Percival sneezed explosively and made a horrible schnorking sound as he sniffled. “Why am I sick,” he moaned, looking like he wanted to claw his nose off his face, huddling under blankets in a corner of the hut.
“Because you’ve been running all over the countryside in rain and snow, fighting beasts and monsters and gods know what else without a break for months,” Hiina retorted, stirring a thin soup on the fire. “Achiyo-chan, did you get the medicinal tea?”
“Use a handkerchief,” Achiyo scolded him, presenting Hiina with a small packet of expensive tea which she had just returned with, along with what fresh food she could afford afterwards. Regular tea was pricey enough, but this special tea, out here in rural Doma, was twice as expensive.
“The sneeze happened too fast,” he protested, sniffling again and holding the handkerchief to his face. “Argh. This is the worst.”
“You will feel better once you’ve had some tea and soup,” Hiina said. “Achiyo-chan, could I trouble you to bring in more firewood? And then sit over there, away from Percival. We don’t want you to get sick as well.”
“Very well,” Achiyo said, ignoring Percival’s sad little sick noises. He was very ill, but despite the lack of healers in the village, he was unlikely to die from it. He was only unused to feeling weak and incapacitated. She was unused to seeing him weak and incapacitated, and it made her uncomfortable. At least it would pass in a few days.
“How have your travels been?” Hiina asked when they’d all been settled with soup, and Percival also with a cup of expensive tea. “You did not come visit only because you fell ill, did you?”
“No,” Achiyo said, smiling. “We were already coming to visit after going to Monzen. I know it is a poor gift we bring, but you have our thanks for giving him proper shelter to recover with, and this good soup.” It had been more difficult than previously. The Empire had built a small depot not far away. Percival had taken a look and between sniffles declared that the Empire had it out for him personally.
“Of course,” Hiina said. “Your presence is always a gift. And you brought me some lovely treats from Monzen, too.”
“You want to know what’s a poor gift,” Percival said. “I started sneezing on her nameday.”
“Oh, it was your nameday recently?” Hiina said. “I should make something nice to eat…”
Achiyo shook her head. “My nameday is not a day of interest. Please don’t go out of your way.” She could tell Hiina was short on food as it was.
“How old are you, now, then?” Hiina asked.
“This begins my twenty-fourth year,” Achiyo said. “I have been travelling with Percival now… fifteen years and a bit.”
“Our acquaintanceship is going to be an adult soon,” Percival said. “Gods, makes me feel old.”
“You are not that old,” Hiina said fondly. Achiyo thought numerically he was getting old, even if he did not seem to age in her eyes. “Achiyo-chan, have you met anyone yet?”
Anyone to marry, she was asking, and Achiyo shook her head. “I travel too far and too often to become well-acquainted with anyone, and those I have met hold no interest for me.” She’d rehearsed her answers well; Mitsu and Tori – both married now, neither to Kawanami, thank the kami – also pestered her about it every time she saw them.
“Oh, why not?” Hiina asked. “Surely there are still some young people around, the Empire has not taken them all…”
“I do not think I will marry a woman,” Achiyo said. “And in a man… I would wish for someone kind and compassionate, brave and honourable…”
“She likes ’em with long legs,” Percival cackled from his sickbed. Hiina giggled.
Achiyo turned deliberately calm and unblushing calm eyes on him. “Pray refrain, Tou-san.” Really. She was never commenting on a man’s appearance to him again.
Percival wrinkled his nose. “I’m not your Tou-san.”
She frowned at him with exasperation. “Then what are you? You’ve been doing your very best to be one all these years. O-to-u-sa-ma.”
“All right, all right! I’ll concede, just stop calling me that. I’m your guardian- no, at this point I’m more like your mentor, aren’t I?”
“Mentor I will accept,” Achiyo said. “As for your question, Hiina-san, I find it does not really matter to me what a man looks like, to an extent. I would wish for someone around my age, and with a body strong enough that we make our way through life together, and I should of course like if he has a handsome face, but that description fits many people. It is their heart I want to know. But how should I know if I have met a good person, when no one can allow themselves to truly be their full selves in these times? Such a person would become a target of cruelty until they have learned to hide themselves.”
