strode off down the path and she had to trot to keep up.
She was wrapped in anxiety for the rest of the day. Percival was closed off and unresponsive, and that was not uncommon… for how he had been when they’d met. And she’d never deliberately caused it herself before… She wanted to apologize a thousand times, so that he would come back and forgive her immediately and things could go back to being normal. But that wouldn’t work. So she followed in silence.
At dusk, he turned off the path to a high sheltered point under a grey limestone cliff, picked a campsite, and sat down heavily with a sigh. “Achiyo…”
She didn’t wait for him to finish, instead kneeling in front of him and making a dogeza bow with her forehead nearly touching the ground. “Percival, I apologize. I spoke wrongly and I am very sorry for hurting you-”
“Wait- no- stop that,” he exclaimed, pushing her back up. “Don’t- don’t bow to me like I’m a… It’s okay. I mean I appreciate the… um… apology but not like that- Anyway don’t do that. I’m not a lord or something.”
“You are someone I respect,” she said, struggling to hold onto her emotions. “And I did not respect you. It is unforgivable-”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” he began. “Well. You’re a teenager. They’re dramatic. I forgive you.”
That seemed too easy, for how she had suffered that day. For how he had suffered that day. “I…”
“What, you want me to still be mad at you?”
“…Maybe…”
“Why, for Azeyma’s sake?” He looked genuinely perplexed.
She didn’t know how to explain it. She had made many mistakes in her life before, but she’d never deliberately attacked someone she cared about. That went beyond a mistake.
“Nobody’s perfect,” he said, and dumped out the tentpoles to prepare setting them up. “Forget about it.”
She couldn’t forget about it, and after a while she noticed that he couldn’t either, looking thoughtfully into the fire. “It’s true it doesn’t seem like we do a lot for the people here. Hells, we’re relying on them half the time to keep us alive with food and shelter. And why was it I could help Hiina, but not those folks? But we have freedoms that they don’t, that even the Garleans won’t take away, not yet – just because we’re insignificant. So we can’t liberate the country single-handed, or else we’ll cease to be insignificant. But we can be sneaky, and give the people hope right under the Garleans’ noses. What do people want more than dignity, and hope for a better tomorrow?”
“The indignities heaped upon them by the Imperials seem to preclude any real chance of either, no matter what we do,” she said quietly.
“That’s because you’ve grown up knowing what freedom is, adventurer’s freedom,” he said. “And you’ve grown up with the pride of a free adventurer, and the pride of your family, and your pride in your self-worth. We’ve had to struggle, sometimes, to get by, but even if sometimes we do things that are hard, and dangerous, and we don’t always have a choice about doing them, we do them with integrity.” He gave her a serious look. “You don’t have to accept what happens here on a daily basis. But you do have to pick your battles. I see your passion for justice, but if you try and stop every injustice you see, the Imperials will kill you faster than you can say ‘boo’.”
She bowed her head. “I understand.”
“They’ve arrested me like three times just for being a suspicious vagrant- okay, the third time I was actually being a pain in the rear, but it was just to help someone they were bullying. And that was a risk.”
“So what can I do?” she asked. Knowing that Percival had nearly disappeared on her, just like those who had vanished at court, was chilling. “How do I pick my battles?”
“Watch everything – without looking like you’re watching. Have plausible deniability for everything you do. You’ll probably be better at it than me – you’ve got a much more innocent look about you.” He gave her another glance. “Of course, your looks put you in danger in other ways. I keep worrying that we’ll run into some unscrupulous ranked Garlean and he decides he wants to assault you, armour or no armour.”
She sighed. “I cannot get away from that, can I. I had hoped wearing armour…”
“Sorry. The world’s shitty like that. At least if I’m there, my presence can mitigate the milder cases, and I’ll kill anyone who tries to put a hand on you – that you don’t kill first.”
“Won’t that mean we must flee again?” she asked. “With greater urgency, for the Imperials will not let us go for the death of one of their own. Hingashi had no cause to pursue us for murdering drunks. But the Empire…”
“It’s true,” he said. “So they better not touch you. I’m not leaving if we don’t have to. But I’m also not going to sit by and let something like that happen to you. Ever.”
