ffxivwrite 2021 - #11: Preaching to the Choir

Continued from#9 Friable

Gridania, 1565 6AE

It wasn’t that Shandrelle had never had a blade turned against her before. Time had failed to sand away the first time- even now it lurched out of her dreams every so often, casting her out of the pitcher of sleep with a strangled gasp as she sprung upright in bed, sweat plastering her nightgown to her skin. Over two decades later and still memory cast every detail with the surety of a painter’s brush. The crispness of the autumn air, tinged with the bated breath of an oncoming early snow. The crackle of the leaves underfoot as she stumbled off the road. The way the edge of the shortsword caught the glint of dim noon’s light as her assailant swung it toward her. The hairs on the back of his hand. The sound of his breath.

And then there was the terrible shout her father loosed, so shockingly inhuman, like the retort of lightning detonating a tree. The way he leapt forward, his azure robe flooding around his legs. The unnatural rent of wind that screamed fury as it tore his chestnut hair from the nape of his neck. The terrible crack, then a thud.

The wind died, and the bandit followed.

It hadn’t been the first time she’d seen death before either, but never like this- never with the violence happening in front of her and certainly not by her father’s hand. She lurched backward, legs quivering like a newborn deer, but her father didn’t turn. He simply stood there, his shoulders heaving with quick, urgent breaths.

Then at last his head jutted over his shoulder, looking back at her, and most of all she would never forget his eyes. The wild frenzy that pulsed through their green depths like a boar lost in blood.

But perhaps it was because of that first time that language leached from her mind like water through her fingers, thoughts stumbling over each other like a swarm of bees drunk on smoke as they heaved this way and that to no destination. And yet at the same time words thundered in on a rampaging herd, expanding a deep breath into her chest. The tip of Ojene’s dagger prickled against her neck as her throat swelled around the air, but Shandrelle swallowed nonetheless as she did her best to straighten. To scrabble onto the outcrop of courage that she didn’t feel.

There was no hint of blood-frenzy in Ojene’s eyes, and Shandrelle supposed that helped. But who knew what lay beneath their stony placidity, belied only by the stark furrow between her brows as they fixed unerringly upon Shandrelle’s face.

Every nerve in Shandrelle’s stomach squirmed, and she licked her lips with a suddenly dry tongue.

“My father,” she said softly, and the words hung in the air as an incongruous bird sang joy in the boughs. “He told me the truth… a few years ago.” Suddenly it was hard to meet Ojene’s eye, but as her gaze began to fall a shiver of mortal peril shrieked down her spine. Throat tightening, she settled for staring at Ojene’s chin. “I- I had just gotten married… some months before. To another Wildwood, named Ezette- I think you’d like her, if-”

Shut up Shandrelle, stop babbling! “Er, anyway-” Heat burst out on her chest, spreading up her neck. “I- I don’t think he meant to tell me. It slipped out of him one day… he made some sort of comment about it because- well… Ezette’s a good match for me, according to our families.”

Even as the words left her lips she cringed. She almost expected the prick of the dagger to bite deeper, and yet- nothing happened. Ojene simply stood there, statuesque.

In the well of silence, shame flooded the rest of the way up Shandrelle’s cheeks. “He, well- he said something about how… it was a good thing he’d gotten you out of the way. And when I asked him what in the hells he meant by that he dodged me at first. But eventually he confessed and- it was… exactly what you’d told me he’d done.”

Peril or not, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut. “I- I’m sorry. I should have listened to you… but it wasn’t just about that. I should have listened about everything else too. Everything you were going through, the way people treated you- I really let you down. If I were you I probably would have scrapped me too.”

A deep breath cascaded through Ojene’s nose, the first sound she’d made since she’d asked her question. “Shandrelle,” she said, and suddenly the cold metal at her throat was gone- a half second later the hand clamping her shoulder slipped off.

Shandrelle dared to open her eyes, to see Ojene standing there a couple paces away. The dagger hovered between them, but though its point angled at Shandrelle’s chest the cold intentionality was gone, replaced by the puzzled wrinkle between her brows.

“Do you really think,” Ojene said, “that I’d come put a blade to your throat for some shite over a decade ago?”

The heat simmering in Shandrelle’s cheeks blazed into an intense inferno and she took an involuntary step back as her fingers trailed nervously behind her, budging against the velvety petals of vetch.

“No, of course not,” she lied.

“Fucking hells,” Ojene exclaimed, and the blade gave up any pretense of hostility as she slumped against the ruin of a fallen tree, perched awkwardly on its crackled bark. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”

“Know… about what?”

With a bone-rattling sigh Ojene scrubbed her free hand over her closely-sheared scalp, and her gaze dropped to the ground as she propped one boot on the meandering spiral of a half-unearthed root. But her attention shot back up but a moment later, and surprise spiked down Shandrelle’s spine. For something of Ojene’s perennial mask had dropped, leaving the troubled flicker of consideration in her eyes exposed. As if, despite the nature of their encounter, they’d somehow found themselves thrust into a hazy etching of the past.

Decision clicked into place, and to Shandrelle’s shivering shock a bitterly wry smile sprawled across Ojene’s face.

“Your family is trying to kill me again,” she said brightly.

ffxivwrite 2021 - #9: Friable

Gridania, 1565 6AE

The promise of the warm breeze billowing the back of her conjurer’s robe against her legs bore Shandrelle all too eagerly past the gates of Gridania and down the narrow path leading toward the creek- but so it did daily this season when she found a brief sojourn for lunch.

All the better, for it was just as quiet out here as yesterday- as soon as she slipped away from the main road the sounds of people were left behind, leaving only the vociferous arguments of birds. The basket dangling from her elbow tapped now and again against her side, the leaves of spring already thick enough to break the sunlight into a kaleidoscope of green that dappled the undergrowth like motes of glass. Beneath her breath she hummed a faint song to the tune of the rush of foliage as the wind tossed it to and fro, catching the few strands of hair that escaped her neat bun to scatter them against the side of her neck.

The path dipped her down the crest of a rolling hill that plunged the city out of sight, and the wilding foliage that grew taller and taller at her shoulders gave way to the resplendent purple trumpets of vetch. She couldn’t help but trail her fingers towards the blossoms, catching upon the narrow leaves of a particularly precocious example, and in the back of her head spidered half-unconscious designs to fit it into a verdant bouquet. She could tuck it into the basket for safekeeping, only to sneak it into a great vase at home at a convenient place to draw Ezette’s attention. Or perhaps Astrane would take to it, for while the girl hadn’t yet the botanist’s eye the sight of a new spot of color in the house lit her face up with a grin to match the finery before her.

The memory was enough to suffuse a great warmth through Shandrelle’s chest, and before it could reach her toes it was decided. Setting the basket at her feet she reached out to pinch off the stalk beneath the long curve of her nail.

But just as her fingers fixed around its smooth vibrancy, a sudden force seized around her middle. With a squawk Shandrelle lashed out, struggling a hand towards the wand at her side but arms wrenched her shoulders, binding around her arms as sure as steel.

A breathy cry stuttered free, and Shandrelle twisted hard in her assailant’s grasp- but a searing pain burned through her shoulder as hands shoved at the back of her head, jabbing her chin down into her chest. Eyes watering, she locked her gaze off to the side, but just as she began to call the earth to rise up to her aid, buckling the earth just behind her, the grip shifted and the cool bite of a blade lay against her throat.

Shandrelle froze, her heart pounding in her chest. But it was the voice that crystallized her blood.

“Shandrelle,” it growled, and something about its resonant alto was familiar, so familiar in a way that shot every hair on the back of her arms upright, but oh- by the Twelve- the malice it promised wasn’t.

“W-who are you?” she stammered. “What do you want?”

At once the lock released her, only to whip her around with violent force as the blade whipped back to her throat. Her bones ground against each other as the grip tightened so hard she thought her shoulder might come apart, but as she gasped through the pain, vision swimming, she locked her eyes upon the face of her assailant- and the pit of her stomach bottomed out.

“Ojene?” she gasped.

It couldn’t be- and yet it was. Thirteen years weren’t enough to blot the face she remembered away, the angular jaw beneath the long nose cast with a light spattering of freckles that peered out against the dark grey skin. And yet she’d never seen the jet-black hair cropped this short before, barely bristling above the scalp. Nor this cold wrath the face held, casting the brilliantly blue eyes she’d once thought of so fondly into twin drills of ice that speared her to the spot.

“You look shocked,” Ojene said coldly. “Surprised it didn’t work? That I’m not dead?”

“What are you-” But even as the pain in her shoulder spilled a fiery tear down her cheek, the calamity of memory stuttered through her like a whirlwind of glass. The hand on her shoulder impossibly tightened further, and a pained cry burbled from her throat. “No!” Guilt roared in, staining heat up her throat. “I’m sorry- I didn’t know! Or- I should have believed you! Let me go!”