Hiina looked down. “It is true. Ishiku, for instance, has not been openly happy in many years. I feel for him, because he was so different as a child… but who can blame him for being angry and lost in his helplessness?”
Achiyo nodded. Even the young men with enough confidence to flirt with her in village markets… she saw the hollowness in their eyes. She had not met anyone without it yet. And that did not get into the men who did not like a woman in armour, the men who were arrogant, the men who were lecherous. “I will wait. I am not in a hurry to be married. Perhaps I never shall be. And that does not bother me.”
“Do you not want children?” Hiina asked. Percival made a face again. “Don’t make that face, Percival, don’t you want to see her children too?”
“It feels weird,” Percival said, and sneezed three times in a row.
“I am not particularly drawn to children,” Achiyo said thoughtfully. “I think I would feel differently about it if they were my own, but that circles back to having someone to give me the children in the first place. But truly… if the Kensaki line were to die out, who would mourn?” Her father had had allies, he must have, but not many true friends. They must already believe his family was extinguished. They would not be made more sad if it came true.
“That is sad to me,” Hiina said quietly. “But at least you will be spared the pain of worrying about them…”
The awkward, depressing silence was abruptly broken by the alarm bell and shouting. Achiyo jumped up, reaching for her shield, listening. “Raiders – bandits?”
“They have become bolder – or more desperate – in the past year, despite the new fort nearby… or, my neighbour says, because of it,” Hiina said. “We have always driven them off before, but… Percival! Don’t move! You are in no state to fight!”
“I shall help,” Achiyo said. “Do not worry, Percival. We have fought bandits before. I shall not be alone.”
“Fight well,” Percival said, subsiding reluctantly under Hiina’s stern gaze, snurfling unhappily.
“I will be careful,” she assured them, and ran to fight.
Bladed weapons were illegal for peasantry to own, and while she would not have cared if she were in the wilderness, she could not count on the Imperials not investigating afterwards; she and Percival had discussed it. They really did not want Imperial attention ever again. So she took a hoe from the village smith and hefted it, joining the defensive line against the raiders coming from the forest across the fields.
The bandits were disorganized – a handful of desperate, starving men. Achiyo lamented their plight even as she fought them; whatever their reasons for acting outside of Doma’s captive society, this was part of how the Empire pitted Doman against Doman and kept them weak and divided. But she could not allow them to weaken Shizuihua. The few farmers who remained fought at her side with their tools, which did well enough against poorly-armed hungry folk.
But the bandits did not want to give up, no matter how they were beaten… until she heard a warning and turned to see Imperial troops coming up the road from the valley. “Percival,” she murmured, and made her decision. “I must go,” she said to Ishiku.
“Go then,” he barked, shoving a brigand with his shovel. “Don’t bring more trouble on us. We’ll handle this ourselves.”
“Yes,” she said, and disengaged, turning to go.
“Thank you,” he called after her, and she nodded in acknowledgement. He was still angry, but he was no longer angry at her.
She burst into Hiina’s house. “Percival – we must go. The Imperials are on their way.”
He scowled around a snurfle, though he sounded a bit less congested than before. “Ugh. Any chance we can just hide in the woods for a few bells and come back later?” He was already getting out of his blanket nest, shivering as he did.
“Can you not hide here?” Hiina said. “What reason would they have to search inside, if the raiders have not made it into the village?”
“No, Achiyo’s plan is better,” he said. “On the off chance that they do search, you won’t get in trouble.”
“Perhaps we can come back later,” Achiyo said. “But for now we must leave quickly and quietly. I will take care of you as best I can.”
He managed to spare a grin for her. “Look at you, taking charge. All right, Kensaki, I’ll follow your lead. Take care, Hiina. We’ll be back to pester you as soon as we can – hopefully when I don’t have this blasted illness.”