They were both in a much better mood in the morning, packing up in the grey dawn. A new day was ahead, new lands to explore, and it always brought her hope.
Percival slung the packed tent onto his back and his shield over it. “All right, where to next, Kensaki?” he asked.
She blinked at him. “Why am I deciding?”
“Well, someday you might have a company of your own. You’re good enough to. Imagine it – a proper squad would have you as the leader, the defender, and then a healer in case of accidents, and then a few more to attack the enemy from behind your cover – lancers and archers, for instance.”
Having tactics and formations would certainly be a novelty. “And why me? Would you not be the head of a company first?”
“Sure, sure,” he said dismissively. “Except I don’t like big groups – and how long do you think I’m gonna be doing this? I’m already, what was it, twenty-two years older than you. Think I’m going to be doing this past sixty?”
“Why not?” she asked. “You do not plan to retire to a cottage, do you? I cannot imagine it.” Not even with Hiina, not yet, anyway.
He laughed. “No, maybe I’ll make it to seventy before I quit. But at some point I’m not going to be leading. At least, not in the field. Anyway, you have to know these things. Looks good on a resumé.”
Silence fell between them for a while as they walked along the road she had chosen. “What would you be, if you had not been a mercenary?”
Slowly, he pulled out words, rough around the edges with an old quiet pain. “Hard to say. Maybe I’d’ve been… If I didn’t pick up a weapon at all? Dunno. A beekeeper?”
“Hm.” Yes, that would have kept him in peaceful seclusion.
“What about you, kid?”
“I would have tried to fulfil my parents expectations, whatever they may have been,” she said. “But I do not know what the options are. A wife, probably.”
He was silent for a bit. “Being a wife doesn’t preclude you from doing other things.”
“That’s what you have said about Eorzea, but households need managing, and ofttimes here it falls to the wife to manage.” Unless the marriage was of two wives, or two husbands, but those were rarer.
“Point taken,” he said. “I want to say you’re worth more than that after having fought beside you, but that’s not really what I mean, I think. It’s a job that doesn’t get enough credit, honestly. And I would want to know you were respected no matter what you were doing.”
She hadn’t thought of a ‘wife’ as a ‘job’ before, but it was true that household management was very much like a job, even – especially for a samurai’s wife. She said so.
“Yeah, and there are so many wives in the world it’s easy to take them for granted, huh? Though, as you found out at Doma Castle, it can be a quicker path to financial security than we’ve got. You’ll never be rich following me.”
That truly didn’t matter to her. “If I wished to be rich, I would have let Kawanami shower me in jewels.”
He snorted. “No, you wouldn’t.”
She chuckled. “No, I wouldn’t.” And being a wife wasn’t something that interested her at the present. “How did you become a mercenary?” Would he tell her?
“I was… trained as a soldier for Gridania,” he said slowly. “And after I left, there wasn’t anything else I was good at. That I could use to make an income while wandering. All the other stuff I do, the farming work, the construction work, I’ve learned as I went.”
“But why Othard, when you didn’t speak the languages at first?”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t Gridania.”
They’d wandered too close to the border of the Azim Steppe, and had found themselves under attack in a dry, rocky valley by five fierce looking Xaela. She had never seen such people before, like her and yet different, but there was little time to look at them when she was fighting for her life.
“These are our lands!” shouted the leader. “Garleans stay out!”
“We’re not Garleans!” Percival called back, blocking the leader’s lance with his shield – and cried out in pain as an arrow pierced his leg.
Achiyo felt her heart leap in terror – would he die? Would they be overwhelmed, and she would die too? She couldn’t let him die! She skidded under the spear of her opponent, and she didn’t hesitate. Sword met flesh. She did not look at the results but ran onwards toward the two archers in the back. They broke and ran at her approach, and so she turned back to the two warriors still facing Percival, slamming with her shield into the side of the leader, taking all their focus away from her guardian.
She was his guardian now, parrying two spears and making them jump back from her sword, fiercely pressing them. They had hurt Percival, and they would not do it again. The spear grazed her arm, above a plate and through her gambeson, but it was a shallow cut and she hardly flinched. She broke the leader’s spear and stabbed him too, and the remaining warrior fled. She pursued them far enough to ensure the archers would not just turn and attack as soon as she turned her back.
