The Ruthless

“I don’t care what you have to do,” the woman snarled, feral and wolf-like she snapped her jaws. The man withering under her gaze looked up meekly at her. He was brawny, his physique described as “like a wall” by his fellow knights, but the hurricane of a woman before him had cowed any arrogance his form might have otherwise armed him with. Intense amber eyes did not blink, their gaze did not waver, instead they bored into him like a drill through ice.

“My lady, it is simply not-”

“I said, I do not care!” she bellowed; her boot came up and thrust into the man’s  chest, sending him off of his knees and onto his back. “The fleet will be ready to sail by dawn.”

The man lay sprawled on the floor. He said nothing, only managing a meager nod, before rolling onto his stomach to clamber meekly to his feet. He hobbled away, passing a gleaming white suit of armor on his way out of the chamber, closing the door heavily behind him. The suit of armor cleared its throat pointedly, a noise vaguely feminine despite the masking echo of the helm.

The woman, amber eyes ablaze and red hair wild and untamed, turned her fiery gaze on the armor. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. Her hands found their way to her narrow hips, and the suit appraised her for a moment. She was a little shorter, perhaps one or two ilms over 5 fulms, despite the size her immense presence might otherwise suggest. Her cheek bones were high, almost etched, and sharp. Her nose was pert, her lips thin. She looked like Halone remade, a goddess who mongered war and reveled in it.

In all, her daughter looked only a semblance like her. Where Ana D’mira was narrow and sharp, Enambris was distinctly not. Their faces held only the barest traces of matrilineal similarity. Her uncle had always told her she had her father’s eyes, silver-grays that outshone the fiery amber of her mother.

Slowly she tugged off the helmet, stowing it under one arm, and turned to face her mother. “You called for me,” she reminded her flatly, her face and eyes devoid of any expression at all. Her jaw was set, mouth a hard line.

Ana D’mira held her gaze for a few moments, as though challenging her to speak again. “So I did,” she said at length, the fire softening for but a moment. “You will go with the raiding party.”

Enambris blinked. “Beg pardon?” she asked incredulously, almost petulantly. “Since when?”

There was something in Ana D’mira’s expression she’d never seen before. Surprise, perhaps? Mingled with rage, and a dash of shock, her visage was twisted into something a little ugly, lined and haggard, like an ancient tree about to catch fire.

“I said you will-”

“No.”

The fire exploded. “What did you say to me?” she thundered, the hurricane sweeping the room again. The girl stood fast, narrowing her eyes.

“I said no.”

 

Finding Purpose

The dull sound of metal striking the floor reverberates through the walls, but by now most anyone staying at the Forgotten Knight had grown quite used to the ceremony of the foreign Hyur woman removing her armor and letting it drop heavily to the floor upon returning for the night. She stands in her room, pauldrons beside her on the floor, and sets her jaw. Usually, removing her armor takes but a moment, so familiar with the rote of it as she is. This time she fumbles with the fasteners, bolts of pain making the trembling in her fingers worsen. But Enambris doesn’t flinch. She just needs to get this bloody plate off.

The plate unbuckled, it hits the ground with a loud thud and she exhales her relief, slowly wiggling out of her mail and gingerly wiping away blood from the inside of the chain shirt, lips set into a hard line. The wound was bleeding again, the stitches, despite being expertly sewn, somehow still blooming tiny trails of blood. She exhales, her breath becoming steam despite the roaring fire in the hearth.

Her sword and shield are leaned safely against the wall, over which is draped a pair of gauntlets and a belt. She drops the chain beside the rest and leans briefly against the wall, eyes closed, swallowing the pain. She’ll heal, she reminds herself. This is nothing.

A smile crosses her lips. The meeting itself, while being a somewhat awkward and revealing affair, had only in its aftermath served its ultimate purpose. She had been called Enambris of the Embers. She was embers now, barely smoldering on the surface. But it was intended for her to be stoked, to stir the ashes and reveal the blistering coals beneath; adding kindling to the heat and sparking off the great bonfire she had long ago shone. That thought prompted another: if her fire had gone out, what had doused the flame?