Winter was warming into spring again, on the cusp of a new year. Achiyo was just turned twenty-five, which meant that Percival claimed he was forty-seven. At any rate, he was getting rather grey in the hair, though his grey-blue eyes were still as keen and stern as ever.
The land had been changing, and not for the better. Ever since the incident with the rebels, the two of them had been even more careful than before, keeping to the outskirts of Yanxia, and visiting Hiina and Monzen less often. Banditry had been on the rise, until the Imperials quelled it – at least in the centre of the country. On the fringes it was more dangerous, not only with brigands but with monsters as well, though Percival was of the opinion that that was how it always was regardless of the presence of Garleans.
There was not much left for Percival to teach her, for she was grown into her role, a steady, experienced companion to her guardian, and few wanted to challenge two armed and heavily armoured warriors like they were. Technically she was his equal – perhaps she had even surpassed him, in some ways. But she still followed beside him like she always had.
She was starting to miss culture, the plays and music that still sometimes happened even in occupied Doma. Sure, every performance had started with the Garlean anthem, and had a decidedly pro-Imperial flavour running through them, but it was still art. “I almost miss playing the koto,” she said one day as they tramped up a wooded road, heading towards the northwestern mountains. Maybe the Steppe would be open to them this time, if they approached more carefully.
“No, you don’t,” Percival teased her. “You told me playing music is your worst skill.”
“It is! That does not mean I cannot miss even it.” She flexed her fingers and laughed. “I’m sure I’ve forgotten everything except how to pluck the strings.”
“Isn’t that the main part?”
“It helps to know what order to pluck the strings in,” she said sardonically, and he chuckled. “And there’s the other hand, as well. That was where I got in trouble. I could never coordinate.”
“Which is odd, because you have no trouble coordinating a sword and shield.”
“You don’t even play an instrument,” she pointed out.
“Not… technically true,” Percival said hesitantly. “I have played guitar.”
“Which one is that?”
“It’s got about six strings, and looks a bit like a… a… what’s it called… Maybe kind of like a shamisen, but bigger.”
“You have never mentioned this.” It wasn’t even traumatic. Probably.
“Well, I never said I was good at it… Last time I played I was… oh, younger than you. I could play ‘Yellow Serpent Banner’ and ‘Florentel’s Dream’ and that’s about-” He stopped suddenly. “Ware.”
There were people on the road ahead, and that wasn’t necessarily unusual. Though Percival usually passed fellow travellers in silence and alertness anyway. But these folk were armed and armoured, and they were covering the road from side to side, fifteen or twenty of them.
Percival narrowed his eyes as he regarded them, still a good thirty yalms away. “Do you want anything with us?”
“We’d like your money,” said one of them, a taller man with a beard and a sword. “Hard to get by these days, you know.”
“Throw in the girl and we won’t even kill ya!” said another, who was elbowed into silence by his fellows.
Percival rolled his eyes and drew his sword, though he was backing away. “Brigands, huh? I feel like ‘no’. Achiyo, this is too many. Retreat and I’ll join you when I get away.”
A couple more attackers jumped from the forest on their right, trying to slow them down or cut them off. Achiyo swerved to face them, still backing away, but the main group was running towards them. Percival moved to intercept her opponents and glared at her. “Run! That’s an order! I’ll find you!”
“Yes – good luck!” She turned and ran back along the path, sword and shield ready, but they had not been surrounded at least so her route was clear. She heard Percival shout “Not so fast!” and saw the flicker of Flash glancing off the trees; he was buying her time and blinding them to help himself.
She ran back a long way. Half an hour, maybe. To the last fork in the road. Surely they wouldn’t be pursued that far. And there, she waited, watching every which way. He might come from an unexpected direction. She was not worried that he would miss her, but she wanted to be ready. Or there might be other unsavoury sorts nearby.
He didn’t come. She waited an hour, worry growing in her belly. He didn’t come. No one came.
She went back. It was stupid and dangerous and her heart had grown so tight in her chest from fear she couldn’t bear it. Slowly walking in dread along the road she had so recently run.
