Sorry fic readers that I was gone so long! You know, holidays, vacation, and I found myself struggling to find the spark of inspiration I originally had for the first half of the chapter. But fun news, I’m going to be playing in a FF concert next weekend! A big, official, orchestral one! Boy the ticket prices are exorbitantly nerd-taxed (average of $100, which is rather ridiculous – you can see world famous superstar violinist Ray Chen for less than that). I’m really excited, though I’ve been practicing like mad – the arrangement of Aerith’s Theme, for instance, is quite tricky (many ripply arpeggios), and they only gave me 10 days to learn the music. (now I wanna play FFVII… we’ll see if it works on my PC, I’ve been struggling to game ever since I switched to Linux)
If you haven’t seen the Trash Taste podcast interview with Koji, I recommend it – Koji goes into quite a bit of detail on the localization process and it’s very interesting. The guidelines they set for language use for tone and consistency are just as strict as I thought they might be, and then some! (Though not without perhaps some missteps – nobody wants to translate Urianger, lol!)
Chapter 70: The Sword of Tamehiro
“Okay, so you said this is perfectly safe,” R’nyath said to Tam, as they collected in the aetheryte plaza of Revenant’s Toll.
“I mean, ‘e survived t’other way, so how bad can it be?” Chuchupa said.
Tam grinned. “Just group up with me and we’ll get there.”
“I’ll keep watch here!” Yllamse said. “And training with the others. Unless you need me. Then… I have to take a boat.”
“Is that everyone, then?” Alphinaud said, looking around. “Achiyo, R’nyath, Chuchupa, Alisaie, and me.”
“Should be good for now,” Tam said. “Ready? Here we go.” He started the Teleport.
They appeared in the centre of Kugane, and immediately Alphinaud sank to his knees. “Goodness! That does take a toll.”
“Yep, bedtime for us,” Tam said, scooping up the young man. “We’ll be all right in two, three days.”
“I’m fine!” Alisaie said, trying not to look like she was about to fall over. R’nyath put out a hand to steady her and she did not brush him off. “Well, perhaps a bit tired…”
“I ain’t fine,” Chuchupa said, looking green. “Llymlaen’s arse, haven’t felt that queasy since I were an able seaman.”
“Fine or not, we may not start looking for Gosetsu today,” Achiyo said, feeling quite lightheaded and drained herself. That had been a very long Teleport. The Lifestream had churned about her for interminable moments, and she was glad to have Tam’s bright spirit before her, reaching out for the Kugane tenkonto with certainty. “I shall send word to Tataru that we are in town. For now, let us go to Bokairo Inn.” She glanced at the sun. It had been mid-morning when they left Mor Dhona, and the sun was well on its way to setting here, though the Teleport had not felt that long. Very mysterious.
She was glad to be out of Eorzea for rather silly reasons. The engagement party was still swirling in her head, every word, every look replaying in her head ad nauseam, and not just the treasured parts where she had danced with Aymeric. Artoirel had assured her emphatically that it had been a success, and indeed many had been very welcoming, and yet… these people would be her neighbours soon. She wanted them to have a good opinion of her – not just as Nidhogg’s slayer, but as one of their own. Thus the anxiety lingered; she wanted to know what gossip was spreading about the party, and she did not want to know.
So this adventure would do well to remove her and them from each other for a few sennights. By the time she returned, it would all have evened out.
They checked into the inn, but it was still morning for their bodies, weariness notwithstanding, so they congregated in a tavern nearby. R’nyath got them drinks. “Here’s to day drinking! Or as Tam calls it, drinking.”
“Oogh, wish I could join in,” Chuchupa said. “Water is fine to keep ye alive, but it ain’t fun.”
“By the way, how is your ship?” Alphinaud asked her.
Chuchupa chuckled happily. “She’s on her way! It’ll be another year or two afore she’s truly ready. But I’ve made me down payment, an’ Twelve willin’ I can keep payin’ until she’s done.”
“So long,” Alphinaud said in surprise.
“Oh aye! Even a little ship has tons o’ work. Ye didn’t think ye just slapped a mast into a hull and tied some ropes to it, did ye?”
“Er… well, I actually didn’t think about it very much,” Alphinaud said. “I knew Naldiq and Vymelli’s is renowned throughout the realm for their vessels, but I have never observed such operations. And I suppose that yours is not the only ship they are working on, either.”
“Well, next time we’re in Moraby, I’ll show ye ’round,” Chuchupa said. “Ye can see how she progresses over the moons.”
“What will the name of your ship be?” Alisaie asked.
“Godslayer,” Chuchupa said proudly. “It’s grandiose, but I figure I’ve earned it.”
“Very cool,” R’nyath said. “Very fearsome.”
“That’s the idea!”
“And how are you doing, R’nyath?” Alphinaud asked. “You have been one of the busiest of all of us, it feels like – always hither and yon with different companions.”
“I’m doing all right,” R’nyath said with a slightly strained chuckle. “In a way, I’m glad to be out here in the East. I won’t be pulled ‘hither and yon’ here, thank goodness.”
“A little too busy, hm?” Chuchupa said. “Or are ye lookin’ for a new person to be a sap over?”
R’nyath slumped his head onto his hand, ears drooping. “If you know anyone, let me know, because hanging out with Hilda again was a big mistake. She’s too hoooot~!”
Tam snorted into his mug. “One would think it would not be so difficult for you to find someone, admiring both genders as you do.”
“And yet somehow it’s been over a year!” R’nyath said.
“Really?” Chuchupa said. “Cuz I heard…”
“That was just a fling!” R’nyath protested, and drank the rest of his drink, tail lashing irritably.