With care and caution she would never reveal to another living soul, she gingerly makes her way to the bed, sitting on its edge as though preparing to sit upon hot coals. How long had she been aimless, a wandering soul with no rest, a blade with no opponent to hone itself against? Had she lost her spark before coming to Eorzea?

In her life, Ana D’mira the Ruthless had spoken to her naught but three times. First as a child, clinging to her uncle’s breeches and staring at the severe woman from behind his towering form; second as an adolescent, the exchange polite but terse, as Ana D’mira questioned the girl thoroughly of her intent when she eventually ascended to take her birth right; and finally, the last, the cold water that doused a growing flame.

It was only days before the woman’s death. Enambris had been growing into her own womanhood, still a rose yet blooming. By then she’d taken up her armor. It was different from the knights, from the lords and their vassals, who lived to serve The Ruthless. Her armor was, to them, unique; a prize brought home from the nearest sovereign nation, gifted to her by her uncle. He called it “Ishgardian”, an heirloom from a distant land. It fit her glove-like, perfectly fitted and with enough give to allow her to grow. She wore it daily, trained in it, lived in it. Ana D’mira had not approved.

A wry smile overtakes Enambris’ lips. She had never burned hotter than the day she defied the woman that had given birth to her. The biting words flung viciously from the woman’s mouth as Enambris had stood triumphantly over her low form had served to change the girl, but not in the way intended.

A sudden, but expected, knock at the door interrupts her thoughts, the wry smile becoming a wolf-like grin. “You can come in,” she calls.

“Hey Rosen’ash… er… you busy?” a voice behind her asks with embarrassment that cannot be masked. She pulls her robe up over slender porcelain shoulders and sashes it at the waist.

“That’s why I asked you here.” She waves absently to a small chair perched next to an equally small , rickety table, and as he takes the seat awkwardly, she strides across the room, rifling through her pack for something yet unknown. She turns, and triumphantly slaps a folded handkerchief onto the table.

“What’s this s’posed to be?” he asks incredulously, running a hand through pitch hair.

“Open it,” she says, the fire in the hearth reflecting little sparks in bright grey eyes. He examines it closely; there’s blood on it. Gingerly he pulls the first fold back, then the second, spreading it out on the table to reveal…

A black spot?

“No seriously lass, what is this supposed to be?”

“A knife,” she says plainly, her gaze unwavering, unblinking. “Part of one, anyway. One that found its way here,” she points to the general location of the surgery stitching beneath the white cotton robe. He deigns not to look, though, as she gestures to the back of her right hip. He clears his throat and delicately lifts the tip of the blade pinched between the kerchief and his fingers.

“So this is the shiny, or not so shiny, bit that was stuck in your guts, then,” he comments, turning it over. It’s like nothing he’s sever seen; black as the darkened sky, tiny pinpricks of light appearing and vanishing as quickly as they’d come. It doesn’t reflect light, just a patch of night hanging in the air. “You want me to find the whoreson, then?”

“No,” she says, the glint in her eye unsettling him. “He’s already dead. I want to know who made this, and who paid for it.” Her jaw is set, stormy gaze boring into his.

“That’s doable,” he replies, scrutinizing the piece. “But it won’t be easy. It’ll be a pretty penny, kid.”

“Done.”

He stares at her, brow furrowed. “That… are you sure? This may take some time, an’ I can’t promise it’ll lead anywhere.” He pauses and adds, “You feelin’ alright, lass?”

She leans on her hands over the table, scooting a small pouch of gill across the pale gray of the wood. “Better than I have in ages,” she replies. “I had a brush with death, thought that I’d become a ghost. Turns out, I’ve been a ghost for some time now.” Confusion evident on his face, she leans back again and folds her arm across her chest. “I had a reminder recently. When we met, do you remember what I said I was going to do?”

He snorts. “Save the world. You finally wake up?” he asks, tone thick with incredulity.

“Nope!” she replies brightly. “Just found the road through the mist, is all.”

He continues to stare at her for another heartbeat longer, and finally shrugs. “Alright then,” he folds the piece of knife away and tucks it into his vest. “I’ll be in contact.” With that he leaves, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

Alone once again, she sits back down upon the bed, smile still tugging the corners of her lips upwards. The pain grounds her, keeps her mind centered. She hasn’t thought this clearly in years, that burning that travels through her veins and makes her heart pump. But despite her smile, despite the exhilaration pounding in her heart, despite the flood of memories and reminders washing over her like the heat of the hearth, there’s something else she knows she must address.