There were bodies in the place she had left him – many bodies. Right in the middle of them, he lay. She ran forward and stopped stock still at his side. His face was grey and bloodless in death; his body and throat were covered in many wounds between the plates of his armour. The road was dark with blood, his and others.
She opened her mouth and no sound came out. She fell to her knees beside him, clutching at his hand. His fingers were cold. His grey-blue eyes were dull, staring sightlessly up at the clouded sky.
Her heart was going to burst. Outwardly she was silent and motionless, but inside her emotions whirled like a maelstrom. She was in physical pain from grief and she didn’t know how to deal with it. He had been with her hours ago. Only two hours.
Rough voices echoed between the trees up the road, approaching. “Aha, the girl came back. See, we didn’t have to go find her after all.”
“She’s got a lot to pay for, we lost ten men to that bastard. She won’t be so pretty when we’re done with her.”
She stood and faced them. There were another ten men, and she stared at them with wild, trembling eyes and drew her sword and shield.
“Dammit, she’s going to fight. Watch out, she’s got another of those straight swords-”
She opened her mouth in a silent shriek and charged at them. Waves of grief were crashing over her, bursting out of her, grief and fury and hatred. She was in among them, casting Flash, slashing, stabbing. Her small stature made it hard for them to aim properly at her, and she had nothing to lose – everything was a target for her.
Her grief gave her no additional strength, unlocked no hidden powers, gave her no extra finesse. But though she was sloppy and uncoordinated, half-blinded by rage, her footwork was as steady as ever, and they were not used to fighting an Eorzean style. She killed four men before she found the rest running from her.
She stood still, watching them go, her sword dripping blood, her heart in agony as if it had been pierced.
He still lay in the middle of the road. If she had a conjurer on hand, or a highly skilled geomancer, she could revive him. To bring him back from the dead, it was possible, if powerful spells were cast soon after death. But he was long cold; the time was slipping by, and she did not know any geomancers nor where to find them. Her wild wish could not be granted.
So, then, he must be buried. And though she could hardly look upon him, could scarcely see for the tears that filled her eyes, she lifted him and carried him from the road. She did not want to bury him where he fell, for fear that too obvious a grave would be desecrated in this straitened time.
To the north through the trees was a small river, and she laid him down within sight of it. Then she began to dig. She had no shovel, so she tried to use her shield, a stout stick, her hands. Her gloves became filthy as she clawed at the soil. There was a plum tree nearby, softly shedding white petals, and she cursed it in her heart – that every time she saw white petals in the wind, she would think of this awful day.
It took hours to make it deep enough, and dusk was falling before she considered her labours sufficient. She went to pick him up, to ease him into his eternal resting place, and found she could not. She could not move, only holding his hand tightly. The word ‘eternal’ was terrifying. From the moment that he was in the grave, she would be wholly and irrevocably alone.
“Otou-san,” she whispered to the breeze. He had never let her call her that, but it was who he was to her. “Tou-san. You saved me a thousand times, and I could only save you a few times. Why not this time? Why did you send me away?” Her breath caught. “You showed me the world. You made me who I am. You protected me and cared for me as faithfully as my blood-related father. How could I have ever thanked you – how can I ever thank you now?” Her tears fell on his hand. “I wish you had not sent me away. I would rather have died beside you, if we could not both live. I know you once told me to live no matter what, but… I love you, Tou-san, and you deserved better than to be slain alone in the wilderness…”
She was already alone, and waiting would not bring him back, nor make the burial any easier. She was not ready, it was too sudden! With a great effort of will, she roused herself and made herself continue. She could at least sort through what possessions should be buried with him, before she took the last step that held her back. He had no need of camping gear, for instance, but she still did.
Once he was lying in the grave, with his sword at his side and his shield across his face – she felt it would be disrespectful to cover his face directly with earth – she stopped to think again. She wanted to leave something with him, something of hers to be with him forever, to thank him one more time for everything he had done for her.