She didn’t expect it to work, for as recollection caught her in its screaming tempest it flung too many things she knew as true before her feet. That Ojene was never one to back down. Always flinging herself into a fight. The way she screamed fury at her betrayers and yet- something in those glacial eyes shifted. Flattened, even, as if something of the cold fury they held attenuated. Or at least, slipped below the surface.

The hand on her shoulder didn’t release, but it slackened to something more reasonable- a new wave of pain crashed in its wake, but Shandrelle half-swallowed a gasp of relief.

“Explain,” Ojene said.

The heat of guilt rolled up her cheeks- or was it shame? “My father,” she uttered. “You told me- all those years ago what he’d done- and I didn’t believe you! I’m sorry- I should have listened to you. Done anything, other than what I did.” The words babbled forth like a creek bursting its banks, but even as she heard herself she couldn’t stop, the warmth climbing hotter and hotter in her face. “And you left- and I can’t blame you- I would have done the same, I’m sure, if it was me, for how could you trust a thing I said, er-”

Ojene blinked. A faint furrow pressed between her brows. And the ice cracked, rippling with the slightest flicker of confusion.

“What?” Ojene said.

“The act you told me about,” Shandrelle bullied on- she could scarcely feel her face. “How he tried to kill you. And I didn’t listen- but you were right.”

Again Ojene’s expression changed, as subtle as the shift of a snake’s muscles beneath its scales, collecting into an austere frown. The edge of the blade withdrew, but its tip didn’t, laid delicately against the curve of Shandrelle’s throat.

“What do you know?” she asked.

Gridania, 1549 6AE

“They are going to hate me,” she groused.

With a deft hand Shandrelle pulled the laces tight, disappearing her Duskwight’s plain white undershirt beneath her jacket, covering linens with a delicate brocade that spilled up her front and over her arms in a deep umber orange marked with shimmering yellow, vines that formed into the pattern of dappled foliage like autumn undergrowth of fallen leaves swishing lively beneath her feet. It was Ojene’s finest jacket- her only one for formal occasions in fact- a sunset contrast to the deep night expanse of her skin like the bloom of candlelight in the dark- or so Shandrelle thought.

“It’s fine,” Shandrelle assured as her fingers darted to the next ties below, lingering upon the fabric as she drew it together. “They hate everyone.”

She felt more than heard a deep sigh beneath her fingertips. Shandrelle glanced up, but Ojene was looking away, her light blue eyes fixed somewhere off in the corner of the small cluttered space that served as the wardrobe beside her bed, and a muscle flickered in the deep line of her angular jaw.

“You’re nervous,” Shandrelle supplied brightly as she descended to the third tie.

“Of course I’m nervous.” Ojene’s broad shoulders shifted slightly beneath the thick fabric of her jacket, as if the garb was suddenly too warm despite the uncommon chill of the 3rd Astral Moon’s breeze that gusted through the crack of the open window behind them. “Who wouldn’t be?”

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about.” The third tie knotted into a neat pair of loops at the perfect length to match the rest. “Whether or not they approve- it doesn’t actually mean anything. They can’t stop me.”

“They can’t stop you, perhaps.”

This brought Shandrelle’s head up sharper, but this time Ojene’s head angled only mostly away, regarding Shandrelle’s rough direction out of the corners of her eyes as if she was hesitant to truly look at her. 

A faint breath huffed through Shandrelle’s nose, and her fingers paused. “They can’t stop you either,” she proclaimed, “and that’s what counts. We’ll be fine.”

With another sigh, Ojene dropped her head, but she said nothing in reply- instead she simply stood there as Shandrelle hurried to bind the rest of the ties. But even as she did the first niggles of doubt gnawed at the pit of her throat. Could it be possible that she needed to take this more seriously? All too clearly the image of her father’s face kneaded into one of his disapproving frowns bled in. But even as the thought crossed her a fire lit in her chest, one that bloomed a tingling heat down her arms. And so, she jerked the final knot into place with a sharp ferocity that surprised her.

“There,” she announced, and Shandrelle smoothed her hands across the shoulders and arms of Ojene’s jacket. “You look nice. So nice, that I can’t possibly imagine they’d reject you. And if they did, well- I still get to come back with this.”

Ojene’s head turned back then, and a reluctant smile cut through the slight frown that’d lingered there the last few minutes, seeping gradually into her eyes. “Well-” she laid one hand over Shandrelle’s, the calluses on her skin firm against the backs of Shandrelle’s fingers. “I suppose I can’t complain about that.”

ffxivwrite2021 - #30 Abstracted

Gridania, 1567 6AE

“I have a confession,” Shandrelle blurted.

Ezette’s hand froze, her knuckles tightening around the spoon clasped in her fingers, dangling the heap of tea leaves motionless over the fresh water she’d boiled just for them. Her lips thinned as a shadow passed over her deep brown eyes, and a pang struck through Shandrelle’s heart. As one hand balled antsy at her side she couldn’t help but feel it should be her brewing the tea and not the other way around.

“What is it?” Ezette asked after a beat, her voice equal parts resignation and resentment.

“Ah, well- I know what you said… and why- but. Ojene was here a week ago.”

The spoon clattered against the countertop, scattering ocher fragments of dried leaves as Ezette seized her fingers against the polished wood. “Shandrelle-”

“It’s not what you think! I swear.” Reflexively she clutched a hand to her throat, her fingertips brushing over the new rope of scar. “I actually sent her away. In a sense.”

“Which means what?”

“Well-” Shandrelle’s eyes averted as she absently rubbed the sides of her neck, “she showed up dreadfully upset about something. It turned out she’d gotten some bad news from home. Her actual home, not Gyr Abania or around these parts. La Noscea,” she finished lamely.

The pressure of Ezette’s gaze was palpable as she made a noise in the back of her throat.

“She seemed to want to go back, you know,” Shandrelle added quickly, “all this stuff about the assassins be damned, but she was too afraid to, so- well, I went and gave her a push. So theoretically, if she did what I wanted, she’s probably halfway to Aleport right now and you might not ever have to deal with her again.”

A heavy breath gusted through Ezette’s nose. “To La Noscea,” she repeated.

“Well, that was the idea of it, yes. I don’t know if she’s going to come back or not, but with the way things happened- you know.” Haltingly, she shrugged. “It might be for the best.”

Ezette bowed her head. “You know it’s not that I don’t want to deal with her,” she said.

Shandrelle stared at her feet. “I do,” she murmured.

There was no forgetting. The way Ezette’s eyes had burned with an all-encompassing fury and hurt like the depths of a lake disgorged into flame. Her tight mane of untied curls bouncing with force. The declarations she made, hissed with such asperity that Shandrelle’s blood crystalized, only to break down into deep, wracking sobs as they clutched onto each other like the lost.

But Ezette, never one to repeat herself, simply nodded. One finger picked at the bed of her thumbnail.

“I hope she’ll be happy,” Ezette said. “I do. And I hope we’ll be able to move on from this- together. That this won’t sit over you like a big unanswered mystery that you have to solve. And it’s not that this doesn’t need solving! Because it does. But I want you alive more than I want answers.”

A quiet sniff caught Shandrelle by surprise, and she angled her head away to hide the burning in the corners of her eyes. “I know- I’m sorry.”

“No- it’s not-” With a strained noise Ezette hunched forward, gripping the edge of the counter in both hands. “It’s not your fault you were attacked. It’s just that this is clearly a lot bigger than you. Than us.”

A deep sigh billowed free, and it felt not unlike a gust of wind battering her towards the edge of a cliff- urging her to jump. “It is, but- it does bother me,” she admitted. “The idea of simply- letting it go. It’s like- trying to give up something I’m responsible for. Who else is going to prove it? That my family is a bushel of traitors? What happens if I don’t stop them, and then the Garleans attack us and we lose everything because my family helped them win?”

“It’s not on you,” Ezette said quietly. “Not alone. Maybe we’ll think of something once this has had a chance to… die down. But for now, I just want you safe. And so- I’m glad… that she’s gone.”

“Well, I wouldn’t celebrate just yet,” Shandrelle plucked at her skirt. “I’m sure if it doesn’t go well, she’ll be back.”

When the rest of the moon passed with no word, Shandrelle thought little of it. And despite herself, life began to embrace a form of normalcy. The motions of life before Ojene upturned it began to creep back, from the normal family morning routines of hastily brushed hair and shared breakfasts at the table, to the long days spent at the Fane helping whomever came. The only clandestine trips she took at lunch were simply oases to herself, no more demanded of her than an easy walk. The scar’s angry red had even begun to fade a touch, and the hoarse edges it flanged into her voice were sanding away.

