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chrysalispen · 4 years

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x. the mirror of malicious eyes

When Aurelia next awakened the only indication of a chance from night to daytime was the angle of a thin sliver of light, shimmering fitfully betwixt a stray crack in the wall’s mortar. She stirred, shivered from the damp chill in the air, and tilted her chin curiously at the sleeping man whose head lolled on her right shoulder. Her cursory inspection of the cramped cell, now dimly lit, showed that this was the sleeping arrangement for everyone: shoulder to shoulder for warmth, if not protection.

A glance into the other two cells confirmed that she was the only Garlean who appeared to be participating in this endeavor. The men in the other two cells had isolated themselves, sitting stiffly back to back against the walls, separate from the others.

“Good morning, my lady,” a voice said to her left.

She turned her head to address the speaker with a strained smile. The owner of the voice was a pretty Midlander woman with straight midnight-black hair, cropped to regulation length. She was holding something in her hands, and Aurelia caught a scent that roused a bodily demand she’d almost forgotten she had.

“Hiro and I saved you some of the rations. The guards brought it by a few bells past, but you were sleeping so soundly you didn’t stir.”

Aurelia blinked at the trencher’s contents. It was some kind of simple stew, lentils and sliced sausage in a thin broth with a rough-cut hunk of dark brown bread.

“It’s gone cold,” the woman continued apologetically, but Aurelia paid no heed. She was already tearing out a piece of bread and soaking it in the broth to soften it, then scooping out a heap of lentils and meat to shovel into her mouth. The food was in fact cold and the lentils overcooked, but she couldn’t remember the last proper meal she’d actually had. It felt like the best thing she’d ever tasted.

“Thank you,” she managed once she’d eaten enough to silence the feral gnashing of her hunger. “How long was I asleep?”

“I think… three full changes of the guard? It was a very long time. The woman with the knives said you’d been conscripted to work in the infirmary back at their camp, so we thought it best to let you sleep. She’s been coming down to watch them, said she was making sure they only do what they’re supposed to do.”

“You could have awakened me. I don’t want to be a bur-”

“Beg pardon, my lady, but there’s barely any room for one set of feet to walk,” was the blunt response. “It’s true we could have awakened you, but ‘tis easier for all concerned to simply bring you aught that’s needful.”

She felt the urge to argue, but let it go. The woman had a point–their quarters, or what passed for quarters, were so cramped that there was little enough room to stand and sit.

“What’s your name?” she asked instead.

“Sayaka jen Hanamori, my lady. I’m - I was - part of the Fifth Cohort signal corps.”

“Sayaka. Is that an Othardian name?”

“I hail from Doma, my lady.”

“Please,” Aurelia winced, “don’t call me 'my lady.’ I’m neither your mistress nor your commanding officer.”

“But you are pureblooded, my lady,” Sayaka said patiently, as if that explained everything.

“…Well, yes, but that doesn’t-”

The rattling clank of metal on stone interrupted them, followed by the creak of the door’s turning hinges. Sayaka immediately froze in place, her gaze cast down to the rushes as an indistinct figure peered between the bars with a torch held aloft. And then Aurelia herself tensed, for she recognized the face that was looking in on them. It was one of the Ala Mhigan men from the cart, the pair who’d harassed her before Bryn’s underling had interfered.

His eyes swept over her as if she were invisible and the light passed along.

After the door closed both women sighed in unison, paused, looked at each other, and grinned. It was a grim sort of camaraderie to be sure, but when Sayaka spoke again she seemed a bit less diffident than before.

“They’ve been coming in every half-sun or so,” she muttered. “Everyone’s been wondering what the Eorzeans are planning to do with us. You wouldn’t happen to have heard anything, would you?”

“I remember hearing rumors about a trial of some sort. Beyond that, I know as much as the rest of you.”

The Doman engineer didn’t say anything for a long time. All she could hear was the slow shuffle of the other woman’s feet in the soiled rushes. In one of the other blocks, someone else coughed, then sniffled, then went silent.

“A trial,” Sayaka said, and she could hear the note of fear there. “You don’t think…”

“Think what?”

“No, my lady, forgive me. 'Tis naught.”

“I’m not your lady. What were you going to say?”

With clear reluctance that pretty face tilted upwards to look at her, dark brown eyes wide. “…You don’t think they’ll just sentence the lot of us to hang, do you?”

The question chilled her. No one in the camp had seemed to want to address anything beyond the immediate needs of the wounded, when she’d been there. Even Bryn had been closemouthed, stating only that it wasn’t her responsibility what the command actually decided to do with any prisoners. That lack of clarity didn’t exactly inspire much confidence, but she didn’t want to say so. The Doman conscript looked to be near tears as it was.