“Very well,” Alphinaud said gravely. “I shall keep my eyes open.”
Alisaie rolled hers. “I’m sure you will.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Alphinaud asked indignantly.
“Alphie’s got an eye for the wimminfolk,” Chuchupa said. “Who’s gonna keep an eye out for men? Achiyo, that’s yer job.”
Achiyo laughed with embarrassment. “Definitely not. I do not go out of my way to observe that a man is attractive – and certainly not since I met Aymeric.”
“Understandable,” R’nyath said. “I was mostly joking. You know I don’t need help spotting attractive people.”
Achiyo decided not to tell him about Hingans with a neko fetish. “I wish you good fortune. I think I shall go for a walk.”
Kugane in the evening was as mysterious and magical as it ever was; the dim flickers of paper lanterns and torchlight revealing flashes of dyed scarlet, painted emerald, and gleaming gold. The air was stickily hot and humid, for it was the end of summer still, but it was starting to cool in the twilight, and so the crowds who avoided the heat of the day were emerging to shop and make merry. In truth, it was too many people for her to be comfortable, so she kept to the less popular streets, slightly dimmer, perhaps more shady and dangerous – though not for her, not really. She’d walked such streets with Percival; she’d walked them with the Scions. She could not be surprised by whatever they held anymore.
“Hey, pretty Eorzean lady, wooden combs for you? Hand-carved, very fashionable, all the way from Yamamatsu!” came a call and her head whipped around to find who had spoken. Who had said the name of her birthplace.
A merchant, Hyuran, slightly leering. He had been looking at her armour, but then he met her eyes and squinted. “You look familiar, miss, have I sold you a comb before?”
“…You are from Yamamatsu?” she asked.
His mouth opened and closed for a few seconds, and then he flinched in sudden terror. “You- you’re not-”
“I remember you,” she said slowly. “You tried to sell me to an okiya in Bukyo. Percival took me away.”
He flung himself to the ground, making a dogeza bow. “Littl- Great Kensaki-sama, merciful Kensaki-sama, please don’t kill me! Please don’t hurt me! I meant no harm, truly!”
She just looked at him cowering. If he had not done what he’d done, she would not have met Percival; she would have died of starvation. And it was true that even if she had been sold to an okiya, she would not have died of starvation even if she almost certainly would have had an unpleasant life in other ways. Yet- “Despite your words, I do not feel your motives were altruistic. But I have no reason to harm you. Forget you saw me, if you wish.” She certainly planned to do the same; she did not have the energy to deal with this.
A flash in her mind, of a small village surrounded by mountains. She recognized it instantly, though it was over twenty years since she had seen it. The merchant, grumbling in Hingan to his assistant. “After the sicknesses, there are so few combs this year… The shokunin need to get better and quickly.”
“At least we haven’t been attacked this year, right, sempai?” said the assistant. In the background, an old woman shuffled by, leaning on a stick and carrying a basket.
“Yes but if the harvest is poor again, everyone’s relying on us to get good sales, and we can’t do that without the combs to sell to tourists in Kugane.”
Achiyo came out of the Echo as abruptly as she’d fallen into it. The merchant was no longer on the ground, but he was still grovelling. What should she do with him? “…I will buy a comb.”
It was an awkward transaction, and she was glad to leave, burdened with a comb she didn’t even want. Only – it was a small way to help Yamamatsu, and that woman in the Echo… “Oba-chan?”
Over breakfast the next morning, she considered her options. She wanted to find Gosetsu, she had come to find Gosetsu. But the Echo called her, and… so did her heart. She had not seen her nursemaid since she had been exiled from the village, and could not even recall her right name. Was Oba-chan all right? Was she still alive? She did not know how old the Echo was or what might have happened since then. They had mentioned sickness. She was truly torn, and feared to be useless to both Gosetsu and Oba-chan in her indecision.
“You have been more quiet than usual, Achiyo,” Alphinaud commented. “What is on your mind?”
“I had an Echo last night,” she said slowly. “I met a man who recognized me. From before.”
“From when you were going about with Percival?” R’nyath said.
“Before that, even,” she said. “I would not have known him if he had not mentioned Yamamatsu – and then panicked when he saw me.”
“Why would he panic?” Alisaie asked, bemused. “Somehow I doubt you were a terror as a child.”
“Not like a certain someone,” Alphinaud murmured, and subsided as Alisaie glared at him.
“He tried to sell me to a brothel when I was orphaned,” she said, trying to be matter-of-fact about it. “Percival prevented it.”
“Where is he!?” R’nyath cried. “I’ll have his balls for that.”
“I’ll help,” Alisaie said grimly.
“Why stop at balls when ye can ‘ave his giblets?” Chuchupa said, reaching for her axe.
Achiyo raised a hand for peace. “While I appreciate your protectiveness, he really is nothing to me, not after all this time. I am more concerned about the Echo that appeared to me after – that of my old nurse, whom I had never thought to see again. She seemed quite frail.”
“Oh dear,” Alphinaud said. “Do you wish to investigate?”
“I do not know,” she said. “I am here to find Gosetsu. I do not know if I could help her if I went.”
“I think you should go,” Alisaie said. “There are plenty of us here to find Gosetsu. We shall be quite all right if you take a few days…”
“It’s a sennight’s walk from the nearest tenkonto,” she pointed out. Maybe slightly less now that she was an adult, but she was still not recovered from the first tenkonto.
“Then take your chocobo,” R’nyath said. “I mean, if you don’t wanna go, you don’t have to. But you can.”
She was silent, wavering. “I will check in with Tataru, and then I will go. I will be as quick as I can, but I will still be several days.”