Enambris isn’t fond of deceit, and that’s not what this is. Or at least she hopes it’s not. But she’s also not a fan of being in the dark, she ponders to herself. There was no obvious reason, at least not on the surface, to drive a spark into her smoldering embers, no real need to throw more fuel on her fire. If anything, there were dozens of men, usually the absurdly wealthy men who were so often impacted by her work, that wanted to see her little flame extinguished altogether. So why? She has some semblance of purpose now, however daunting or impossible it seems. An errand that won’t be completed in her lifetime, a purpose that will not only draw attention to the already-present target on her back, but light it up like fireworks. That part she doesn’t mind.

But damn it if he isn’t being cryptic, and damn it all to the seven hells if she isn’t going to find out why. She has questions she intends to have answered.

 

FFXIV; Balmung; Kindling

A New Understanding of Life

He was so small, she observed, five tiny fingers curled around her pinky. The rash that wound its way around his chest like a band was angry and red, but it was far less severe than it had been just a few hours previous. Had she more time to devote to him alone, maybe she could have cured him without Victoria returning with the ingredients she desperately needed.

But then another mother had arrived with a coughing infant. And another, and another yet. Now she sat amidst a makeshift nursery, rocking one tiny little human life while others slept soundly in the mostly-quiet. For their illness, they were surprisingly calm, and that worried her.

Enambris Rosen-Ash sighed heavily. The baby she cradled gasped a tiny, almost inaudible yawn, and she finds herself smiling. But he closes his eyes again and drifts away to sleep, leaving her alone to wonder: what has she missed?

It’s not with fondness she recalled the wailing and screams that pocked the dark winter nights of Ereden’s south ward, the incurably, terminally ill and the woefully displaced. Sobbing children robbed of their parents, screaming victims robbed of their dignity, all while men and women too high-born to care and too terrified to let through the supplies desperately needed by an all-but-decimated population watched from their lofty towers as the poor suffered and died. Even then, there had been some medicines that had reduced the symptoms, made the passing of the victim a little easier, but there was no cure. Even then, she had read books and scrolls and tomes of every shape and size, looking for something the ancient city and its impossibly magical walls held secret that would deliver them from such hell.

There had been nothing then. But now, now was different. Victoria had come back with the ingredients, and she put her to work crushing the Terse Moss into a fine powder. It had to be exactly perfect, she surmised. The aloe had been expertly crushed and milked of its healing liquid, and the King’s Weed had already been set to be turned into a fine paste. Time was going to tell if this would work. Still though, she felt something was amiss. She had overlooked… something.

The paste, then finished, was hauled back in by Victoria, her explosive enthusiasm a welcome change to Enambris, who despite her initial dislike of the woman, had started to grow fond of her. That Victoria had any drive at all, especially to help children, only helped that along. She took the stone mortar, filled near to full with the pungent paste. She could tell the babe in her lap wasn’t enjoying it, because he scrunched up his face. He didn’t cry though, so she went about her work, carefully dabbing the paste over the rash, around his glands, and on his forehead. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, and she worked patiently and diligently, the occasional presence of Victoria peering over her shoulder the only minor distraction. The mothers had been ushered away, the doors locked; Lavi and her curiously-wounded pirate subordinate had been banished to another room, a problem she would have to resolve later. The rash began to fade, and so she set Victoria to work dabbing what was left of the paste on the cloth over the babe’s forehead.

Enambris picked up the next child, a tiny little girl that was worse off than she had originally understood. She set to work, steadily spreading the paste, cooing and soothing the baby girl with soft humming and little songs as she went. Beginning with the uppermost flash, the rays of the sun in her Caste mark ignited, and the light of Dawn illuminated the room. Whether or not Victoria had taken notice she didn’t know, so wholly wrapped in her work as she was. The second child done, she moves to the next.

As she picked up the yawning, swaddled bundle, a thought occurred to her. The light of her Caste mark cast a soft glow on the babe’s tiny face, illuminated it by the essence of her dawn’s light.