She turned to see that Percival, brought to one knee by his wound, had cut the end off the arrow in his leg and tried to stand again. His face was grey and sweating, but he managed to smile at her. “Well, that went… nearly as well… as could be expected…” He toppled forward and passed out.
She couldn’t panic. They had to go back the way they came, and he couldn’t walk under his own power. She took a couple deep breaths and carefully hauled him onto her thin shoulders. This was not going to be comfortable for either of them, but they didn’t have much of a choice.
He woke up a few bells later; she managed to haul him back down the valley to a bamboo grove, removed the arrow and its head, bandaged his leg, and given him a potion while he slept. He was already looking much better, and while she hadn’t put up the tent yet, she was preparing food. She’d had to bandage her own wound much further back in order to carry him so far. It had been deeper than she thought; she had hardly felt it in her focus on protecting Percival. She felt it a lot more now, but she didn’t regret it one bit.
“Nnghf – This isn’t where I passed out.”
“No,” she said, and couldn’t restrain a proud smile. “I carried you for an entire bell.” She passed him his waterbottle.
He grinned faintly at her. “What did I tell you in training?”
“What did I tell you?” she rejoined. “I was helpful, I protected you!”
“You sure did,” he said, and gave her that weird gesture he called a ‘fistbump’. “You’re always helpful, though. Sorry I got hurt.” He reached out to her bandage. “You got hurt too.”
It was true that hearing him get shot had been terrifying. But she didn’t want to think about that. “It’s nothing. Barely a scratch. I would endure it again and gladly, to help you.”
“You’ll have to,” he grumbled, closing his eyes again. “Anyone who manages to live a merc life without getting injured is a coward or impossibly perfect. And you’re neither, skilled though you are, my girl.”
She smiled at the endearment and the compliment. He would be fine after he had a chance to rest. And then they wouldn’t go down that particular road anymore.
She hadn’t realized that he was looking at her again until he spoke again. “Hey. Are you okay?”
Had her face betrayed her other thoughts? “I… I didn’t hesitate. I killed them. …They’re dead.”
“Yes,” he said. “They’re dead. …Kensaki. Why do you take up your sword?”
She blinked at the unexpected military address, lifting her head slowly to stare out at the undulating landscape, but she had her answer. It was all she had been thinking about since the fight, after all. “I take up my sword to protect you. To protect myself, to protect everyone I can. And I know that sometimes it is necessary to kill, that it is not enough to act defensively – that it is better to give a swift and merciful death than that we die.” She gave him a steady, unhappy look. “I know this. It is logical. We have discussed it repeatedly as I trained. This is not even the first time I have killed. But my heart still weeps.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s fine. As long as you act as necessary in the moment. As I’ve said before, it would be great if no one killed each other, but sometimes people have to die, and sometimes we are going to be the ones to kill them. Some you will remember more than others, and that’s normal too. But you know logic and feelings don’t have much to do with each other. You can grieve them if you want to. Just know that I’m glad to be alive, and I bet you are too. You are brave and strong and you use it well.”
She let out a breath that contained all her tension. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Is the food ready yet?”
A strange thing happened in her twenty-second summer. The Red Moon ceased its orbit across the sky, floating ominously in the west just over the horizon. No one seemed to know why, not even the Imperials, with their knowledge of things across the Three Continents – at least, not the low-ranking Imperials that they interacted with. Percival swore privately that it must be some Garlean plot, but of course he had no way to prove that.
Achiyo did not know anything. All that she felt was that she had an uneasy feeling in her chest, building day by day, and at night she began to have strange dreams. She did not remember them when she woke. But there was death in them, and flames.
Slowly the Red Moon slipped over the horizon. The feeling did not get better. Everyone seemed to feel it; villagers went about their business with shoulders hunched, as if afraid of a sudden blow from above; even the Garleans went about their business in a hurried manner.
And then one morning, an earthquake struck – an earthquake unlike any Achiyo had ever lived through, and she had grown up on Hingashi where earthquakes were a monthly occurrence if not more. The ground heaved beneath her feet as if trying to buck her off into space, and Percival at least lost his balance, stumbling sideways in a clatter of armour. She managed to keep her feet, tail and arms outstretched.