It was indeed four days later that she rode up to Yamamatsu on a rented horse, in a plain traveling kimono with a straw traveling hat. She dared not ride her chocobo, nor wear her armour unglamoured, not unless she was under threat. Despite the urgency and the danger, she enjoyed the trip. The mountains around her rose proud and green, distantly nostalgic, and what fields she saw along the way were ripening for harvest. The weather was much more agreeable here than down in coastal Kugane, and the birds were in fine form singing in the trees along the road, and the cicadas in the grass.
Yamamatsu emerged before her along a bend in the mountain valley, its little castle on a slight rise above the town. She remembered it being bigger. But then she had been smaller.
Guards came to meet her. They looked a bit thin, slightly gaunt. The village truly was under hard times, then. “What brings you here, traveler?” they demanded in Hingan. The common tongue of Hydaelyn was only spoken in Kugane.
“I am come to inquire after the health of an older woman,” she said. She still didn’t remember Oba-chan’s name; all she had to go on was the description of what she’d seen in the Echo. This was going to be difficult. “About 70, with a cane, in an ochre-coloured kimono…”
They looked at each other. “Is she talking about old Sumi?” said one.
“What’s your name, woman?” asked the other.
“Kensaki no Achiyo,” she said. She did not know if it was a good idea to use her real name, but lying was unnatural to her.
“You’re here just to ask the health of an old woman you don’t even know, Kensaki-san?” he said, skeptically.
She allowed a little smile. “I was very small when I last saw her. I had forgotten her name in the long years.”
He didn’t look completely convinced, but pointed out a house to her. She thanked him, tied her horse by the gate, and walked into the village for the first time since she was a child.
The little wooden hut was unassuming, with a vegetable plot both in front and behind; Achiyo stepped between yams and radishes and made her way to the door to knock. It opened, and the old woman who stood there froze in astonishment. “O-o-ojou-hime! You’re alive!”
“Oba-chan,” Achiyo breathed. “So are you.”
“Quickly, come in, come in.” The old woman bustled her into the tiny hut. “Are you hungry? You must have come a long way. Please, tell your old nurse Sumi everything.”
Achiyo found herself still doubting her senses even now that everything had been confirmed for her. Her old nurse, who had taken care of her when she was a small child, doted on her, played with her, taught her, had been unceremoniously sent away with the change in leadership. She had not known what had become of her, but it looked like her life had been difficult. “Forgive me, I do not know how long I can stay – or if I have put you in danger by coming.”
“Do not think of me, ojou-hime. I’m only an old woman, I will get by. Come in anyway. You must have had a hard life. But you’ve grown up so beautiful… You truly look like your parents, kami grant them rest.”
“Thank you,” Achiyo murmured, taking off her hat, and went to sit seiza on the floor.
She talked quickly, as Sumi shared onigiri with her – of her life with Percival, her flight to Eorzea, becoming a Warrior of Light, becoming betrothed to Aymeric. Sumi’s eyes gleamed to hear the last part especially, her wrinkled face crinkling with smiles. “Ah, a handsome young lord for you! And kind and honourable too? You deserve no less. Your parents would be so happy for you.”
“Even though he is ijin?” Achiyo asked, uncertainly. She herself did not care about origins anymore… but she was an outlier among her people, she knew that much from traveling with Percival. Most of them were strictly xenophobic.
“Ojou-hime, you no longer belong solely to this little village, nor even Hingashi, from your tales. The whole star is your own. If he is a good man, being ijin is irrelevant.”
That was a kind way of saying Achiyo was practically ijin herself. But she would accept the praise of Aymeric, and the approval of a near-mother-figure. Besides, it wasn’t like Sumi’s disapproval – or even her parents’ – would make Achiyo stop loving him. “And he does not mind that I am a warrior – admires me for it, even.”
“You honour your parents,” Sumi said warmly. “I do not know for certain, but… I wondered if your father might have someday trained you to be onna-musha – a warrior lady. You did admire his sword as a child.”
“Really?” Achiyo said. She would not have guessed. She had just thought the sword was pretty. “Then I am glad to have come to it even though from another path. But tell me of yourself. I have had no idea what happened to you after I was exiled, not until I had a sudden vision of you but a few days ago.” And she needed rest from speaking. She had not had to speak so much Hingan since she had left half her life ago.
Sumi’s tale had been rough. Her husband had died decades ago, and she had never been strong; looking after a noble child had been a perfect job for her while it lasted. After the new samurai, Tatewaki, had taken over, Sumi had scraped a living together though cleaning and gardening. Now, more frail than ever, she was retiring, getting by with only her little garden.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” Achiyo said. “I can do much, both of my own power and that of my betrothed.”
“Dear ojou-hime… I am fine. I get by. This is my home.”
Achiyo shook her head. “Oba-chan, it sounds like you are all alone with no one to help. If anything were to happen…” How much longer could she live on her own, aging as she was?
“I’m not completely alone, I’m sorry if I gave that impression. I have kind neighbours, and there is a young man who stops in every now and then to make sure I’m all right.”
Achiyo relaxed. “I’m glad to hear it.” Sumi would hate it if Achiyo offered her money to support her; she would have to sneak it into the house somewhere.
“He hasn’t been by in a little while… I hope he isn’t sick. With the recent sicknesses…”
“Sicknesses?” Achiyo asked, prepared that moment to get up and go gather medicinal herbs, or whatever might help, as she had done in so many little Eorzean villages in the past couple years. Whatever chores they needed doing, she was ready.