“I don’t have anything against the Eorzeans at all,” Sayaka said plaintively, before Aurelia could answer. “I was a good student and I learned very quickly, so I was able to secure a sponsor to send me and my brother to the capitol. For our schooling, you know- and I thought perhaps if I joined the imperial army and earned my citizenship I might be able to help the people in my village. I didn’t think…”

She nodded. "I know."

“I never would have hurt anyone. I haven’t even laid hand to a weapon since basic.”

“So that’s it, then,” someone else said. “We’re waiting to see if we live or die.”

“Assuming they ever plan to let us see the light of day again,” a gloomy retort echoed from the cell next to theirs, this from one of the other Garleans. “For all any of us know, the savages might’ve bloody well decided to let us rot down here.”

They could do that, she knew. She didn’t think they would, but they could. They could simply let them starve to death down here and no one would be the wiser- and she hoped that notion hadn’t occurred to any of their captors. The Spire was such an isolated location that it could be weeks before anyone thought to check and see how they were faring. If anyone remembered they had been sent here at all.

But what choice did they have save to hope for the best?

~*~

Kan-E-Senna was angry.

To Raubahn Aldynn, who had known the Elder Seedseer for several years and had never known the outwardly mild-mannered woman to even raise her voice save on very rare occasions, it was a remarkable experience. Her eyes were fever-bright and her cheeks rosy and the air about her small frame fair seemed to crackle with energy, as if the Greenwrath itself were contained within her bones.

Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn’s countenance was like a thunderstorm to Kan-E-Senna’s fire: her pale brow knit in a fierce scowl, arms folded in a defiant yet defensive posture across her chest. “I was under the impression that the Levy was under *my* authority. I am *not* going to pull personnel when our numbers are far outstripped as it is!”

“Surely we have enough-”

“Seedseer, I’m aware you mislike the way this has been handled. But what’s done is done. You can make any decision you like with the people under your authority, but Commodore Sletteidin made the same call I would have made in his position.”

The smaller woman took a deep, visible breath, clearly trying to rein in her ire.

“To those souls we granted succor upon the Flats,” she said, “I have already given my word that they will never see the wrong side of a gaol cell. I did this because our plan will not work if we cannot prove our word can be trusted.”

“Then what do you suggest? I’m not going to have imperial prisoners given the run of the camp. I wanted all of these people watched and kept from running to the XIVth, and that is easier done from a holding cell.”

She looked out over the muddy remains of the Foreign Levy’s interim encampment in silence. After a near moon spent here in cleanup, they could afford to tarry no longer despite the widespread destruction that still remained. Their people needed all the hands that could be spared for disaster relief. Now that preparations had been finalized at home, all three leaders of the Grand Companies had given orders to make preparations for departure. Rites had been said over the last of the bodies retrieved from the battlefield, the pyres burnt until the coals had died to embers, and the ashes blown across the land by the southern winds.

The process had been a slow one in part because most of Mor Dhona had been left a crystalline wasteland. Aldenard’s aetherial balance had been badly upset by the Calamity; cold storms better suited to the late fall months had raged off and on for the past fortnight, though without the blizzards that had blanketed Coerthas in heavy snows. Entire swathes of the rainforest had been destroyed, and the area around Silvertear Lake had been flash-burnt by Bahamut’s flares, the ambient aether crystallizing in an instant and half the mountain range itself crumbling beneath the onslaught.

Those who had been held at the camp upon the Seedseer’s arrival had been removed from it nearly as soon as she had seen to their hurts, as if it had been planned specifically due to her presence. Hence her wrath, Raubahn knew. She felt she had been made to give a promise that it appeared she had immediately broken, and he couldn’t fault her frustration any more than he could fault Merlwyb’s logic.

Deciding to break the impasse as the third voice, he cleared his throat until he was certain he had their attention.

“Do we know exactly how many were taken prisoner by the Levy?” he asked Merlwyb. “Conscripts and Garleans separately?”

“At last count the Levy itself held nine Garlean prisoners all told, eight men, one woman. Most our people encountered were officers who chose either to attempt escape, attack the rescue squads, or take their own lives rather than surrender. As far as the full headcount, I couldn’t say off the top of my head.”

“Where are they being held?”

“The Emerald Spire.” Merlwyb pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’ll request an exact number. Linkpearl communications are still unstable, but I think if we keep them brief there shouldn’t be a problem obtaining that information quickly.”

“Seedseer, do you know roughly how many of the prisoners Gridania would be able to take in?”