Yet on the second moon she wondered now and again how she would know what happened to Ojene- ifshe would know. And on each lunchtime walk she found herself glancing around, her head kept carefully straight to avoid attention, groping into the undergrowth and the canopy half-expecting Ojene to be there. But she never was.

It wasn’t until the third moon that an answer came. Shandrelle stood at the dining table sorting through the post- Astrane had dropped the lot haphazardly on the dining table- but as she sifted the handful of letters this way and that her eyes caught a slip of familiar handwriting. Her own name, scrawled neatly on the front in a clean, precise hand.

For an instant, she froze. But her heart skipped, as if surging her back to motion and at once she grabbed it up. Her fingers slipped beneath the lip as she popped the wax, and as she flipped it open she came face to face with a half sheet of parchment occupied by no more than two lines.

You were right.

Thank you.

There was no signature, but it needed none.

Shandrelle huffed a laugh. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

ffxivwrite2021 - #29 Debonair

Continued from #24 Illustrious (link)

East Shroud, 1548 6AE

The forearm bulged in a ghastly color, smooth pale skin turned into a bulbous balloon of purple that split apart the scab before it had a chance to form, oozing blood and fluid from a small cylindrical puncture a couple ilms below the wrist.

“You’re lucky it’s not worse than this.” A bead of sweat slipped down the side of Shandrelle’s noise, and her spectacles threatened to spill with it. But she didn’t dare let go to adjust them, one arm locking her patient’s shoulder in place while her other hand clutched her wand. The tips of the rosewood twigs, tapering into thin leaves, glowed with a pure restorative blue, transferring but a droplet of the forest’s blessing as the air hummed in her ears like Nophica’s breath.

Her patient laughed thinly, the wiry Wildwood lancer’s face distorted by puffiness. Despite the coolness of the autumn breeze his forehead shone with sweat. “It got me when I wasn’t looking. I was too busy trying to drive off the hog, and… it came as a bit of a shock”

She’d seen the wreckage of two of the hives well enough when she arrived, honey smeared across shattered wax and wood splinters. By now smoke thickened the air with the subtle sweetness of oak, cast off from rapidly built fires. And the bees, rendered docile, ambled around the yard in meandering clouds as the beekeepers performed a hasty triage on the hives’ remains.

But the peaceable river of fat insect bodies pouring in and out between the cracks belied the specter of violence looming just a handful of yalms down the road in a slumped black hill. The hog, sprawled in a coagulating pool of blood. Even in death it looked lethal, its tongue slithering from its open mouth and flanked by two massive ivory tusks- easily the size of Shandrelle’s arm. Thick fur coated its warted hide, broken here and there by the ravages of the fight. Purloined honey smeared over its nose, the golden amber mixed with blood. Whether it was the hog’s or a victim’s, Shandrelle couldn’t say- but the handle of a spear protruded from its throat, sheared to splinters at the end.

“I can only imagine,” Shandrelle said with no exaggeration. “But it’s going down, see?”

So it was- the swelling had begun to slacken, settling into some semblance of normal shape. Her patient loosed a sigh of relief, closing his eyes.

“I’ve never been stung before,” he said distantly. “I didn’t know this would happen.”

“It happens to the best of us. You’re going to be all right- though you’ll probably be sore and tired as all hells for a few days, hah!”

At last Shandrelle dropped her hand, and she released the pull of the forest from its call- the soothing glow cast off her wand winked out. “There- that’s good enough for now, but you’ll want to scuttle back to the Fane and they’ll take care of the rest.”

With a quick nod her patient shot off with as much haste as he could muster, and Shandrelle turned to survey the scene. A few conjurers dotted the field here and there, seeing to the wounded lancers, but as her eye roamed for those yet untreated she found none. Exhaling, she planted a fist into her hip, fully intending to take a pause upon the upturned crate at her feet, but as she turned away a figure came into view, standing apart beneath a large ash tree.

It was the Duskwight- the same one she’d seen now and again in the last couple moons on trips to the Lancer’s Guild. Her complexion alone would have made her strikingly memorable, between her slate-toned skin and even darker hair, but nothing about the way she bent forward diminished her height, her broad shoulders straight. She frowned as she stared into her hand, gingerly picking at her upturned palm.

“Need some help with that?” Shandrelle asked as she approached.

The Duskwight looked up, and against her deep grey skin her eyes stood out almost shockingly bright, like two pale blue slivers of eyes. They narrowed slightly, and Shandrelle stopped short as a faint prickling rippled beneath her collar with the niggling sense that she was being studied. A breath later it relented, and the Duskwight nodded, proffering her hand.

“My spear wasn’t quite sturdy enough, it seems,” she said. A jagged line sliced through her palm, the skin around it peppered here and there with tiny protrusions.

Shandrelle made a noise, and she promptly yanked her kit out of her pocket. Flipping the leather cover open, she slipped a pair of tweezers free from its slot. “That looks rather uncomfortable there.”

The Duskwight eyed her palm. “Worse for some.”

Seizing the outstretched hand at the wrist, Shandrelle pulled it closer, angling it towards the haze of light that slipped through the canopy. The Duskwight’s long fingers splayed wider, pushing the bones of her palm on display. “It’ll pinch a bit.” The edge of metal caught the light as she attacked the closest splinter.

A slight flinch twitched in the back of the Duskwight’s hand, but nothing more.

Without lifting her eyes, Shandrelle asked, “That wasn’t your spear in the boar’s neck, was it?”

“Mine? Oh- no.” The Duskwight turned her head towards the boulder of the boar’s body, now circled by a few spare lancers as they gestured to and fro. “Mine broke off in its side.”

“Ah, well there’s the pity- I was going to tell everyone I healed the great boar slayer, hah!”

It was a joke, but the Duskwight didn’t laugh- instead she simply jerked her opposite shoulder in a small shrug. “It was- something to see. I’ve- hunt hogs before.” She stole a glance at Shandrelle, who looked up only briefly as she slid a three-ilm long splinter from the pad just below the second finger. “But it’s a risky business. They’ll run up your spear if you’re not careful, and maybe it’ll kill them but they’ll take you with it.”

“So I’ve heard,” Shandrelle said, but a shiver ran down her spine.

“Well- Lafienne didn’t have a hog spear. None of us did. It’d already trampled the one we’d brought. But she stood in front of it anyway, and it charged. I thought for certain she’d die, but she just- stared it in the eye and braced for it. It was only at the last moment that she jumped away. Turned out, she’d planted her spear in the ground, and the hog charged straight into it.”

“Lafienne did that?”

The Duskwight nodded.

“I’ll be damned,” Shandrelle breathed. “I didn’t know she had it in her- not that I’d be the expert anyway, but I hear things often enough.

Out of the corners of her eyes, the Duskwight shot her a glance, but whatever lay within their icy depths was unreadable. A low affirmative noise rumbled from the back of her throat, but no more.

“I’m Shandrelle, by the way.” The ends of the tweezers paused mid-dig in pursuit of a particularly stubborn fragment. “I’ve seen you a couple times but- I hadn’t had the chance to talk.”

“Ojene,” the Duskwight said simply.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you properly. Though I can’t say I haven’t met most of the lancers this way, hah! But usually they’re in the Fane and not the other way around. Ah- there we go!” Releasing Ojene’s hand, Shandrelle clacked the tweezers together. “Did I miss any?”

A quick feel around the palm revealed two more tiny slivers which were quickly extricated, and then Shandrelle drew upon no more than a small bit of aether to soothe the cut down her palm. Nothing more was needed. She would have made more conversation perhaps, but as soon as it was done Ojene reclaimed her hand, and with no more than a quick thank you she slipped away.

ffxivwrite2021 - #24 Illustrious

Gridania, 1548 6AE

The walk up to the Lancer’s Guild was fine enough, but it was the last few stairs that did her in. Sweat burst upon her forehead, and a droplet plunged down her cheek and rolled over her jaw. Gritting her teeth, Shandrelle heaved her weight behind the crate, its contents clinking faintly together as she hoisted herself full-bodied forward til her feet crested the top and with a deep gasp she bent in two and practically dropped her burden to the deck, catching herself only at the last moment as she set it down with a quiet thud.

With a groan she straightened, arms burning as she rolled her shoulders. Not quite deep enough across the deck to reach the shade, she stood at the mercy of the summer’s sun as it seared into the dark blue sweep of her conjurer’s robe. Groaning, she tugged at the damp collar of her robe to coax in the breeze but it did nothing, for around her the air pooled in a stagnant swamp, soaking heat to her skin without reprieve.

Just as she began to work up the strength to haul the crate into her arms, jocularity poured through the open doors of the guild, drowning out the faint jumble of voices and the sharp punctuation of wood cracking against wood, and out spilled a half-dozen of the younger recruits. None had yet hit their growth spurt- the tallest among them barely passed her elbow- and the moment they jostled off the building’s steps they swung their training staffs at each other with a bone-shattering recklessness that would have aged their instructors at least a year.