“Ah, they are passing now, but not long ago the entire village seemed to have fevers all at once. I cared for my neighbours as best I could until I became sick myself, but a lot of folk are still weak even if they no longer burn and gasp. And of course the farmers are worried about-”
There was a pounding on the door. “Kensaki no Achiyo! Show yourself, by order of Tatewaki-sama!”
Sumi looked frightened, but Achiyo stood calmly. She would not allow Sumi to come to harm by resisting, though she’d been hoping to avoid his attention. “I am here. I will go with you.”
The guards brought her to Tatewaki, the samurai who now ruled Yamamatsu, who had turned her out rather than burden anyone – least of all himself – when she had been an unwanted orphan. “Why are you here?” he barked at her.
She bowed at a carefully calculated angle. “Honoured lord, I only wished to see again the place of my birth. I heard rumour of sickness and wished to see Sumi-san again, to assure myself of her health.” She should not beg his forgiveness for her trespass – technically she had been forbidden to ever set foot in the village again, so it really was a trespass. But by birth, adoption and betrothal, she was at least his equal in rank, if not greater. She must walk a fine line between deference and pride, to demand his respect without injuring his ego.
“Surely you lie,” he snapped. “Though you would be remarkably foolish to attempt to overthrow me as you are now. Unless… but you would hardly do your own scouting.”
“I have no claim to Yamamatsu,” she said. “My ties are to Eorzea now. I have been adopted by a ‘daimyo’ in Eorzea, and I am betrothed to the ‘shogun’ of Ishgard. Yamamatsu was granted to you by the bugyo, and I have no interest in contesting his appointment.”
“More lies,” he retorted. “Else how do you stand here, supposed daughter of a daimyo, in impoverished garb, alone and without retinue?”
How by the kami was she supposed to say she just wanted to see Sumi and she was in a tearing hurry? He seemed paranoid. “My present retinue would not be permitted to leave Kugane, and I did not wish to draw the attention of bandits to myself by dressing as my true station.”
He mulled on that for a minute. She stood still and serene and watched him with her head high. “And you did not think hire a temporary retinue?”
“I have the means. I do not have the inclination. No guard can protect me better than I can protect myself.”
“You?” he scoffed. “A woman in a shabby kimono. What gives you such arrogance?”
She unglamoured her armour. With a slight flash and a whirl of aether, she stood before him clad in mithril and steel, and all the guards flinched and pointed their spears at her.
Tatewaki stood. “So you hide your foreign armour, as well you ought here. I recall now you left with an Eorzean alien all those years ago. But do you know how to use that weapon?”
“I do,” she said. “Prince Zenos of Garlemald was proclaimed to be the greatest swordsman in the world, yet there are now tales of one who fought him as an equal.”
“If those tales are true, then perhaps you may prove your claims tonight. My neighbour, Kusushi, has been hinting at attacking all season. I suspect him of sending sickness against my people to weaken me. My sources say he will attack tonight. Acquit yourself well in the battle, and I shall accept your word.”
“Do you wish him dead, or only defeated?” she said. Mercenary work.
Tatewaki frowned at her. “Dead, of course. He cannot attack my lands and live.”
She nodded. “Then it will be so.” It was all the same to her. If a man’s life was the price to pay to see Sumi… then the man should not have threatened Sumi.
She was not allowed to go back to visit more with Sumi, but she was fed well at least, and Tatewaki allowed her to walk the corridors and rooms of the castle, and to see the garden. Despite the changes since she had last seen them, it made her emotional, though she would not show such feelings to him.
Rather than stay up waiting for the purported attack, she went to bed early. Then if there was an attack, she would have had some rest, and if there was not, there was no harm in it.
But she was awakened deep in the heart of the night by shouting. She had slept in her armour, not for the first time, and so she was quite ready to go after only a few moments to orient herself and stretch her muscles.
It seemed Tatewaki had done likewise. “Ready, Kensaki-hime?”
“I will follow you, my lord,” she said to him.
Several buildings were on fire in the village, and the gate had been forced, but the enemy soldiers had not yet overrun the place. The village’s guards and militia, all the able-bodied folk, armed with whatever they had, were fighting back. Tatewaki and his personal guard rushed into battle, and the enemy soldiers drew back from him.
A samurai stood in the gate, arrogantly, surrounded by his own personal guard. “Tatewaki no Hiromitsu! It is I, Kusushi no Katsusada, son of Kusushi no Katakore, I who am lord of Bungoru, slayer of oni and tengu, and I have come to claim Yamamatsu!”
Tatewaki nudged Achiyo. “He is challenging for a duel. Put him down.”
She had not specifically been taught samurai etiquette in Doma, since they had assumed she would be a noble’s wife and not a warrior herself. But she knew enough. She stepped out in the village square, her Western sword held high in the firelight. “I am Kensaki no Achiyo, the Silver Lady, Scion of the Seventh Dawn, Warrior of Light, daughter of Kensaki no Tamehiro, adopted daughter of Count Edmont de Fortemps of Ishgard; Primalsbane, Slayer of Nidhogg, Savior of Ishgard, Liberator of Eorzea, Doma, and Ala Mhigo.” Her resume was a lot longer than his. Kusushi would win great prestige if he defeated her. But then, that ‘if’ was doing a lot of heavy lifting. She hadn’t even worked in the thing about Zenos. “I accept your challenge on behalf of Tatewaki no Hiromitsu.”
For a moment Kusushi wavered. “A foreign woman fights for you, Tatewaki! You must be a coward!”
“You are a coward if you cannot face a foreign woman, then,” Tatewaki retorted. She was getting tired of all this posturing, but she had no more to say. Either Kusushi would attack her, or he would leave, intimidated by her accomplishments.
