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Two weeks after the Vault, Pike goes to Valliant with a familiar request.
He holds heavy charms (heavy with the weight of their meaning) in hand as he sits on the ground before her, his hair pulled from customary braids to be washed and brushed out. Valliant pulls the brush through his hair, gently coaxing out knots and frowning at his split ends.
“Do you want me to cut these off?” She asks quietly.
Pike shakes his head, frowning as it pulls against his hair still held in her hand. “Can’t. We don’t cut our hair in mourning periods.”
He has not cut his hair since they had left Ul’dah, she realizes.
She continues brushing his hair. Down, it reaches nearly his mid back, with a gentle curl to it. It has been a while since they had done this, not since the morning of Pike’s wedding when he had asked her to thread the charms into his hair.
He had been so bright and happy that day, talking a mile a minute as he explained each of the charms to her. Traditional bonding charms from his home country, he had said. A depiction of Menphina and Oschon in divine embrace for one set of charms, and then another set of Halone holding Gerberas.
“Non-traditional, but they felt appropriate.” Pike had said with a distant dreamy look in his eye. Valliant knew instantly that he was thinking of Haurchefant.
Now, Pike twists the charms in his hands, and the distant look in his eyes fills her with grief instead of joy.
She sets the brush aside with a sigh and begins to divide his hair into sections for the braids. Valliant’s large hands twist nimbly through his hair, a grace belied by her size. The familiar work has her humming a tune, the one she had first sang when Pike had first come to her, many moons ago in the Waking Sands, anxiously twisting a brush in his hands. They had just killed Ifrit together, and it had been odd to see the confident archer so nervous.
“This may be weird,” he had said, “But are you any good with braids?”
And she had nodded. It had become a tradition, then, whenever Pike had wanted his hair washed and braided properly, he would find her and pass her the brush. Often after a hard battle or emotional day, they would find themselves as they did now, her fingers twisting through dark blue hair and an old tune deep in her chest.
Haurchefant had taken over her duties, once he and Pike had been married. She still remembers the first day he had been the one to braid Pike’s hair, and how she had laughed at the odd tufts sticking out of his braids, which hung unevenly from the back of his head.
Haurchefant had gotten better with time, and Pike was so damn happy even with his goofy braids, so she had quelled her laughter.
She finishes the first braid and ties it off, switching to humming a different song. Pike’s clear voice rings out after a moment, nearly startling her. Often he would sing, as she braided, but Pike had not sung since that day at the Vault, like the melodies just wouldn’t come to him. She had watched him try, as they faced enemies in the Sea of Clouds, but no words would come to him.
Valliant hums the tune with him, not wanting to disturb whatever had allowed him to find his voice again.
In still night, at first watch
A voice begins to lament
The night wind has sweetly and gently
Carried the sound to me
With bitter pain and sorrow
My heart is melted.
With simple tears and flowers
I have watered all of them.
She remembers first teaching him this song. Jehantel had been such a good influence on Pike. Although she did not know the whole story of Pike’s past (and frankly did not want to), she knew he carried some hidden pain from it, as she did with her own. None had gone into the adventurer life gently, it would seem. But Jehantel had awakened some love for song in Pike, and the melodies he had taught him soothed the pain inside him. At the same time, it had given him an insatiable hunger to learn every tune he could, and he had bugged her for every Roegadyn folk song she knew. She had started with her favorite.
He had stumbled through the foreign words at first, mouth unused to forming the consonant heavy language. But he had attacked it with the same intensity he reserved for Primals, and within a week she had heard him singing the tune just as clear as she had when she first sang it for him.
Valliant finishes the second braid and ties it off, just as Pike moves into the second verse of the song.
The lovely moon will now set,
For sorrow it doesn’t want to shine,
The stars stop their gleaming,
They want to weep with me.
No birdsong nor joyous sounds
Can be heard in the air.
Even the wild beasts grieve with me
In rocks and ravines.
His voice catches on the last few words, and she sees a tear drip down his face. She silently finishes out his last braid and lets him cry into the silver charms he holds. He had not shed a tear until just this moment, holding himself together for Alphinaud and Lord Edmont and every other person he couldn’t bear to let down.
Valliant pins his braids up and out of his way. He turns to face her, still sat on the ground. She wipes away the tears from his face and Pike sniffles a little. He hands her the charms, and she threads them into smaller braids she twists from the shorter hairs that frame his face.
They sit in silence for a few more moments, until Alphinaud’s voice rings down the halls. Then the Warriors of Light collect themselves and go to finish the fight that had begun a thousand years before.