“I think I can…” she muttered softly, picked up the rag, and set to work. Her fingertips began to tingle, where tiny motes of essence had pooled there. Under those tips, she could feel something. A little current, just a stream, yet to become a river, but she could feel it. She felt the ebbs and flows, the curves in the stream, and where the stream had been dammed, its flow stopped. That was it.

A flash of light filled the room; Enambris pressed her forehead, and the glowing symbol of the dawn’s light, against the babe’s forehead, and, still singing softly, lifted something from her, tiny and inky. It dissolved, the light dimming with it, but by then she had already captured that moment, held it in her hands. With a wide grin she turned to Victoria. “I can finish this right now,” she said. With that the bonfire erupted and the rising nova cracked; her wings split from it, spread wide, molten gold made to form, and she set to work.

 

EXALTED; Dawn-Caste Anima Banner; Medicine Charms

Conversations with Ghosts

The repair work on her armor is just visible in the flickering light of the slowly-dying fire, a seam of melded metals so fine that it almost appears to be the work of a shadow. She sits upon the hearth, heat washing over her in small, shiver-inducing waves, fingers gently tracing the place where the axe had shorn through heavy adamantite and stopped just shy of smashing its way through the chainmail underneath. She still has the remnants of bruises from the blow, once sickly purple-green and now mostly faded.

Gently she rubs the bandages wrapped tightly around her waist; they, and the gauze, have been freshly changed, the stitches and wound beneath cleaned and dressed anew. It will be an ugly, agonizing recovery process. Magic can only go so far when the damage is so severe, and whatever blade had lodged itself there must have had some magic of its own, with the difficulty she’d had in getting the wound to stitch, let alone close. She presses her back against the chair behind her, choosing to sit on the ground instead of upon the uncomfortable, petrified wood that made up the ancient piece of furniture. She’s lived out of this room since her arrival in Ishgard, and by now, it feels more like a tiny apartment than an inn room. Her shield is leaned up against the wall, blankets draped unceremoniously across the feather bed and uncomfortable chair, the curtains only opened by the barest effort. The large rug on the floor is well-worn, the stone beneath it equally traveled. The remnants of a white silk dress, colored by coral lace and bloodstains, is in a crumpled heap beside the wardrobe that stands open, various cotton tunics, skirts, and breaches haphazardly piled into the bottom of its wooden floor.

Her fingers trace the repaired metal again, and drift idly up to the breast of the armor, running along the grooves and notches and rivets; even in the dim firelight, the metal almost glows a pale, dusky white.

“You think you could have avoided this?” a voice, almost a whisper, brushes past her ear. She sets her lips to a hard line.

“Why would I?” she asks the room, the darkness, the whisper, the flickering shadows. They seem to dance on the wall, reflected in the plate of the armor. It seems to smile.

“Because you always think that whenever things go awry. You’re always quick to assume responsibility.”

“Aye, and must do so again.” Her reply is short, a little bitter. Eyes of brewing thunder-heads seem to ask the shadow, dare it, to oppose her.

“You shoulder far too much responsibility. Did your mother teach you that?” The voice sounds innocent, almost. But she glares, eyes narrowed irritably.

“No one learned anything from Ana D’mira the Ruthless except for how to destroy a strong nation and die.” The bitterness is so thick on her voice it could choke a full-grown man. “She took a great nation and turned it to ruin in just my lifetime, a place that stood proud and strong for almost a thousand years. No, I learned nothing from her, except to be grateful that she didn’t raise me.”

The flickering shadow undulates a moment, before stretching back across the floor to settle before her knees. “Did you kill her, then?”

“Of course not.” She rubs her temples and closes her eyes, but the shadow persists.

“But you ran.”

“That I ran has no bearing whether or not I committed the act. And I didn’t run. I was made to leave, and even now, have no desire to return.”

The pregnant silence hovers in the air for a moment as the fire withdraws an inch. “What of your people?”

Her response is the heavy thud of metal striking the floor. “I don’t know,” she admits irritably. “I’ve only just learned of the fate that befalls the people who defy the empire’s wishes. My uncle bade me leave until it was safe. The nobles demand I marry to save the land. The people wish for us to fight back. The men and women of Eorzea need protecting, too. They ask us to be the guardians at the gate.” She sighs heavily and lets her hair fall in front of her eyes like a thick red curtain.