He attacked. That made everything clear and simple. He wasn’t a terrible fighter. But he had no idea how to fight against her, either. Nor was his armour a match for Artoirel’s blade, the finest that could be forged with Eorzean steel. The duel was over in seconds, and she made sure it was clean.
Even as he fell, there was a scream from outside, and thunderous footsteps, and a goobue burst into the village. It was probably not actually a goobue, but it was dark and the only impression she had was of great bulk and many teeth in a large mouth. It trailed shackles and broken chains behind it. Achiyo cast Flash to get its attention, and it roared in her general direction. It stank like a goobue, too.
Villagers screamed. “Oni! Demon! Spirit of the woods! It has come to destroy us!”
Monstrous, certainly. Supernatural, she did not think so. At least it was not a morbol. “I have its attention, attack it from afar!”
“Do not presume to give orders to me,” Tatewaki said, running to join her, brandishing his katana. Whether he was acting from pride or not, she appreciated his courage and responsibility.
Arrows rained on the monster’s back, though she could not see whether they penetrated its thick hide. She slashed at its grasping claws and cast Holy Spirit as she danced beyond its reach – which drew cries of admiration and fear. It flailed, roaring in pained rage, and with one hand picked up a screaming guard who had not defended himself in time.
Tatewaki shouted a warcry and slashed at the creature’s arm, cutting it off. The creature howled, reeling, and turned to snap at Achiyo. She thrust her sword up at it, piercing its neck. That was its deathblow, for it sagged, impaling itself further onto her sword – she dropped it and jumped away before its falling corpse could crush her.
She looked over at Tatewaki, both panting, and heard the remnants of Kusushi’s soldiers retreating expeditiously. “Are you well?”
He gave the shaken guard a hand up. “You have proven your sincerity, Kensaki-hime. Kusushi will trouble me no more.” He gave her a look of appraisal. “If you had not said you were betrothed to a foreign shogun, I would have offered you marriage to my son. He is recently come of age, no match for you in battle, but I have hopes for him. And then you would be able to return to the land of your birth – of your father – peacefully.”
She bowed politely. “That is gracious of you to say, Tatewaki-sama. I am content with my life in foreign lands. But the village still burns. Allow me to aid in putting out the fires – and I would see that Sumi is well.”
“That is beneath you,” Tatewaki began to say. She simply turned to go do it. It was not beneath her, not as a guest, not as a leader, not as a noblewoman.
Sumi was unharmed, though very frightened, and her house was unburnt. She was astonished to see Achiyo in her shining Western armour. But once Achiyo had seen that she was unhurt, she pitched in with those dousing the fires, and soon they were put out. The sky was just beginning to lighten.
She returned to the centre of the village to look at the monster she had killed. It was some sort of troll, she guessed. It was covered in green hair or fur, and it had wide yellow eyes over a red snout. It had been chained at some point, the poor thing; Kusushi must have brought it captive to the battle. She wondered where it lived normally.
Tatewaki had not waited, but a guard escorted her back to the castle. “You have done me a great service, Kensaki-hime,” he said to her when she stood before him again in the hall. “So I have a gift for you – though perhaps it is not a gift, but simply returning what should be yours.” He held out a sheathed katana in both hands.
She accepted it, a strange jolt of familiarity running through her. She had seen dozens of katana over the years, but she could never forget this one. “My father’s sword.”
Tatewaki nodded. “It was not buried with him, but came to me. I have used it once or twice; it is a fine sword. Who better to take it than his own daughter, an onna-musha beyond peer?”
She was lost in examining it, all her senses locked on to it. Every ilm of this was familiar to her, even from the mists of her memory. Her mother had not liked her to play with swords, but back then she had not been interested in swords for their own sake, only her father’s sword for its alluringly dangerous beauty. The saya was lacquered a dark jade colour, and the tsuba was decorated with symmetrical cranes taking flight.
And the tiniest pieces of all, the menuki, the decorative tokens that hid the bamboo pegs that held the whole blade together… She pushed aside the braid to look at one. The menuki were only a ilm and a half, and exquisitely carved upon it, no larger than the end joint of her littlest finger, was a graceful Auri woman in formal kimono, her flowing hair so fine the individual strands were almost invisible. It was of her mother.
She could not hold back her tears, holding this piece of her father that depicted her mother. But she lifted her head and smiled at Tatewaki, and gave him a low bow. “I am very grateful.”
“It is a poor gift… should have been yours all along, really…” He seemed embarrassed to witness her emotions, but for some reason she was not embarrassed to show them today. Perhaps because there were more important things, like the sword in her hands. “If there is anything else I might do, you may name it.”
“I would like the right to visit Sumi whenever I wish,” she said. “Please treat her well.”
“It will be done,” he said, seeming confused that she was not asking for more. She didn’t need more.
“Then I would like to spend some more time with her now, and then if someone could return my horse to the stable in Isenaka for me, I will return to Kugane shortly by tenkonto,” she said.
“Very well,” Tatewaki said, and for the first time, he smiled at her. He really wasn’t so scary when he smiled. Her childhood fears could finally depart in peace.
Vivienne got down off her chocobo and reached up to help Myste down as well. Sidurgu, with Aentfryn and Eos’s help, had recovered enough to head back to Ishgard with Rielle, but he was not going to be up for further adventuring for some time. So, after seeing the other Warriors of Light off back to Kugane, she’d gone back to pick up Myste and take him to his next suggested destination. Which was a battlefield.
He looked around with wide eyes. “Castrum Oriens… How it buzzes with life. So many brave soldiers, resolved to do their duty no matter the cost… But have no doubt there will be a cost, and it will be most high, for no man is beyond the reach of fate. Death will not be denied…” He shivered. “This place… this place… it weighs on me… Anywhere but here I would search…”
“All right,” she said. “There’s the gate. Pick a direction and I’ll follow you.”