“Twoscore, perhaps. That’s in addition to all the injured conscripts we have already taken as wards of the Twin Adder. I don’t know that we have the resources at present to support many more.” She sighed, bowed her head, and he knew she was thinking of the people who had been lost in the partial destruction of the city. “Should it be needful later, we can certainly revisit that number. Full well do I know you and the Admiral bear your own burdens, and I would not add to them.”

He nodded.

“The Admiral’s exactly right about the logistics, mind,” he said. “I don’t think it’d be advisable to move them again before a decision is made, for a number of reasons. So instead of trying to shift them all about and figure out which group should go to which camp and risk muddying the waters further- 'tis my thinking that we should go to them. Will the space have the capacity to host these proceedings?”

“Most of the Spire has lain in ruins this past score of years,” Merlwyb said, “or so I’m told. But the keep itself, along with its gaol, has been in continuous use by the Twin Adder as a watchtower and is still usable. There should be at least one space that can serve our purposes.”

“We will need judges.”

“Aye, but only three more souls to serve on the panel, I should think. We have other matters to attend; 'twould be best for all concerned to bring this to a swift conclusion.”

“And should anyone wish to speak in defense of any of these poor sods, they’ll have the chance to do it. Aye, that includes the Garleans,” Raubahn said, at the sight of Merlwyb’s lifted brows. “Much as I mislike it, we owe it to ourselves to be as evenhanded as possible.”

She appeared to mull this over for a moment, lips pursed in thought, before slowly nodding.

“I suppose I’ve no objections,” the Admiral allowed at last. “Though I doubt the Garlean prisoners are going to like our terms.”

“Then that is their choice,” he said. “We'll let them be the masters of their own fates.”

~*~

The days and nights had long since blended into each other, a monotony of dim light and fouled rushes and broken sleep broken only by meager rations and the intermittent visits of the guards. Lu didn’t say anything to her even in passing, just kept a watchful eye on soldiers and prisoners alike, and Aurelia understood that matters had not changed between them, regardless of the woman’s connection to a mutual friend. She’d receive no aid from the Miqo'te in either direction save the bare minimum. It was disheartening, but not surprising.

At first she had tried to track the days by the number of times the guards changed, but she soon lost track of that, and the light between the mortar cracks was even less reliable due to the unseasonably cold and violent storms that rolled frequently through the area. Once or twice she heard one of the guards mutter something about odd aether in passing, but she wasn’t sure if they were talking about the weather or something else, and none of them were friendly enough for her to attempt to ask.

One dreary morning the rattle of keys and the opening door woke her out of a feverish doze - between the damp chill and the constant slow leak in the mortar, everyone on the block was nursing an incipient cold, Aurelia included - and a fist slammed against the metal bars of the gaol cell.

“Look alive, Garlean, you’ve a visitor.”

She coughed, shifting herself into something resembling a sitting position, and blinked owlishly at the Elezen man staring in at her. His expression was utterly neutral but the shifting of his feet betrayed his impatience.

“Well, hurry it along, then,” he said. “We don’t got all day.”

Sayaka helped her to her feet and handed her the crutches. The Doman’s face was a picture of concern, but she didn’t speak as she watched the Garlean woman she’d cautiously befriended make her careful way over the floor to the cell door. The tumbler turned with a hollow click and the barred door was opened just enough to let her limp across the threshold.

The guardsman gestured with a jerk of his chin. “This way.”

Aurelia followed, trying not to flinch at the slamming of the wooden door behind her and wondering who on earth would have come here to see her specifically. Bryn perhaps, but she couldn’t think of anyone else who would have taken especial interest in an imperial prisoner. She limped carefully behind the man up a set of stairs to the main floor, where she saw-

“Sparrow!”

The Roegadyn stood with his arms folded across his broad chest at the threshold of a closed door that led into one of the long-unused rooms inside the keep. His hazel eyes lit up with something like relief at the sight of her. He was not in the scarlet colors of the Maelstrom any longer; he wore a suit of well-used leather armor, his axe strapped over his back.

“You’ve a half bell,” the guard said briskly at her back. “Make the best of your time.”

Once the door had snicked shut behind him, Sparrow reached out to embrace her, walking aids and all.

“Glad t'see you hale an’ whole, lass.”

“Both of those states are debateable,” she said wryly, “but I still breathe for the time being. How long have I been here?”

“Not quite three weeks. Camp’s breakin’ down to roll out. We’ve done about all we can do at the Flats for now. As far as you and yours go, a panel of judges arrived at first light this morning for the hearings. There was some sort o’ miscommunication - that’s why you've been here so long - but it’s mostly been sorted.” His worried expression didn’t change. “They’ve allowed any folk what want to speak on behalf of the prisoners to make statements.”

“So then the rumor was true? We’re all to stand trial?”