Not a single one of them looked her way as they passed, and Shandrelle frowned.

“Oi!” she called. “Can one of you weedpullers help me with this?” She tapped a foot against the side of the crate a little harder than she meant- the contents clattered in muffled protest.

A few of the recruits looked up sharply. “Sorry, ma’am,” one of them said, a spindly girl who couldn’t be older than sixteen. She skipped up, clearing the steps two at a time in excessive bounds too long to be comfortable for her legs. “Where do you need it?”

But as Shandrelle opened her mouth to give directions, a voice cut in over her shoulder. “I can take it for you.”

Uttering a note of surprise, Shandrelle turned. How he’d gotten so close without her hearing was a mystery, but from a few fulms behind Casaux Vitraire flashed her a genial smile, dimpling his fine-boned cheeks. His pale skin flushed from exertion, sweat staining his blonde hair coifed behind his head into light sodden brown, and he was still clad in a plain brown set of padded training armor that echoed his eyes. But his hands were free, and with a small showy flourish he bent down to retrieve the crate.

“Oh, you don’t have to-” Shandrelle started, but the trainee bobbed her head and scampered back to her fellows.

“Nonsense,” Casaux proclaimed.

Shandrelle suppressed her inward groan.

Unknowing, he glanced down at the crate. “Are these more potions?”

“They are,” she said. “Fresh from the Fane.”

With an interested noise, Casaux began to lead the way into the guild. Shade whooshed above Shandrelle’s head in a blissful rush of coolness, and she darted a slick of sweat from her forehead with her sleeve. Beyond the doors the voices, once indeterminate, resolved into form, the familiar sharp retort of one of the instructors leading a class.

“Did you make these?” Casaux asked, glancing back at her over his shoulder to be heard as the rapid crack of staves battered their ears.

“Only a few,” Shandrelle said, but it was a lie. In fact she’d been involved in the process from start to finish with this batch, brewing the liquid with a careful hand as one of the senior conjurers directed now and again. But if she mentioned it, he was sure to go on about his family’s garden plot, and she’d heard quite enough about that in the last introductory ‘dinner’ their families had set up. “Is Maelys teaching today?”

“She is, and by herself to boot.”

Sure enough, as they rounded the corner to cross past the training space she was there. A tall Wildwood with dark brown hair clipped near to her scalp, Maelys hovered at the sidelines, scowling in a deep reflexive scrutiny that kneaded the lines in her face into deep crevasses.

“I don’t envy her.” Casaux dropped his voice, forcing Shandrelle to lean closer to hear him. “It’s a sea of new recruits, and I don’t think half of them ever held more than a pitchfork in their lives.”

With an appraising hum, Shandrelle took in the room, the wide space stacked with matched-off student pairs carrying not spears but staves. They battered them about, moving in what could have been a coordinated choreography had it been done together- or elegantly. Maelys swept in now and again, redirecting students with her hands as she adjusted everything from the way they stood to the way they swung.

Most were clearly young, some as fresh as the trainees that clamoured past Shandrelle at the door. But not all. Towards the back of the room a few pairs cluttered, spears in-hand. Adults all of them from their height, but Shandrelle’s eye drew in particular to one.

“A Duskwight?” Shandrelle nearly whispered.

Casaux’s eyes flicked up, and he let out a low dismissive noise. “Oh, that one.”

Maelys was tall, and so were a couple of the others at the back, but the Duskwight’s height put the lot of them to shame, standing a few ilms over the rest. Her deep black hair like the curtain of night was pinned neatly out of her eyes, her skin the hue of slate. All her attention fixed on her opponent, circling the spear at beat, and in truth Shandrelle couldn’t tell if the Duskwight moved right or wrong, but she did it smoothly. Confidently- standing out with an elegant grace.

“Three moons and I’ll bet you she’ll quit,” Casaux said, and as he shifted his grip on the crate the potions clinked quietly.

“Maybe,” Shandrelle allowed, but as the two of them stepped on towards the storeroom she stole one last glance at that unusual dark figure before the hallway enclosed around them, tucking them out of view.

ffxivwrite 2021 - #23 Soul

Gridania, 1549 6AE

The shadow of a fish approached the surface of the lake, rising with intent as its glassy eyes fixed upon the silhouette of a tiny struggling form- a fly that darted too low, snatched from the air by an improbable swell of water. It lifted its curved mouth, poised to lunge with sudden sucking force to cast the fly to its oblivion, but just as it shot up a rock struck at an improbable angle, shattering the surface with a sharp smack as it tossed a ribbon of spray into the air. In a teal flash of scales the fish fled into the depths, and in the gradual fade from light blue to deeper browns the rock sank to its new home, leaving nothing but the disturbance of ripples in its wake. The fly, jettisoned a few ilms from where it started, struggled quixotically against its fate.

High above, Shandrelle flung out a hand. “There! There, did you see? It definitelybounced.”

Ojene scoffed, her elbows dangled over her knees, both legs drawn up close to her chest, feet wedged in the gutter of the roof. “With that kind of throw? Please.” Her toothy grin glittered in the afternoon light. “I only saw one.”

“Say what you like,” Shandrelle said primly, crossing her arms across her chest, “I know the truth!”

“Hm.” Ojene plucked another rock from the small pile heaped between them, stolen from the lake’s edge and hauled all the way up the building in Shandrelle’s pockets.

The thought of the tiny shards of stone and the dust she’d have to crumble from the clothes was the furthest thing from Shandrelle’s mind as she grinned impishly back, giddy with mischief as the wind ripped a strand of hair from her bun and flung it into her eyes. Ignoring this scrutiny, Ojene eyed the stone, turning it over in her hand as her thumb tested the flat surface on one side, then the other. Then, seemingly satisfied, she reeled back her arm and in a sharp crack of motion she lobbed the rock out into the expanse.

It had no chance. The stone angled too far, too fast, striking the lake in a heavy drop that flung a tongue of water high.

“Well!” Shandrelle proclaimed. “That wasn’t nearly as good as mine.”

“Oh? Then why don’t you give it another try, if you’re so good?” Ojene flourished a hand to the heap.

Shandrelle’s grin snaked wider as she grabbed another rock. As she squinted at the lake she circled her arm experimentally one way, then the other. The angle was hopeless, she knew. The chance of them skipping a rock from up here, huddled three stories up on the roof of a bakery, was slim to none. But maybe if she got it just right-

“Hyah!” Shandrelle yelled as she flung her arm forward- but the stone slipped traitorously from her fingers at the wrong point and crashed, not out into the lake, but hard into the bakery’s wall.

Ojene doubled forward as she cascaded into pealing laughter. “What was that?”

“I don’t know!” Shandrelle dissolved into giggles. “But I hit it!”

“You- oh no, they might have heard us.” Swallowing a great guffaw, Ojene spun around, squinting over the slanted roof.

“What would they say?” Shandrelle gasped, clutching at her pinching sides. “‘What are you doing on my roof?’ ‘Get down you ridiculous mummers.’ ‘I thought you’d be children’?”

“Children- probably! Hm. It’s fine.” Snatching up another rock, Ojene eyed the lake.

“Matron,” Shandrelle uttered, and she snaked a finger behind her spectacles to strike a spot of moisture from the corner of her eye. “Skipping or not, you do have a much better arm than me.”

“I don’t know about that,” Ojene said, half-grin returning, and she coiled up her arm before snapping it forward like a snake, and the rock soared free as an arrow in a long, lazy arc. “You could have put out a window with that last one.”

“Occupational hazards,” Shandrelle declared. “But in all seriousness- damn!” she shot a finger forward, gesturing haplessly at the space the rock sailed through. “Do it again!”

With a laugh Ojene obliged her, and Shandrelle watched in rapt fascination as the second rock scored just as far as the first. “That’s what I mean! How do you dothat?”

“It’s archery,” Ojene said, then shot Shandrelle a quick glance. “Well, not really- but it’s the same idea in a way. You’re launching an object and trying to make it go as far as you can, so there’s a sort of- best angle to do it in. Depending on the wind, and so on and so forth.”

“Really? Show me again!”

Ojene did- over and over as Shandrelle egged her on until the small pile of rocks was depleted, leaving only dust. With an effusive sigh, Shandrelle leaned back against the roof, casting her arms behind her head.

“I’m glad you convinced me to come up here,” she said. “I never knew roofs were so fun.”

“They can be.” Ojene flashed her a sidelong smile. “It’s also nice sometimes, just to get away from the crowds. I used to do this, but with trees. It’s not so different really.”