Myste wandered into the wilderness on the Gyr Abanian side, striking out vaguely north. Now there were no people around, and she wondered what he was looking for. Until he came to one of the many caves in the mountains between the Shroud and Gyr Abania, and went in. Within flickered a feeble red fire.
Beside the fire was a man, gaunt and pale for his skintone. He looked up at their coming with bleary eyes, though he was not old. She looked closer. He was sick. Barely skin and bones. What was he doing here?
“Come… come to share the fire?” he said in a whispery voice. “I would stand to greet you, stranger, but my legs… my eyes… the whole of me is not what it once was…”
“My name is Vivienne, and I’m one of the Warriors of Light,” she said. “Can I help you?” Myste might want to help the man’s soul. But she thought there were rather more pressing concerns first.
“Vivienne… I know that name, the Warriors of Light! By Rhalgr, you’re still alive! Praise Him, praise Him…”
“Who is this man on the verge of death?” Myste asked with brutal bluntness. “Is he your friend?”
“Nay, nay, we have never met,” said the man. “My name is Gallien. Another of the Warriors of Light made medicine for me long, long ago, at the behest of Captain Meffrid, in Quarrymill.”
“If they mentioned such an event, I’ve forgotten,” Vivienne said. “I was never the healing sort myself. More the bashing sort. But it didn’t cure you, then.”
The man, Gallien, shook his head. “If I’d kept it all for myself, I’d’ve made a full recovery… but I couldn’t. I had a dear friend, you see, and so I made a choice. He got better. I didn’t. Ended up working for the Griffin, he did. As a right-hand man, even. But like all the rest who went to the Wall, he never came back. The irony of it, that I’d be the one to outlive them all, if only for a little while. And so I sit here and await the reckoning, as I rot from the inside out. The husk of the freedom fighter I aspired to be.”
“Come, man, is there nothing we can do?” Vivienne said. “We’ll get you more medicine – or get you out of this cave and to a proper doctor. You must know Ala Mhigo is free.” What had he been doing all this time, after the fiasco of the Wall, after the year of revolution, and the months after? What kept him alive, and what kept him from getting help? There were a few crates around – had this place been some kind of storage depot? So he had not starved, at least.
Gallien smiled wryly. “It’s too late for me. I am nearly gone. Too sick to move. It’s enough to have met you at last.”
“No, no!” Myste burst out. “This is not the ending you deserve! I will not allow it! The man he spoke of, the one whose life he chose to save at the cost of his own. That man is proof of his nobility! If he were here… Do you wish to see him again? Your dear friend?”
Gallien chuckled and bowed his head. “Houdart? Aye, more than anything. But there’s no point in praying for the impossible. He died with the rest. I’m sure of it. He was the Griffin’s double, and one of his top commanders besides…” With his head down on his knees, he did not see Myste praying. But Vivienne did. “You’re a kind boy, you are, and I’m grateful for the company in these twilight hours. But there’s no need to trouble yourself further. My time is nearly spent.”
“Then spend the remainder thinking of better days, Gallien, and not dwelling on the deaths of me and mine,” said a new voice, and Gallien looked up, gaping, as a handsome Ala Mhigan man walked up to him, knelt, and put a hand on his shoulder tenderly.
Gallien stared, tears coming into his clouded eyes, and he clasped the man’s hand fervently. “Gods strike me down… Houdart? No, no, it can’t be… This is naught more than a trick, an illusion… A lie… But… even if it is a lie…” He gripped the man’s hand with sudden urgent strength. “Hear me, Houdart. I’ve a favor to ask of you. One final favor for a dying fool… Return to the Reach. To Bloodstorm. Offer a prayer to our brothers there.”
Houdart nodded. “I will, Gallien. You have my word.” He stood and gestured to Vivienne and Myste with his head. “We should talk. Outside.”
Vivienne nodded and followed him, ushering Myste before her, who was chanting to himself: “I have to believe… I have to believe…”
Houdart shaded his eyes with a hand, gazing out at the Gyr Abanian badlands to the east. “To Meffrid and Gallien, the Warriors of Light were larger than life. I always wanted to meet you… and here we are. Though I reckon this doesn’t really count, does it?” He grinned wryly at them. “If only I could go back and tell myself what a blind, bloody fool I was to place my trust in the Griffin. Maybe then Gallien wouldn’t be dying alone.”
Vivienne said nothing. She had no comfort to give an illusion.
“Listen, he hasn’t got much time,” Houdart said. “I’ll lead the way. The wilds between here and the Reach aren’t too dangerous, but as you can see, I’m unarmed, so I’ll not be any good to you in a fight.”
“Nor will I, I fear,” Myste said. “We will have to rely solely on you for protection…”
“That’s my regular job,” Vivienne said, rolling out her shoulders confidently. “We’d have to run into a primal itself before you’d have to start worrying.” If they really ran into something bad, she’d send them off while she held the line for them. But it probably wouldn’t be that dramatic.
Houdart grinned with admiration. “Heh, I’ve no doubt you can keep us safe. You’re a bleedin’ Warrior of Light, after all! Let us be off!”
It happened to be a bright, sunny day, good for gaganas to go hunting, and the first sign Vivienne had of it was seeing a fuzzy shadow overlap Myste’s. “Get down!” she bellowed, and tackled him out of the way as a rush of wings overcame them and talons the size of a Garlean claw-hand closed about her, trying to carry her off. She reached for Cronus, drawing it from her back against the bird’s tight grasp, and the gagana shrieked as she cut two of its toes off.