“Eh? Aye, that’s so.” Sparrow scratched the back of his head, looking somewhat abashed. “But if you’re worried about gettin’ rotten fruit thrown at you or the like, don’t. It won’t be a spectacle. Just you and the panel and character witness statements from whomever decided to put in a good word for you. Bryn’ll have given hers, and me an’ Captain Brudevelle already gave ours. You’ve a goodly number of folks in your corner, lass, as it happens.”

She stared down at the stones beneath her feet.

“You’ve never really answered my question, Sparrow.”

“What question?”

“Why are you always going out of your way for me? We barely know each other; most would call us enemies, in fact. And yet you’ve shown me nothing but the utmost consideration.”

For once Cheerful Sparrow, whose lighthearted personality so often seemed to be so fitting of his name, appeared at a loss. He opened his mouth as if he meant to speak, then shut it, then opened it again. This time a sigh issued forth and an old pain flickered at the corners of his eyes, deepening the lines in his face. It muted his smile somewhat, rather like a cloud that had drifted across the afternoon sun.

“My daughter,” he said at last, “was very much like you.”

Her grip on the crutches was so tight her knuckles had gone colorless. She peered up at him, very carefully, eyes half-hidden beneath dirty fringe.

“Her name was Yellow Daisy- looked just like her ma. She was serious and dutiful and very kind, had plans to travel south to Ul'dah and study at their Phrontistery once she came of age. Fair bit of a presence; I could pick her laugh out of a room of hundreds. After my wife’s passing, I took up mercenary work for the extra coin - like aught else in that city, schooling of that sort costs money. I used to worry she resented me for always bein’ gone on jobs, but if she did she never said so.”

“You say 'was.’ What did she… what happened to her?”

His smile trembled in place.

“When the Garleans first arrived in Eorzea, they drove out a host of smallfolk from their villages an’ farmholds an’ took that land to build their fortresses. Most folk fled to towns and cities, but some turned to banditry. Daisy came across an overturned cart in the road one day on her way home from market and tried to help, not knowin’ it were just a ruse. Gave 'em her food, but they didn’t believe her when she said she had no coin. So…”

“Oh, no,” she breathed, “they-”

“The Yellowjackets sent word by linkpearl. I left Cap'n L'sazha’s crew at port with our job half done so I could go home and bury my only child. She was nineteen summers.” She felt the warm weight of his hand on her shoulder. “Now before you go an’ start blamin’ yourself, you should know that Daisy’s death was no more your doin’ than mine.”

“Why?” Another lost life that could be laid squarely at the feet of her people. “Gods’ sake, Sparrow! Why don’t you hate me?”

“Why should I? You’ve not a malicious bone in your body, lass. I saw that much the night we found you. You freely offered to help when you knew your skills were needed.”

“How do you know I didn’t simply do that to save myself?”

“Have you known, at any time, what we planned to do with you?” When she shook her head, he asked, “Then why would you help us?”

"I had to."

"Why?"

She sighed.

“Because if I know I can help, I can't make myself ignore it. The woman who raised me used to call it my curse.“

"Aye, your Empire would see that as a weakness, I expect. But that kindness takes a special sort o’ strength. Especially when refusin’ to turn your back on folk in need oft repays a body with naught save even more trouble.”

“Well,” Aurelia said with a mirthless laugh, “I expect that shall prove true enough, anyroad. Taking the part of a Garlean prisoner - particularly under present circumstances - is in fact liable to be troublesome for you.”

“ 'Tis like to be troublesome for me an’ Bryn both,” he agreed. The hand on her shoulder gave a gentle squeeze. “But I couldn’t help my daughter. I have a chance to help you and I mean to take it. So I’ll not be lookin’ away, either.”

“You’re a good man, Sparrow.” Her throat felt so raw and tight she could barely choke the words out. “Would that we had been on the same side of this pointless bloody war.”

“Had we been fightin’ on the same side, lass, 'tis unlikely we’d have ever met like this.”

She bowed her head. That was true enough.

“Can you promise me one thing about tomorrow?” she ventured. “Please? Just one thing?”

“What is it?”

Aurelia chewed on her lip, her gaze shifting towards the closed door. “The other prisoners,” she said. “The conscripts, I mean. I know you can’t simply set everyone free, but most of them were given no choice in joining the army and I doubt anyone will listen to me. They deserve a chance as much as I do, if not more.”

Sparrow smiled.

“Still not a thought for your own neck,” he said gently, as the guard opened the door to come take her back to the cell. “I’ll do what I can, lass, I promise.”

#reborn by fire #chapter 10 #i'm working on part 11 for a back to back post so this isn't going up on AO3 until i'm done with it #chrysalispen writes #yet another self indulgent WoL backstory fic #aurelia laskaris #garlean warrior of light

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