“Ah yes,” Shandrelle said with a laugh. “The bustling fourteenth bell crowds outside a closed bakery with nary a customer in sight.”

Ojene shot her a measured look. “Don’t laugh. It’s different for me. I didn’t grow up with this. It gets claustrophobic sometimes.”

“Right, right. Sorry- I forget sometimes. About our backgrounds, I mean.”

“I don’t know how you could.” From the recesses of a trouser pocket Ojene pulled out a small object, clutched in her closed hand. “No one else does.” With a sharp flick of her wrist, one last stone shot through the air, catching the sunlight in a blip of light before it cascaded down to the lake, crashing into the ripples before it sank out of sight.

ffxivwrite 2021 - #22 Fluster

Continued from #21 Feckless(first|second|third|fourth|fifth|sixth)

Gridania, 1565 6AE

A shiver sluiced down her skin, but it was just the bite of the wind as it whipped up beneath her robe, unusually cold for this time of year- or that’s what Shandrelle told herself as she stepped up to the patch of vetch beyond the city walls. The heartbeat of the forest embraced her, folding it into its verdant tresses with a quiet solemnity as life flooded through its veins, pouring with the quiet drone of insects and the unfettered cascade of birdsong, as free as it always was when the wee beasts saw nothing wrong.

But Shandrelle knew better. She stood alone amongst the flowers, and she swung her head this way and that as she surveyed each direction with uncommon intensity as if by sight alone she could pry the vines apart and unearth what she sought.

“I hope you didn’t do that on the way here,” came a voice, and Ojene dropped like an opo-opo from the trees, landing neatly on her feet. “You look bloody conspicuous.”

With a sharp wheeze of surprise, Shandrelle took a step back. Up, she thought dryly. You should have looked up. “Don’t do that,” she huffed. “And no, to answer your question, I did not. I brought what you wanted.”

Ojene’s brows rose as Shandrelle dug into the basket on her arm. Budging aside its contents with force, she pushed past the thick picnic blanket of durable blue linen and displaced her lunch in its neatly folded paper box to seize the corner of what she had hidden beneath it- the folio she yanked free. She held it out. “The Wailers’ file on you, or at least what I could find. If they’ve got some secret documents elsewhere I couldn’t tell you, getting thiswas already hard enough.”

Ojene accepted it without comment, and she flipped it open without a moment’s pause. Her expression, held to careful stone barely changed as her eyes flicked over the first page, then the second, before she riffed through the lot of them and regarded the one at the end.

“It’s all old shite,” she remarked. “You read it, of course?” Glancing up, she lofted one brow high.

Heat shot into Shandrelle’s cheeks- she glanced quickly away. “Er, well-” Delicately, she coughed. “I might have taken a look.”

“Then what did you think? While you read it, was there anything that stood out?”

“Not… really.” The creeping flood of her blush prickled across her nose. “I was shocked to see how much they’d written on you while you were training with them,” she blurted. “I mean- you didn’t do anything wrong and they were watching you- so closely.”

“Of course they were,” Ojene said dryly. “Did you ever think anything different?”

“Well… no. I didn’t realize. I thought they liked you- or at least, some of them liked you.”

With a noncommittal grate of a noise, Ojene snapped the folder shut. “Well, if this is truly all of it then- that confirms one thing.” She shot Shandrelle a side-long glance. “Your family is circumventing authority.”

A sharp prickling stung in Shandrelle’s throat, sweeping full-bodied down her chest. “You think so?” she breathed. “Because there’s nothing recent in the documents, you mean?”

“Precisely that. If they were acting in accordance with the Gridanian order of things- why not report the business to the Wailers? Have them keep an eye out for me? So either your family doesn’t have anything on me, or… the matter is too secret for the files you were able to find.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Shandrelle murmured, but Ojene was already turning away, long fingers dangling against the curve of her jaw.

“No!” Ojene exclaimed, her back half-turned as she paced away, shoulders hunched with the frenetic energy of a caged animal. “It’s more than that- because as we’ve established your family isn’t above framing me. If they really wanted to bring me in, all they would have to do is lie- and they haven’t even done that! All they have is silence.”

Briskly Ojene rapped her fingers against the front of the folio, and she spun round on her heel to face Shandrelle. “Your family wants it to be secret,” she hissed, “because they have something to hide.”

Shandrelle’s tongue staggered to the roof of her mouth, the thump of her heart in her throat all too palpable. “Like what- the fact that they’re after you?”

“That. But more specifically, why.” Again Ojene spun around, her fingers digging just above the folio’s crease as she stalked away, circling round the copse of wild flowers. “There’s only one reason I can imagine. Your family-” sharply Ojene whipped about, and her eyes bored into Shandrelle’s with such virulent intensity that she froze to the spot. “They must be working with the Garleans.”

For the second time since Ojene seized upon her but a week ago, Shandrelle’s legs turned to a peculiar consistency as all sound collapsed into a droning high-pitched whine that seized all other senses in its throat, gripping them into oblivion until at last its hold grew slack and the noise petered out.

“I,” Shandrelle gasped, “the Garleans?”

“I have no proof.” At once Ojene twisted back into her hectic pacing. “But it’s the only thing that makes sense!” she proclaimed, tossing one hand into the air. “Why else would they do this? Why?It’s too much of a coincidence that they try it on as the Garleans do it too. Too much effort to be just a grudge! And the persistence- they don’t seem to fucking stop!”

“The Garleans,” Shandrelle breathed. “Are you- that doesn’t make any sense. Why would my family do something like that? With them?” A sharp fluttering quailed in her stomach as Ojene rounded her gaze on her, but she clutched her hands tighter and forged on. “After what they did to the edge of the forest- and then that wall. We all saw it.”

But where Shandrelle expected sharpness, something changed in Ojene’s expression- a subtle fluttering of feeling that was gone as soon as it appeared. Ojene looked away.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “It beggars belief, and yet- in these past years I’ve seen a great many things I’d never thought to see. I have no other leads.”

The hair on the back of Shandrelle’s neck prickled, and she clutched her free hand to her opposite elbow, hauling her arms tight to her stomach. “My father,” she blurted. “He- we haven’t been on the best of terms ever since he told me about what he did. But he invited us- me and Ezette and the girls- over to dinner. He hasn’t done that in… gods, moons. It was… odd. The timing, you know. Do you think… that is, is there a chance- that it’s all related to this?”

Ojene lapsed into silence, regarding Shandrelle through the corners of her eyes. Her mouth pulled slightly to the side, the only echo of expression her face held, before with a deep exhale she turned her head to stare behind them. Towards Gridania, where it lay hidden behind the swell of hills and the conference of trees.

“It could be,” she said at last. “There might only be one way of knowing. To go, and see what he says. What he asks you. If he presses you.”

“Matron,” Shandrelle groaned. “More espionage.”

“It’s a decent thought,” Ojene continued. “Perhaps he’d try to see if you’d speak of me. Bring me up, apropo of nothing. To find out if I’m on your mind.”

“This is… I’m going to sit down.”

Shandrelle felt Ojene’s eyes on her back as she staggered towards the fallen tree, dropping heavily into the same spot Ojene had perched a week before. Head swimming, she let the basket slip from her arm and thump delicately at her feet, before plummeting her chin to her upturned palms as she curled in on herself.

At last when the fog cleared, she squeezed her eyes shut.

“Why are you telling me all this?” Shandrelle asked. “Last time you seemed nothing but hostile, and now-?”

A faint shuffle of feet rustled the understory, and when Shandrelle allowed her eyes to crack open she laid her gaze upon Ojene’s half-turned back, arms folded over her chest as her head angled towards the ground.

“Do you want me to be hostile?” she said at last, but to Shandrelle’s shock a hint of a smile shaped her voice.

“No,” she blurted. “Of course not. It’s just- well, I didn’t know if I was ever going to see you again, but if I did- this really isn’t how I thought it was going to go.”

With a huff Ojene tilted her head further away- the first time, Shandrelle realized, that she fully let Shandrelle out of her sight.

“I never planned to come back,” she said distantly.

The two of them sat for a long spell in silence.

ffxivwrite 2021 - #21 Feckless

Continued from #18 Devil’s Advocate (first|second|third|fourth|fifth)

Gridania, 1565 6AE

By the next morning, Shandrelle made up her mind- she wasn’t going to do it.

It could have been any number of things. The way Ezette’s hand lingered on her waist that morning as she leaned past her at the vanity, or the muffled chatter of high voices through the door. The burnt umber flash of Devone’s new dress as she twirled in the foyer one way, then the other, like a flower blooming and furling in rapid succession that danced to the tune of life flooding through the kitchen. A morning’s routine, as the teapot’s wail cut through the clatter of pots and scrape of utensils, and Shandrelle poured the girls’ tea first before sitting down with her own. She lifted it to her nose, but the faint floral bouquet was undercut by the cloying scent of fresh porridge spiced with cinnamon and cloves and the thicker aroma of sausage sizzling on the stove.