The shadow doesn’t respond at first. It hangs on the air, a mist more than a shadow now, and expands as though it inhales deeply. “Why does it matter what they want? You are strong enough to forge your own path, are you not?”

Her shoulders sink just a fraction. “I’m not sure anymore.”

“Fear not that which one learns from. It is only the sunlight by which the briars grow and the new rose blooms.”

 

Enambris’ eyes snap open. The fire in the hearth has extinguished, and the first rays of the dawn peek through the frost upon the window panes.

 

FFXIV; Balmung; Embers

Work in Progress – Enambris Rosen-Ash

Here’s the progression of base to detail, yet unfinished but coming along.

 

 

The Longest Road Traveled

The water is cold, it bites her skin as she plunges beneath its glossy ebon surface with a tremendous splash. The perfect glass-like spirals and ribbons of jet and silver foam are marred, mingled with crimson that inks the water and disperses in its churning current; her body feels as though yet more knives are plunged into her chest, and she desperately wants to gasp for air, but knows it would be her end. The shaft of an arrow slips by her, its trajectory ruined by the rapids. She’s carried away, far from the manor on its magnificent cliff-side and her wounded assailant. There’s no more time to think on it though, vision blurry and extremities numb, and eventually the black of the water swallows the rest of the world.

It’s not until the first pinks and lavenders paint the sky that she’s aware of herself again. Her chest is on fire, erupting water that sputters from her mouth; she chokes and gasps several agonizing, wheezing breaths and rolls onto her side, coughing violently to expel it from her lungs. Not her most graceful morning, certainly. Her matted ruby hair is splayed around her, somehow coming loose from the tight, elegant knot it had been the night previous, now interwoven with seaweed and small, glossy pebbles picked up from the river’s mouth. It’s only a wonder of the gods themselves that she had not been wholly swept out to sea, and Enambris knows that if she had been, she’d surely be dead.

“Where in Althyk’s balls am I…” she mutters aloud to no one in particular, paying no attention to the fishers and beach-goers that have taken notice of her alarming appearance. Some stop to whisper amongst themselves, audible enough for her to understand that she must certainly look a fright, skin of porcelain, pale as death, bloody clothes and ruby hair a wild, tangled mess. She probably looks like a drowning victim, and wonders to herself how that was very nearly true. By the white sand, temperate climate and scores of people, she surmises she’s likely somewhere along the shores of La Noscea, probably near Limsa. How did she wind up here?

Enambris clambers slowly to her feet, pain wracking her inside and out as her muscles pull against severed tissue, the wound reopening anew and blooming fresh, slick crimson against wet silk. Whatever is left of her dress, it’s mostly a tattered mess now, the bottom torn away in the midst of a very-nearly-lethal brawl, and she wishes a little desperately that she still had that fabric now, if only to further wrap around her waist to stem the bloody river threatening to spill from her back. The wound burns, sears her like fire inside her body racing its way to her heart to stop it cold. But she can’t. She’s not ready to let go just yet, and she has favors yet to call. With a resolve so great it might strike down a god, she takes a step, one trembling, painfully-explosive step, against all the agonizing protests of her body. Then another, and another, each more difficult than the last, but builds her the momentum to keep moving. She can’t hold the mouth of her wound, and time is of the essence.

Four steps become eight, eight becomes twenty, and twenty becomes a malm in what feels like the space of all eternity passing in tandem, too long and yet precariously short, as she pushes herself to take another step, and another. She’s near the Mist, and the houses upon their gently-sloping hills are within sight. The doctor’s clinic is near, she only need take a few more steps. Through the gate, down the lane, a sharp left, she loses track of the steps she’s taken, only knowing she needs to take just a few more.

Just a few more steps…

The house is in view, the door of the clinic lay just beyond. Victory in this battle is almost hers, but the jaws of defeat, of death itself, are snapping ever persistently at her heel. The jaws close in, she can feel the bite tingling at her back. Past the first door, one more hall to go. Three doors. Two. She reaches out, one bloody fist, and musters the last of her strength to collapse, loudly, against Doctor Molly Harlan’s door.

