Chapter Text
[ Alphinaud & Prorsum - Introductions. ]
At eight years old, Alphinaud knew exactly who he was.
Unfortunately for doorways and stairs everywhere, so did Prorsum.
“My, you’re a large one,” was the first thing the average individual greeted them with, to be most often followed by a chortling, “Big personality, eh?” or “Big expectations, haven’t you?” or just “Big… ain’t ya?”
Prorsum was.
She stood nine feet at her sloping grey shoulder, which was smaller than the natural counterparts of her species. That was a fact frequently forgotten by everyone who saw her, and thus a fact that Alphinaud brought up nearly as frequently. His success on spreading awareness of Prorsum’s species and not losing his audience’s attention depended largely on how seriously he didn’t take his educational duty. For whatever reason, his success grew the older he got.
A few didn’t say, “Look at the size of her! You’ve a big heart for a small boy.”
One said, “Alphinaud? The Champion’s friend! Well met at last. Come now, little lord, it’s cold out. Best to warm yourselves by the fire.”
The same opened the door after Alphinaud and Prorsum left Ul’dah for what they truly thought might be the last time, took one look at them, and ushered them in to rest their hearts at the hearth as if they were nothing less than sorely missed visitors. His daemon, a kindly but massive black-and-white canine that was exactly the same size as her natural counterparts, was the picture of hospitality as always.
He said then, “I heard. Nasty business. I am gladdened to see you all unharmed. But tell me, how in the blazes did you escape Ul’dah with nary a scratch?” and he meant the question sincerely, because Prorsum stood nine feet at her shoulder and was quite rotund besides.
“I’m nimble for my size,” she said, matter-of-fact, because it was true. She raised her head and flapped her ears, a spark of pride burning amidst the embers of their exhausted, terrified misery.
“Doesn’t hurt none that Ul’dah’s guards are blind, too!” The Champion’s ferret daemon boasted, her tiny claws locked fast in his jacket’s collar and her tinier teeth clicking in the air. She was the picture of bravado. For the first time, it felt false and forced.
Prorsum shook her head, trunk curling tight below her chin. “No, they surely are not.”
Her chin did not tremble. Neither did Alphinaud’s.
“… No,” Haurchefant said, looking closely at Alphinaud’s face, and then the empty spots to his sides where others should have occupied. “I don’t imagine they were. A good thing you are nimble indeed, Lady Prorsum. Please, take a seat, and pray bare with me as I fetch something warm for your bellies.”
She and Alphinaud nodded as one. She then sat where she stood with a force that shook the stone floor.
At eight years old, Alphinaud knew exactly what he was.
He had a big heart for a small boy. He had an elephant with the luck of a rabbit.
But in that moment, he felt no bigger or luckier than a rabbit with both its hind legs broken.
[ Alisaie & Vincere - Resolution. ]
At eight years old, Alisaie knew exactly who she was.
She told it to anyone who’d listen: she was an adult! She was a grown-up! She hadn’t need for coddling, hand-holding, or, worst of all, babying. Fortunately for her, Vincere settled around the same time. She learned shortly thereafter that people respected her independence and voice far more when she said it from the back of a fourteen hand-high horse.
General people did not, of course, include Alphinaud.
Fourteen hands? Did you learn that from a stable hand?
It’s the proper term!
He’s five foot at the shoulder. Just like Prorsum’s nine feet.
Her extra height doesn’t mean anything, she hastened to remind him, hands on her hips and face in his stupid, smirking face. If it had to mean something, it only means that I need less to get just the same point across.
And what point’s that? He’d asked, his stupid smirk falling away to stupider confusion. I haven’t a point for her to make.
The point! She’d held up a finger and jabbed it into his scrawny chest. Is that we are going places! And that we don’t need anyone except ourselves to get there!
Vincere, beautiful and speckled brown-red - it’s called bay roan, the stable hands told her, but naming colors different things just because it was a horse seemed a step too far to her - he tossed his head and proclaimed the same, loud and proud and everything perfect.
By nine years old, Alisaie was a master rider.
Alphinaud was decent, too, but he couldn’t ride Prorsum many places, on account of her not fitting into many places.
Alisaie rode Vincere to the Studium.
Alisaie rode Vincere away from Old Sharlayan and into Eorzea.
Alisaie rode Vincere to Vylbrand. She rode him into Castrum Occidens and down into the aetheroacoustic exploratory site to meet Bahamut and what had once been her grandfather.
Her grandfather had been the one to introduce her to the more knowledgeable stable hands. Her grandfather had been the first to congratulate her and Alphinaud on their daemon’s forms, and to tell them that it was all quite fitting, from their selections to their timing. His own - a long-tailed monkey with a little old lion’s face - had looked upon her and Vincere with such pride.
Vincere stumbled but once. When Titan quaked the ground, and the dirt beneath his hooves split and fractured. The star bucked beneath him, and she saw Ga Bu’s anguish at the injustice committed against him and his, and Vincere tipped and fell, and her with him.
The Champion’s absurd little daemon rallied them back to their feet. Once Alisaie had her breath back - once Titan had fallen and not gotten up - once Vincere’s trembling over what could have been had they been alone ceased - then, and only then, did she begin to think Alphinaud might have been on to something when they were eight years old and she had learned exactly who she was.
She could get herself where she needed to be without anyone else’s help, yes. But that didn’t mean she had to, and it certainly didn’t mean she was made to stand alone.
As it turned out, they made it further in a team.