Slowly she reached up to her hair and pulled out the sakura hairpin. Once he had bought it for her just to make her smile. The years had dulled its colours and weathered the shine of the petals, but it was still pretty. That would be her tribute to him. She placed it in his hand and stood, climbing out of the grave that was taller than she was.
Her tears had been spent in the digging, and in the filling in under half-moonlight she had no more to cry. Maybe she would never cry again.
The moon set and she could hardly see, but she could not sleep; she prayed through the rest of the night to all the kami to protect his rest. When the eastern sky began to glow, she tidied the ground one last time, cleaned her gear, found a river-smoothed stone, and spent more than a bell painstakingly scratching his name into it.
Her task finally complete, she stood and departed, and did not look back.
She left the gear she did not need hidden near to his grave, and returned to the site of battle. The bodies lay where they had fallen, and she did not touch them. Certainly she could have scavenged resources from them, looted what coins they might have, and if she and Percival were still together they would have done so without a second thought. But she felt it would taint her vengeance to loot as well. She did not want to kill them for personal gain, and she wanted that to be crystal clear to anyone whom she encountered.
She found the tracks of the survivors, and though she was not the most skilled tracker, she followed them. Their place of origin was surely not far away. Up into the hills, out of the forest and to a dry, cave-pocked mountainside, she followed the tracks, making no effort to conceal herself. She did not feel anything, not fear, nor hot rage, only a cold determination.
She heard a scuffling noise, and then a yelp, and that told her where to go. She drew her sword and shield, and went into the cave.
“She followed us!” “Shite, run!” “She’s alone, we can take her-” “She doesn’t care, can’t you see it? Bloody run!” They were afraid of her now, after what she had done to them the day before, and some of them fought desperately, some of them fled deeper into the cave. It was fortified, but she had surprised them, and the door was not barred against her, not before she had charged through.
She knew it was foolish, entering their territory, where they knew the caves better than she did, where they could set a trap for her, where they could come at her from behind. She set her teeth and pressed forward, blinding them with Flash, defending herself with Sentinel, her sword darting and flickering among them, seeking out weak points in their armour, battering their defences aside. Blood spilled on the stone floor, and almost none of it was hers.
She came to a larger cave, and here the remaining half-dozen stood at bay against her. They looked at her, and she hoped they could still tell from her face that there was nothing they could say or do to turn her aside. The arrows they loosed at her clattered on her shield, and she charged them silently.
They fell before her, one by one, their blood running down her blade. The last one was the leader, who dared to plead with her even as he fought her, but she was in no mood to spare any of them even if they had thrown down their weapons.
She stabbed him in the ribs and as he coughed and staggered back, something came over her, a dizzy sensation, and suddenly-
suddenly she saw
Percival, fighting on the path where she had left him, surrounded, outnumbered, slowly retreating, using the trees as partial cover.
“What’s the matter, he’s just one man!” cried the brigand leader. Another man feinted, Percival reacted-
The leader’s sword pierced Percival’s side in the gap between breastplate and backplate. He flinched, stumbled back, and gasped – and lunged at a man who had gotten too close, slicing his arm open from elbow to the back of the hand. The bandits backed off, a little, watching him warily, waiting for him to fall – for with how his blood was gushing from the wound, it was only a matter of time.
Percival looked down, pressing his hand to his side in a futile effort to staunch the flood, backing away to reach for a potion – though it wouldn’t save his life on its own, it would certainly help. But a man with a spear thrust his weapon forward, and shattered the potion bottles at his hip.
Percival gritted his teeth against the pain… and then looked up and laughed. Flat out laughed. “Oh, you have screwed up, lads. Utterly buggered it. You utter idiots! I was going to try and get away… but now I can’t. So guess what!” He lifted his sword with no more discernible effort than usual, casting Sword Oath and Hallowed Ground, and sprang into their midst, bright steel gleaming. “I’m going to take as many of you as I can with me!”
Men screamed and stumbled back from the madman, from the demon they had unleashed. Heads rolled and limbs flew. “Are you insane?” cried the leader, blocking Percival’s strike and then deciding he didn’t want to do that again. “No matter what you do, you can’t save your girl, we’ll just catch her later.”