 

FFXIV; Balmung; Embers

Journal Entry – The Aftermath of a Party

I’m alive, by some miracle. That I still live and breathe is a testament to the favor shined down on me by Althyk himself, the keeper that blesses my voyage through his waters.

However, my life may yet soon see an end if I do not remove this painful… spot from my insides. I fear the rough removal of the blade from its place, lodged in what I can only assume is a kidney, was not a clean one, and that part of the blade still exists within its original resting place. I have every intention of making a request of the good Doctor as soon as I am strong enough to travel, but if not…

Here’s hoping, I suppose.

 

 

Silk and Deceit

A dark night sky greets her as she steps lightly out of the carriage, only just remembering to hike her skirts enough to avoid their inevitable sweep across a muddy, footprint-pocked road leading to their destination as she moves down from the carriage. The skirts sway around her as she straightens her posture; the dress, a long white affair, coral sashes gracefully tied and neatly pressed, reveal a delicate neckline and willowy form, only accented further by moonlight. Ruby hair, somehow combed, curled, tamed and tied, is wrapped into an elegant knot at the back of her crown. Enambris Rosen’ash, for all her distaste with the occasion, certainly looks the part.

Her “date”, a man hansom in his own right but holding none of her affections, offers her a hand and a wide, irritating grin. “My lady?” he chimes as he proffers the hand, which she, under the ever-noticeable gaze of the other ladies of the gala, begrudgingly accepts. His own attire matches hers: a white suit, perfectly tailored, over a coral shirt and silver cuff links, his tie knotted elegantly and the ensemble completed by his perfectly polished gaiters.

With uncanny grace Enambris sweeps to his side, a faint smile alighting on coral lips. She knew how to act the part. She was groomed for it, after all. “My lord,” she says through a stiff porcelain smile; orbs of roiling thunderheads scan the gathering crowd as the guests file one by one towards the door. She leans in to whisper, “I don’t see anything out of place, Octavian.”

Octavian Stonewold is a man as flashy and flourishing as his name might suggest, as skilled at deceit as he was at being charming. And truly, the man was charming. It was of little wonder why Enambris was regularly suppressing the urge to punch him, given the opportunity. Their past was rocky at best, held no love, and could be compared to that hatred shared by spurned ex-lovers, though the physical tension between them had never been a sexual one. Octavian, for all his bravado and ego, was a man to back what he boasted, the only compliment Enambris could begrudgingly bestow.

Even through his winning smile as he greeted other party-goers, she sees the glint of apprehension in his sea-blue eyes. “Patience, dear,” he says through perfect white teeth, and they pass the threshold to a manor Enambris has but a moment to appreciate before they’re bustled into the entry hall by the growing crowd.

She doesn’t like the crowd, or the sudden anxiousness that tightens in her chest, like a knot from shoulder to shoulder, pulling yet tighter as they’re ushered into a great parlor. The room itself is loveliness, all beautiful polished wood, gold-trimmed green velvet and rugs she can only imagine came from the most distant and exotic of locales. Tables line the walls, decked out in trays upon trays of local and exotic delights, all of them incredible and none of them that she can touch. She pulls her attention away from the lavishly-decorated room and appraises its occupants. All of them, just as finely-polished as the room itself, are chatting idly, and there seems to be no sign of the host.

“What is this gala for, anyway?” she murmurs, her arm hooked with Octavian’s, though she finds her skin crawling with the motion. Music floats lazily through the room, a quintet on strings fronted a lovely young Lalafell woman upon a stool, humming lyrically, tiny fingers expertly plucking and dancing over the strings of her harp. Enambris’ eyes linger on the strings for but a moment and she glances around again. Watch for bold women, the reminder passes over her mind. Poison, needles, assassins, watch what he eats, watch what he drinks.

Her intent gaze is interrupted by his reply. “A trade agreement,” he says matter-of-factly, though he declines to meet her eyes when she sets them on his face. “Pirri Prismo, my employer, is courting an accord with the South Thanalan Trade corporation, one that would be very lucrative for both parties.”