And then it was over. The world hung still for a moment to catch its breath, and then a bird chirped.
She never saw the Red Moon again. And it was another five years before she learned what had happened to it.
“It is a difficult job,” Kaien said. “But that is why I would ask the two of you to do it.”
Percival looked at Achiyo and she looked back. They’d never been asked for anything like this before.
They’d never been asked to collude directly with the Garleans before.
“You said this is one of the concessions they’re demanding of you?” Percival asked.
Kaien nodded. “The main portion of this agreement is that I am to provide a number of samurai to work in concert with one of their garrisons. However, I don’t have enough samurai whom I completely trust to refrain from getting themselves killed from pride, politics or no. I’ve known you a long time, Percival-dono – and Achiyo-dono, too.”
Percival exhaled. “Give us a minute to discuss.”
“Certainly.” Kaien sipped his tea and closed his eyes, visibly withdrawing from the conversation.
Percival scooted his zabuton over to the corner of the room, and she followed. “What do you think?”
She knew there was a distant storm in her eyes. “I do not want to work with the Garleans. They are cruel, and greedy, and care nothing for this land or her people. I do not want to help them in any way possible. You know this.”
“I know,” Percival said. “Kaien doesn’t want to either, you realize. He’s sending his own men, possibly off to die for no good reason.”
“I know,” she said. “And I do not wish to add to his burdens. What would you advise?”
He was slow to answer. “It’s not an easy choice. They say it’s banditry, and that sounds simple enough. But once we’re locked into a contract, we have to abide by it, whatever they ask us to do. Or else get punished by the Empire for insubordination or rebellion, on top of making Kaien look bad.”
“It’s at least easy to believe it really is banditry,” she said. “And that harms ordinary folk.”
“True,” he said. “Though I’d remember that the Garleans are likely the root cause of that, too. So. What do you want to do?”
She thought for a long minute. “I don’t like it. But I want to help Kaien-sama. And the commonfolk who are affected.”
Percival nodded. “All right. Reasonable.”
They returned to the table. “We accept,” Percival said, and a faint look of relief passed over Kaien’s face. “What are the specifics?”
The cold metal gates of the Garlean castrum gaped before them, and Achiyo set her shoulders as she followed Percival in, following their guide. She was afraid, but she would not show it, not here. She had a job to do.
She looked around. Every building was made of metal, gleaming dully in the cold autumn sunlight, and scattered throughout the courtyard were giant metal caltrops the size of a Roegadyn, as if to ward off huge machines. Who would challenge them that way? The only people with such machines were the Garleans themselves… were they afraid the local people would capture their magitek and use it against them? Black uniforms were everywhere, drilling, patrolling, watching them curiously. She had to wonder if they would be allowed to leave again.
They came to an office, or maybe a briefing room – in either case, she’d never been in a room like it before, but there was a captain by a desk and a magitek screen at the head of the room. “Ah, Captain Byers, Kensaki. Thank you for coming.” She removed her helmet and showed her face; she looked like a normal person under the helmet. Tanned skin, ash-blonde hair, she looked like how Percival had described people from Ala Mhigo.
Percival had flinched, just slightly. “I’m not Captain Byers. Just Byers, if you’d be so kind.”
The captain nodded. “As you will, Byers. I’m Captain Lowe. I assume you have little love for Imperial uniforms, but allow me to explain the situation.” She sat at the desk and steepled her fingers grimly. “There is a terrorist organization in the western hills. They claim no connection with the main rebel force, and I actually believe them, because their attacks affect both Garlean and civilian targets indiscriminately, and we both know the resistance wouldn’t stand for that. The fact that Kaien is willing to collaborate lends credence to it as well.”
Achiyo could not stay silent. “Why must he collaborate? Can you not handle it on your own?” Percival tensed beside her, she could almost hear him telling her she was recklessly foolish in her head.
Captain Lowe just shook her head. “I can’t tell you the reason for that, for operational security. Kensaki, I can guess what you think of us, of me, but I must do my duty in good faith with these people. If I do not defend them, who would defend my…? Anyway, I’m not doing this just out of Garlean interest, but for Doma’s interest as well. These rebels are not ‘helping’ anyone but themselves.”