As the four of them sat down at the table for breakfast, the girls chattering about a nook beneath a footbridge they discovered yesterday, Shandrelle met Ezette’s eye. Pools of deep brown, in the shadow they often gleamed as black as her hair. But now, as a sliver of morning sun fell across her face, the light scattered through her irises like a pair of twin jewels, splitting into a topaz sunset.

And in that moment, as the girls’ conversation devolved into incessant giggling about normal bodily functions, it was as if the light painting Ezette’s face touched her too, blooming a warmth into her core that spread up her skin as if she was a corrugated flower, Shandrelle beamed.

Of course she wasn’t going to do it! The warmth carried with her as she strode on to the Stillglade Fane, like a sun-kissed stone tucked into her middle. Her family needed no interruption. Herfamily- not her father or her mother. And certainly not her relatives. The most important thing was the girls, and her wife. She would brook no interruptions- no unnecessary dangers. Whatever Ojene’s business was, it wasn’t with her. She wouldn’t aid it, but nor would she stop it. If her kin was up to something foul, eventually the truth would out.

Two days later, her father found her.

She hadn’t heard him coming. Caught up in the Fane, her thoughts lingered on her smallest patient from earlier that day- a small Hyur boy with a terrible rash spreading up his throat. His voice splintered on every word, or what little he could manage before it shattered into wheezing coughs. Half mindlessly her fingers glided across the shelves, drifting over small jars before plucking down one or two. A poultice, she decided- it’d soothe the ravages of what the elemental’s succor could not. She’d only just reached for a mortar when his voice struck her from behind, melodious and cool.

“Ah, Shandrelle.” Efrault Roiveaux emerged from the hall. His once chestnut mane of hair, struck white at the temples and bound with ribbons of grey and platinum, was tied tightly behind his head with nary a loose strand in sight. Its long tail trailed over the shoulder of his robes, the deep azure of the Fane bound with the embroidery of his station- the sort that made the new apprentices quail into silence when he passed.

“You’re back,” she said simply- she didn’t turn around.

“I am, and a couple days early at that.” The smile he tossed at her was easy. Relaxed, as it pleated the wrinkles collecting around his mouth, crinkling through skin so much paler than her own- she’d been born with her mother’s complexion, and thank the Matron for that. “Your mother and I were wondering if you and your family would like to come over for dinner.”

The pestle scraped against the side of its bowl a little too hard, stone against stone, before it stopped short. “Tonight,” she said flatly, though it was more of a question.

“Not necessarily tonight. But this week perhaps? It has been too long since we’ve seen the girls- and Ezette, how is she doing? Is she still working on that wardrobe for the Guillenoix?”

“No.” Shandrelle twisted her wrist sharply, grinding a flake of leaf to dust. “She finished that a moon ago.”

“Ah,” he said simply. “Well, how about on Earthday? If you’ve plans I expect Astralday would work just as well.”

“I’ll ask Ezette,” she hazarded. “Now, I really must get back to work-”

“Of course.” He cast a glance down at the jars at her elbow. “If you need any advice, I’ll be teaching today. Just a little ways down.”

“Thank you, father,” she said dryly. “Goodbye.”

It was only when he left that she released the pestle, and she struck a trembling hand down the side of her robe, her palm slick with sweat.

Dinner? The thought snapped at her heels the whole way home that evening- just before the turn that would take her within sight of their respectable house Shandrelle kept going, clasping her empty lunch basket tight to her side. Her father hadn’t invited them to dinner in moons- and granted he’d been on his usual sojourn through the Twelveswood. A person of his ability was in frequent demand after all. But even when he was home, these days he rarely came to call. So why now?

Why now indeed. A shiver sluiced down Shandrelle’s spine.

Perhaps she wanted to spare her family the trouble, but it was already too late.

ffxivwrite 2021 - #18 Devil’s Advocate

Continued from #17 Destruct (first|second|third|fourth)

Gridania, 1565 6AE

Naturally, the first thing she did was tell Ezette.

It had to wait until evening, and after the girls went to bed, but the two of them collected into the conservatory- or once was anyway, until Shandrelle made the choice to move the plants outside. Drawn shut against the evening stars, the thick green curtains on every window spanning its several slanted walls blanketed the room into more cave than dwelling, and all the cozier for it in the orange glow of the oil lantern sitting on the end table between their plush yellow chairs.

There in the comfort of home, wrapped in a soft woolen blue robe with golden vine embroidery fringing the cuffs and a cup of rapidly cooling tea clasped in her hands, she disgorged the story. Ojene’s sudden arrival, the unexpected response. The threat. Then the mystery she brought with her, and her last request.

At the end Ezette sat back. The slim handle of her porcelain teacup dangled absently between her brown fingers as if she’d forgotten it was there, yet she was well into her second cup. Dressed for evening she wore a matching robe of scarlet, the patterned vines blooming to her throat.

“Well, that’s a lot.” The ends of her hair bobbed as Ezette spoke- let down for the night it haloed her head in a cloud of tight black curls.

“It is,” Shandrelle exhaled in a sigh.

“If you want to get involved… Do you want to get involved?”

“I’m not sure… I don’t know what I’m going to do about it yet, I’ve barely had time to let it sink in, let alone make a choice.”

“Of course, of course,” Ezette murmured, and with deliberate economy she poured herself a third cup of tea. “Do you want to talk it through?”

Despite the seriousness of the situation they found themselves in, Shandrelle couldn’t help but crack a small smile. “I’d like that very much.”

“All right.” Squaring her shoulders, Ezette settled in, planting both elbows upon the arms of the chair as the rest of her body flowed languidly before her, shins peeking out from between the folds of the robe. “Well- my first thought is that you don’t owe her anything.”

“Don’t I?”

“Of course not. It was thirteen bloody years ago when you saw her last. That’s long enough for any blood debts to be paid.”

“Try telling her that,” Shandrelle laughed dryly, but whatever joke there was fell flat, desiccating midair between them. “No, I guess that was the strangest thing. I don’t think she really cared about that- but who knows! With her, it could turn up a few moons later that she’s been carrying this grudge toward me all along, but then I don’t really know her anymore, do I? And she doesn’t know me.“

“True,” Ezette offered.

“I don’t know, I wouldn’t be surprised if part of all that was whatever old ire she might hold against me, but she hardly addressed it. It was all about what was happening now. And maybe if the question is resolved she’ll just drop off again and we won’t have to worry about it anymore.”

“That would certainly be nice,” she said dryly. “I know you’ll probably have already tossed this into the bin, but you wouldn’t consider turning her in, would you?”

“No!” Shandrelle blurted aloud. “No, of course not.”

“Then, I suppose we’ve got two options left. Either you work with her… or you don’t. Though I suppose if you did work with her, you don’t have to do what she said. You can do some other thing for her, if she’ll agree to it. Maybe… I don’t know, go to a few dinners, ask your father some leading questions- the works.”

“Maybe.” Shandrelle groaned. “My father. I can’t believe that he might be tied up in all of this. Again.”

“Would he be the one, do you think? If what she said is real.”

“To be honest… I don’t know.” At long last, Shandrelle took a sip of her tea, but the tepid liquid was merely an excuse to pause and think. “I don’t think it makes much sense, but then again- he did tell her to leave the Twelveswood. And now she’s back. It depends on whether or not he’d be willing to enforce that over a decade later, I suppose.”

“And who else would it be, really,” Ezette mused to herself.

As the two of them lapsed into silence, Shandrelle let her eyes close. Behind them sat a hallowness that throbbed with the slow beat of her heart, one that on another day could have threatened to spill into fresh tears. Yet in the maw of exhaustion that surrounded her, nothing came.

“Maybe I’m just scared, Ezette,” she murmured at last.

Ezette’s head jerked up. “Of what?”

“That it is him… but also that it isn’t. I don’t know, maybe it’s the whole of what this could mean. We’re happy now, or at least I’d like to thinkwe’re happy-” In response, Ezette’s brow pleated and she outstretched a hand. Shandrelle snatched it up, clinging on tight. “This could upend… everything. And she said it was bloody dangerous, to boot.”

Gradually, Ezette’s fingers eased between hers, squeezing them softly at the base. “You don’t have to be afraid of that,” she said softly. “At least not for us. For the danger- if there’s more than what she’s said we’re going to have to talk about it. But we’ll be fine, no matter what comes.”

A deep breath chuffed through Shandrelle’s nose, and her cheek crimped around one side of her quiet smile. “I thought you were going to try to talk me out of it.”