She fell to the dusty earth and scrambled up, swinging her sword in great arcs to keep the monster back. Monsters, she saw – there were two of them. A mated pair, no doubt. Well, that was too bad. She was going to kill both of them if they didn’t leave. Houdart was trying to shelter Myste as best he could. “Keep an eye out for more!” she called. “I’ve got these ones.”
She had to duck and roll as they pecked at her with yalm-long beaks, raising a cloud of dust in her wake, then blew a hole in the dust cloud with Unmend. The closer one kicked at her, screeching, and once again tried to peck at her. She swung and cut its head off.
That might have been a mistake, to kill it instead of driving it off, for the other grew enraged and sprang at her, and this one connected. The peck to her chest felt like a battering ram, and she was nearly knocked over – certainly the air was blasted out of her lungs. But she didn’t need air to cast, even if it was difficult to swing her sword, and the gagana stumbled back from the red-black cloying touch of Salted Earth. She clenched a fist, dragging life force out of it to heal her bruising, then stabbed before it could recover.
She took a cautious breath, then another. She could breathe again. And no other monsters had shown up. She looked to her escort mission.
Houdart gave her a wry grin. “Strong as ever, eh? Stronger even than you were that day, I reckon… They say that when the Griffin’s men realized you were coming to stop them, they grew panicked and unsure. How could they take up arms against folk hailed as the heroes of Eorzea? Heroes who had personally intervened in their lives for the better?”
She had not thought of it that way before. “You were deceived and used for Ilberd’s own ambitions.” Most of the Scions probably didn’t blame the Griffin’s followers. She found she harboured some resentment against the lot… but sure, most of it was reserved for the Griffin, and voicing her irritation wasn’t going to help Houdart or Gallien.
“Some stood their ground and died then and there for it, I imagine, while others looked the other way and tried to find some more imperials to kill. I pray I wasn’t foolish enough to try and fight you. I owed you better…” Of course. He was made of Gallien’s memories, not Houdart’s. He didn’t know himself.
“At the very least, he got what he wanted – Alliance involvement in Ala Mhigo,” she said. She didn’t remember him, but she would not if he was in some uniform. At night, in the dark, with raging fires.
Houdart had been subtly swaying, but now as they turned to go on he tripped, catching himself on his hands and knees, breathing hard.
“Houdart? Houdart! Speak to me!” Myste exclaimed.
Houdart pushed himself up again, wiping sweat from his forehead. “I’m fine… Just got dizzy all of a sudden. We have to hurry, do you hear me? We have to make it to the Reach!”
“Got it,” Vivienne said, and took them at a march as brisk as the faltering Houdart seemed able to match.
He was muttering to himself, panting as he pushed himself on. “I made a promise… to Gallien… I will not fail you, brother…”
“It cannot be the distance,” Myste said anxiously to Vivienne. “We haven’t traveled far enough yet…”
Houdart heard him. “A man’s memories… cannot outlive him… I told you, he hasn’t… hasn’t got much time. And neither do I… I’ll hold on as long as I can, but… in the end… it’s not up to me…”
“No!” Myste cried. “I will not allow it! He will endure! We will fulfill Gallien’s wish!”
“Shall I carry you?” Vivienne said. “I’ll summon my chocobo.” Truth be told, she wasn’t sure how she was going to carry him, between her spiky armour – and his bare torso – and Cronus taking up all the space on her back already. Myste was too small to carry her sword…
Houdart shook his head. “So… so close…”
“Houdart! You must go on!” Myste pleaded, as if words would keep him alive when Gallien couldn’t hear them. “You must make Gallien whole! Remember, Houdart!”
“Don’t you think I know that!?” cried Houdart. “He… he saved my life! And I… we all went and died for naught! For naught! All we ever wanted was to go home…” He gasped in air and began to sing the Ala Mhigan anthem. “O come ye wayward brothers, bereft of hearth and home, beneath yon burning star there lies a haven for the bold… Raise up your hands and voices! Let fill your hearts with pride! Above the churning waters we stand strong and unified!”
It seemed to give him a little strength. The gateway to the Reach was a few yalms more, and he saw it and smiled. “…We can… we can still go home. Even now, after everything we have done, we can still go home…”
He collapsed. Myste flew to his side, but after only a moment, his body dissolved into black aether.
Myste clenched his hands. “He was so close! He could have made it – he should have made it! How cruel the gods to tempt us with this promise of redemption!” Tears rolled down his face. “We… we did not fail. They failed us… they failed us! They… we… I…”
Vivienne came and put a hand on his shoulder silently.
Myste held on to it, and wiped his face with his other hand, though his tears had not stilled yet. “Forgive me… forgive me… My failure is my own. I had my chance, and I squandered it. Reclaim that which was yours.”
For some reason, she felt more reluctant to do so this time. Houdart’s memory was gone. Gallien was dead. It wasn’t like she could carry this aether cloud into the Reach and have it mean anything. And yet…
Well. She drew Cronus and used Souleater, drawing the aether back into her soul crystal.
She found Myste staring at her with unsettling intensity. “…It is not finished. Not yet. You will come and pray with me.”
“Fine,” she said. Gallien should have someone to pray for him at his passing, even if it couldn’t be his memory of Houdart. She led Myste into the Reach, and up to the foot of the giant statue of the Destroyer, where there was the little altar with its lamps and offerings left in memoriam. She read again the inscription there: A storm of blood approaches fast, Hells open, Heavens weep. For no one soul doth lie beyond The measure of His Reach.
She bowed her head. Sincere prayer was not something she had much practice at, but she tried anyway. Rhalgr, give these people comfort as they return to the Lifestream.