Achiyo was silent. If Lowe was from Ala Mhigo, was she afraid for family back home? She still didn’t like it, but it made her a little more sympathetic to her.
“This may be a prolonged campaign,” Captain Lowe said, standing again and turning on the magitek screen. “Let me show you our positions…”
They were given living space, with the other samurai, in a Garlean barracks. Achiyo wanted to talk about what was happening, but there was no privacy from other people, and Percival indicated that they might be spied on by machines. There were even separate sleeping chambers for men and women, so they would not be allowed to stay together at night. Achiyo nearly resolved to sleep in her armour, but if they had been brought here to be killed, this would be a strangely roundabout way of doing it.
The terrorists had been represented to her as being more dangerous than the Imperials. Though their stated goal was to destroy the castrum, among their other strategies they were committing to a ‘scorched earth’ tactic that destroyed the fields of the surrounding villages. Surely they realized this harmed the people more than the Empire? Yes, they were also harassing Imperial patrols, and stealing supply shipments and caches, and once had even made direct action on the castrum by trying to sabotage a magitek walker into a bomb, but as for the fields, the Imperials could always get more shipments from elsewhere, and if they were anything like other Imperials the bullying of nearby villages would only become worse on top of everything. Maybe they were using that for recruiting, was Lowe’s guess.
She was regretting her choice to help Kaien. She felt trapped inside these metal walls. “Why are we still in Yanxia?” she murmured to Percival.
He frowned at her. “We could go to Dalmasca – same problem. Or the Steppe, where they’re so fiercely independent and short on resources that the Empire doesn’t bother – and outsiders get shot. Or the Burn, which is an endless wasteland where no one lives. Or…”
“All right,” she said, feeling sick at heart. The Empire claimed too much of the world.
The actual campaign was not smooth, nor easy. It was terrifying, and sickening – to fight beside black-armoured stormtroopers, into dark wooded hills, where any moment arrows or spells might come flying at them. Achiyo found her sixth sense for danger growing stronger, and somehow she was never in the path of an arrow nor a fireball.
And when they closed in battle with the terrorists, then her skills truly shone. She didn’t want them to. But she could not fight at anything less than her full strength; she didn’t know how to hold back without putting herself in danger. So she proved better than the Imperial soldiers, better than the other samurai, better than Captain Lowe, better even than Percival. And the longer the campaign dragged on – sennights, fortnights, for the rebels constantly fled before them, regrouping to yet another hidden camp – the better she became; she had not been consistently challenged like this before and though she hated it, her abilities thrived.
Flames raged through the darkening night, throwing the world into a confusion of lights and blackness and smoke. Achiyo could hardly tell friend from foe. The Garleans had encircled the last bastion of the rebels, an abandoned-looking village deep in the forest, and attacked at dusk. The rebels had counted on their hiding place to be hidden rather than defensible, and there little chance that they could escape with their lives. But then someone had thrown a grenade, and now everything was on fire. “Kami,” she breathed in horror.
Percival was breathing hard with emotions she’d never seen in him before. She heard him mutter “It’s happening again…” and he was hanging back strangely. She looked at him in concern, but Captain Lowe shouted and pointed, and Achiyo ran to obey.
Three enemies burst out of a burning building in front of her, coughing and choking. She did not want to cut them down when they couldn’t fight back, but if she didn’t, someone else would and then punish her for not acting. She smashed into the front one with her shield, knocking her to the ground, parried the desperate strike of the second one and stabbed, and turned to the third – and froze.
“Mother! Father!” shrieked the smallest figure – a child! These people had their families here!?
There was no time to think – how could she at least save the child from this slaughter? She sheathed her sword and picked up the child, dragging them back with her towards where she had last seen Percival. People rushed around her, dark shapes in the fires’ light, shouting, buildings collapsed with groaning crashes. The child was struggling against her and screaming. She did not know how to explain that she was trying to help. A tall person with a spear charged her, and she turned aside to protect the child, catching the spearhead on her shield. But he attacked again and again, and she missed. The spear went into her side.
She let out a cry of agony, dropping the child who vanished into the darkness, but before the spearman could attack again, Percival was there, in front of her, driving him away. She fell to her knees, fumbling for her health potion, but she could barely feel her fingers through the pain and before she even found the bottle she had passed out.