“Well… I thought I was too.” With another squeeze of her hand, Ezette released her grip and settled back into the chair. “I’m not thrilled by the thought of you in danger, but- your work has always been riskier than mine. I can live with it, as long as you don’t do anything rash. And if you try your best to be safe.”

“Of course. Always- without question.”

“Then… do what you think is right. Just go carefully about it- and maybe tell me once you’ve made up your mind. Before you do anything, so I don’t break myself worrying about you in the meantime.”

Quickly, Shandrelle captured Ezette’s hand and gave it another firm squeeze. “Perish the thought,” she said, her throat unexpectedly tight.

ffxivwrite 2021 - #17 Destruct

Continued from #15 Thunderous - ( first|second|third)

Gridania, 1565 6AE

The bell was nearly up by the time Shandrelle returned, and if it was possible she was only more cross. First the air had changed the moment she reached the creek. If had only been able to get down to her picnic spot on time she’d have been able to eat in peace in that perfect spot on a span of flat warm rock right beside the creek bed, where she would lay out her blanket and soak in the quiet solitude punctuated only by the garrulous contributions of birds and frogs as she gradually consumed the crisp sandwich Ezette had made for her that morning, alongside half a jar of spiced apples she’d purloined from the pantry and a mug of wine.

But no! Instead she had to hunch under the large oak tree that oversaw the outcrop, clasping her meal beneath her to guard it from the errant raindrops that rolled through the foliage, battering her nerves in solid wet plops, then a stream.

Then the rain stopped but moments after she left her shelter. As if the gods found all of this funny somehow. Well if they did, she wasn’t laughing! Instead she was stuck smearing water from her forehead and ringing out the edge of her robes, but there was nothing to be done for her underclothes which would assuredly slick to her skin as if she was a drenched rat until she managed to run home.

If she had been in any other mood she’d have abandoned her outdoor lunch and skittered back to somewhere drier the moment the weather turned, but this whole affair had already wasted at least a third of a bell, and she would be damned if she let Ojene ruin the rest of it!

And so, soaked to the bone and shivering in the breeze, clutching a water-slick basket over her arm, Shandrelle scowled at the empty space where she’d left Ojene to begin with.

“You’d better be hiding,” she called out. “Because if you’ve gone and vanished on me after all that, I am going to be verycross.”

“I’m here,” came a voice behind her.

With a yelp, Shandrelle spun round to see Ojene standing there - how was she dry? - as if she’d been there the whole time. “Good gods, don’t scare me like that! Matron, have your feet ever made a sound? Sit down.”

Ojene obliged, and silently, claiming her spot on the now-damp fallen tree. Frown deepening, Shandrelle flipped one side of the basket up and, claiming two of its contents, poured the rest of her wineskin out into her glazed pewter mug, then with an audible huff stuffed it into Ojene’s hands.

“Tell me everything,” Shandrelle proclaimed. “But maybe not everything because I don’t have a surfeit of time. The brief notes, for now, to give me the gist.”

Ojene blinked, staring down at the mug as befuddlement creased between her brows. “Wine?”

“Yes,” Shandrelle snapped, and she gestured sharply. “Drink!”

Grimacing, Ojene set it to the side, balanced in a splintered crook of the fallen tree where old lichens scaled the bark between intermittent shelves of fungi, and she folded her hands together at her knees, hunched forward. Despite the fact that she had escaped the rain, she somehow seemed bedraggled in a way Shandrelle hadn’t noticed before- the leather armor she wore was scuffed in places, caked here and there in dirt and filth, and there was a gauntness to her face that Shandrelle suspected wasn’t just the product of long years past.

“I went to Ala Mhigo,” Ojene said, “from the start. I expect you heard what happened?”

Shandrelle’s arms twitched in surprise. “Yes- of course! Who here hasn’t?”

“Well,” her eyes averted to the ground, “I was there for a good long time. Fighting the Garleans. Helping people. Doing everything I could, no matter what it cost…. Did you ever go there after I left?”

“No,” Shandrelle answered regretfully. “I didn’t. When the city fell at most I wound up in the east, healing those who were. Or the refugees.”

Ojene nodded. “The refugees,” she repeated softly. “That’s the main thing I did- helped them get far enough so you lot could take them to- wherever they needed to go. The Garleans- they are truly terrible, Shandrelle. I’ve never seen anything like it before or since.”

“Not even here?” Shandrelle asked before she could stop herself, and a bitter laugh burbled silently behind her teeth.

“Not even here.” Ojene’s eyes flicked up, meeting Shandrelle’s with a vivid intensity that- Shandrelle noticed in an instant- lacked the lethality it had before, for the dagger was safely sheathed at Ojene’s hip. “It all pales by comparison. And they’ve sought to bring the rest of Eorzea to heel, too.”

A prickling seared down Shandrelle’s spine. “I saw the wall,” she blurted. “The thing they’re building… it might even be done, now. Did you come here across it?”

Again, Ojene nodded. “Though not in the last few moons. Suppose it’s just as well, since my work was getting exponentially harder since they started ramping that damned thing up, but I’m entrenched on this side of it now, for better or for worse.”

“All right,” Shandrelle breathed, “well- what does this have to do with my family?”

“Your family,” Ojene uttered, and a muscle flickered in her jaw. Again, she glanced away, but if Shandrelle didn’t know better she’d have called their silhouette troubled somehow, though she couldn’t pinpoint exactly why she thought it. “It started a couple years ago,” Ojene said. “First it started with the Garleans. I’d been trying my best to be a thorn in their side, true, but it was odd that they sent people for me specifically. Trying to catch me out, or by surprise. There were better people for them to go after, I’d always thought. Or at least, otherpeople. It made little sense that they were always out for me.”

“But then,” Ojene continued, and her eyes jerked back, regarding Shandrelle through their corners, “one time we brought a new crop of refugees past the Wall, and it wasn’t a Garlean who attacked me, but an Eorzean.”

“An Eorzean?” Shandrelle repeated, dumbfounded.

“Yes- a mercenary, and of the sort seeking their fortune around theseparts. It’s not the first time the Garleans got Eorzeans to do their bidding of course, beyond the people they’d already enslaved, but something seemed odd about the whole thing. I tried to get that one to talk to no avail, but the second one told me the truth. That some Gridanian paid her to do it. And when I got to the bottom of it, there was only a single name behind it.”

Blithely, Ojene shrugged. “Roiveaux,” she said.

“Roiveaux,” Shandrelle repeated, and a shiver rippled through her shoulders. “You’re sure?”

“Positive. It’s all I was ever able to get, beyond a hunch now and again that the attackers I dealt with that day weren’t Garlean either, but now I’m on the other side of the Wall and I just- want it to stop.”

Biting her lip, Shandrelle skated one hand over her rain-slicked hair. “Damn,” she breathed. “I’m sorry, Ojene- I had no idea this was happening to you.”

“I’m a little relieved to hear it- to be honest.” Quickly, Ojene’s gaze fastened to her folded hands- only to flick back up at Shandrelle shortly after. “After dealing with them for so long- I had no idea what to expect. No notion of who to trust. It’s an agony of a sort.”

With a deep sigh, Shandrelle nodded, and despite herself some small layer of spiteful anger cracked, dissolving its contents into something gentler. “So that’s what that whole- incident was about. Well, I’ll forgive you, Ojene- though I don’t know if I really should- as long as you promise not to go shoving any more blades in my face.”

Ojene flinched, and yet as her fingertips curled into the beds between her opposite fingers, her face twisted in a quiet frown. “You have to understand my position here. Even now as I tell you all of this, I don’t know if you’re someone I can trust. If you’re a person who is willing to go against your own family. Or an empire. You might think you are-” she bullied on, cutting off Shandrelle as she opened her mouth, “but a person’s mettle never shows until it’s tested. You say you don’t want to harm me and- I could believe that. But what happens when you have to choose?”

“Between you- and my family you mean?”

Quietly, Ojene nodded. “It could happen. And if you chose to help me, it probably will. Are you sure you could handle that?”

“I mean…” Shandrelle tossed up her hands, though the weight of the basket swinging on one arm stayed it at her side. “I don’t know! When you put it that way, I couldn’t say. But I’d like to think I could. Unless it turns out you’ve lied to me or some shite and you’ve really become some sort of criminal they’re out to hang.”

Ojene smiled, and darkly, a bitterly humorless note that seized something in Shandrelle’s gut, like a rabbit frozen in the bush. “Not unless you have. Very well. A test, then. Do you come down this path often?”

“Er…” Shandrelle shifted on her heels. “Every day I get the chance, usually. Which isn’t always, but often enough.”

“Then, let’s give it a week. You’ll come back here and meet me at this same bell. You won’t confide in anyone what we spoke of, or even that you’ve seen me at all. And, if you’d be so obliged, you’ll take a peek in whatever ledgers you can to see if there’s mention of me. Wailer records would likely be the best start.”