Percival cackled. “No you won’t. She got away, and she’s better than I am. She’ll miss me, sure. But she’ll have a long and happy life. And you’ll have no part of it!”
He laughed, and laughed, as bandits died on his sword, and he was still laughing when the bandit leader’s sword cut his throat.
Achiyo came to her senses in the bandit fortress, her hand to her throbbing head, her eyes hot and burning and yet with no tears in them. She had fallen back against the wall, away from the foes she had just slain. Where had that vision come from? Was it true?
A gurgling rasp came from across the room, and she saw the wounded bandit leader seize his sword and rush at her, wild-eyed.
She had been silent during the first part of her assault, but now she screamed, and swung, beheading the man who had killed her guardian. Alone in a cave full of dead men, she screamed, dropping her sword and shield and clutching her bloodstained gloves to her head, trying to forget again what she had seen. Echoing through the tunnels, her screams multiplied, deafening, shutting out the world.
Her steps took her slowly but inexorably up the road to Shizuihua. There was the gate, there was Hiina’s house. She knocked, and Percival might have not waited for permission to enter, but she… could not do as he did.
Hiina opened the door, and smiled in surprise. “Achiyo-chan?” Her smile fell. “What has happened? Why do you look so…”
Her mouth opened and for a moment no sound came out. She didn’t want to say it. “Percival is dead.”
Hiina froze. Her mouth opened, wavered, closed, her eyes wide and horrified. “No… That can’t…”
She didn’t know what to say. “I wish it were not true with all my heart.”
Hiina wandered back into the house in a daze, going over to the white pot with the dark leaves, taking down from the shelf and putting it back in utter distraction. “But he… he’s too good for that!”
Achiyo paused in the doorway. “We were outnumbered ten to one. He… he protected me.” She was afraid that if she told it exactly as it had happened, that Hiina would turn on her, accuse her of being the reason Percival had died.
She already thought that herself. He had given her an order, he had said it was an order. Yet that was the one order she should have disobeyed. She wished she had with all her soul.
Hiina let out a sob and slumped at the table, putting her face into her hands.
Achiyo approached her. “I brought everything that I did not bury with him. He would want you to be supported as much as possible.” She put his purse on the table. “He cared about you very much. If anything of his can bring you comfort for his loss…”
Hiina looked at it through weeping eyes, but did not touch it, instead reaching out to Achiyo. “It’s not your fault, Achiyo-chan.” Achiyo inhaled – how had she guessed? “I know you tried to protect him. That’s all you ever wanted to do, wasn’t it? That’s why you took up the sword to follow in his footsteps. But I understand.” She squeezed Achiyo. “He would not suffer his child to be hurt, not while he could save her, no matter the cost. I know because I would have done the same for my children – only I cannot fight the Empire, not alone.”
Maybe Hiina did understand. Maybe she would not blame Achiyo for the truth. “I avenged him. Not one of them remains to trouble travellers.”
She wasn’t going to stay the night, but Hiina persuaded her. It felt like she was invading Hiina’s privacy, that she would surely rather grieve alone. But Hiina seemed rather to think that no one should grieve alone, that she was almost more worried for Achiyo than for herself. “I cared for him, yes. I loved him, even – a difficult man to love, and yet somehow it was so easy. But you shared your lives together. You were his closest companion since you were a child. Whatever pain I feel must be nothing compared to yours.”
Achiyo did not know how to respond. She was grieving, she knew it intellectually, but whether from privacy or pride or sheer inability to process everything, she was not showing any emotion, only this blankness that had taken hold of her.
So she stayed the night, and Hiina told her things she had never guessed. “I knew he would never settle down with me, not even if I asked. What is one little village to a man who has seen half the world? He could not replace my husband, and I could not replace the person he held in his heart. But we could still find comfort in each other, and understanding, and not feel we betrayed our first loves…” Achiyo looked at her questioningly. “Yes, I am certain he loved someone in his homeland. He never said so in so many words, but there’s a saying: though still waters run deep, yet one can see into them in time. He carried so much guilt with him, you know. You must have seen it. But he said – in a roundabout way – that you were his redemption.”