She came to with the taste of potion in her mouth, and Percival cradling her, calling – no, begging for help. He sounded scared.
“I’m all right,” she mumbled. She was awake, at least.
“You are godsdamned well not,” he said, his voice shaking. “Seven hells, the blood- Captain Lowe! Please-”
“Medic!” Captain Lowe called over the melee, and a shorter Imperial ran up with a strange magic staff. They lifted it, it gave a green glow, and Achiyo suddenly breathed without pain.
Achiyo scrambled to her feet, ready to fulfill her job – no, not ready, as black spots swam before her eyes from standing too quickly, with blood loss to boot. Percival supported her. “Easy, easy, girl. The battle’s done.” Or near as, from what she could hear.
“There was a child – I was trying to save them-”
“They’re long gone by now, and better for them,” Percival said quietly. “They’re not taking prisoners.”
“Were there… other children?” she asked, afraid of the answer.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t see well.”
“Form up,” Captain Lowe said, sounding tired. “Kensaki, on your feet?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Achiyo said.
“Back to base,” Captain Lowe ordered. “Wounded in the middle. Heslin, take point.”
The march back was long and tiring, and it was near sundown the next day when finally they returned to the castrum. There was an Imperial commander waiting for the unit in the courtyard. “Report, Lowe.”
“The rebels are gone, sir,” she said. “Not one escaped.” Achiyo wondered with a heavy heart if the child was included.
“Finally,” the commander said, scanning his gaze around the battered soldiers… and others. “Took you long enough. And with… provincial help, at that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well? Why?”
“The rebels had many hidden paths of retreat, sir. However, Imperial forces and samurai working together were more effective than my troops and I could accomplish alone. It is my hope that this successful operation will foster further cooperation with the locals.”
“So you admit you’re useless, then?” said the commander. “An interesting hypothesis, Lowe. But it won’t happen again.”
Captain Lowe sagged almost imperceptibly. “Yes, sir.”
The bang of the magitek pistol ricocheted around the yard, and Captain Lowe flopped to the ground. Achiyo almost screamed, almost bolted, certainly jumped nearly out of her skin.
The commander looked at them all. “Kaien’s dogs, eh? Here to wag your tails for your master? Here’s a new order: you get out of this castrum in ten seconds and I won’t order the troops to use you for target practice.”
“Run, Achiyo,” Percival murmured, and she didn’t need telling twice, following the other half-dozen samurai out of the gate as fast as she could go. The commander’s chuckle burned in her ears.
They were not yet out of sight of the walls when she felt pain in her abdomen, where she had been stabbed, and she lurched. Percival hastily caught her before she hit the ground. “Dammit. That conjurer must not have been very good. Or near out of mana. Come on. Just a bit further. We’re not stopping in sight of a castrum.” She could hardly put one foot in front of the other suddenly, so he scooped her up and carried her on his back, like she was a child again, armour and all.
She woke in the tent, and smelled campfire outside. She nearly retched, her mind filling with images of the horrible attack she had been part of. Percival’s hand came to rest on her shoulder. “It’s all right, girl. We’re safe. For now, anyway. You’ve slept the night.”
She had too much to process, and took some deep breaths, trying to push past the scent of burning wood. It was a perfectly harmless smell in this context. But ‘What happened?’ was not going to cut it.
“Why did my wound start to hurt again?” she asked finally. She pushed the blanket of her bedroll down and saw her tunic was loose; he must have been checking her injury. She felt for it with her fingers and found a fresh scar, three ilms long and surprisingly deep in her skin, though the skin was still knit together.
“The conjurer wasn’t very skilful,” Percival said. “I could almost do a better job just from having grown up in Gridania, the home of conjury. So it was sort of healed for our march back, but when we suddenly had to run, it tore open again internally. I suspect, anyway. I gave you another potion while you were sleeping, but I think you’re just going to have to rest until it fixes up now, because we’re out. The samurai are gone, but it’s fine. We completed the job.”
“Very well.” Potions and spells accelerated the body’s natural healing to the point where it saved lives from near-mortal injuries, but once they were gone, the body had to finish the job on its own. If her guts had been ripped open again, a potion was probably only barely holding them together. She probably shouldn’t move for a sennight. How irritating – and they were still far too close to the castrum. Her side itched and her tail was complaining from being lain on too long.