“Wailers-” Shandrelle gasped. “That’s assuming I can even get to those!”

“Perhaps not. But if you’re to help me with this, it’s largely that sort of work I’ll need you to do. Not with Wailers specifically, but reconnaissance in general. Spying. You know, the lot.” Ojene’s eyes narrowed sharply. “If you can’t figure out how to do that- well. You were always smart. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

Without preamble, Ojene climbed to her feet, and leaving the mug of wine untouched in its dead wood cradle, she turned into the thicket of foliage. “In a week!” she called over her shoulder, then with barely more than a rustle of leaves vanished from view.

Alone Shandrelle stood by the vetch, eyes rapidly fluttering as her mind struggled round the pieces.

“Ojene!” she yelled into nothing. “That’s not very nice of you, Ojene!”

Only silence responded.

ffxivwrite 2021 - #15 Thunderous

Continued from #11 Preaching to the Choir - ( first|second)

Gridania, 1565 6AE

In that peculiar manner like her head had been doused into a stream, the sound went out. A subtle ringing noise replaced it, droning into a disassembling whine until it faded out into the disagreement of birds that punctuated the whispered susurrations of the leaves around them. A chattering chorus that still for some reason felt unreal, leaving her standing there numbly with her fingers slack, hands crooked in front of her like a pair of pleading paws.

“I beg your pardon?” Shandrelle managed at last.

Before she knew why, she flinched.

“Your family,” Ojene uttered, and true awareness roiled back with a rapid prickling down Shandrelle’s shoulders- for the wry familiarity Ojene’s eyes had vanished into a sharp intensity that burrowed straight to her spine. And though Ojene hadn’t moved the dagger, it suddenly bore again a lethal promise that parched Shandrelle’s throat. “They’re trying to kill me,” Ojene repeated. “Again. And you’re telling me you know nothing of it?”

Shandrelle found velvet petals smoothing between her fingers again, grasping backwards as if somehow reaching out to something- anything- would steady her, for abruptly she felt as if the ground beneath her rolled like a drenched log floating down a river, and her scrabbling desperately to stay afloat as her hands windmilled madly at her sides.

“No,” she croaked. “Matron, Ojene, why would I? The last I saw you, Twelve, it was- you up and left and so abruptly! And I haven’t heard hide nor hair of you since.”

“Then why do you think they’re after me?” Ojene asked, her voice suddenly too calm.

“I- I don’t know! How should I know? I don’t even know what you’ve been up to the last decade or so, how could I even feign to guess?”

“Perhaps you could,” Ojene said softly, “if you tried. You said your father told you what happened.”

“And perhaps he’s unhinged enough to try it! I don’t know- I wouldn’t put it past him- but why would he after all these years? You’re not a threat to me anymore. Er- in his eyes!”

Ojene’s expression hardly changed, save for the subtle narrowing of her eyes. “Then your mother,” she said, just as soft. “Or your relatives- think,Shandrelle, think!” In a flash she was off the fallen tree, pacing forward in a wide circle, the dagger loose at her side.

Twigs jutted hard in the small of Shandrelle’s back as she recoiled. “No- leave them out of it! Unless- they diddo something wrong that I don’t know about but- my mother- I don’t think she ever knew, even if she didn’t approve of you and I, she couldn’t- she wouldn’t-”

“And you’re sure?” Ojene nearly whispered, and she stopped but a couple fulms away, looming over with her great height, and oh, by the Twelve- how Shandrelle felt herself shrink in the shadow, pinned there by the twin glaciers that bore such a cold and distant promise that her voice matched.

“I-I-” Shandrelle rapidly stammered. “As sure… as I can be. Which is not to say… a lot.”

Twin creases kneaded around Ojene’s eyes as she regarded Shandrelle for a long, silent moment, before with a low rumble of the back of her throat she turned on her heel and withdrew a couple paces.

And the end of her thought burbled up in the back of Shandrelle’s thought, leaking out like the croak of a frog. “I was sure of my father too,” she blurted. “After all.”

Ojene shot her a glance over her shoulder, but in truth she’d never fully turned away. “All right,” she muttered, and she returned to the spot at the fallen tree, and still standing she propped one boot up in the same place she had before as she leaned forward like an apostrophe.

In the break from scrutiny the deep breath Shandrelle had swallowed heaved out in a tremulous gust, and she seized her elbows in quivering hands, clutching her arms close to her chest.

“Twelve, Ojene,” she breathed. “I know we didn’t part on the best of terms but… what’s happened to you?”

To her surprise a subtle ripple jerked through Ojene’s shoulders, bowing her head a couple ilms lower. The silhouetted panes of her irises vanished as her eyes swiveled off- and yet still not baring her back, not truly looking away-

“A lot,” at last came Ojene’s muttered reply, and as she straightened she turned back, fixing Shandrelle with an expression that after all this felt strangely empty.

Shandrelle loosed another held breath. “By the gods- I know you don’t have any reason to trust me… but that’s a far cry from me wishing harm on you.” Her voice splintered oddly- she swallowed. “I never wished harm on you. Didn’t know about the harm on you, or… didn’t want to see. And maybe I did cause it. And if I’ve hurt you beyond the ways I realized- then I’m truly sorry. But for the sake of what we did have- Matron’s breath I never wanted you dead!”

Quite unexpectedly tears seared into her eyes in surging pools that spilled thick drops into her lashes, and Shandrelle stuffed her hands to her mouth as she indendeted her upper teeth into the meat of her palm, choking back a sudden sob.

In the moment before wetness blurred it out, she saw the way Ojene’s expression suddenly slackened, her brows lofting upwards. But then the waters streamed forth, wiping everything away into a kaleidoscope of grey and green, and Shandrelle squeezed her eyes shut.

“I’m sorry,” Ojene said, a bit breathlessly. “I’m sorry.”

“Gods,” Shandrelle uttered, a hoarse croak against the vice in her throat. She buried her face into her elbow. “What has gotten into you?”

“I’m- you’re right. You shame me- and rightfully so.”

In the lapse of momentary silence Shandrelle staggered a tremulous breath into her lungs, and with a deep breath she lifted her face aloft. The blurry figure of Ojene resolved, in the absence of tears, into a withdrawn shape once again perched upon the fallen tree. But this time her legs crooked up in front of her, drawn inwards as her hands looped absently around the hilt of the dagger, the blade disappeared under the flats of her arms.

Their eyes met, and a muscle flickered through Ojene’s jaw. “I never truly thought you were out to cause me harm,” she continued softly. “I suppose I was just- furious about it.”

Sniffing hard against an unpleasant wave of phlegm, Shandrelle struck her sleeve across her eyes. “Over- the past? Or now?”

“Both, I suppose… but I shouldn’t have treated you like that. I’m sorry.”

“Why did you?” Shandrelle demanded- and suddenly as she did she had the sense that the ground had changed beneath her feet but this time her shoes burrowed against solid earth that buoyed her up the lip of the hill looking down, not the other way around.

Ojene averted her eyes, one thumbnail budging under the dagger’s pommel. “I guess I wanted to know if you were telling the truth.”

With a disbelieving laugh Shandrelle thrust a hand over the top of her head, flattening down a few straggly hairs as she went. “Well, there’s better ways to do that, you know! Instead of launching me into- some bloody interrogation! I mean, honestly! Did you not hear a word I said?”

“There’s hearing. And then there’s believing.” Ojene’s gaze flicked up, suddenly affixed to Shandrelle’s face with a seriousness that stopped her short. “My life has been a liability to the people around me for- some time now. So I have to be careful with who I bring into it- especially with you.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

Ojene grimaced- and as soon as she’d met Shandrelle’s eye she glanced away again, one shoulder rolling in an approximation of a shrug. “Well, if you weren’t part of it all, then… I was going to have to ask for your help.”

A particularly shrill ululation of birdsong punctuated the silence.

“Ojene,” Shandrelle gritted through a half-bared grimace of a smile. “You have one hell of a way of asking for support.”

Ojene opened her mouth to reply, but Shandrelle battened it down with the sharp loft of a finger. “I am very put out with you!” she said. “And I am going to need a moment to process- whatever the hells all this is- but if you’re telling me that you’re in danger and it’s my family that’s doing it- well, I couldn’t very well say no, could I?”

“You don’t know that yet,” Ojene hazarded.

“I suppose I don’t! But fuck you, honestly, showing up here, telling me things like that, and then expecting me not to give you succor. I am going to need some time!” Bending down, she swiftly plucked her lunch basket over her arm. “So you are going to stay here.” She turned on her heel. “And don’t follow me!”

With a great huff Shandrelle swept down the path she had meant to walk down to the creek from the start, blooms of vetch long since forgotten as Ojene’s silent eyes followed her til she turned out of sight.