She drags her eyes away and resumes her scan of the room. No one appears to have taken any interest in the pair as they stroll past opulent paintings, pausing near each to gaze on whatever compelling scene is depicted and murmur quietly between the pair. “And this is normal for such an agreement? Would they not prefer to hold such a tense discussion behind locked doors?”

Octavian shrugs. “It would seem not. You look ravishing, by the way.”

She doesn’t meet his eyes, nor does she offer him the satisfaction of an expression of any kind. “Tell me that when the night is over and my payment received,” she says flatly.

But as time passes, her shoulders lose some of their tension, and though she is still hyper aware of everything around her, she allows herself to laugh at the odd joke, and Octavian’s eyes linger on her for longer than she expects. The signs she overlooks, but the actions of others she takes into great consideration.

That is, until she feels a cold bite touch her lower back.

His hand is on her shoulder, she can feel the warmth of it through his glove, a crisp cotton, white as his pearly teeth. She notices the sharp relief the room is cast in, the red that begins to slowly spread into her dress, staining white satin a glossy crimson that sticks to her stomach, blood hot and acrid.

The hilt of whatever blade lodged inside of her presses cold against her back; she can’t even feel the blade itself anymore, just the fire that spreads from its entry. Her eyes flash, her chest tightens once more, heart pumping blood she knows she can’t afford to lose, and the fire spreads to her eyes. A spark ignites, a bonfire, that consumes the billowy stormclouds and gleams bright as the rising sun. Her forearm comes up, thrusts against his throat and in one graceful turn she presses him against the wall, pinning him there by the neck. If asked later, she wouldn’t be able to explain how her blade had found itself in her hand, but there it was, glinting light from the chandelier, a trickle of red marring its polished length where it bit into just the top layer of his flesh.

“WHY!?” she snarls. A scream behind her, the crashing of plates, a cacophony of shouting that erupts in the background as the room begins to understand what had taken place. She pays them no mind, burning eyes narrowed at his shit-eating grin. Her forearm presses harder.

“I’d have preferred it quieter but you wouldn’t eat or drink anything. Just business, princess,” he smiles broadly, and lunges a knee forward. She drops her arm to block the strike, but he’s gone, behind her again, his palm against her back. She doesn’t hear what he whispers into her ear, only the rush of wind as she is flung bodily across the room. More screams, the splintering crack of a table that buckles under the force of her weight and the inertia carrying it, they fill the room again and the quiet follows in behind it.

“Fucking… bastard,” she coughs, rolling into her stomach from where she’d landed and leaping up to her feet. Her body is responding again, adrenaline coursing through her veins, burning a trail to her heart. She snaps to the left and a second knife sails over the space where her shoulder had been a heartbeat past. “Shoulda known. Who bought you?” she hisses with a lunge, blade singing through cold air.

Metals kiss and ring, reverberating into the wood floor; she doesn’t have her shield, but she reaches down and rips the bottom from her skirt away, drawing a second blade from a holster strapped to her thigh and proving that she doesn’t need it. A second swing, then a third, each one ringing louder and louder, the scrape and clash a symphony of metal against metal. The blades lock, and she, with all the force she can muster, slams him against the wall again. Her hair has come unbound, swinging loose around her shoulders. “I ought to kill you,” she hisses through gritted teeth.

The very real, very tangible gravity of the situation burns in her mind: she could die here.

Octavian doesn’t seem to mind or even take notice; he wipes away a dab of blood that trickles from his cheek. His head is bowed, hair shadowing sinister lines across his eyes. “You should have. Way I see it, you owe me a life, specifically yours. This was the easiest way for that to happen.”

“You couldn’t take me armored and well-armed,” she snarls. “You can barely take me without my armor. I asked you a question. Who bought you?”

Octavian shrugs. “Can’t tell you that pet,” he says, and is gone again.

She feels the rush of air behind her, rustling her hair, and knows what’s to come. He still has his other blade. She reaches behind her and, with tremendous force, dislodges the knife from her back and spins. The brothers clash, the twin in her hand slipping past and meeting soft flesh; she feels herself flung, heavily, through the window, shattering the glass and hanging in the air for a breath that spans eternity, surrounded by shards of glass that coalesce and glint like spirals of aether in the gathering moonlight. The moment passes and she tumbles through the air into the river below.

 

FFXIV; Balmung; Embers