“At least you’re on your way to building a scar collection,” Percival tried to joke, but a tremour in his voice betrayed him and he half-covered his face with a hand. There were dark shadows under his eyes; how long had he kept vigil beside her, worrying over her yet again? “It’s a gnarly one, you’ll either want to show it off at every opportunity, or keep it as hidden as possible so as not to distract from your pretty face.”
“I don’t think I’m so vain either way,” she said thoughtfully. “I’ve seen your scars many times. They’re only a part of you.” The number of times he’d done manual labour with no shirt on alone had made his scars unexciting to her. “I’m sorry I made you worry.”
He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve done the same for me.”
Next question, then, after a pause to contemplate. “Why did he shoot her?”
Percival shrugged. “He obviously didn’t agree with how she was running things, and if you’re high-enough rank, you can do anything, including murder your subordinates. Especially out here in the provinces, to a non-Garlean. Or maybe he was just power-tripping. Or feeling spiteful.”
“I believe she was trying her best,” Achiyo said.
“I think she probably was. Nothing about this situation was good for anyone. …Just don’t forget whose fault it truly is.”
“The Garleans’?” she asked. No one would be in this situation if they hadn’t invaded and conquered the country, using soldiers coerced from another conquered country.
He nodded.
“It was horrible,” she whispered. “The fire, the screaming, the confusion… They might have committed crimes, but they were just ordinary, desperate people.”
He reached out to hold her hand and squeezed it. “I know. I… know I’ve said a lot about integrity and getting the job done even if you don’t like it, but… there’s exceptions for actual evil, and we haven’t talked enough about it. There’s a line for everyone. And I think we crossed it.”
She tried not to choke on her guilt.
“I was actually going to hold you back,” he said, gripping her hand harder. “Once I realized what was happening, once I got over my… I was going to take you and run, contract be damned. Kaien would understand, even if it caused him problems. But I couldn’t find you, until I saw you fall wounded. And then of course it was too late.”
“We couldn’t get out of it,” she said in agony. “Kami, I wish… I wish we could have. She might not have killed us.”
“She probably would have,” Percival said. “A choice between killing deserting mercenaries, and possibly dooming her family back home to death? Not a choice at all.” After a pause, he muttered: “At least we fulfilled our contract with Kaien – for whatever good that is.”
She wanted to cry. “What a horrible way to die… I killed those two people. Innocent blood is on my hands.” And more, before, if they were all the same.
“Yes, but- Listen to me, Achiyo. Listen to me. You risked your life to help that kid. Not just from the people we were fighting trying to kill you to rescue the kid, but from Imperials noticing you were helping them. You shed blood in their defence and no one will thank you for it.” He held her hand tightly. “Sometimes there’s no right thing to do. You did your very best in a situation no one should ever have to be in, and I am so, so proud of you for the choices you made.”
His words helped – a little. There was still a well of guilt that had been growing inside her ever since she had first gone into the field beside the Imperials, and it was overflowing in this moment. Saving the child had not been a choice; she would have sooner killed herself than knowingly attack them. “Why did we stay? Why could we not have gone to Eorzea? I know it pains you and yet we would have been truly free there – we could fight the Empire there – we-”
“I know,” he said, bowing his head. “I know. I’m to blame. I’m sorry.”
The last, most delicate question, then. “Back there, you said… ‘It’s happening again’.”
He turned away. “I… once was in a situation almost exactly like that night. Burning village at night, supposed insurgents turning out to be normal people… Right down to kids being caught in the crossfire.”
She gasped in horrified sympathy. “To live it once was a nightmare. To live it twice…”
“I hate that I can’t escape it,” he said. “You wondered why I never talk about myself. I… I can’t. You followed bad orders because you didn’t think you had a choice. I…”
She could fill in enough blanks from there. “I understand.”
“You have to live, no matter what,” he whispered, looking at her with sudden intensity. “Then maybe I’ll feel like I’ve made up a little for my sins.”
“Even if I gather sins of my own?”
He fell silent, and there they stayed for a long time, holding each other’s hand.