When they had both finished, Myste stayed, staring at the altar. “…What good are prayers to the dead. They have not ears to listen. Nor eyes to see or hearts to console. Naught remains of them save fleeting recollections soon lost to time and to the abyss… We are left only with pain. A lingering sadness for names and faces consigned to oblivion.”
Achiyo would be able to give him better comfort. Vivienne could only understand, because he was describing what she felt. Did anyone else remember Gallien? Someone else in the Warriors of Light had made medicine for him. Would they remember him, or was it just another good deed they had done as they would do for anyone?
He turned to her. “How are we to withstand this relentless onslaught which threatens to consume us? Is there no truth but this, that all men must die? Is this our world to suffer, or to shape?”
She took a minute to answer. “All must die someday. But before then, the world is what we make of it. I by my sword. That is my truth.”
“…Indeed,” he said. “We are only bound by the gods’ law by choice.” His eyes were deeply mournful. “We cannot save everyone, can we. Sometimes, it is all we can do to save ourselves. Does any of it matter? What, if aught, have we wrought by our own hands?”
The question caught her in a vulnerable spot. Given her answer a moment ago, how could she claim to have wrought anything but destruction? Whatever ordinary path her childhood might have led her down, it had ended in darkness and fire and blood. She had picked up a sword and not looked back, not for Alain, not for Juliennais, falling into the abyss long before she was full-grown. Angry and hurting, she had fought and killed everyone who got in her way until the wrong person got in her way.
She’d learned to temper her rage, but she had never learned to do anything other than kill. Even now, now that she fought gods and tyrants and fought to defend the weak, she did it by destroying, not by preserving or building. And she knew, deep down, that that sent out ripples of consequences. As her life had been torn apart by the murder of her parents, so too must her slaughter of her enemies touch those who were innocent.
Even then, she failed. She had slain Crystal Braves invading the Rising Stones and so saved Kekeniro and many Doman people, but what of the chaos in Ul’dah that night, and Minfilia who had been taken away, still not to return? She had cut down knights in the Vault, and Haurchefant had still died to a primal’s spear and the Archbishop had escaped to cause more trouble. She had killed the Roegadyn Garlean officer, and Yotsuyu had still brought down Doma Castle upon Gosetsu – though if he were alive, perhaps she did not have to beat herself up over that one.
“I had always told myself that I have done what I had to do,” she muttered. “To survive, to be alive, if nothing else. My life was cheap but I bought it dearly at the expense of others. If I wanted to hang up my sword, my sins would not vanish.” She lifted her head. “I have just learned to accept it. The past cannot be changed. This is the burden I bear.” She would live with her guilt, and if there was any justice in the world, it would die with her and not live on to plague friends and family.
“What if you did not have to bear it?” he whispered. “What if you could take away that pain, heal those whom you injured?”
“Would that make me feel better?” she answered sharply. Something rose up in her. “I would spend the rest of my days in pilgrimage to a goal like that, even if I never killed another person. No. I am beginning to understand what you wish to show me, maybe even to agree, so I will do what I can, but there is no undoing what I have done, no matter how remorseful I feel. All I can do is fight to keep my friends and family alive, no matter what it costs me – and then maybe it will mean something.”
He pressed a hand to his chest. “One last time. I gave you my word, and I mean to keep it. But know this. Every intervention has come at cost. A sacrifice. When I have finished, naught will remain of me.”
Vivienne narrowed her eyes. “I thought your power used the soul crystal aether?” He didn’t look unwell. But then, if he were not a real person… Was he the soul crystal itself? “The next time is the last?”
“Yes,” he said. “But… it does not have to be. For all our faults, for all our failures, we have made a difference. All the lives we have shattered, we can make them come together again. Time and death, our true enemies, need hold no power over us. I can make a place for you in my world. You need only ask.”
She stared at him. Fray had said something similar. “What are you?” She had so many suspicions. She just wanted to know.
His blue-grey eyes were unreadable. “We should go back to Ishgard. You must miss Sid and Rielle…” He began a Teleport and was gone before she could yell at him to stop right there and answer the question.
She Teleported to the Ishgardian aetheryte, but she didn’t see Myste. That was not really a surprise to her; he was very fast when he wanted to be. So she did not hurry walking to the Forgotten Knight. Rielle would take care of him. And maybe they could have another discussion later.
But when she got there, she saw Sidurgu and Rielle at their usual table alone. Rielle saw her looking all around. “Is everything all right, Vivienne?”
Sidurgu waved her to a seat. “Vivienne. I pray your trip to Gyr Abania was productive.”
“Maybe,” she said, and told them about Gallien and Houdart.
Sigurgu pressed his lips together. “…I’m sorry to hear that. I mean, I am glad you reclaimed more of your aether. I but wish the circumstances hadn’t been so… depressing. For Myste’s sake. We shall have to see how he is feeling when he returns.”
“He was supposed to have come back ahead of me,” she said, frowning, ready to get up and go look for him – as if that would do any good.
“No, as far as I am aware, he has yet to return to Ishgard,” Sidurgu said. “He certainly isn’t here, as you can see.”
He hadn’t returned to Ishgard at all, had he? They had not shared a Teleport – he could have Teleported to any aetheryte he knew instead and she would be none the wiser. “He suggested that we come back here. Where would he go instead?”
“And why?” Rielle put in.
“…Oh, godsdammit,” Sidurgu grumbled. “Don’t tell me he decided to run away! And just when I was beginning to trust the little bastard…” He sighed heavily. “No, no, I could still be wrong. He’s earned a little trust. A few days’ worth, no more…”