“I wish he could have told me himself,” she said. “He only spoke of his past once, and only when forced to by circumstances.”
“That’s why he gave everything for you,” Hiina said. “You are his future.”
Achiyo left in the morning, and wondered when she would be back.
Alone, she walked through Yanxia, doing as they had always done, finding work where she could when she needed it. It seemed no more difficult to find it on her own than it had been with him beside her. She had expected more opposition. Perhaps it was her serious, unsmiling demeanour that made her look capable. Maybe it made her look older. She didn’t know. It didn’t matter. She had work. Some people who remembered her asked after Percival, and made sympathetic noises when she told them.
Every night in the wilderness, she made camp, put up her tent, made food… and talked to Percival. She told him what she had seen that day, if she had had to fight, if she had helped anyone. She asked him what she should do next, where she should go. Sometimes she imagined she could hear an answer. She wanted so badly to hear him say, just one more time, “my girl” or “well done”.
When the silence and loneliness became unbearable, she brought out a small wooden box from her pack that she had bought recently, and opened it, and inhaled. Inside was Percival’s spare undershirt, that had been waiting to be washed when they had next had opportunity to wash their clothes. She would never wash it now; every breath was like he was right there with her. She could imagine him, sweating after training or travel, grimy and messy and yet alive and breathing and nearly close enough to embrace. It was the one thing she had kept for her own to remember him by.
It was not enough. In the fall she went to visit Hiina, who was happy enough to see her, but she could not bring herself to go the following spring when the plums were in bloom. The year wound on and her heart did not seem to unthaw. The loneliness pressed in on her, and neither the beauty of the land, nor the fear of the Imperials could move it from her. She looked at the people there, young and old, and she knew her eyes had become like theirs – empty and hopeless.
She knew things were going too far when she walked along the edge of cliff-side trails and looked down, wondering if they were high enough, walking along the banks of rivers, wondering if they were swift enough… She needed to get out. She was stagnating, and there was no life to be found here.
Her first step was to take ship back to Kugane. She had enough money earned to do that easily enough. But then… where next? To wander the roads of her childhood, to see if Oji-san and Oba-san were still alive, to try and find Oba-chan, even?
That life would not rekindle her either. It was time to do something a little bit mad. She stayed a few days in Kugane, learning what she could. “You won’t make that length of journey in one go, not at this time of the year,” said one ship’s captain, chewing on his pipe. “Best we’re doing this winter is Radz-at-Han, and I think you’ll find the same among the lot of us.”
“But from Radz-at-Han, one could find passage to Eorzea?” she asked.
“Quite easy, once the worst of the winter storms are over. Though my advice, ma’am, would be not to take the very first ship to set sail. Why chance your life after making it halfway? There’s always a few who dare to go early, and a couple of those always founder. I’m not saying to wait until ships start arriving from Limsa Lominsa, but don’t listen to reckless folk who set out on the first calm tide, either.”
“I understand,” she said. How strange it was to hear the name, Limsa Lominsa, and know it was her destination, and to feel her heart lift! “I thank you for your advice, and when I come to Eorzea my heart shall thank you again. How much for passage to Radz-at-Han, then?”
They negotiated. She did not have that much money, and few possessions. But she took the kimono that Chima had given her – that she had worn perhaps twice in all the years since she had left Doma Castle – and she sold it. She wouldn’t need it in Eorzea. They wore different clothes there.
She stood on the dock, looking back at Kugane, brightly coloured, bustling, the last point of familiarity. She had her sword, her shield, her armour, the clothes on her back, and a very small number of personal possessions wrapped in her bedroll. There was no need to bring anything more. She was twenty-six. When the winter storms passed, she would be twenty-seven.
There was no need to say farewell to the East. She would not miss it, she was certain. Surely there would be life to be found in the West, free from the Garlean Empire, from the rigid laws of her childhood. She would see all the things Percival would have wished to show her, and he would rest easy.